Senior frog is just Junior frog’s fat ass friend.

Have fun.

Eli’s question penetrated my concentration: “Why are you hitting me, Nayah?”  I thought it would be prudent to pay attention without necessarily appearing to do so.  Nayah was standing next to Eli with her arm cranked back in the classic hit-like-a-girl motion.

“Because I want you to give me my nuk-ky back,” she told him in her flat, matter-of-fact voice.  She glanced over at me and we made eye-contact.  Instantly she dropped her arm (hitting for such reasons being illegal in our house) and shifted into a performing, pathetic puddle.

“EEE-li!” (fully whining and crocodile-crying)  “Don’t take my nuk-ky away!  I need my nuk!  Give me my nuk ba-ack!  Mo-om!  Eli won’t give me my nuk-ky!”  She threw her head back and wailed.

…as opposed to:

Hannah: Tamos is asleep.  Come look. [Tamos is sprawled out on her kid-sized portable lawn-couch.  I am impressed because the baby is not known for sleeping just anywhere at the drop of a hat.]  Do you know how I made him go to sleep?  Lean down.  I need your ear.  [I groaned, thinking she was going to whisper into it in that piercing, clinging way of small children.  Instead she gently massaged my earlobe.  Yes.  I also could fall asleep quickly to that...]

Or:

Every morning when n8 leaves for work, the kids run outside to wave goodbye to him.  They start on one corner of our front yard, and run alongside his car to the opposite corner of the yard, waving their arms and shouting, “Bye! I love you, Daddy!” at the top of their lungs.  When I watch from the window, I notice that Eli runs like Forrest Gump, Navayah runs like a windmill with a part missing, and Hannah runs like water flowing down a hill.

Boring stories.  So this post is a conglomeration of the more interesting kind of stories of naughtiness my perfectly angelic children have practiced.

Last night we visited some friends who just had a new baby a few weeks after Tamos was born.  We brought them food and had a picnic with them on their patio.  n8 and Navayah returned from the house, and Navayah bounced up and down with glee.  She informed the neighborhood that she had GONE POOPY! in the toilet and needed some N-UH-MENS (M&Ms) as a reward when she got home.  We were leaving soon, so n8 did not put a diaper back on her little bottom, he just pulled her shorts up.  Ten minutes later, she walked over to me.

“I need somebody to tchain [change] me.”  Plop.  A large chunk aud-i-bl-y dropped out of her shorts.  Our friends had just made some comment on how impressed they were by our children.  And then our youngest daughter poops on their deck.  Yes, our children are very impressive.

***********************************************

Then,

“Mom, Nayah pooped out-thide.  Three big onethz.  And the fliethz are eating it!”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” Eli shook his head gravely at me.  I walk outside.  Navayah had pooped just left of the sidewalk, just outside our back door.  Flies were indeed covering.  She stood next to her clumps, pointing and grinning proudly.

“Mom!  Look!”

“I see.  And smell.  I thought I told you to never poop outside.”

Completely ignoring that comment: “Can I have a nem-a-nem for that?”  What is more important: encouraging her to not poop in her pants or encouraging her to never again poop outside?

******************     ********************    ************

A few Sundays ago one of the many kids in our church came up to me after services.

“Eli peed outside.”

“He didn’t.”

A few more older kids crowded closer.  “Yes, he did.”

Great.  Many witnesses.  That means he flaunted.  I found my son, pulled him aside, and asked the important question: WHY did you do this?

“Well… I had ta go potty and you thaid I could go potty outthide if I went potty necktht to a tree…”

I had said that, but context is everything.  Our backyard is three lots long.  He can pee outside in our backyard as long as he pees behind a tree.  Then the neighbors will not see him.  In contrast, the church has one main giant tree: on their front lot, at the corner of two streets.  There is no way one could pee on that tree without multiple people seeing from every conceivable direction.

