Mama Mayhem

Regarding same-sex marriage

2009-11-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

The whole same-sex marriage thing gets me all worked up. And seeing yet another failure for equal rights to get passed in Maine makes me sad. So without further ado:

Let's talk about the whole same-sex marriage thing. Let's stop and think about this for a few minutes, shall we? Because, really, what we're talking about is love. The right of one person to love another. And whether or not other people have the right to determine if that love is acceptable.
First of all, with so much hatred in the world and the terrible, awful things that we humans do to each other on a daily basis, do we really want to expend our energy on policing love, of all things? How about policing hatred for awhile and see how that goes first? Once we've wiped out hatred and abuse in this world (heck, maybe just in this country), then perhaps we'll have the leisure time to turn our attention to caring about who other people love and why.
But let's turn the tables for a second. If you are one of the people who think that same-sex couples should be denied marriage, let's play pretend. Let's pretend that YOU are the target and another group who call themselves the "Moral Majority" has decided that they have the right to decide how your life should go. That's right, people who don't know you and moreover, don't want to know you, those people are going to decide some really huge and important things for you. Such as whether or not you have the right to love the person you love. And they are going to go about defining the boundaries of the life you want to lead with that person.
Let's pretend that a group of people you've never met has decided that you shouldn't get to be married to your spouse. No, they don't know you. Nope, they'll never meet you or your beloved. But they want to tell you that you and your beloved are wrong. And that you shouldn't have the right to legally be committed to each other.
Doesn't feel so good, does it? But let's keep going. Let's say that all you want to do is live a life with the person you love and maybe even raise a family with them. But the Moral Majority says that because they don't agree with that, then you shouldn't get to do it. Because somehow, they have the right to make decisions for everyone else, based on what they believe.
This is where we're at. This is what yet another vote against same-sex marriage gets us. Now don't get me wrong - if you want to live your life a certain way, go for it. If the Bible is your own personal instruction manual, then that's great. More power to you - you should live your life according to how you feel it should be. But just because you believe something to be true, does that make it true? Does it make it true for someone else, independent of its truths for your own personal belief system?
The fact is, it doesn't.
In other words, if other people don't have the say over who YOU marry, then what the hell gives you the right to decide who *they* should marry? If they can't tell you what legal rights you should have in the boundaries of your marriage, where do you get off telling other people what rights you think THEY should have?
Seriously, this issue may seem complicated, but it really isn't. If you don't agree with same-sex marriage, then fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But think about it - do you really want to spend your time worrying about who other people love? Maybe if we all spent that time and energy focused on our own lives, our own marriages, our own families, then we'd see some true positive results in society. And maybe we'd realize that we all have the right to determine what is right for us...but not for other people.

Mom vs. Mom

2009-11-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

So this is a topic that's kind of tricky. It's a secret, sort of, but not really. It's about how we moms are REALLY judgemental about other moms and vice versa. See? You know exactly what I'm talking about...except it's something that very few of us will cop to it. I guess no one wants to admit that they're guilty of it, but the truth is that I think most of us are.

Anyway, I was dropping Sabrina and Nathan off at school and overheard one of the other mothers of a 2-year-old chatting with a teacher and saying "Yeah, wow, Tom [not really his name] is just so tired all the time, and I don't know what to do about it." And the teacher goes "Oh yeah? What time does he go to bed?" "Oh," said the mom, "I dunno. Around 9pm."

At which point I'm sure my eyes widened, but hopefully no one saw it. And you know what I was thinking, don't you: "OMG, your kid goes to bed at 9pm? And he's 2? And you can't figure out WHY HE'S SO FREAKING TIRED ALL THE TIME??"

Yeah, hmmm, judge much? The thing is that yes, I do. And so do you. Admit it. We all do. And it's not like I'm the perfect parent, far from it! I'm absolutely sure other parents watch and hear me and think all sorts of judge-y things about me too.

The question is, why are we against each other like this? Why wasn't my first instinct to think "Oh, there must be a reason why he goes to bed that late and maybe there are other factors, like maybe he's not napping well." Not "You suck as a mother! Put your kid to bed earlier!"

??

A multi-tasking marvel? Or disaster?

2009-11-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

So I'm back. Again. And yes, it has been too long. Again.
People, I just don't know how to do it all and it frustrates me no end. I'm a mom to 3 kids under the age of 5 and I work part-time from home. Between those 2 things, I'm fried. Stick a fork in me, 'cuz I'm done.
But here's the thing - I want and need a life that's at least a little bit about me. I'd like to at least be on the radar screen. And writing, while that's also my career, is the thing that I'd like to have more time to do. For this blog, and also in terms of getting some mommy-related writing done that I could possibly earn some income from, like articles and the like.
Sigh. See what just happened there? It started out about me (me!) and instantly turned to earning income, which is about this family and not really about me.
Is there no dividing the 2? Seems possibly not. I don't know. How do the rest of you do it? How are you a good mom, a good wife (don't even get me started on that), a good employee and hey, a good YOU?

Blast from the past

2009-08-18T20:04:00.000-06:00

So it's been, I don't know, forever since I last wrote on this blog. And part of me honestly didn't think I'd ever do it again, because I obviously cannot be trusted to do it on a regular basis, and why do something if you aren't going to do it all the way?

Well, those points still remain valid. But I've been surrounded by some really good blogs lately and some really interesting thoughts contained within about motherhood and parenthood and, well, just BEING-hood. And I couldn't resist adding my thoughts to all those other thoughts out there in the ether.

So here I am. And first I must say, since my last posts found me pregnant and needing to pee, that both issues resolved themselves. The first was resolved with the birth of Elijah on May 22nd. The second resolved itself as well with the birth of Elijah on May 22nd.

And now, in true life-with-a-baby fashion, Eli just woke up and now I have to go take care of him. More soon.

Maybe I'm crazy after all

2009-02-08T20:54:00.001-07:00

The test results are back. I am not diabetic. The clinic accidentally threw away my urine sample, but my doctor strongly doubts that I have another UTI as I am finishing antibiotics for the first one.

So the official prognosis is "bad luck" and I've been advised by my doctor to "keep holding it in there!' Yes, she literally said that.

In other words, this is miserable but apparently part of the pregnancy, and she hopes it will resolve after the baby is born. In 3 months.

I'm frustrated to many extremes by this. For one, life is pretty miserable when all you have to do is go to the bathroom. What a pathetic thing to be fixated on. For another, this is in all probability my last pregnancy, and I'd really like to enjoy the last 3 months. The final trimester has always been my favorite, being all round and funny and feeling the baby move around. It will be much less fun like this.

Again, I get it that many women would pay big bucks to be in my shoes, pee and all, and to them I duck my head respectfully. I know that this seems petty in a lot of ways. (Or potty. Ha ha.)

But in the day-to-day sense, the "how do I function with two small children and work and a life when I walk around all day miserable?" sense, I feel frustrated. And angry. And incredulous that there's nothing to be done.

Misery in the making?

2009-02-05T20:35:00.001-07:00

So I finally had my doctor's appointment today. I dutifully drank my glucose and had my blood drawn, and the results of that test will be known tomorrow. They also took another urine sample, and my doctor did an ultrasound to see if the baby's head is banging against my bladder. Which it isn't.

Barring the test results, it seems that nothing dramatic looks wrong. My constant and overwhelming need to go to the bathroom may just be because of the way the baby is sitting in my belly...and that means there's nothing to be done.

"You might just be miserable for the rest of the pregnancy," my doctor said brightly to me.

So much easier said than done. I know I should be grateful nothing serious is wrong, and we actually can't rule out diabetes until the test results come back, but the thought of having no relief from this for the next 3 months is crazy-making. It's enough to make me want to cry in frustration. Go a little bit nuts.

Here's a few examples - my in-laws are in town, and I thought that perhaps we'd take advantage of having babysitters and go see a movie, me and the hubby. But then I realized that there's no way I can last through an entire 2 hour movie without having to get up to have to pee. At least a couple of times, if not more.

Then I thought, well, hey, I have this gift certificate for a massage that I could go use this weekend. Lord knows I could use the stress relief. Then I realized that there's no way I can lie on a table and be massaged for an hour and not need to go to the bathroom. Even a half-hour massage seems unlikely.

John, bless his heart, made me a lovely bubble bath earlier this week, complete with candles. It was romantic and sweet and meant to help me relax. And yup, you guessed it, about 15 minutes into it, I had to go to the bathroom.

It's so not funny any more. I'm feeling despair.

OH, and then there's the fact that I apparently gained 10 pounds since my last doctor's visit 3 weeks ago. Sure, you might think, that's what you get for eating like a pregnant woman. But the fact is, I've actually been very careful to eat healthfully - cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch, soup for dinner, etc., etc. There's no freaking way I have gained the weight from what I have been eating.

So what gives? Is it yet another symptom of something that can't be properly diagnosed? Is the baby just going nuts in there?

I feel very out of control when it comes to my body right now, and I'm not enjoying it. Not at all.

Should fertility treatments be limited?

2009-02-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

Along with the rest of the country, I have to admit I was intrigued by the story of the Southern California mom who recently gave birth to 8 children...and has 6 more at home.
Although we have not heard from the mother herself, her own mother has spoken up and claimed that her daughter is "obsessed" with having children, and since she cannot conceive naturally, has used fertility treatments to have all of her children.
It should probably be noted that the mother, Nadya Suleman, is not married. Or should it?
This whole thing raises a lot of questions. Is it okay for a single parent to have multiple children without a supporting parent present?
Is it more okay or less okay if that single parent conceives the children naturally?
Say the parent is married and just really, really loves children. Is there a limit at which someone has had enough children? Who would set such a limit?
And what about the whole carrying of 8 children at once? That's a huge stress on a body, not to mention the babies. Should there be a limit on how many embryos are acceptable? Again, who would set that limit?
Well, it does seem that someone would like to set a limit, or at least strong recommendations. In June, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) issued updated "Guidelines on Number of Embryos Transferred." Women under age 35 - the octuplets' mom is reportedly 33 - should attempt to transfer no more than two, and preferably only one, fertilized embryo at a time. Women over age 40 should attempt no more than five.
(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090204/hl_time/08599187623200)
A former nanny to Suleman said that she was told at one point that the mother did not have to pay for her multiple fertility treatments, because it was paid for by another party. No further details were given.
Hmmm. I don't know exactly where those funds came from, but I do know that fertility treatments are very expensive. Should, perhaps, that money be put towards the care of her current children?
Another issue that has been raised is that of the cost of raising 8 babies all at once - not a small issue, as anyone raising one or more children can attest. A news story recently reported that the mother had already been receiving TV, magazine, and book offers to tell her story. So should we assume that the children will be cared for using that money? Did the mother assume that such offers would be forthcoming?
Of course, we don't have any of these answers. But I can't help but ask them.
I must say, that although I have been very blessed with my children and have not faced fertility issues, I have friends who have - and I have witnessed just how difficult, painful, and expensive such a thing can be. So my heart goes out to any woman or couple who wants a child and has difficulty having one. I am not against fertility treatments, especially when it can give a baby to a family who desperately wants that child. Or even children, as fertility treatments commonly result in multiple births.
But 8?
As always, I welcome your comments!

It ain't over

2009-02-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

So my symptoms have continued, despite being on antibiotics for the UTI for 4 days. Usually, relief from antibiotics with such things is quick and thorough. Not so much this time.

Not much fun, this. And I don't get what is going on. So I finally called the clinic today and talked with a nurse who was actually very understanding. It would be so easy for anyone to just dismiss me and say that this is all just part of being pregnant and having a UTI, but she really listened. And seemed to actually get that I'm not functioning well and that I'm miserable. And worried, because I have found myself limiting my liquids, just because I can't stand the non-stop trips to the bathroom and mentally mapping out my errands in terms of the closest potty.

So they're having me come in on Thursday to get checked, have an ultrasound to see where the baby is (possible the baby's head is just banging around on my bladder, I suppose), and to check my glucose level.

