The Cantrell Clan

June Cleaver? Why yes. . . apparently I am.

2012-01-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

We're headed to my parents' house next week. This is great timing because my mom has a wonderful 1970s feminist-power record (and yes, she also has a functioning record player) called My Mommy is a Doctor. Hannah will be listening to it on repeat. Maybe in her sleep. Not because I am a doctor, or because I want her to be a doctor, but I feel like maybe she needs to have higher life aspirations than what she's seeing in me, apparently:

We're on a "Mommy/Hannah Date Night" tonight, eating frozen yogurt at one of those add-your-own-toppings joints. In a totally unrelated matter, three-year-olds have the worst taste in toppings. Pretty much the more red dye #42, the better. Hannah picked M&Ms, gummy bears, rainbow sprinkles, jelly beans and, to top it off, sour gummy worms. Gross.

So here we are.
"Mommy, where's the wife?"
Did she just say wife? She can't possibly need a knife to eat ice cream. "The what?"
"The wife."
"The person working here?"
"Yeah."
"That was a boy, Hannah. He was just a worker."
"Oh."
Now I am wondering how to find out what she was really thinking without tipping her off that she was being funny or crazy. What in the world made her think that a sixteen-year-old boy in a t-shirt and sloppy haircut was a wife?
"Hey Hannah, what made you think he was a wife?"
"He was servin' stuff to us."

I kid you not

2012-01-16T13:37:00.002-07:00

I had some broccoli in the fridge that I really needed to do something with. Something other than my usual, which is to wait until it turns yellow and wilts, or turns brown and slimy, and throw it out.

I try, I really try, to make balanced meals. I'm just terrible with non-salad vegetables. Neither Nick or I have a strong love of leafy greens- he grew up eating a lot of green beans from cans while I spent many childhood meals speed-eating microwaved frozen vegetable medley (although never forced to eat the loathsome lima beans) and frozen broccoli.

And I've been perpetuating the cycle with frozen peas for the girls. Thirty seconds in the microwave and ta-dah! Something green to balance out the fishsticks. Although the smell of freshly-warmed peas makes me gag a little, the girls seem to love them. I just have to do some quick talking when Hannah says, "Mommy, do you want to try my peas?"
Gross. "No thank you, Hannah."
"But Mommy, you just need to try one bite. You never know if you might like them until you try!"
Um, I do know. Yick. "Oh, I'm going to have some carrots instead with my lunch."

Anyway, back to the broccoli. I figured I'd give it a shot, maybe make something half decent with it. So I went to the source of all good things, Pinterest. It led me to a recipe for oven-roasted broccoli that claimed to be so good that "your kids will ask for more." Believable? No. But worth a shot.

True to form, Hannah took one bite, said, "Mommy, I don't like this," and moved on to her tangerine. But Norah went crazy for it. She ate all of hers. And half of mine. I went to get myself the rest of the broccoli while the kids ate dessert. Norah had a chocolate cookie in one hand and was pointing to the broccoli with the other, clamoring for more. I am SuperMom.

I would give the link to the recipe, but what I ended up serving was significantly different, due to the ingredients we had on hand. Basically, I threw some broccoli tops with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted at 425 for 15-20 minutes. Then I tossed that with some grated parmesan and toasted pistachios. Done. Delicious. Now on to Brussels sprouts.

Sad but True

2012-01-14T20:39:00.002-07:00

I was listening to NPR's coverage of the New Hampshire Republican primary the other night and I thought . . . "Good Lord, I am OLD."

First: listening to NPR voluntarily. I spent my entire childhood passively listening to "Morning Edition" over breakfast or "All Things Considered" in the car and wondering how we could have the radio on but not actually be listening to music. Second: Honestly caring about the election commentary. Who cares about politics? Old people. And political science majors. I was in college for the Bush/Gore election and remember my psychology professor freaking out that the election had taken place and we had no president. My thoughts at the time? Meh.