And I am still working on getting him to close the door when he uses the bathroom.  The men’s bathroom in our church is a one-roomed affair that opens to the hallway which everyone passes through to enter and exit.  It was reported to me that he pooped with that door open, and carried on a conversation with the teen boy who questioned Eli’s appropriateness (Eli had not a problem with that.)  So what is worse: peeing outside in front of church or actually using the toilet inside the church, but with the door wide open?

Wow.

Navayah entered the bedroom with an amazingly putrid smell.  I have lived with my dad’s gas, with a handicapped older sister, and with my own children.  Both sets of grandparents lived on farms most of my growing up years.  I have a strong stomach, but the stench of my youngest daughter was strong enough to be a Presence.  I had to press my lips tight together so I could not taste it and regurgitate my breakfast.

“Did you go poopy in your panties, Nayah?”  If you did, I am so bringing you to a doctor.  That smell is not right.

“No, I did no-ot.  I feh-ow in mouse poopy!”

“Did a mouse crawl into your panties and go poopy?”  Hey, why not?  She’s clever.

“No.  It did not.  I jess feh-ow on mouse poopy.”

I turned Navayah around.  There was a dark smear across the bumblebee on the bottom of her under-dress bloomers.  The smell smacked me across the face.  My eyes watered and stomach spun.  I stripped her and threw her in the bathtub, fighting the invisible and heavy-handed pervasiveness of the stench.  Then I sought out Hannah.

“Where did Nayah fall?”

“Nowhere.  She didn’t fall.  She stepped on a dead mouse.”

“Seriously.”

“Yes! I’m serious, Mom!”

That mouse is about 4 days past its expiration date, and it has sat on our hot tar driveway happily decomposing.  I am guessing it was irresistible to the two-year-old.  She reached out her foot to touch it, then lost her balance and landed on it, squeezing out decomposing mouse guts like a three-year-old boy squeezing out a tube of toothpaste—all over.

Once during one of Dad’s gas-sessions, a friend of the family chastised him: “Reed!  It smells like something crawled up your butt and died!”  In Nayah’s case, it was a mouse, and it was already long dead.  And now I must burn those unfortunately cute clothes.

PHRASE YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D SAY #168:
“Next time you see a dead mouse, don’t try to step on it, and cer-tain-ly NEVER fall on it.  Especially if it’s been dead for more than a day.”

I watched The Guppy (aka Navayah) lay on her tummy, kick her her feet and sing parts of the alphabet song in her too-loud, off-key voice.

“Mom.  Mom.  Look.”  She held up her two thumbs.  Little crusty boogers coated them.  Her thumbs moved toward her little, loud mouth.

“No!  Do NOT eat your boogers!”  She jerked her hands out of her mouth and fixed me with her absorbing brown-eyed stare.  “Navayah, do boogers taste good?”

She nodded, still staring.

“No.  They do not.  They are ishy.  Gross.  Dirty.”  She looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language.  Why should my words ever have an impact on her will or preferences?  Then she whined.  “It’s stuck!”

I looked in her mouth.  One of the green crusties was stuck between her teeth.  How in the world…?

PHRASE YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D SAY #167:
“Nayah, don’t ever stick boogers between your teeth again!”

“He hath to nurthe at breakfatht, an’ all night, an’ at lunchtime, an’ everytime he crithz…  You’ll have to feed him for 55 years!”

For the record, fifty-five years is too long for me to feed a child.  I plan on lovingly kicking each one of them out once they graduate.

Yesterday it took Eli about 45 minutes to get dressed.  Then his friend Joshua came over, and they played outside.  Being boys, they do not tend towards tranquility, do not create tiny houses or have tea parties or sit on a blanket and tell stories.  In place of walking, they wildly run everywhere. They yank large branches from trees and use them as swords or clubs.  They ride bikes/cars/tricycles around our horseshoe driveway and chase each other.

After ten minutes outside, Eli was red and sweaty.  So he took off his shirt.  I think the sudden cooling impressed him.  If taking off his shirt cooled him down this much, how much more would removing all his clothes?  He does use logic occasionally.