And that's what's got me spooked - I looked up gestational diabetes, and although I have none of the risk factors, one of the symptoms it mentions is an increased need to urinate. Which is so me right now.

I know, I know, gestational diabetes can be managed and I suppose everything will be fine if that's the diagnosis. But I eat well. I work out. I haven't gained much weight. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing, and this still might be happening...?

Sigh. I'll keep you posted.

So I'm not crazy after all

2009-01-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

The hospital called today. Turns out that I have an infection after all. They're going to call in a prescription for me and I gotta say, I'm really looking forward to picking that thing up.

For one thing, I'm hoping to get some sheer relief from these symptoms, symptoms that I had started to think I was simply going to have to live with. And symptoms that were making me wonder if I was crazy, since the official results had been negative.

Well, they're not so negative after all, and I feel relieved in a lot of ways. And I'm hoping to put this whole thing behind me and get back to life without hundreds of trips to the bathroom every day.

The results are in...

2009-01-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

...and apparently, nothing is wrong with me.

Things had gotten progressively worse with the whole 'need to go to the bathroom' issue, until yesterday, when I literally was heading for the restroom every 5 minutes or less. Still no pain or anything, but the urge was non-stop.

Now you girls (and compassionate husbands/boyfriends/brothers/fathers, etc.) know that when you have a UTI, you have the same problem. Can't stop needing to go. So I finally called the hospital, because of course it was Sunday afternoon and the clinic was closed. How often do you have a medical issue that happens when your doctor is actually available, I ask you?? Anyway, I got put through to Labor and Delivery, where a very friendly-sounding resident informed me that yes, it sounded like a UTI and no, she couldn't prescribe anything over the phone. I had to come in. Never mind that the hospital is 45 minutes away and I didn't really want to go in to Labor and Delivery, just for a UTI. But it didn't matter. Once I had spoken with the doc, who took down my name, I kind of had to go.

So I made the drive, went in, got put into a triage room in the Labor and Delivery floor, all the while feeling like a fool. I must have seemed like one, too, because I was a little antsy and yup, you guessed it, I had to go to the bathroom. The nurse was nice, had me provide a urine sample, checked the baby's heartbeat, etc., etc. Then she disappeared, and awhile later, a nice resident came in.

The UTI test came back negative, it seemed, so now it was time to check for amniotic fluid or anything else scary or bad. I'll spare you the details of the exam (never fun), but basically, those tests came back negative too.

So what's wrong with me? No one knows, although gentle hints about urinary incontinence were banded about. I felt like such. a. fool. Here I was, not even 6 months pregnant yet, in the Labor and Delivery floor, with what was amounting to a common and typical pregnancy symptom - the need to pee.

Aaarrrgh. I still feel slightly ashamed, as if I should have just waited and let the misery continue until today when the clinic was open. Of course, they would have had me come in too, and they're literally next door to the hospital, so the drive would have been the same.

But still. John keeps saying it was better that we were safe, because UTIs can be bad in pregnant women, and in many ways, it really seemed like that was what I had. Still does, to be honest.

Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to seeing my doctor at the next visit, a sharp and to-the-point woman who definitely gives me the impression that she's not expecting such foolishness from a woman who has been pregnant before.

Sigh. And you know what? I still have to pee.

To pee or not to pee...

2009-01-21T20:25:00.001-07:00

Before you roll your eyes and think "Not another potty training post!", have no fear. This one is actually about me, not Nathan. And before you think "Ewww!", try to stick with me for a minute here.

The scoop is this - I'm 5 months pregnant now and all of a sudden during the past two days, I have had periods when I literally need to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. I kid you not. At the gym this morning, I went to the bathroom 6 times in the course of an hour. During the 20-minute drive to Sabrina's taekwando class yesterday, I nearly wet myself in the car, despite having gone to the bathroom twice before leaving.

What's the deal??? This is seriously annoying and frustrating. I'm almost wondering if I have an infection, but the other usual symptoms of a UTI aren't there. So is this just pregnancy? I didn't go through this sort of thing with my first two pregnancies, so I'm in uncommon ground. I thought about calling the doctor's office and speaking to a nurse today, but I felt like an idiot. "Um, yes, hello, I'm pregnant and I have to pee all the time. Yes, I know that's normal. No, this isn't my first pregnancy. Yes, I should probably know better than to call with silly questions. Okay, I'm hanging up now."

But c'mon, I honestly can't function like this. I have places to go, children to take care of. Between me and Nathan (oh, you know I couldn't resist), I'm practically LIVING in our bathroom right now.

And frankly, I'm kind of done with it.

The potty diaries

2009-01-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

So the potty chronicles continue. Nathan has realized that he has power over the situation and things came pretty much to a standstill. He didn't want to go potty, didn't want to be taken to the potty, etc., etc.

It was at the point where we either upped the ante or gave up, and I personally think inconsistency makes things worse with kids. So we went to Target and stocked up on Hot Wheels cars and even a few Thomas trains to reward him with when he finally did his business in the potty.

It seems to be working at least to some degree, since he'll agree to go sit on the potty and will stay there (most of the time) until something happens. There have still been a couple of puddles on the floor today, but I feel much less like I'm going to go crazy trying to get this little guy to make the connection.

I'm not saying this the ideal way of doing it. But we're trying and we're trying to do it in a good, fair, and supportive way for him. And I'd really like him to be potty trained by May, when the baby is due. So if I look at it in a long-term view like that, I can deal. I guess. Although I really am sick of puddles on the floor.

Holding a grudge

2009-01-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever found yourself holding a grudge against your child? I have to admit, I'm holding one this morning. Sabrina was up for hours last night, calling me every 10-15 minutes just to tell me she didn't want to sleep. And I admit, I got good and mad after the first few trips to her room. She didn't need anything, she had already been taken to the potty, and I knew that if she would just lay down and was quiet, she'd fall asleep. Sitting up in bed and calling for me wasn't going to help anything.

And yet, call she did. I finally told her that she had lost her treat for today (she can earn a sticker or watching part of a favorite movie every day through good behavior), and that I was simply not coming back into her room until morning. And she was finally, finally! quiet.

But I was mad. I'm 5 months pregnant and exhausted on a general basis. I don't mind getting up with the kids when they legitimately need something, but this was just 4-year-old irrationality at its best.

And I'm still mad this morning. I realize, by the way, that it isn't fair. She's a kid, I'm the adult. She did in fact eventually go to sleep, and so did I. And she's totally over it. I'm just not. But I'm trying. I realize it makes no sense to still be mad. She doesn't deserve it.

But I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of having sleep robbed from me. And it's only going to get worse - baby #3 still has yet to arrive. Will I ever sleep well again?

Are you a good parent? Am I?

2009-01-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes bad parenting is easy to spot. For instance, 7 News here in Denver recently ran a story about a father who left his 4-year-old asleep in a car in below-freezing temperatures for hours...while he went inside a nearby house and "visited" with a 13-year-old girl. (You can read the story here.)

I think it's safe to say that we can all agree that, my friend, is very poor parenting. In fact, it's pretty much paramount to abuse.

But what about the rest of us in our everyday lives? I often wonder where I stand on the spectrum of parenting. I'm pretty sure I'm a good mother...but don't we all think that? Isn't that, in fact, part of the reason we can get up in the morning after being up all night with the baby, feed the 4-year-old-breakfast, deal with the fact that everyone's tired and cranky...and still manage to get everyone fed and dressed and ready and maybe even sing along to "Old McDonald Had a Farm" in the car on the way to school for the fifty-millionth time?
But does that make us a good parent? Or just a parent?

It's hard to say. Perhaps even impossible. I tend to hold myself up against a slew of mothers that I imagine are out there, "good" mothers who don't snap at their kids no matter how tired they are, who manage somehow to keep the house clean on a constant basis, who can spend their days raising their children while they act as the family chauffeur, cheerleader, housekeeper, cook, oh, and even income-maker of the family...and still have energy and time at the end of the day for their husband.

And I try, I really do, to keep up with all those imaginary mothers. But I admit that there are days that I do snap at my kids, that my house does get dirty (and sometimes stays that way for awhile), and that I quite frankly get really worn out trying to do everything and be everything to everyone. But I still believe that I'm doing my best and that my kids are happy, healthy, curious, polite, funny, and sweet (who, me, biased?), so I must be doing at least okay in terms of the parenting standard.

However, I decided to turn to the experts to see what actually makes a good parent. To read more about what I found, check out my new webpage at: http://www.examiner.com/x-2370-Denver-Early-Childhood-Parenting-Examiner~y2009m1d15-Are-you-a-good-parent

Confessions of a (non) aerobic dance queen

2009-01-14T19:20:00.001-07:00

So I was at the gym yesterday working out and while I was working out, I was watching what looked like an aerobic step class in action. The classroom has full-length windows, so it's not like I was spying. But I couldn't help watching them throughout my own workout, as I moved from machine to machine, lifting weights.

I will never be an aerobics or step class kind of person. This is not meant to be disparaging, it's more a statement of what I just don't think I *can* do than what I *want* to do. The class seemed to have many choreographed patterns to it, with arms swinging, jumping, lifting legs in complicated movements...Me, I'm hopelessly uncoordinated and I have trouble judging depth, so I wouldn't leap on and off of the step gracefully without having to look carefully each time to make sure I was actually making it on the darn thing.

Nope, I'm pretty darn sure you will never find me in that kind of class. Or if you do, I'll be the one in the back, laughing at herself and embarrassed because she can't keep up and can't keep the patterns straight and just missed jumping on the step entirely.

I'm all for working out, and I do try to do it faithfully. But I guess I'll just always be an elliptical/weight lifting kind of girl. But I will be the one who is gazing respectfully and a little wistfully into the window of your step class. If you are the type of girl/guy who does that class and does it even somewhat well, my hat's off to you. Wish I could join you.

Do you need to go potty?

2009-01-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

No? You sure? Okay, okay, but I'm just going to have to ask you again in 5 minutes because it has been like 10 minutes since you last went, and I swear, you have the bladder the size of a pea.

What's this you say? You're not my small son? The one with the bladder the size of a pea? Hmm, sorry about that. I get into this rhythm of either asking or whisking him away to the potty every 10 minutes or so, and it just kind of gets under your skin. Makes you start looking at others and wondering if THEY need to go potty. And if they just so happen to be an adult with a child about the same age of yours, how long THEIR offspring can wait between piddles.

Yeah, it's exciting all right. My world is, if not entirely, mostly consumed with pee. And when it will happen. And how it will happen. And if it will happen right after I have asked if it needs to happen. Or in the highchair. You get the idea.

I can't even think of anything interesting going on in this manic world of ours that's as fascinating as potty training. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. But for you folks who have gone through potty training, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. And for those of you who haven't but will, all I have to offer you is a sympathetic and knowing smile.

And to ask, do you need to go potty? Really? You sure? Want to at least try?

Cranky days are here again

2009-01-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

So it's been a very cranky day around our household so far. And I don't know exactly why.

Since it's the weekend, I got to sleep in this morning while John took the kids down and fed them breakfast. (Tomorrow will be his turn.) And the sleep was great and well-needed, but my dreams were strange and vivid and a little disturbing, all of which I attribute to pregnancy, but it meant I woke up feeling odd.

Once I came downstairs, it was obvious the kids were both feeling needy and cranky themselves and John was irritable. It's one thing when one of us is out of sorts and the other parent is fine, because then it sort of balances out. But when we're both teetering near the edge, it's just not good.

So far, we've managed, but we're both snappy and the kids are showing it by being moody and testy themselves. Ack, I really don't like this...but I don't know for sure how to change it. I'm hoping getting everyone out of the house this afternoon will help.

It's also a bummer because it's the weekend and this is when things are supposed to be relaxed and fun, right? Sigh.

Early Childhood Parenting for Examiner.com

2009-01-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

So I have started a new adventure, and I'm very excited about it!

