Posts from — January 2009

We’ve been experiencing a slight speed bump on our parenting highway for the past few weeks with Noah.  He’s been a little more cantankerous than usual, refusing simple requests with vehemence and pitching fits over oh, EVERYTHING I SAY.  I know in my heart of hearts that he is doing what he is supposed to be doing – developing and growing and moving to the next level of his childhood (there is also the trivial matter of the small Other Child that has been around for 12 weeks now and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere), but damn if it doesn’t look exactly like Being a Butthead.

The biggest battle has revolved around all things sleep-related.  Noah has one thing and one thing only to say about putting on pajamas, cleaning up, brushing teeth and getting into bed: VIVE LA RESISTANCE, SUCKERS.  Then once he’s finally in his room in bed with the lights out, the calling begins.  Mom.  Dad.  Moooom.  Daaaaaad.  MOOOOOM!  DAAAAAAD!  Ican’tsleepIneedwaterturnonthehalllightIthoughtofsomething funnymybedisn’tcomfyenough.  My favorite is when he calls us in his room approximately 45 seconds after we’ve left and informs us that he is having scary dreams.  I’m not sure I’ve ever said the words YOU HAVE TO BE ASLEEP TO HAVE DREAMS with my jaw unclenched.

And even THEN, after he finally drifts off and we shut his door, the relief is short-lived.  Every night he wakes up and stumbles into our room, ready to climb into our bed and teeth-grind the rest of his slumbering hours away.  And even though we’ve talked to him and talked to him and talked to him during the day about how we love to have him come snuggle in with us AFTER the first number on his clock says 6, he cannot seem to retain this knowledge upon waking in the wee hours.  I’m pretty certain his muscles just move him in the direction of our bed automatically.  (In fact, I’m so convinced of this that I worried briefly this weekend about the fact that we had moved his bedroom around to accommodate Rosie’s crib and in doing so turned his bed ninety degrees.  I had mental images of him waking and shuffling straight into the wall. And I only snickered about that for about 3 seconds, TOPS.) So when he arrives at L’s side of the bed and we stop his leg mid-hoist, he melts down.  AT THREE THIRTY A. M.  I am ill-equipped to handle meltdowns during the day, let alone when I’ve just been awakened from mouth agape REM sleep.  Last night he managed to get in bed before either of us could fully waken and started kicking his feet and yelling I WANT THE COVERS LIKE THIS and I’m just going to go ahead and admit that the words “you”, “little” and “shit” crossed my mind at that moment.

I should stop here and mention that Rosie sleeps with us.  And I know, DUH, this is probably the main reason for the difficulty.  He feels left out, wants to be a part of the cozy family bed.  But we keep telling him that Rosie is bound for her bed really soon and then! The kids will get to share a room! Won’t that be fun!  And he agrees, although I think he can see through my excitement straight on to the desperation behind it.  I have these visions of the kids going to sleep simultaneously in their room, soft music playing, both comforted by the presence of the other and then I see me, arms and legs splayed wide like a star, flat on my stomach, dreaming of cheesecake in my bed.  Not sure how L fits in there, but that’s not the point.  The point is that I yearn for my own space at night, and I’m already (willingly) giving it up to spend those hours tucked in with Rosie, just while she’s itty bitty.  I did that with Noah, and I’m so glad I did.  But four do not fit in our bed.  And while that makes me sad for Noah and the growing up that is forced upon him with the arrival of a sibling, it is still true, plain and simple.  And when I don’t sleep well, I don’t have the reserves required for the Parenting Discipline Pop Quizzes thrown at me the next day, and the spiral continues downward and downward.

I know, I KNOW that one day I will miss having warm soft small sleeping kids in my bed and look back with a sigh to the toes in my armpits and arms flung across my face.  But today I just want my space.

And my sleep.

Last Wednesday I finished up my Hip Hop Abs routine, gave myself a high five for looking like a jackass only about 40% of the workout (down 60% from the first couple of times!) and hit the shower with a feeling of accomplishment.

And then I sat on my duff for four straight days.

Ok, so I wasn’t sitting on my duff, per SE, more like doing all the things I mentioned in Thursday’s post. Including making this cake:

I KNOW, RIGHT?