I caught him walking out the door in all of his glory and arrested that.  He was not pleased that I forbade him to be naked outside.  He did not care if his best friend Joshua or his sisters or the neighbors or the traffic driving or walking by our house on the way to or from the high school saw him in such a state.  But I did.  I told him he could better cool off by running through the sprinkler outside.

Except the garden sprayer was still attached to the end of the hose, so very rapidly the play evolved from “Who can successfully spray the other running boy without himself moving?” to “Let the waters cover the dirt and make mud. And Let Us Run Sliding into that mud.”  Within fifteen minutes, Eli was naked again, though this time he was successfully outside, running around our house to the seldom-used front yard.  No one else seemed alarmed by this.  I questioned the son.  Apparently he had gotten wet.  And muddy. (I’m sure no one saw that coming.)  He could continue to wear his trunks only to get more mud lodged up by his potty stick, or he could strip, letting any mud-accumulation fall more easily to the ground.  It made much more sense to be naked.

Indeed.

Today Hannah found a water bottle.  She filled it and drank from it.  From the time it took me to change Tamos’ diaper, she had graduated to squeezing it all over her sister and brother, all over the freshly-washed bathroom floor, the kitchen floor, and the living room throw pillows, couches, and carpet.  Eli and Navayah had retaliated by filling up cups and dumping them.  Inside my house.  Over Hannah.  And my floors.

We have been over this.  I have never approved of water fights indoors.

During the water fight, Navayah naturally got wet.  The only state in which she could clean up her portion of the mess was completely in the raw.  I enter the bathroom to find her grinning nakedly at me, her curls half bouncing, half plastered to her head.  She explained to me that there was no way she could wipe up Lake Bathroom with her clothes on because “dey wiw get wet again.”  It took her four minutes to clean up the bathroom and another hour to get dressed.

Tomorrow is Hannah’s turn to be naked for a few random hours of the day.  We are planning on going swimming at a public pool.  Dear God, Help me!

Each one of those events causes a day or two of “detox;” mix them all together and it took two weeks.  TWO WEEKS.  I was beginning to wonder if having four children had really been a good idea.  It rotated, which child I was most willing to give to someone else to raise.  Eli with his questions probably earned it the most (“How many stores take this long to get to?” [125.]  “Which onethz are they? Have you counted them all? What are their namethz?”// “Why is it called Tham’thz Club? Doethz Tham live there?  Are there other thtorethz with that man’thz name?”).

Monday of this week was our first day of peaceful bliss.  The rest of the week has been mostly as relaxing.  This Version 4.0 is a good deal easier than Version 3.0 had been at this same age.  We think God gave us the first two so close together so any Version coming after (for instance, Navayah) would seem much easier in comparison.  Tamos sleeps at night.  He shows us his eyes during the day.  He cuddles.  He does not cry a lot, except during the “normal” witching hours of 5-7 p.m, and at bedtime if we take too long to get ready.  He lets the children touch him, which is a good thing considering they do it a lot.  He does not have a personal space bubble like his sister did.  He is not an angry child.  We really like him.

He is now calling for me, so… click here for new pictures of the children with Tamos and more details of life.

First: The Name.

Though his name sounds like “Thomas,” he is not named after Jesus’s disciple by that name, nor did we name him after any relatives (though with the dozens of Addink/Veltkamp relatives, I am sure there is a Thomas among them).  His name, of course, has meaning, and it is based off of words in Hebrew.  The first part is tam, sounding just like the English name Tom.  It means “pure, wholesome, full of integrity”.  The second part is a sort of homonym (words that sound the same but have different spellings, meanings, and/or origins) in Hebrew: amats or amas.  Amats means “strong, brave, courageous.”  Amas (as in the name Amos) has two meanings: “burdensome” and “supporter or bearer of burdens.”

Judah is simple.  That means “praising.” We liked the meaning, and we loved the first time it is used in the Bible.  Leah is Jacob’s first but less-loved and ugly wife.  She gives birth to three sons for Jacob, all of whom have meaning-filled names, mostly centered around her husband’s lack of love, affection, and attention toward her.  Finally, the fourth child she has is Judah—praising—because, she declares, “This time I will praise the Lord.”  Judah was the one chosen to be the ancestor of Jesus.