I am now the Denver Early Childhood Parenting writer for the Examiner.com. I'll be posting articles on a regular basis about my life as a mom and tips, advice, and solutions for other parents! I'm really hoping to build an online community of parents, so please take a look and join me!

The URL is: http://www.examiner.com/x-2370-Denver-Early-Childhood-Parenting-Examiner

Hop aboard and let's make a community of parents who can ask questions, support each other, learn from each other, and laugh about the mayhem of it all! :)

Moments of grace

2009-01-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

So today was a good day to be a mommy, at least around my house. You get these days occasionally, and it's totally a thing of grace, because it reminds you how great your kids are and how much you enjoy being a mother. And why you're doing all this anyway. After a day like yesterday, which was kind of rough, it's a sweet thing indeed.

We told Sabrina this morning that I am going to have another baby, and she hasn't stopped talking about it all day. She is SO excited. She keeps wanting to see my belly and hug it, and has all sorts of plans about how she can help when the baby comes. And of course, lots of questions about what babies need and what they do. At one point, she asked what new babies eat, and I was explaining nursing to her, which really isn't a foreign concept, since she was nursed and she saw me nurse Nathan for nearly a year and a half. "Oh, yeah, Mommy," she said, "I know all about it. The baby will suck on your nickels, and that is how he will eat." LOL. I did go ahead and correct her and tell her that the right word was "nipples," but somehow, I'd rather she keep saying "nickles." The only bummer for her at this point is how long it will be until the baby is born. 4 months is an eternity when you're that small.

In other news, Nathan actually had a good day with potty training. We went ahead and hauled out the ol' potty chair last night, hoping that something smaller and more interesting than the actual porcelain throne itself might encourage him, and sure enough! He did a great job going in the potty (it plays music when the deed is accomplished, which thrilled him no end), and the only accident he had was in his pull-up when we were at the gym. And I knew that one was going to happen, because he didn't want to go potty at home before we left, and an hour plus is too long for him to wait. So I didn't mind that much.

And, lest you think all I care about is whether the kid has peed in the pot or not, he had a great day in general, all happy and funny and sweet. He's really getting big and smart, asking lots of questions and talking up a storm. I can't believe he'll be two in less than a month. My baby! Oh, it just tugs at my heart.

So between happy kids and a decent night's sleep last night, today was a good day in motherhood. I'm feeling satisfied and warm and fuzzy. I wonder how long I can get it to last...?

...And the beat goes on (whether you like it or not)

2009-01-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how unfair parenting is? Okay, yes, this is strictly sour grapes, but seriously...have you? Wouldn't it be nice if your needs came first once in awhile? I mean, you can be drop dead tired, so tired you can't even focus your eyes, and does it matter? Not really. Because the kids still need to be fed and played with and toted to school and various activities and the grocery shopping still needs to be done and dinner needs to be made. Take a nap? Take a break? I don't think so. And I work at home after the kids go to bed, so there isn't even the sweet victory of curling up on the couch after they are (finally!) asleep to watch some bad tv and relish the feeling of doing absolutely nothing.

Hmm, yes, perhaps I'm too tired to be writing this right now. I know I sound like one of those petty moms who complains about every little thing and everyone smiles thinly and nods like they're in total agreement with what she's saying, but what they're really thinking is "Geez, isn't this what you signed up for? Get over it!"

Well, I'll get over it. At the very least, I'll pray for a better night tonight than last night and hope that tomorrow will feel better than today. See, there was a ton of wind last night and it kept Sabrina awake, which made her panic and act all crazy for hours on end, and I'm sorry, we are simply not the most patient parents at 2am, much less 4am. Plus, I had just gotten my new pregnancy pillow in the mail and was really looking forward to a good night's sleep. It just makes it worse when you THINK you're going to get a good night's sleep and it doesn't happen.

Anyway, we're still at a stalemate with Nathan and the potty training. He steadfastly refused to sit on the potty today more than once or twice and cheerfully piddled all over himself and the floor instead. What else is new, right? The good news is that right before I put him to bed, he tooted and I duly asked if he wanted to go potty and (gasp) he said yes. So went to the potty we did, and he cheerfully sat on the potty and cheerfully pointed out the towels on the wall to me, and the toilet paper holder, etc., etc., and lo and behold, he went potty! I cheered and cheered for him and we went and got not one but two celebratory stickers for his sheet before we went and put him back down to bed. He was still cheering for himself as he went down, so there's hope yet.

One step forward, two puddles back...

2009-01-05T15:18:00.001-07:00

So we've hit the inevitable - setbacks in potty training. After a few days of continued improvement, Nathan has started to rebel, saying "No!" every time we ask if he needs go to potty and nearly throwing himself off of the potty if we take him anyway. He has even learned how to stiffen his body so it is basically impossible to sit him down on the toilet.

So I've had to take a deep breath (or ten) and allow for him to go back to piddling on the floor and his undies, even if I've just offered to take him to the bathroom and he said no. It's frustrating because he was doing so well, but I know intellectually that forcing him to go when he doesn't want to will only make things worse. And we do not need for things to be worse.

I did take an extra trip to the store today to sweeten the deal and buy new, exciting stickers to use as incentive. He was all about the stickers when we bought them, but has since decided they are simply not worth the effort of actually going potty to earn. So they remain in their packages on the counter.

It's also hard because Sabrina was a fantastic potty-trainer and yes, I know I shouldn't compare my children, and yes, I know that boys tend to be harder to train. But I can't help but remember her smooth and constant curve upwards towards success when it comes to this whole thing. Unless I'm just conveniently forgetting the setbacks and problems we had and only remembering the good parts? Entirely possible.

Meanwhile, John went back to work from Christmas break today and Sabrina returns to school tomorrow. The kids and I lurched back into our old routine with creakiness this morning but we're managing. It was just so much easier to have John around all the time to help and to talk to. When's that winning lottery ticket going to come in so he can just quit his job for good?

Progress, progress

2009-01-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

So things here in potty land are progressing. The number of times that Nathan goes in the potty is slowly, ever so slowly, starting to edge out the number of times he goes on the floor. Of course, it helped that I finally realized that the kid literally pees like every 10 minutes. I'm so not kidding. So by putting him on the potty every 10-15 minutes, the success rate has increased. I must admit, I am wondering how the heck we'll do this when we actually try to venture out into the world with him in undies. You can't even drive most places around here in less than 10 minutes. Will I need to put a potty in the car?

In other news, I have finally gotten my a*$& back into the gym after about three months off. It started simply enough - our membership at the gym near our old house expired and we thought it made more sense to just go sign up at a gym closer to the new house. And somehow, that task was just SO cumbersome that we kept not doing it. Naturally, time passed and it the excuses got easier and easier - oh, we're moving, and that's enough of a workout. Oh, it's Thanksgiving, who has the time? Oh, I'm pregnant, I really should take it easy anyway.

Well, ha ha on me, because now enough time has passed that I'm out of shape again and getting back into shape at around 5 months pregnant is not going to be an easy task. But hey, we did sign up at the new gym, and I did go 3 whole times this week. And it only sucked a little bit. Now I just need to keep going. And wait for my tummy to finally get big enough so that I'm unmistakably pregnant, instead of this in-between stage, where I get this look from strangers that is clearly scrutinizing in nature - is she or isn't she? Did she just REALLY enjoy her Christmas and is this her New Year's resolution, losing the weight? (In which case, she'll be like half the people in the gym, who will disappear again by February.) Or wait, is that tummy just round enough to mean there's a baby in there?

Don't get me wrong, I get these looks on a regular basis, but the gym is worse. Let's face it - other women at any given gym are checking out the other chicks and evaluating their bodies. Are they more fit? Less fit? More toned? Flabby? The women are checking out the other women far, far more than the men are, trust me. So I feel like wearing a sign around my neck that says "Yes, I'm pregnant!" so that I'll get that sweet look people give you when you are all babyliciousness, instead of the slyly patronizing look you get when people think you're just a little bit chubby.

(And yes, this is my New Year's resolution. But no, I won't be gone by February. You'll still find my chubby little babylicious tushy at the gym. So there.)

And the score is...

2009-01-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

Day 3 of potty training, and the current score is 2 times of actually making it to the bathroom and going tinkle in the potty (well, all over the potty, but at this point I'm not going to be picky) to 1 million times of going in the undies, on the floor, in the highchair, you name it. Hmmm. Not the best ratio, I realize. But I'm choosing to be pleased with the 2 times we've sat him down on the potty and had success. One of those times, he even TOLD us he had to go. So this is progress from yesterday and if we can keep it up, tomorrow should be even better, and so on and so on.

Here's the potential snag - when I put him down for his nap just now, he felt a little warm to me, and I checked his temp. Somewhere around 99.0, which isn't technically a fever, but if it's on the rise, then something's up. And if he's sick, then potty training seems kind of a lot to ask from him. But I'm a big believer in consistency and sticking to something once you start. So I'm not sure how we'll proceed if he does get sick. Stay tuned.

In other news, I tried to do a quick-and-dirty cleaning of the house this morning (pun intended). If nothing else, the floor definitely needed mopping and the bathrooms needed cleaning, what with all the piddling going on. So I whipped through as much as I could, but the rest of the house still needs to be vacuumed, etc., etc. And when I went downstairs to grab a drink in between putting Nathan down for his nap and dealing with Sabrina and her own petty refusals to go down for her quiet time, the lunch dishes were still sitting on the kitchen table and everything was still out. John had disappeared downstairs to watch TV once the kids were supposedly put down. I know he saw the dishes, he had lunch with us, he knew they were there. Why couldn't he have cleaned up the food and put the dishes in the dishwasher? I get so tired of being the one who is constantly cleaning up around here. John can just hang out in all the mess and be just fine. And I can do that too, to an extent. Then I get tired of the mess and just have to clean it up. However, this time, instead of dealing with the dishes myself, I simply had to walk away and tell myself they'll be there later on. At some point, even I need a break.

Right?

Tinkle, Tinkle, Little Star

2009-01-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm curious - how many of you parents out there actually stay up until midnight any more? I think we've only done it once since Sabrina was born 4 years ago, and I'm not even positive about that...I'm wondering if my memory is making it up so that I won't feel like such a dork, because I can't stay up past 10pm these days. Last night, we didn't even bother with the pretense. John made a rather fabulous fondue dinner for us after we put the kids down, then we cleaned up and went upstairs and climbed into bed. Why bother pretending? We were both asleep by 10 and although we both woke up briefly to the sounds of happy revelers at midnight, it didn't last...and neither did we.

Anyway, in the spirit of the new year and all that, we started potty training Nathan yesterday. He's almost 23 months, which is either very early or late in the whole potty training thing, depending on your point of view. Our pediatrician had us start potty training Sabrina when she was 18 months, and she was totally potty trained at age 2. So in light of that, we're late to the gate with Nathan. But of course, everyone tells me that boys do it later and I know some 3-year-olds who are struggling with it. So who knows?

Right now, it's a lot like having a puppy around - there are a lot of puddles on the floor. Not to mention the continuous laundering of little boy undies. And Nathan rather merrily will allow us to take him to the potty, take off the sodden undies, place him on the toilet, clean him up, put on new undies, and keep on going. I'm not sure the connection is really being made. Although he did poop in the potty this morning, he kind of started going in his undies before we made it to the bathroom and he finished up there. I keep reminding myself that the first few days of any new skill are the hardest...and that he'll catch on. We just have to be consistent. And in the meantime, the sight of my little guy toddling around in his tidy whiteys is pretty darn funny and totally worthwhile.

So we'll see. He may catch on to this quickly, or it might be hilariously slow. Not sure which way it will go yet. But hey, it's a new year, right? So I'm guessing he'll be potty trained sometime in 2009. (364 days to go.)

Hello (again) world!

2008-12-31T13:11:00.001-07:00

Okay, so it has been way, way, WAY too long since my last post. I know you hate excuses as much as I do, so I won't blab on about just how crazy everything has been. Which, of course, is true, but nevertheless.