And all that blue icing is cream cheese icing.  So in addition to being the Most Awesome Cake A Mom Ever Made Of All Time, it was also tasty!  I try not to think too hard about what it means that I routinely burn rice and threaten to kill my family with trichinosis on pork chop night, and yet I make cakes that are well, some damn fine lookin’ cakes.  It clearly has to do with some sort of chemical imbalance in my brain.

AnyHOO, I was really digging the groove I was getting in re: moving my body, and not doing it for even two days in a row made me feel pretty blah.  I see that as a sign of progress though, missing my workouts when I’m missing my workouts.  I said it from the beginning, and I can see that it’s true: doing the 30 Day Shred gives me a sense of counting down to fitness, and when I don’t do it for five days, that’s five days longer until the 30 days is achieved.  It’s a good motivator for me.

I am happy to report however that I started this post last night, and as of this morning Jillian has once again raised my heart rate with her glowering strong-eyebrowed stare.  So back on the wagon I jump.

I just wish there weren’t so much damn CAKE in this house.

Although she starts out very demure and cute, LG quickly gets to the point of her message in this clip: SHOTS SUCK, YO.  Though not featured, Bug heartily endorses this stance.  LG’s tirade on the subject is brief but convincing, and though my Babyspeak is a bit rusty, I believe she says something like SOLIDARITY! just before attacking the camera at the end.  I love a girl who isn’t afraid to speak her mind.

So without further ado, LG’s Public Service Announcement: Why Shots are A Bad Idea (I’m Looking Right at You, Mom) ….

I have five minutes.  Ready, go:

I am nursing LG and eating a tuna sandwich as I type this, and the baby has egg in her hair.  This week has been a little on the colossally stressful side, with Lorso trying to meet a deadline and me sort of single parenting it for a few days.  Bug’s birthday party is coming up on Saturday, and I have a Superman cake to bake and a house to Superhero-proof, because I suspect once you hand four year olds a cape they don’t just tie it on and sit down to read a book.

So there’s that, and then there’s the fact that in about 15 minutes I’m going to take both kids to the doctor for shots.  I think Bug has to get something like 4 rounds.  It seems cruel really, that doctor’s visits have to come around birthday time.  Happy birthday kid!  LIFE IS PAIN.   I’m not sure which is worse, though – being four and knowing the shots are coming, or being 2 and a half months and thinking everything’s cool and then all of a sudden HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT IN MY LEG WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

It’s a toss up, maybe.

So anyway, time’s up.  I need to go get my steely reserve and strap it on.  Prepare the troops for battle.  Zip up my woman suit.

I just hope the doctor doesn’t ask me why my baby smells so fishy.

After a week of being laptop-less and having to sit upright at the desktop to do all my online shopping and Facebook stalking, our Apple is back home and on my stomach, where it belongs.  It was having a few minor issues like NOT WORKING, so we decided to get it checked out and while doing so also decided to upgrade the memory and hard drive capacity.  You know what that means: more navel-gazing movies about my life set to sappy music are coming your way!

The first thing I did when the laptop returned to us (after killing the fatted calf, obv.) was upload the 32094024 pictures I took in its absence.  And for most people this would mean that the list of blog post ideas would now be a mile long, each one with its own photo flourish at the end.  But I am much like, oh, I don’t know, a young boy on his fourth birthday, who when asked if he’d like to open his presents one at a time throughout the day to prolong the pleasure or if he’d like to open them all at once right now doesn’t hear the end of the question for all the furious ripping of pretty paper off of boxes.  That’s a stupidly complicated way to say: HERE ARE A WHOLE BUNCHA MA PICTURES ALL AT ONCE:

Bug still digs having a sister, LG’s still experimenting with hair products:

I still love these peeps (a LOT):

LG is still eating:

Relatedly, Bug is pretty much burst open proud about getting to feed her:

I decided to reunite with my bangs, we missed each other:

Bug became increasingly blurrier in photographs the closer his birthday came due to the Excitement Vibrations he constantly emitted:

LG started smiling awholeheckofa lot (Will there be more documentation of this coming soon? OH I BELIEVE THERE WILL.):

So there you go!  A hot mess of pictures. I will try to practice moderation from now on.  But I’m promising nothing.