Second: The Birth and Following.

He flipped breech at 31 weeks or so, and for a solid two weeks went back and forth daily between being breech and transverse.  When he finally settled back down to his normal head-down position, he faced up, the back of his skull pressed firmly against my spine and pelvis, creating perpetual discomfort.  We tried many things.  He did not flip the right way.  This means that when I did finally go into labor (after trying everything but drugs to induce it), it was “back labor,” which meant I did not get a break between contractions, but rather lived in pain without rest for the 4½ or so hours it took for him to come out.  Just before it was time to push, as my dad says, God Himself flipped Tamos to face the right direction.

I had a water birth, which made labor much more bearable.  However, the midwife noticed just before he fully emerged that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid.  A lot of it.  In less than a minute there were a half-a dozen people in the room, ready to snatch the slippery little infant up and away.  I got to be the first to grab his warm, wet little body, and hold him for that half-minute while he tried to breathe.  I watched my fat, round little baby turn from red to pink to purple to blue to green.  He had pooped while inside me (I told him he had been in there too long!), and had swallowed and inhaled his poop.  It filled his lungs, nose, mouth, throat, and belly.  Since there was so much gunk in his lungs, he couldn’t breathe.  While they let me have a few minutes with him right away, it was not long before he was firmly ensconced, covered in tubes, wires, and machines in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where he would be Not Mine for the next 12 hours.

They told me I could not hold him for two days.  I could not nurse him for even longer (well, he could barely breathe to accomplish the feat anyway).  I could not stroke him.  Some of the nurses did not love how close I got or how much I had to touch him, though thankfully they did not try to expressly forbid that.  I could not take him home for 5-7 days.  I had not slept much of the previous night, so I let them have their way without a battle.

They put him on a C-PAP (respirator-type machine to force him to breathe), and gave him antibiotics for his instant pneumonia and any other infection that might crop up because of the trauma.  They showed us X-rays and told us how serious his condition was, or could potentially be.

Both sets of grandparents were in town, and visited Tamos and us.  Grandpa Schoephoerster, a.k.a. “Reverend Reed,” prayed his pastor-grandfather blessing over Tamos.  If God Himself had flipped Tamos, God Himself would heal him.  We said good-night to the Schoephoersters, then returned to Tamos an hour or two later.  He was off his C-PAP, breathing normal room oxygen, and they were about to take his feeder tubes out of his belly button.  We could hold him.  Less than 12 hours earlier they had given us grim news.  Now we could hold our son.

The following morning his tests came back showing no detectable signs of infection.  Tamos could start nursing.  He did, and with an intensity that worked to make up for lost time.  He discovered his mama, and from then on decided that he could survive only an hour or two away from her arms.  He quickly earned a reputation in the NICU as being a not terribly easy-going baby.  The nurses seemed very concerned that I watch the shaken baby syndrome movie (I’ve seen it three times now), mostly because of the temperament of my 4^th child.  They never met Nayah at that age.

Today is Wednesday and we are home, finally all together as a family.  Tamos has been adjusted by his chiropractor.  He is happier.  He eats well.  He is fat.  His brother and sisters adore him and compete to hold him.  We like having four kids, and are quite grateful that God has once again shown Himself faithful in yet another minor family crisis, and we praise Him (Judah).

Unbeknownst to me, before he had left for work, n8 told the kids not to play in the lake of mud.  Our lack of communication meant that I did not enforce the rule.  They are boys.  They were created to get dirty.

As Joshua walked in the door, I pulled aside my oldest two and reminded them how I expected them to act and the sure-and-certain results of them acting differently than my expectations.  They solemnly nodded and assured me that they would play well together, not exclude anyone, and not react out of violence, hitting someone out of anger.

Then everyone went outside to happily and peacefully play.