Here's a few things that have gone on since my last post:
1. We bought a house. And moved 3 days before Thanksgiving, which resulted in much insanity, but hey, we have a house! It's ours - well, it really belongs to the bank, but what else is new?? They of course are expecting money on a regular basis, which sure makes it feel like ours!
2. One of our beloved cats got out and was missing for 3 days. If you aren't a pet person, this won't mean much to you, but if you happen to love animals as much as I do, you'll understand that I was absolutely frantic. Our cats are indoor-only and we lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of wildlife, such as coyotes and foxes...need I say more? We were very, very lucky that a neighbor around the corner saw our cat in her backyard 3 days later and found one of our "Missing Cat" flyers and gave us a call. Our beloved Danger Kitty (yes, that's really her name) is back. Whew!
3. The economy has been rotten. News, right? Hardly, I know. But it has hit our home as much as any other, and one of my biggest freelance clients laid off all of their contractors, which included me. Not good. Not good at all.
4. Did I mention I was pregnant? Oh, yeah! I'm pregnant with Baby #3 and while I'm terribly excited, I had a rotten first trimester. Hard under most circumstances, nearly impossible with two small children under the age of 4 who don't even KNOW about the baby, much less care why Mommy is so sick and tired. Luckily, that stage has passed - the first trimester, that is, not my kids caring why I can't be 100% all the time - and I'm really starting to enjoy the pregnancy again.
5. Life in general - John traveling, me backing the car into the (closed) garage door, the stomach flu going through the house, etc., etc., etc.
6. Christmas! With family in town and trying to be a good little Santa with the economy in the toilet. Sound familiar?
7. Sabrina turned 4. So, so hard to believe my little girl is that big! She has been really insane lately, full of talking back and refusing to listen to directions or well, anything I have to say. I feel like I'm talking to this insolent teenager, only a miniature one. I'm truly afraid to think of what she'll be like when she is a real teenager. But in the meantime, I often feel like I'm floundering, trying to find an effective way to parent her that doesn't include yelling or going insane. (Both of which seem like reasonable options more often than I'd like to admit.)

Whew. So I'm sorry I've been MIA. I promise to do better. And hey, what is a better New Year's resolution than to say I'll be here on a daily basis, keeping you caught up on our little life of mayhem?? Okay. So I'll see you tomorrow! Happy New Year!

Underachiever

2008-07-30T15:36:00.000-06:00

So I got a pedometer, after wanting one off and on for a long time. I actually got it as a reward through my gym, which I thought was fitting...plus, it was free, which is always a good thing!

Anyway, I strapped the thing on this morning, confident that I'd be happily surprised by my total by the end of the day. They say that you should aim for 10,000 steps a day. Surely with chasing after two small children and going up and down our stairs what feels like 10,000 times a day alone, I would come pretty close, I thought.

So it's now 3:40pm, which one could say is relatively near to the end of the day. I mean, obviously, it isn't midnight or anything, but the kids should be in bed in the next 4 hours and things will slow down considerably after that. And at this point, I have a grand total of (drum roll, please...) 2180 steps.

Not exactly the 10,000 I thought I'd easily rack up. I guess they intend for you to include a workout (most probably a walking one) and do things like park at the end of parking lots so you have farther to go, etc., etc. And I haven't worked out today because I'm fighting off a stomach bug that Sabrina brought home from preschool. So maybe if I had gone to the gym and left the little counter on, I'd be closer.

But still. An 8,000 deficit? Sheesh. Guess these flip flops ain't meant for walkin.'

The good news is, I'm just stubborn enough and competitive enough that I'm going to aim for that 10,000. And yes, I'll be going to the gym tomorrow. Does the elliptical machine count? We'll find out!

Unhooked...and unhappy

2008-07-07T19:57:00.000-06:00

So I decided to cut back on my caffeine intake and switch over to decaf coffee. It's not like I drink a ton of the stuff, just two nice big mugs of the stuff in the morning and that's generally it. But I certainly do need my morning coffee, and John and the kids joke about Mommy needing her "go juice" when I'm grumpy in the morning. On a particularly bad morning, I might swing through the Starbucks drive-through and get me an extra boost of coffee. You gotta do what you gotta do.

But, well, we've decided to perhaps try to start for baby #3 (WOO HOO!), and I read recently that there is a new study out that says women who drink 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, the equivalent of 2 nice big mugs (ahem), have a 25% chance of miscarriage. And I'm one of those totally paranoid women when I'm pregnant. I spend the first trimester living very much in fear of something happening, even though I've now had two babies and no miscarriages. Even just writing this is making me tense, as if it's possible to jinx something that doesn't even exist yet.

In any case, it seems prudent to pull back on the whole coffee addiction thing, and even more prudent to do it now and let my body adjust, instead of waiting for the total exhaustion of early pregnancy to happen at exactly the same time.

So when we were at Wal-Mart this weekend (do we know how to party or what??), we got a little coffeepot and some decaf coffee for me, since John has no plans on giving up his caffeinated stuff in the mornings. And he very gallantly made my first pot of coffee this morning and presented me with a cup of the stuff with a flourish. And sure, yeah, it tasted basically the same and life went on as normal. But then when I was driving Sabrina to preschool, I realized that I felt as if I was walking chest-deep through water, all sluggish and slow and altered. This was no fun at all.

The feeling generally persisted all day, despite a couple of big tall glasses of decaf iced tea for lunch, which I was hoping might perk me up a bit. When I put the kids down for their afternoon nap, I crashed as well. This helped until the headache hit this afternoon.

So yeah, not loving this detox biz. I liked my caffeine, thank you very much. And I miss it quite a bit. But maybe tomorrow will be better. And maybe by the time the next baby is on board, I won't miss a beat when I get handed my morning cup of decaf. We'll just have to see.

The mom fog

2008-07-02T19:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, here's a question for all you parents out there - do you remember your child(ren)'s infancy in detail? Can you remember specific days, detailed events, and concrete memories of individual things that happened? Or are you like me, where you look at pictures of your little ones and marvel at how small they were and find that you almost can't remember that time? I look at pictures of Sabrina and Nathan from even just a few months ago and can't get over how much they've changed...but I also can't remember life at that time in great detail.

Why is that? Does life provide a general fog over a time in your life when you are generally exhausted on a regular basis? Is it a psychological thing so that you won't remember just how hard each and every day of raising small children can be, thereby ensuring that the continuation of the species goes on? I don't know. But it frustrates me. I want to remember more, I want to look at pictures and have more than just a overall recollection of what was happening at the time of the photo. I want to remember exactly what it was like to have that baby at that exact point in time.

I want to remember other things as well, funny things that Sabrina says that I think I'll always remember but am realizing that over time, I may forget. Like the fact that she calls suitcases "zootcases," air conditioning is "hair conditioning," ping pong is "ding dong," my nipples (hey, I'm a nursing mom, what can I say) are "nibbles," and so on and so on.

Sigh. I always vow to slow down, cherish each moment, enjoy this oh-so-brief time in their lives. Maybe that will help the memories concrete themselves in my mind. But then I get caught up in the sometimes mind-numbing boredom of raising two small kids and the oh-so-very-down-to-earth things that go along with it, like reading the same dang book over and over and over and changing diapers and coaxing them both to eat carrots. It's hard sometimes to remember that yes, those times are to be cherished as well, instead of rushed through. It's hard to slow down at all sometimes. But I know I need to. For this stage, this too, will pass, and in only a couple of months, I'll be squinting at the pictures I took this week and thinking "Look how cute they are! How small! Boy, what was that like? I can't remember!!"

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...

2008-07-01T14:21:00.001-06:00

Ever try to mop with a 3.5-year-old "helper" and a 17-month-old deep in the throes of separation anxiety? The result is laughable. You know how on some of those "Clean House" shows they sometimes test the dirt level in someone's house? Well if they came in and did a scientific examination of my floors after I was done mopping, I think they would end up laughing at me. Big, deep laughs that would imply that I was oh-so-foolish and that my floors were still oh-so-dirty. "Lady," they would say, "You just pushed the dirt around and added some soap suds on top of it. You shouldn't have even bothered trying."

Well, I do try. But Sabrina adores helping, so she wants to help spray the cleaning solution (made of just vinegar, water, and a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent for that very reason) and use her own little mop while I try to maneuver around her with my own mop. And Nathan follows us around, stepping in the watery mess and crying and wanting me to hold him, which means that I then mop even more ineffectually with only hand and hold him in my other arm. We make our rounds around the wood floors, with the results getting less and less thorough and/or impressive as we go because my determination starts to flag and my frustration starts to rise. In the end, I don't know how much actual cleaning gets done.

I do try to manage a pretty decent cleaning of the house once a week, driven partially out of some deranged sense of what a so-called 'housewife' should do...but the house we are renting is a lovely three-story place, and there's a lot to clean. Not to mention the fact that it is physically impossible to keep a place clean with kids. I mean it. But once a week, I do my best to clean the bathrooms (a very necessary evil), vacuum all the carpets, get all the crumbs swept up, and the floor mopped. We used to have a housecleaner in California, which seems silly now since we only had a small, two-bedroom condo. Now, here we are in this lovely large house, and it's me and the kids, traipsing around lugging a vacuum and mop and all-natural cleaning products so that Sabrina won't poison herself when she helps me clean the toilets.

I should videotape all of this someday. It would be worth a good laugh down the road.

Vegas, babies, Vegas!

2008-06-30T19:55:00.000-06:00

We just got back from a quick trip to Vegas, with the kids in tow. I realize immediately that you may read that and raise an eyebrow in judgement. "Vegas, huh? What a great place for kids!" Yes, yes, I know. I know, okay? But we really needed a couple of days to relax and play and just let down our guard a little, but I still don't feel comfortable leaving the kids with other people overnight, much less for a few days. So to Vegas we went, and we brought a good friend of ours who is single and loves the kids and is totally great with them. And it worked out well - we all hung out during the day and saw all the cool, kid-friendly things there are to see in Vegas, (and yes, there are such things), and then we took turns going out at night while one of the adults stayed back and took care of the kids.

So see? It's not like we were the ones hauling exhausted, falling-asleep kids through the casinos at 11:00 at night. Our kids were asleep in the non-casino hotel by 7:30pm every night. Just like usual.

But yes, we were the ones hauling kids through the casinos during the day to get to the indoor shopping forums and the animals. You can't help it - you absolutely can't NOT go through the casinos to get anywhere in that town. I realize it's on purpose, and I realize a lot of people would say that for that very reason, we should have left the kids at home.

So you tell me - which is worse? Do I leave the kids with someone else for a few days, knowing that they would miss us, especially me, terribly and Nathan is still in the throes of separation anxiety anyway? Or do we take them with us and do the best we can just so we can have a few hours over a few evenings to play and have fun and be actual adults for awhile?

It's a toss-up, and not one I expect a consensus on. I don't like that they inhaled secondhand smoke in the casinos, of course not. Did I try to physically block Sabrina's view of those moving billboards of mostly-naked women you see everywhere on the Strip? Yup, I did, and when she noticed at least one ad of scantily clad girls, I laughed and said "Silly girls! Look at them in their undies! They should get dressed, don't you think?" (She agreed, just for the record.)

Sigh. I guess it's just one of those parenting things. When do your needs finally outweigh those of your children? Do they ever, really, entirely? Or do you just compromise like hell and hope that it all turns out okay?

By the way, you know my last post? The one where I glibly said that I had almost completely weaned Nathan and sure, yeah, my hormones were changing, but that I wasn't going to get my period or anything. Um, yeah. Wanna bet?

Woo baby - what a lovely surprise to have that good ol' visit from Aunt Flo, and what an unexpected visitor, seeing as how we haven't seen (or missed) her for over two years. She's gone now, after a miserable week of me saying "After all this, I'm SO going on that pill where you only have like four periods a year!" I know, I know, most women have this to deal with once a month and yes, I was one of them until I turned into a baby-making-and-nursing-machine.

