Posts from — June 2010

Pretty much every night since we returned from our beach trip, Rosie has had trouble going to sleep at night. I don’t know if it’s just the disruption of her usual schedule that has thrown her off, or if she’s got teeth coming in or what, but what I DO know is that L and I are fairly close to putting her up for bid on eBay. It’s particularly jarring to have to deal with the mind-numbing screaming in the evening because during the daytime she is delectably precocious and fun-loving, dancing  in her high perch in the grocery cart and waving hello to everyone she sees out the car window.

She’s kind of a sentimentalist like that, though. I imagine her toddler emotions in all-caps: I AM SO MAD! I AM HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME! I AM HUNGRY! I AM FEELING EXTREME AMOUNTS OF LOVE TOWARD YOU AT THIS VERY MOMENT! I do not know where this apparent love of bold statements comes from AT ALL.

But the bedtime thing sucks, frankly. One of the most brutal things about parenting a young kid is thinking that some phase has passed, never to return, and then BLAMMO: you’re right back in the trenches. I keep flinging my arms up in exasperation to L every night as Rosie is shaking her bedrails and howling to say “FOR THE LOVE. WE HAVE ALREADY DONE THIS.” Because, you know, we so totally have. And yet somehow it won’t stick in the old noggin that this will probably keep happening periodically for a good while. That section of my brain seems to be made of Teflon.

One small (itty bitty – I’m grasping at straws here) piece of this whole scream-a-thon that is better than when she was a baby, though, is the fact that she can communicate to us with more than just wails. She can say “nilk” (milk) or “Wadi” (water – which I have to say is one of my favorite toddler words she uses – when she really wants some ice water she will croon, “Cole wadi! Colllle waaaadiiiii!”) or “rock rock” or “hold you” and we can do something productive that might actually help alleviate the decibel level. Or sometimes we can just stand outside her room and chuckle at the absurdity of her frenzied rage as she yells “NO! NO MA’AM! NO MAAAAAAA’AAAAAAAMMMM!” to the universe. (Slash Noah who spends the first thirty minutes to an hour of his bedtime under his covers with his hands on his ears.)(Which we feel kinda bad about.)(Except L did point out that he didn’t sleep through the night for two years, so maybe we shouldn’t feel too bad about it.)(Still, we may want to get his hearing tested soon, because Rosie’s screams could shatter a lead glass plate.)

Anyway, I’m just really going to be glad when this phase passes and we don’t have to deal with it ever again.

My writing muscles have atrophied, there’s no way around it. No matter how much I suck them in, they still hang out in rolls over their belts and jiggle when they run. Last week at the beach I kept thinking of Grand Sweeping Posts About Life, but as soon as I even thought about attempting a first sentence, it felt like those sorry muscles were trying to strut around in a string bikini, when clearly what they should have been wearing was the full-on Mom Bathing Suit with the cover up ON. And here is where I need to stop for a second and come clean about the fact that I wore a bikini to the (very public and crowded) beach last week, and oh HO the irony of that last sentence is not lost on me and my (other) atrophied muscles.

All of that nonsense is to say that I hope you’ll hang in there for the next week or so as I build my endurance back up to the point where I can type more than just two measly paragraphs before having to stop and take a break, red-faced and wheezing with my hands on my knees, browser open to Facebook. Or, the old standby: resort to pictures. Pictures have become a little bit of a cop-out for me lately when I have been sitting staring at a blank screen for ten minutes and can’t think of a single word to write.  Instead of pushing through, I pull up iPhoto and root around for inspiration. But then I just think, “Well shoot, a picture’s worth a thousand words, AMIRIGHT?” and I upload, resize and publish that shit and DONEZO.

Well, I’m calling shenanigans. SHENANIGANS, I SAY. It’s words only for the rest of this week (uh, which is only three posts, BUT STILL!) as a little push to get those lazy-ass writing muscles toned and lean. Bikini ready, if you will.

So I shall start small
With just this little haiku
Hippopotamus

fin

Let’s see, what has happened lo these few weeks days I have been absent from triple dubya yestertimeblog dot com? Well, shortly after my trip to 17 Cherry Tree Lane with Noah, my brother graduated from college, which apart from being a very celebratory event, made me A.) feel old and B.) freak the hell out about really having left medical school. After which I broke up with the internet and spent more time with the people who knock around this house with me every day.  My job ended just after that and Noah left preschool in the dust of his size one shoe (and for those of you who do not speak Kid Shoe Size, size one for a five year old means Whoa nelly, that kid’s got some clodhoppers.) I then went online to buy a recommended “school pack” (Grade K, boy) and sign up for the elementary school’s listserv, which apart from being a very celebratory event, made me A.) feel old and B.) freak the hell out about really having a five and a half year old kid starting Kindergarten.  A couple of rooms got painted along the way, and I rearranged the bookshelves by color, which may or may not have made the baby Jesus cry.

Noah learned how to do this:

Which may or may not make the owners of our house a bit chagrined.

Also, this:

Which doesn’t have any explanation, you just needed to see it.

After all that we packed up and went to the beach for a week, where we sat around with friends and looked at this:

And this:

Then we got back on Saturday and have spent the last three days in mourning for the carefree oceanside life.

Ok! Brisk clap! Now that THAT’S out of the way, we now return you to your regularly scheduled sarcasm, caps lock, and unusually frequent mentioning of burritos.

Ah, remember the good ol’ days when we all gathered around the computer and perused Yestertime for a nice hearty kick in the pants read? That was the life, wasn’t it? What’s say we do it again, for old times sake?

I rather like that idea. See you tomorrow. And don’t forget your pants.