I heard various reports of misdeeds: Eli and Joshua collected muddy water from the “lake” and dumped it into the play-sink and other various objects in the playhouse.  Hannah called someone a bad word.  Navayah accidentally got pushed by one of the bigger kids.

But then havoc descended.  I heard Eli scream-crying, the special sound he makes when he has been physically injured.  He shuffled sobbing into the kitchen, sprinkled with mud and blood.  Joshua followed, apologizing and assuring me “It” was an accident.  I tried to calm everyone down, keep the mud as contained in the kitchen as possible, and then get the full story—from a five-year-old and four-year-old boy, neither of whom are overly motivated to tell the truth.

I deposit the sobbing Eli into the shower.  Joshua washed his own muddy hands and arm, complaining all the while that Eli threw mud at him.  This I believe.  Both of Eli’s hands were completely dipped in our deep-black, sandy, wet soil.  Eli’s head stopped bleeding rather quickly in the shower, and quietly turned raised and pinkish instead.  Ah the quick healing of the little people.

Then comes the story.

ELI’S FIRST VERSION.
Joshua threw the bucket at me and hit me in the head! (which explains the gash, but surely there must be more…)

“What had you done to him?”
Nothing. [insert The Look.]
I threw mud at him. (and now we are getting somewhere…)
Why did you throw mud at him?
Becauthze he wathz mean to me.
What did he do to you?
Ummmm… He…   he…  he-eeee…    umm… (and now I am convinced this will be the truth) he thaid bad wordthz to me!

JOSHUA’S VERSION.
Eli threw mud at me.
Then what happened?
I accidentally threw the bucket at him.  (now that’s oh-so possible!)
How could you ac-ci-dent-ally throw a bucket at someone?
Silence.
Try again.
I threw the bucket at Eli’s head on purpose.  (better…)
Then what happened?
Eli pushed me.
Then what happened?
I threw mud at him.
Then what happened?
That’s all.

ELI’S SECOND VERSION, JUST BEFORE WHICH I FIND OUT N8 TOLD THEM NOT TO PLAY IN THE MUD.
I place a bottle of soap in front of Eli.  I tell him that I know which part is the truth, and which part is the lie.  If he chooses to lie to me, he gets to eat soap.  A lot of it.  His eyes get very big.  He becomes immediately very “good.”

Did Daddy tell you not to play in the mud? [Eli nods sadly.] Why did you then?
Well, you th-ee, Joshua wathz playing in the mud firtht.  (ahh… we’re going back a half-hour to when they were dumping mud in the playhouse.  Of course this has to have started much earlier in the day!)
Why did you play in the mud?
[He eyes the bottle of soap.] Because I wanted to.
Why did you throw mud at Joshua.
Well, you th-ee, it wathz a game.  We were bretend fighting.
Did you ask Joshua if he wanted to pretend fight with you BEFORE you threw the mud?
No-oo…
Then what happened?
I threw mud at Joshua.
Then what.
Joshua hit me in the head with a bucket.
Then what.
Then we came inthide and you made me take a shower and now you are athking me thethze quethchionthz.
Did you push Joshua?
No.
Did Joshua throw mud at you?
No.
Then why were his hands muddy?
From putting the bubble-thing in the mud and dumping it…

JOSHUA’S SECOND VERSION.
Why were you playing in the mud?  Did Mr. n8 tell you not to play in the mud? [Joshua nods.]  Then why did you play in the mud?
Because Eli was.  (Joshua “started” playing in the mud about a half-hour earlier, so Eli joined.  Eli continued playing in the mud all morning, while Joshua stopped shortly after starting, then restarted just before Eli threw mud at him.  “Who-sinned-first” is now a moot issue.)