So what am I whining about? Well, just that I didn't expect it. And we were on vacation when it happened.

Here's what I think - I think life's crazy enough with two little ones and nursing and weaning and feeding and dealing with colds and falls and heat waves and babies who stick Tinkertoys in their mouth when you aren't looking and manage to gag themselves and throw up all over the living room carpet. I think God could grant mothers a break and let US choose when we have to deal with a period on top of it all. That's what I think.

The terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day

2008-06-13T14:07:00.000-06:00

Holy cow, am I ever in a bad mood today. Why? Not so sure. Yes, the fact that Nathan woke up at 4:45am to nurse and never went back to sleep might have something to do with it. But that's really kind of a regular occurrence and not one that usually turns me into the Grinch.

John has gingerly suggested that maybe it is all my changing hormones and he's probably right. I somewhat recently weaned Nathan back to only nursing at his bedtime and the (oh-so-early) morning feed. The rest of the day, he's on his own. So yes, my hormones have been shifting because of that, but we've been on this schedule for a couple of weeks now. You'd think my body would have adjusted. And of course, since I haven't actually ovulated or had a period since we conceived Mr. Nathan, and we don't use birth control because it seems I really don't ovulate when I'm nursing, my mind has jumped ahead and thought "Hey, cool, baby on board...?"

But it seems very unlikely, since I really don't seem to ovulate until I wean completely. It was that way with Sabrina, and seems that way now. So it's just an additional mind trick to play on an already cranky mind. Not cool.

Blech. I need a nice fuzzy frothy drink, like say a strawberry margarita, and a warm sunny beach to lie on for a few hours, with no demands or guilt or needs placed on me. Which just makes me all the more cranky to contemplate.

Sigh.

Too. Much. Noise.

2008-05-06T07:47:00.000-06:00

Ever feel like you're on sensory overload? It happens to me all the time now as a mom. I think exhaustion has something to do with it, but it's like every kid toy that we have makes noise and has blinking lights. Sometimes all you have to do is walk by a toy and it will light up and start singing. And both my kids make noise and (although they don't have blinking lights) they sure seem to operate on one of two volume levels - loud or louder.

Right now, Sabrina is playing with a toy that spells words and Nathan is playing with a toy that signs the alphabet song. He is also throwing the magnets that fit into Sabrina's toy, making what is surely a satisfactory (to him, anyway) noise every time they hit the floor. Okay, okay, the toys are both educational and I'm all for educational toys, plus Nathan is doing his best to sign the alphabet song, a truly endearing thing since he's only 15 months old and can only warble along incoherently.

But I've been up since 4:45am, which is when Nathan woke up to feed and then never went back to sleep. He will surely take a nap soon because he's tired. I, however, will get no such luck since Sabrina's up and there is much to do around the house. And this all just feels like too much. Too much noise. Too much stimulus. Too much of everything.

So I could use some peace and quiet. But instead, I will get the alphabet song running through my brain like a persistent virus for the next several hours.

Why can't they put some, say, David Gray or Sarah Maclaughan songs in kid toys? Surely the kids wouldn't notice the difference and it might actually contribute to parental sanity. Just a thought. (But save me, god save me, from the muzak crap that seems to be so popular with some parents. Why take a beautiful symphony and turn it all tinny and strange sounding for kids? Just play the actual freaking symphony! It might actually be educational AND inspriational for the kids. How is that bad? I'm just saying.)

And all through the house...

2008-05-02T20:32:00.001-06:00

Do you hear that? Do you? It's the sound of quiet. Sssssh. Listen! That, my friends, THAT is a sweet sound. Okay, maybe not as sweet as the sound of my darling daughter saying something funny or my son's precious first words, but still very, very sweet.

Yes, it's true. The kids are in bed and they are asleep. They may even stay that way. Sabrina generally sleeps all the way through these days, unless she happens to need to go potty or can't find her water bottle. And well, Nathan doesn't. Nope, he does not. He's still happily on the "Hey, let's eat every 3 hours" plan.

But me, I'm not so happy about that plan any more. He's almost 15 months. I have always said I'd feed him at night until it was a problem for me. Well, up until now, it hasn't really been a problem. He didn't like to eat solid food and I thought he needed the calories. So I was willing to get up with him at night and feed the little guy. But now he's 15 months and he's eating more solid food. And I'm tired. I've been tired for the past 15 months. It's time for a change.

(OH, I so get what I deserve - Nathan just woke up crying! I went to check on him, and he's back asleep, but god, that's funny. I should learn to keep my mouth shut!!)

Anyway, I'm going to start night weaning him. It's time. I need to sleep. Stay tuned.

Heave ho!

2008-04-13T22:18:00.000-06:00

So the stomach flu is slowly working its way through this family. First, John had it. Then Sabrina got it, but she had it in this really weird form - last Sunday, she threw up twice and I got all geared up to deal with the stomach flu for the next 24 hours, but nope, that was it, she was fine. Then two nights later, I went in to check on her before I went to bed myself and found that she had thrown up on her pillow and was asleep in the middle of it. I went and got John and then we went in to get her cleaned up, and when we asked her about it, she said she was just sleeping. No recollection about throwing up, no comment about going right back to sleep in the middle of all that nastiness.

She's been fine ever since. Such a strange kid.

But now Nathan has it, and he's taking a much more traditional approach to it. Friday night, around 3:00 am, I heard him on the baby monitor, making noise. So I went in and fed him as usual (I know he's 14 months now and yes, I know he shouldn't be needing to eat at night. I swear I'll go into this another time), and then I went back to bed. But I could still hear him in there, awake. And when he started to fuss, I just thought "Forget it, I'm not staying up with him while he's having a party in his crib." So I went and got him and brought him into bed with me.

He started to fall asleep and then bam! he just started vomiting like crazy. I jumped up, woke up John, and we went through the motions of cleaning everything up. The next morning, he threw up again, and that's how the day went - he'd cry and cry and then doze a little bit and then throw up again. Rinse. Repeat.

He's better now. But you know what this means, don't you? John has had it. Sabrina has had it. Now Nathan has had it. The only person who hasn't had it? Yup, you guessed it. Me.

Oh, joy. I just can't wait....

Let it snow

2008-03-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm being a bad mom today. Well, that's relative, I suppose. It's snowing outside, and has been since at least 2:30am, which is when I first got up to feed Nathan. (Yup, he's almost 13 months old and yup, he still gets up to feed in the middle of the night. That's probably the topic of an entry all on its own.) Anyway, it's really pretty out there, but I have a theory about driving in snow - don't do it if you don't have to. Although I did grow up in Colorado, I lived in California for 10 years, and my snow driving skills are a bit rusty. Plus, anytime I feel driving might be risky and I have the kids with me, well, that gives me pause.

So Sabrina isn't going to preschool this morning. And I feel almost gleeful in my decision. Not that I want her to miss school, per se, but I don't really mind that she's missing THIS school. In the 2 months that she's been there, I've had a few issues with the staff there. I'm not happy with the administrative staff, and I also don't like the assistant teacher in her classroom. She's clearly insecure in her authority over the kids, and the kids obviously can feel that, because anytime she's alone with them, it's total pandemonium.

If I'm dropping Sabrina off and it's just this assistant teacher there (we'll call her Miss M) and the lead teacher (we'll call her Miss T) isn't there yet, I won't leave Sabrina there until Miss T arrives. Miss M usually has to go get another teacher to help her restore order in the classroom, and she overcompensates by nearly yelling at the kids and getting right in their faces. If I didn't think highly of Miss T, which I do, I'd have yanked Sabrina out of there awhile ago.

As for the administration, I've gone to them a couple of times with questions or concerns and felt that I was basically dismissed without much consideration. And that makes me mad. I'm paying plenty of money for my daughter to go there - you may very well be the director of the place or what have you, but that doesn't make any decision you make automatically correct or sound.

Needless to say, I've found a new school for Sabrina to attend this summer and next fall, but they don't have any current openings. And I really do like Miss T, the lead teacher in her classroom. And I don't want to change Sabrina's world again until I really have to, because this move to Colorado was big enough to last us all awhile. So she'll stay put until we can move her over to the new school this summer, unless something happens that I just can't stand any longer.

So no school today for us. We'll just play here at home, do some laundry, and then go play in the snow. Sounds a lot better than school to me!

Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?

2008-02-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

So Sabrina is now 3. And I'd really like to know where my daughter is and who on earth has possessed her body in the meantime. This girl is CRAZY. One minute, she'll be totally fine and sweet and telling us all about her imaginary friends and the next minute, she's screaming bloody murder about nothing that I can immediately discern. And she'll totally be losing her mind. It's impressive, really.

She'll also refuse to agree with you on anything, no matter what it is. We were driving in the car the other day and she was angrily refuting everything either John or I had to say. Finally, out of desperation and frustration, John said "Sabrina, the sky is blue." "NOOOOOOOO," came the scream from the backseat, "It's GREEN. It's GREEN! IT'S GREEEEEEEEEEN!"

Well, at least you can laugh at a moment like that. If you don't laugh, you'll just start losing your ever-loving-mind, and my mind is on a pretty thin string as it is these days.

I guess there's grace in knowing that this isn't really my daughter, not really. I mean, this is not her true personality. If so, I'd commit both of us to a professional's care right now. It's just that she's three and trying really, really hard to figure out how to be independent. Which, when you're still this little, is a very tall order in such a big world.

I just think that I may need to keep an exorcist on speed-dial for awhile. Or at least a mental care professional....for me, not for her.

Got milk?

2007-11-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

So Nathan continues to despise solid food. We vainly put him in his highchair every day and bring out baby food of various kinds and flavors, put on his bib, and then manage to get maybe one teaspoon in his little mouth. Then he closes up like a vault and nothing else is getting in there, man. And he's wise to us now. We can smile and laugh and play silly games with him all we want, and he may smile back if we're really hilarious, but he ain't opening that mouth. No way, jose. It isn't gonna happen.

Yesterday I was holding him and eating crackers and he was watching me eat very intently. And he was opening and closing his mouth and making little smacking sounds. So I whisked him over to the kitchen, got out a cheerio, bit it in half and put the other half in his (amazingly) open mouth. To my absolute delight, not only did he eat it, he seemed to enjoy it. He ate a few more before starting to turn them away. No big deal, I thought, and hurrah, he's eating!

So when John came home, I couldn't wait to show him our new trick. I got out a Cheerio, bit it in half, and held it out, beaming, to Nathan. Who proceeded to jam his mouth closed and cry.

I am starting to worry, and it's a good thing he has a doctor's appointment next week. I mean, I think he's doing fine on my milk, he seems to be growing, although not at the crazy pace he was for his first six months. I just don't know what else to do. If he doesn't want to eat the food, he doesn't want to eat the food. I wonder if there's something else going on. Does it hurt him? Did his time in the NICU after he was born, with tubes down his throat, make putting things in his mouth equal torture? I just don't know.

A crazy kind of love

2007-10-25T23:15:00.000-06:00

I was once told that parenting is the hardest thing you'll ever do. The most rewarding, to be sure, but the hardest.

I don't think they were kidding. The sheer endurance that is required can pretty much pull you under, never mind the financial, physical, and emotional toll. And that's just if you're doing a pretty good job as a parent. Whoever sets the bar of being an excellent parent always seems to keep it rising, within sight but juuust out of reach. On a good day, that is. Pretty much out of the ballpark on a bad one.

The exhaustion, though, oh, the exhaustion is so hard. And there isn't ever enough of a break, not really. You can grab an hour or two off here and there, and there's that delicious hour or two at night when you can just sit and watch Grey's Anatomy. And if you're truly lucky, you won't be interrupted to find out why your two-year-old has woken up and is crying, or to nurse the baby. But for the most part, you never get enough rest. Enough time off to be really rested and really ready to re-engage? That is only a nice, far-off dream. No, you just have to keep pushing through, and you just have to deal with the fact that the needs of these children, the ever-present need, is constant.