What happened?
Umm, Eli threw mud at me and it got on my shirt and on my arm.
Did he want to play-fight with you? [Nod.]  Did he ask first?
No.
Then what happened.
Then I threw the bucket at his head and hit him and made him cry.
Then what?
Then we went inside and I got in trouble…

It is really hard to discipline when all you want to do is laugh at how STUPID they are!  One never thinks through the consequences of his actions, despite the many times he has been pummeled for very similar reasons of Instigating War Without First Asking.  The other does not bother to try to control his temper and lets fly with his anger, drawing blood, being strongly disciplined by his mother, and experiencing the side effect of no-friends-for-the-rest-of-the-day resulting in the additional punishment of Dreaded Boredom.  STILL they do this.

I do not understand boys.

A friend of mine told me today that her ten-year-old and eight-year-old sons told her this:

“We were talking last night, and we made a deal.  I could tickle him all I wanted to with my red feather, and he could hit me in the pee-pee.”

In all the years my sisters and I punched each other, wrestled, and physically and verbally tried to inflict damage on each other, we never once thought to make deals like this.  I am beginning to question whether I really do want a brother for Eli.  There is no way I can discipline such perpetual stupidity in a somber and stern way!

A couple weekends ago the beloved Tante Annie came down to visit and help keep me sane, since n8 was going to be busy most of what is normally my break time.  Navayah greeted Annie with all of the enthusiasm and bubbling joy of her personality.  Five minutes later, she was a whining puddle because she did not get her way in some minor arena.  Tante Annie told her to quit whining and apologize to her.  Navayah turned around and left the room.  It was bedtime, and she suddenly decided that she was tired enough to go to bed.  We followed.  Told her again to apologize to her aunt.  The adorable, angelic child responded by flipping over to face the wall (instead of us) and pulling the covers around her face.  She peacefully closed her eyes.

Her knowledgeable parents were not convinced by her sudden interest in sleep.  I stuck my face inches from hers until her eyes cracked open.  I told her if she did not apologize to her tante, she would get Time-Out in the Quiet Closet.  Her eyes popped shut and she buried her curly little head deeper under the covers.  She was promptly pulled out and stuck in the Quiet Closet.  We told her she could come out when she was ready to say sorry.  Five minutes later, we had finished getting Hannah and Eli ready for bed.  Nayah still had not emerged.  n8 opened the door to the Quiet Closet.  Navayah was sitting on the floor playing with the corner of a basket, every atom of her tiny frame resonating with an unspoken but clearly detected, “I-can-do-this-all-night-but-YOU-cannot-get-me-to-apologize!”  We closed the door.  Had a whispered conference.  Decided to turn off the light so she could no longer see to play.  It was immediately effective at bringing her will into open confrontation.  She screamed.

Ten seconds later, we opened the door, fully expecting (though I don’t know why!) a thoroughly contrite daughter, softened in spirit and ready to apologize.  We asked her if she was ready to say sorry, or if she needed more time in the Quiet Closet.  She looked at Tante Annie, and immediately made up her mind.  She turned around and walked sobbing back to the darkened closet.  Another count of ten.  Another question.  She put off answering.  She was told to decide quickly or she would return to the closet.  She pretended she was stone deaf, and also blind, so she was marched back to the closet.  She loudly protested its darkness.  Eight more times we counted to ten, opened the door, asked the question, then put the unyielding child back into the closet.  We had done this TEN TIMES  before she was willing to speak.  She faintly whispered that she was “ready.”

She walked over to Annie, her body shaking with over-emphasized and melodramatic shuddering sighs of tears.  We asked her what she needed to say.  Silence.  More fake sobbing sighs.  We told her if she did not start apologizing by the time we counted to five, she was back in the closet.  She pretended she had not heard us, but continued her charade of Woundedness So Great It Disables Speech.  Annie was about to give in and forget the whole thing.  Navayah read this in her face.  She increased her performance, and landed back in the closet.  Six more times of the ten-second time-out, question, refusal to obey.  Finally, after the sixteenth time-out, she walked over to Tante Annie, put her head in her lap, and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”  We made her say it so everyone in the room could hear it.  She contemplated giving n8 an evil glare, but instead yelled, “I’m sorry I whined at you!  Will you please forgive me?!”

It took only twenty minutes and sixteen time-outs in a darkened closet this time.  I guess it could have been worse.