Stay with me here, because I'm just getting started. Want to know what the hardest thing is? If you're a parent, especially a stay-at-home parent, you know that it's the relentlessness of it...for the love of god, sometimes it's almost funny how far you can be pushed, regardless of your own feelings or status or well-being. Your needs are so far down the page, sometimes they aren't even in view. And with more than one child, it only gets multiplied.

A friend came and stayed with me and the kids for a weekend awhile back when John was out of town. She's fabulous with kids and adores mine, so it was great to have her here because she really pitches in and helps, you know? She doesn't just sit on the couch watching as chaos rains down around her. Anyway, at one point she looked at me and asked incredulously, "Holy crap, it just never stops, does it?"

No, it doesn't. And it won't, not even tonight when things are momentarily calm and quiet. Nathan has yet to sleep through the night, Sabrina often wakes and needs to be tucked back in, and the cat seems to be very fond of throwing up in the middle of the night. Oh, and pooping on the bathroom floor. The exhaustion and the relentlessness of it? Very much a part of my life right now.

But here's the thing - here's the kicker - I'm crazy, crazy in love with these kids. Now before you start rolling your eyes, let me assure you that I know what you're thinking. Before I had children, when I heard someone say how lucky they were to be a parent, I would think to myself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Throw some sunshine somewhere else." I always thought it was the kid who was lucky to have a good parent, not the other way around. And I wasn't usually in the mood to listen to some schmaltzy parent waxing on about how privileged they were to have these kids.

Now I know better. (Prepare yourself.) I still get a little thrill in my heart at least once a day when Sabrina says "Mommy" and she means me. ME! This beautiful, smart, funny, fascinating child loves ME. When she's sick or tired or gets hurt, the only person in the world who can make it better, the ONLY person in the world she wants, is me. That blows me away. To be that lucky, that incredibly lucky to be the person whom she loves more than anything, well...words fail me.

And this baby of mine, this little boy, who is gorgeous and sweet and happy...I can't believe he's mine either. I actually gave birth to him! The way he lights up when he sees me - good god, it could stop my heart right in its tracks. How did this happen? Where did he come from? And is it really my good luck that he wants nothing more in this world than to be held and nursed and comforted and played with by me?

I didn't lose you there, did I? Somewhere in the deep, velvety world of adoration for my children? Well, maybe I did. Maybe you were all for this post when you thought it was all about bitching about how hard parenting is and then you walked away from the computer in disgust when you realized that this post is really about how worth it it all is.

Well, it's true. This parenting biz? God, it's hard. Harder than I could have ever imagined or predicted or expected. But it is also more mind-blowing and wonderful and soul-altering than I ever knew as well. So there you go. It is, in fact, the hardest thing you'll ever do. And also the most rewarding. They go hand-in-hand. Sometimes the exhaustion and relentlessness wins out. And sometimes, in the moments of pure grace, the beauty of a love like this wins. And that's when you know you would never change your life, not for anything.

What did you just say?

2007-10-23T14:43:00.000-06:00

So just a little while ago, I was sitting on the floor playing with the kids. Sabrina has one of those wooden fruit sets, the kind with velcro that you can use a little wooden knife to cut up and then stick them back together.

She was playing with the little green pear and I have known for awhile that part of it is missing, and I suspect that - along with many, many other missing things in our household right now - it is packed. (Don't ask why only part of the pear would get packed. I can only assume it was lying around during one of the mad packing sessions and it got carelessly tossed in as well.)

Which is a poor answer to a 2-year-old who doesn't get why we can't just go get all those things that have mysteriously disappeared into the world of 'packing' and who gets frustrated because they sure don't seem to be reappearing, despite promises that they will. So when she asked me where the missing piece was, I casually replied that I didn't know, we would have to keep an eye out for it.

"No," she informed me, "It DIED."

I'm sorry, it what?????????? Where on earth does a 2-year-old learn that word? I sat for a second, torn between inquiring further on the topic to find out if she knew what it meant and just letting it go, and I finally settled on asking where she heard that word.

Oh, she replied, Daddy.

So I dropped the topic with her because she was clearly not upset about the apparent loss, and emailed my husband at work. His reply just came back through, and he thinks he may have slipped the other day and said that his cell phone died.

Sometimes when I think about how Sabrina is paying attention to absolutely EVERYTHING and soaking it all in, even when we think she's totally busy with something else, it makes me feel so tired. How will we teach her what we want her to learn and keep her from that which she doesn't need to know about yet? I know, I know, she obviously doesn't know what 'dying' means yet. In the small scheme of things, it's not a big deal. In the bigger sense of things, it really kind of is. I'm not really ready to explain death to her yet.

Where's that big giant bubble for me to put her in? It's about time one shows up. This whole world is just a bit too big for her to be in sometimes.

And the answer is...

2007-10-18T16:30:00.000-06:00

It has come to my attention that when it comes to knowing things about the world, I am woefully inadequate. I may be college educated, but when it comes to my 2-year-old, I don't know crap.

I know a lot of basic information about things, but I don't know why some leaves are green and some are yellow, for instance. I don't know how to explain why I can skip ahead to specific songs that Sabrina wants to hear on CDs but I can't call up certain songs she likes when we're listening to the radio. Think about it - can YOU explain the difference between radio and CDs in terms that a 2-year-old can understand? Yeah, you probably can. I thought I could too, but when I'm sitting there in the car trying to explain why I can't get the radio to play the song she likes but I can make the CD play any song she wants, in any order, well, I do my best, but I feel like I fall short.

When I think about the responsibility of teaching these kids about the world, I feel very small. And unprepared. Thank god there's the internet.

Don't touch me!

2007-10-17T21:53:00.000-06:00

Do you know what the term 'touched out' means? If you're the mother to at least one small child, you probably do. It's the feeling that you have after taking care of small, needy creatures all day that you just can't have one more thing or one more person touch you. You are all touched out. This is especially true of nursing moms. This is especially true of me.

Of course, the person who usually gets the full brunt of me not wanting to be touched isn't either one of the kids. Of course not. It's my husband. Sometimes he just scootches close to me in bed when we're watching TV before falling asleep and it's all I can do not to just push him away. And sometimes I do, I just can't help it. I have a needy, separation-anxiety-driven 8-month old that I hold and nurse all day and a 2-year-old who wants to be held and read to and played with all day. The ever so small, ever so fleeting time I have in the evenings between when we put the kids to bed and the next time Nathan wakes up to nurse is supposed to be mine...although it's usually filled with me trying to get some of my freelance work done, eat dinner, and just try to get some down time (ha). I'm afraid I usually just don't want to have to fulfill yet another need for someone else.

I know, it sounds terrible. And I know that my husband and our marriage both need my attention and love as well. But heck, sometimes the cat will jump up on me in the evenings and I push her away too. I just don't want anyone, anything that needs my physical attention and affection. The baby will inevitably be awake and needing to nurse again in only an hour or two. Sometimes I just can't take it. I can't offer myself up for anything else. It's like my body is community property these days. And most of the time, the door is open, come on in, I'm all for it. But every now and then, I just want the door to be shut. Lights out, business is closed. Come back later.

Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins

2007-10-14T15:27:00.000-06:00

So we decided this weekend that it would be a good idea to take the kids to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival, a yearly ritual in the Bay Area that is so popular that it can take over an hour to drive the 7 miles from the highway into the little coastal town that is Half Moon Bay because of all the traffic. In fact, the huge crowds are why we've never done it before, but since we're preparing to leave the area, we figured now was the time. Now or never, right?

Well, never started looking a heck of a lot more appealing once we had finally made our way to Half Moon Bay, snagged a remarkably lucky parking space from a nice old man who was leaving, and walked into the main area of town where the festival was. I have almost never seen so many people packed onto a street, I swear to god. And even though the weather was beautiful and everyone seemed to be in good moods, with loads of people wearing Halloween costumes or colors or pumpkin outfits of one kind or another, it was far too crazy for me.

As John and I reminded ourselves later, we actually don't like street festivals. We don't just really have much use for them, you know? We don't like the folksy art that is being sold at such a festival, I'm not much of a fan of the greasy food cooked in enormous amounts, and I don't like pushing my way through crowds, especially when I have my kids with me. So we worked our way forcibly up one side of the street and back down the other, bypassing every single one of the booths and the food area. We finally stopped at a deli that was on the street, got sandwiches, ate quickly, and then kept on walking back to the car. Not exactly worth the effort of getting there.

So then we drove up a bit further to one of the famous pumpkin patches nearby. And I'll admit, it was gosh darn cute, with scarecrows and pumpkins absolutely everywhere, and they had a train, a hay ride, a petting zoo, a jumpy house, a haunted house, ponies to ride, the whole deal. But they also knew they had you by the tail, because everything cost money to do. And I know this is a business and all, but come on! You can't let the kids pet a duck for free? Oh, please. Have some Halloween spirit, people. Nevertheless, we shelled out money for Sabrina to ride a pony around in a little circle and she loved it. Then we picked out pumpkins for everyone and we were outta there. Nearly $20 poorer, but we were outta there.

Should have just bought a couple of pumpkins at Safeway and called it a day.

The blame game

2007-10-10T21:42:00.001-06:00

It's so easy to look at other parents and mentally point an accusing finger, have you ever noticed that? There was a mom and her little boy at the park this afternoon and her little boy ran over and started playing with Sabrina's sand toys. No big deal, it's totally park etiquette to allow other kids to play with your sand toys and to let your kid play with theirs. It's one of those unspoken rules at the playground. So when Sabrina protested, as I knew she would, I pointed out that she wasn't even playing with them, she was climbing on the playground.

Naturally, she was instantly interested in playing with them again, so the other mom and I did the "Now, let's share" talk with the kids, in that slightly higher-pitched voice we all get when we are being preachy to our children around other parents. Well, soon enough it was getting chilly and it was about dinnertime, so I said it was time to go. And the other mom said it was time for them to go too, and could Brandon (her son) please give back the sand toys. Of course he didn't want to, and it was actually pretty cute, because he would set the sand buckets down at my feet obediently, but then you could tell he just couldn't bear to part with them, because then he would pick them back up and move a few feet away with them. Then, with urging from his mother, he'd bring them back, set them down in front of me, and then quickly snatch them back up and look at me beseechingly. This went on for several minutes. Well, I couldn't very well just let him have them, and Sabrina was watching all of this quizzically from on top of the slide, where she had retreated when I announced it was time to go.

So I patiently waited for the mother to step in, take the buckets, hand them to me, and collect her son. Which she never did. Instead, she stood nearby and half-laughed, half-pleaded with her son to give me the toys so they could leave. So, since I was getting tired, Nathan was getting cold, and Sabrina was starting to look a little concerned that I might actually give in and let him have the toys, I had to gently pry the bucket handles from the boy and tell him thank you for playing with us, but we were going home now. Which caused the inevitable protest and crying on his part, but I was able to at least collect Sabrina, the toys, and Nathan, and head to the car.

Which just so happened to be parked next to the car of Brandon and his mommy, who also decided to leave. I stood Sabrina on the sidewalk with instructions to wait for me while I put the sand toys away in the trunk and put Nathan in his car seat. Then I came back around to collect Sabrina, who was having sort of a stand off with the little boy on the sidewalk, with both of them staring somewhat frostily at each other. But the minute he saw my keys in my hand, little Brandon forgot all about Sabrina and came running up to me, holding out his hand for my keys and whining something I couldn't understand. I held the keys aloft and looked at his mother for help, who shrugged and said "Oh, he loves keys. Don't let him have your keys, you'll never get them back."

Okay, fine. So I scooped up Sabrina with one arm and continued to hold the keys out of the reach of Brandon, who was now lunging for them. And I swear to god, that kid followed me as I stepped off the sidewalk and into the parking lot to put Sabrina in her car seat. And his mother let him. She only came over to get him when he was standing right by the car door and I was going to hit him in the head with the door by opening it if he didn't move. (Okay, so it occurred to me, but I did not hit him in the head with the door. I promise.)

Anyway, I got Sabrina in the car and we came home. But I don't know, that mother just seemed at a loss most of the time, like someone had only recently dumped this kid in her lap and she was still getting the lay of the land on how to deal with this strange creature. Which I know isn't true because she referred to herself as Mommy more than once. So you'd think, wouldn't you, that she would have a better handle on how to deal with this little boy who was not behaving badly, I'm not trying to say that, he just wanted these things, and wanted them badly.

Again, I don't know. And again, it's so easy to point a finger and say "What's up with that parent?" and feel all smug and proud, like you are freaking Parent of the Year all the time. When the fact is, who knows what other parents were thinking about you at the same time. It's enough to make you feel proud and ashamed, all at once.

...but why?

2007-10-09T21:01:00.000-06:00

Sabrina has entered that notorious stage where she wants to know 'why' for everything. And I mean everything.

I have to admit, I kind of thought that the stereotype of a kid who asked why over and over and over was just that, a stereotype. I hereby stand corrected. This kid, my kid, wants to know why a leaf is green, why I had cereal for breakfast, why the man on the bicycle wasn't wearing a helmet...and on and on and on. And just when I think I've done a pretty good job of answering her with at least mostly correct information that is condensed into language a 2-year-old can understand and maybe even be a little educational, she still wants to know more. But why? Mama, why?

And yes, oh yes, I trot out the old standard. Old faithful. And I feel little to no guilt in saying it - "Because I said so." You can almost hear my relief when silence typically follows that statement. At least for 30 seconds until something else occurs to her and she wants to know why.

Nathan, meanwhile, can't talk yet, although he does a fine job of babbling. He's such a boy, it's so funny. He doesn't just coo gently like his sister did. No, he lets loose with long strings of big, loud baby talk. He practically yells. And he likes to rock himself back and forth and from side to side and bang on things to make noise. Is this just the beginning? Is he going to be one of those loud, crazy boys who can make anything into a car or a bulldozer, complete with 'vroom vroom' noises, who runs headfirst into anything and anyone, who can be heard yelling over any gaggle of children? Seems that he's well on his way.

Oh, and by the way, he's so not sleeping through the night. He was up every hour last night. Sabrina got in on the game and was up once or twice herself, yelling bloody murder when it was her father who went in instead of me. I resorted to cursing every time Nathan was up again, crying. I felt bad about it this morning - it can't be good to be greeted with profanities when you wake up crying when you're just a baby. But I couldn't help it. I was so tired. So done. My breasts felt nearly flat because he was nursing so often, and there just wasn't anything left in there. I hate being that tired. It's one of the worst feelings in the world.

When we finally do move (oh, don't get me started), Nathan is getting his own room and oh heck yeah, we're doing some sleep training. I use the Sleep Lady Shuffle method - it worked quite well with Sabrina, who is still very good when it comes to falling asleep. But since Nathan still sleeps in our room, I haven't done sleep training. It's just one more reason why we need a new house.

We're moving...right?

2007-10-06T14:18:00.000-06:00

So this whole selling-our-house thing is starting to seriously wear me out. The market sucks (why oh why couldn't we decide to do this when the market was red hot?), and what I assume is a pretty stressful situation under the best of circumstances is even harder with two small children and two skittish cats. Every time a realtor calls to see the place, I'm invariably out with the kids about 20 minutes from home, and I have to rush them home, park Sabrina in front of the TV, and try to juggle a howling Nathan while I feverishly try to clean the place. Then I have to get Sabrina to move quickly (no easy task with a 2-year-old) to put on her shoes, go potty, put on her jacket, change and feed Nathan, and leave the house again so the realtor can come spend 10 minutes with their clients browsing through our house like it's a rack of clothes at Macy's.

Yeah, I'm kind of done with this whole thing. Not to mention the whole Open House thing on Sundays, where the same manic cleaning needs to be done and then we have to stay out of the house for 3 hours...right during the lunch/naptime portion of our day. Sigh.

In other news, Nathan is 8 months old now. He's so big! I can't get over it and I want time to stop. Can't someone tell me how to make time stop?

Oh, and by the way...

2007-10-03T21:33:00.001-06:00

I just re-read some of my earlier posts, and I just looked at the one where Nathan was sleeping through the night at 2 months.

Now why couldn't I have just kept my little mouth shut? Because of course now he does no such thing. He's nearly 8 months and nearly 20 pounds (oh, no petite flower is he), but he only sleeps 2-4 hours at a time at night. Usually more like 2-3. Sleeping through the night? A very distant, hazy memory.

He also has absolutely no interest in solid food. If we actually manage to poke a tiny amount into his tightly closed mouth, he makes a face of absolute misery and squeezes his eyes shut and shudders in revulsion. Needless to say, I don't make this a regular habit. I don't believe in making food a power struggle, so I think it will be awhile until he's eating actual meals.

MIA

2007-10-03T21:04:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I pretty much suck. At least when it comes to keeping up with this blog, although I'm sure there are other ways as well. I don't even really know why I haven't written in this blog for so long, other than it felt like no one was really out there and I was kind of in a room by myself, prattling on and on out loud about my life as a mother. Which of course I find fascinating, since it's my life and all, but it felt like maybe no one else found it all that compelling.

Since then, I've gotten some messages from people out there and it's really kind of nice to know that a few people are paying attention. And hey, they may even get what I'm saying. And better yet, they even think it's worth hearing.

So cool. I'm back. And boy, has life gone on this total warp speed thing. Sabrina is nearly 3 now and is still crazy, crazy, crazy, but she's also totally smart and funny and constantly blowing my mind with what a complete little person she is becoming. Nathan will be 8 months later this week, which is also completely blowing my mind, and he's just this round, joyful little guy who completely lights up my life and steals my heart.

We're considering moving to Colorado. Well, more than considering it. Our place is up for sale here in California, and once it actually sells, we're going to buy a house in Colorado and move. We just need this place to sell. Soon. Please.

Gone, oh so gone, are the days when there was such a demand for housing in this region that the minute any property went on the market, there was an immediate bidding war to get it. There still seems to be interest, but people are taking their time and they have a ton of properties for sale to choose from. Which is a long and tortuous process for those of us selling.

Plus, we had to pack up a bunch of our stuff and put it in storage to make the place look more attractive to buyers. Which meant that a lot of Sabrina's stuff got packed up too. And now we regularly have to do a complete scouring of the place to get it ready to show, at least once a week. And if you have any idea of life with a toddler, you know that it is literally impossible to get, much less keep, a house clean with a 2-year-old around. I mean it. It is physically impossible. So the kids have to be whisked out of the house by one parent while the other parent manically cleans for a couple of hours, and then you all have to stay out of the house while the people come look at it or during the open house. All of which is hugely stressful for everyone, including Sabrina, who just wants her toys out and wants to make a mess without us panicking and telling her we have to keep the house clean, and to stop hearing about people coming to see her house.

I totally get that, by the way. This is her house, why should she be forced to leave while people come tramping through her house, her space, the one area that is supposed to be sacred in such a big world? I get it. And my heart breaks, because as a parent who just so happens to want people to come see the place so that maybe they'll want to buy it, what are you supposed to do? It's gotta be done.

Sigh. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg. The move itself is going to be even more crazy and even more stressful. I'm not looking forward to that. But I am ready, oh am I ever ready, to just get on with it. Just do it. Just buy a house and deal with the whole thing and move and just finally be there and settle in and start our lives again. Because this part? This whole waiting and not knowing when our place will sell or when we'll be moving exactly, this sucks.

Flat Little Noggin

2007-05-08T15:38:00.000-06:00

So there's always something to worry about in motherhood. Always. If not one thing, there's five. Right now, my main obsession is the fact that Nathan has a flat spot on his head. I've mentioned this before. I guess this is pretty common these days, what with babies sleeping on their backs, etc. But it makes me feel terrible because it also means that we put him down a lot. (Which is almost a given when you also have a crazy two-year-old to take care of, but that doesn't change my guilt about it.) And when you look these things up on the web, you can find anything from "Don't worry about it, it will go away when the baby is older" to "Get your baby to a pediatric neurosurgeon right away!" Ack!

So I called my doctor's office and they had me talk to the nurse. She could not have been less helpful. She said that when the baby was awake, to have him be on his tummy. Well, for one thing, he's only three months old. He can't really lift his head up to look around when he's on his tummy, so he just flails around, whining miserably. For that very understandable reason, he hates being on his tummy. And for one, big, bazooka of a reason, I have a whirling tornado of a two-year-old who would trample him if he was just hanging out in the middle of the floor. But the nurse was adamant, and totally uninterested in discussing it further with me. Put him on his tummy.

Well, I'll try. But dang it, it just doesn't seem like that's the only answer. Or at least, there should be an answer I like better. I think I'll call again tomorrow and talk to the other nurse. When you don't like the answer you've been given, get a different answer from someone else, is what I say.

The Motherhood Ideal

2007-04-30T22:17:00.000-06:00

You know how there are some days, or at least some hours, when you feel like you're doing a pretty good job as a mom? You say the right things, you do the right things, and your child is happy and considerate and says "I love you, Mama," and "Please" and "Thank you," and is in general a bunch of fun to be around.

I feel like those days, those hours, are slipping away from me far too much lately. I want to be the best mom I can be, I really really really really do. I love that darn little girl of mine so much and I still feel a little thrill when she calls for me because I think it is such a privilege to be her mama. But she is the total embodiment of "terrible twos" right now, and it's sometimes I snap before I can stop myself. And sometimes I find myself trying to explain to her why I'm so frustrated, but I already know that what I'm saying is too complicated for her. So she isn't going to understand and the moment is already gone. And then she's already on to the next thing and I'm still standing there, inanely saying "Sabrina, do you understand why Mama is so unhappy? Because you did something that I asked you not to do and I keep asking you not to do it and you keep doing it anyway and that makes Mama very frustrated." And she's totally oblivious to me already, and I can hear myself talking and am thinking "What the hell am I even saying??" Even if she was listening, I'd have lost her in the first half of my warbled monologue. But I still can't stop.

I read an article recently that recommended that when you're frustrated with your child, you should stop and ask yourself what you'd want your mom to do if you were the one who was two and the roles were reversed. I'm trying to do that, and it helps sometimes. Because of course, you'd want your mom to stop, take a deep breath, and get down on your level and explain in a way you understand and wasn't all mean and snappy. God, I don't want to be mean and snappy. And yet (head down in shame), I am.

Actually, I have to say that I've had moments in the past day or two when I also want to be able to reason with Nathan as well. Mind you, he's just 12 weeks. But he really only wants me to hold him and not John, and he cries a lot, and his new trick of sleeping through the night (can I get a hallelujah??) means that he doesn't really nap much during the day. Which is great at night, but means he needs to be entertained all day. So sometimes I'll be trying to hold him and deal with Sabrina and I'm starving and really want to just put him down for a few minutes to get to deal with life. And I'll find myself wanting to just say to him, "Nathan, Mama's hungry and she just needs to eat, so if you could just sit there in your bouncy chair, that would really help."

I think perhaps I'm losing it. Because, sure, I could say that to him. I'm sure it would sound like everything else I say to him - some nice flurry of sounds that mean nothing to him. Because he's a baby.

Hmmm. Perhaps this is what my voice sounds like to Sabrina as well, only maybe not as nice or flurry. I just make sounds that equates to something she doesn't want to hear, so she just ignores them.

Oh, and Nathan has a flat spot on his head. This is driving me nuts and is providing me with yet another reason to feel terribly, horribly guilty. It means he has spent too much time on his back, and I admit it freely - he has. Between carting Sabrina back and forth to preschool in the car and spending hours at various parks while he (hopefully) sleeps in his car seat in the stroller, and popping him in the aforementioned bouncy chair so that I can take Sabrina to the potty or whatever the crisis of the moment is, the poor little dude spends a lot of time on his back. Oh, god, I feel so bad about it. So now he has a flat spot. The remedy is obvious - get him off his back. And, in no small coincidence, he lately has absolutely no patience for being anywhere but in my arms. He hates his car seat, won't stand for the bouncy seat for more than 5 minutes, and will only barely tolerate being propped up in his boppy pillow. So I got a new sling and I'm trying to learn how to use it. It will help when he can hold his head up a little better, but in the meantime, I'm trying. I am. I don't want him to end up in a little head helmet.

So yeah. There's little around here that's ideal right now. Is there ever?

O Holy Night

2007-04-27T15:15:00.000-06:00

So I almost hate to say this for fear of jinxing it, but Nathan has started to sleep through the night. (There it is - now that I've not only thought it but put it on paper, I'm sure to see everything go right back to the way it was.)

Seriously, though, he's sleeping. And not just the 5-6 hours that they say constitute 'sleeping through the night.' He's sleeping 8 hours at a time. 8 hours!!! I kid you not. He has done it the past two nights, and I just keep thinking he's going to realize that he likes eating more than he does sleeping and start getting up every 2-3 hours again. Which would be okay, but man, I like this way a whole lot better. In fact, I'm so gosh darn energized when he does wake me up, usually around 5am, that after I feed him from boobs about to burst with milk, I go in the other room and pump the rest. And then I come back to bed and get to go back to sleep for another hour or so until Sabrina wakes up. This is something I could keep doing for a long time.

It's so much nicer than the bleary stumble to the changing table and then back in to bed to nurse him every 2 hours or so. Although I've developed some favorites on TV to keep me company. I like the Craig Ferguson show on CBS. He's really, genuinely funny. It doesn't seem nearly as scripted as some of the other late-night shows. And I also like the ABC News Now show that's on from 2-5am. I keep it on that one for a long time. Then I'll switch over to local news if I'm up anytime past 5am to see what the local weather is going to be like and to plan my day with Sabrina. Plus, there are things we have on TiVo. So I can totally survive another few months of sleeplessness if I have to. But the taste of sleep is so sweet. You just gotta love it.

Baby Budda Belly

2007-04-22T15:42:00.000-06:00

When you're newly pregnant, you just can't wait to start to see your belly expand. In both of my pregnancies, I started wearing baggy maternity shirts and pants as soon as I could eek out any sort of actual rationale for it. And when you're in full bloom, with a belly out to there, you're proud and happy to let it stick out there and when strangers notice it, you think, "Yup, that's right. There's a baby in there."

And then you have the baby and all of a sudden, that cute little budda belly isn't so cute anymore. It's just a belly. With more folds and heft to it than you find desirable. And you want it gone.

I'll admit now that I kept an eye on the scale during both pregnancies, even more so this last time. And I worked out until I was put on bed rest in my 7th month. So when I finally got on the scale after Nathan was born, I only had a couple of pounds to lose to get back to my baseline weight.

I know what you might be thinking - a few pounds? Who freakin' cares??? Well, I do. The thing about being so vigilant about working out and staying at a certain weight for years is that, well, you're vigilant. And I want those pounds gone. But I'm nursing, and you have to be really careful about losing weight when you're nursing. Plus, sometimes your body won't let the weight go.

So, long story short, I tried for a couple of weeks to just watch what I ate and to get back into working out to see if the weight would drop. It didn't. So last week, I joined my husband (who wants to lose about 15 pounds) on a balanced-eating diet, where you eat these carefully balanced meals of protein, dairy, veggies/fruit, and carbs every 3-4 hours. And I lost a pound.

You'd think this would be giving me incentive to keep going and to keep my ass in gear. But I haven't worked out this weekend, and I'm sitting here, struggling with not wanting to get my butt off the couch and go do it. We even recently bought a jogging stroller so that one of us could take Sabrina with us and go out for a run when the gym just wasn't an option. It is sitting in the corner, mocking me with how little it has been used. The child care at the gym has already closed for the day. The gym isn't an option. But it isn't raining outside. The jogging stroller is an option.

Damn it all.

I should go. I should run. Running is the best way to torch calories and you can do it in 30 minutes or less and be totally virtuous in that time. But. I. Just. Don't. Wanna.

Damn it all. Maybe I'll just go eat some Oreos and worry about it tomorrow.

PS - In case you're wondering, yes, I took Sabrina to the Children's Museum on Friday. The good mom in me came out and won. Sometimes that does happen.

Nursing Woes

2007-04-19T15:29:00.000-06:00

So the nursing woes continue. I stopped by a nursing store yesterday (the good thing about liberal ol' Northern California is that we have such things, I suppose!) and spilled my tale of woe to the cashier. Hey, in a crisis, anyone who will listen will do. She actually listened quite nicely, suggested that I use these 'comfort pads' in my bra, and pump after I feed my baby to make sure that all the milk is being emptied from my breasts.

Well, I'm here to tell you that pumping doesn't feel a whole lot better than nursing does right now, but somehow I'm feeling better about the whole thing. I guess it helps to have some sort of plan of action, even if the plan comes from the cashier at the nursing store. Plus, I will get to see the actual lactation consultant tomorrow, and I hope she's ready. I may actually run, not walk, to get into her office.

Other than that, my inner-mom-angel and inner-mom-devil are battling it out right now. When Sabrina wakes up from her nap, I should really get both kids collected and go to the kids' museum or something equally stimulating. But part of me just wants to say screw it, because just getting both of them ready to actually leave the house can be exhausting. Much less balancing a newly-potty-trained toddler and a nursing infant (never mind the whole nursing pain issue) in public. The good mom would just sigh, load up the good ol' diaper bag and go with high hopes for a relatively smooth outing. The bad mom would just sigh, say it isn't worth it, and turn on "Curious George" for everyone's viewing pleasure instead. I still don't know who will win. Stay tuned!

The Best Laid Plans

2007-04-18T19:42:00.000-06:00

So nothing today has gone like I expected it to. Par for the course with two small children, I realize, but there are still quite a few days when I'm able to steer the course with fair accuracy. Not so much today.

It started out with a doctor's appointment for Nathan, my two-month-old. He needed some shots and then I was supposed to meet with their lactation consultant to discuss why I have been having stabbing, excruciating pain when he latches on for the past couple of weeks. He's not a newborn, this shouldn't be happening, and I need help. My husband was supposed to pick up our daughter from preschool and take her home so that I could make these appointments, but when I was literally pulling out of our driveway, he called to say that there was an emergency at work and he couldn't pick her up. I'd have to cancel the appointment and go get her myself.

Needless to say, I was unhappy. I don't want to dread nursing, and right now, I do. It hurts so damn much. But nevertheless, I had to reschedule the appointment for Friday.

This afternoon, after I had gotten everyone home, I had high hopes of getting them both to sleep at the same time. That way, I could eat and then if the baby stayed asleep, I could have some good one-on-one time with my daughter, who has been all sorts of awful toddler crazy lately. But the baby has yet (even now) to sleep more than 10-15 minutes at a time today, and he didn't stay asleep, so I had to juggle them both, as well as still more painful nursing sessions. Oh, and eating? Yeah, right.

Even now when it is early evening, I just nursed and walked the baby until he was asleep while my husband took Sabrina, our two-year-old, to the park. (Yes, he does have some redeeming qualities.) But the baby is already fussing, so he's obviously STILL not asleep. Lest I think I could actually get anything done the way I want it to be done today. Foolish me.

Something to check out

2007-04-17T21:52:00.000-06:00

Here is another site to check out for other blogs...(Pardon the plug, but it's always interesting to read other people's perspective!)

Mommy Dearest

2007-04-17T14:46:00.000-06:00

So you know those moms, the kind who always have totally healthy, perfectly packed snacks with them at the park for their kids? You know, the kind who always seem to know exactly what to say to their children, even when the kid is being a total pain, the ones who seem to have endless reserves of patience? I am not one of those moms. I want to be. In fact, I think of those moms when my daughter acting like a maniac, and instead of rising to the occasion and being kind and gentle and serenely guiding her through the moment, I'm snapping like a wild turtle instead. I always think guiltily of those moms and wonder what they would have done and how they would have handled it differently. And then I feel even worse, because who doesn't want to be a better mother?

But here's the other thing I think (hope?) - maybe those moms do the exact same thing in the privacy of their own homes, when there are no other moms around to watch and evaluate how they are handling the situation. Maybe they snap at their kids too and don't think of the right thing to say all the time, much less say it. This makes me feel better, and I hope I'm right about it. In the meantime, I really do need to try harder to stay calm and gentle as much as possible. (Although a friend just emailed me and reminded me that sleep deprivation is a form of torture and that Navy Seals who were woken up every two hours for a week or two began to buckle. So that makes me feel a little better. Blame the sleep deprivation. Life will get better when my newborn starts to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time.) Right?

What The...

2007-04-13T15:02:00.000-06:00

So the cat is peeing on everything. Everything. I'll be out and about and all of a sudden, I'll catch a whiff of that terrible, familiar scent, and I'll start sniffing everything around me, including my clothes, the kids, the stroller...I must look like a lunatic. Plus, I'm trying to keep from having to explain how and why the cat is peeing on everything to my two-year-old. So when she pipes up and asks with great interest, "Mama, what are you doing?" as I surreptitiously sniff my gym bag, I have to nonchalantly answer "Oh, just looking for something." Yeah, right.

Why is the cat doing this? Why?? Is it because of the new baby? Is it because of the new baby and the toddler and the fact that I have absolutely no time or affection left over by the end of the day for cats? (Or any other creatures for that matter, just ask my husband.) Is the cat food tainted and she's really dying of kidney failure and I'm a terrible kitty mother because I'm letting it happen? I've checked and the cat food we buy isn't on any of the recall lists, but you just gotta wonder sometimes. Sigh. This means I'm going to have to get both our cats into the vet to have it checked out. I so don't have time for this. But then again, I don't want her to be sick while I stand around and bitch about all the peeing, so I guess it's just plain time to go see our beloved vet, Dr. York. If only the veterinary office offered childcare...

Trying to Focus...

2007-04-12T16:37:00.000-06:00

So I'd like to sit here and write something profound and funny...but my two-month-old, placed just minutes ago in his bassinet fast asleep, is already making noises that mean my free time is limited. Plus, my two-year-old is also asleep, but that can't possibly last much longer either.

I just managed to gobble down lunch at 3pm, after getting home from the pediatrician's office to see why my daughter's rectum turned inside out on Easter Sunday. (Turns out she just needs more water, less milk - who knew???) Oh yeah, these are the things no one warns you about when it comes to motherhood. I mean, I love my daughter more than life itself, but there are some things I just don't need to see. Ever.

Anyway, then I raced home to feed her lunch and get her down for a nap before it was too late in the day, which would result in her having a complete and total meltdown right during dinner. Not to mention my son wanting to nurse non-stop and wanting to be held and, well, oyyy. Oh, and the cat peed on the diaper bag, so now I need to figure out how to get that horrible, rancid cat pee smell out of something that I carry around with me everywhere. I put my wallet, keys, and phone in my son's car seat and left the diaper bag in the car when we went into the pediatrician's office so that she wouldn't think that I let my kids live in utter filth. (It's not utter filth, really, it's just complete disorder. Who has time to clean the house when you're raising two small children?? Seriously. June Cleaver, I'm not.)

My husband said he'd be home today around 5. Am I completely selfish for resenting his calm, adult-filled day at the office? I mean, sure, you've got meetings and annoying co-workers, but no one pees on your briefcase, you don't have to explain about a rectum turned inside out, there isn't spit-up on your shirt , and chances are, you've had a shower in the past five days.

Okay, the baby is still fussing. I'd best go see to him, or I actually WILL be in the running for Worst Mother of the Week.