Sadly, elections are not the only signs that I am on the verge of buying my jeans from Land's End. I would like to blame the children, but it turns out that, for someone in my general demographic, I'm actually a "young" mom. For women with master's degrees (not sure that totally defines me but hey, I had to pick some kind of criteria) who had babies in 2008, I'm part of the 25% minority were under the age of 30. Of course the statistic might be slightly flawed because there were also supposedly five 19-year-olds and one superstar 17-year-old who had already achieved postgraduate degrees before giving birth. Masters of Conception? From Unplanned State University? Perhaps.

Anyway, here are some of the other sad signs that I should order the matching denim vest to go with my Mom Jeans:

We had a sitter on New Year's Eve. We told her that we might make a night of it, maybe go to a late movie. . . and we were home at 8:45. What really hurt was that she wasn't a bit surprised to see us.
Like the last three years, we have been sound asleep before the New Year rings in. (That is directly attributable to the kids who will be up at 6:45 regardless of what time we go to bed.)
I started writing this post with a heating pad on my neck. It was actually a ThermaCare back heating pad, but I pulled a neck muscle in a workout (that doesn't happen to young people, either) and this was all I had. Why did I have a packet of ThermaCare at the ready? Because my husband put some in my Christmas stocking. My stocking contents were way cooler when I was 25.
I also pulled a hamstring a month back in rec league basketball. I've officially reached the age where I have to warm up or I'm going to hurt myself.
I can't tell whether someone is in high school or college. Anyone under the age of 23 looks like a twelve-year-old to me. I was pretty relieved in that same basketball league to find out that the team that looked like a bunch of twelve-year-olds was actually a team of eighth graders (so they were 13) and not college students. And that I am not yet old enough that eighth graders can beat me at basketball.
I find myself wondering if I am too old for some stores. (Not Eddie Bauer. Although it does make me a little concerned that I find some Eddie Bauer items cute.) I have a great pair of American Eagle jeans from five years ago that (amazingly) are too big now. I went to get another pair and discovered that, although they say they're the same style, they now only barely cover the top half of my butt. Which does not do lovely things for a "I've had two kids" midsection. Also, everyone else shopping there was either twelve or the parent of a twelve-year-old.
While I do text my baby-sitters, I use complete sentences but get return messages like, "K c u thn."
Last night, our big TGIF plans were watching The King's Speech (because I have an eternal crush on Colin Firth, just like all the cool kids) with a milkshake. When the movie ended and I discovered it was only 9:45, I was excited. Not because it meant we could catch all of Saturday Night Live, but because I got to go to bed before 10 o'clock.

I'm sure it could be worse. What is probably most worrying is that I really don't care about all the ways that I have slowly become old and uncool. I haven't started wearing snowflake-patterned turtlenecks yet, but I do sport my Dansko clogs nearly every day. Again, that one is a direct result of the children: it is nearly impossible to get everyone in coats, hats, and boots and herded out the door. If I had to sit down and devote both my hands to tying shoes, the girls would most likely be naked except for their hats and playing in the upstairs bathtub before I could finish and track them down.

And as I am thinking about all the ways my children have made me old before my time, another thought comes to mind: I should really do something nice for my mom.

One step forward?

2012-01-03T22:16:00.003-07:00

I'm not sure if I told anyone, probably because it sounds a little crazy to say such things out loud when you have a two-year-old and an eight-month-old, but I decided last December that 2011 was going to be The Year of Completion. That's right, I was going to check off all the old to-do items rattling around in my head and generally catch up on life.

For some people, this would probably entail the perfectly reasonable goals of cleaning out a filing cabinet and maybe answering the emails from old college friends that have been sitting in an inbox for three or four months, waiting for a thoughtful and humorous reply. But me? I somehow thought by the turning of the 2012 New Year that I would have painted all the walls in our house, reorganized my filing system, cleaned up the hard drives on two computers, thoughtfully edited and burned our home movies from 2009 and 2010 (don't worry, limited distribution only to grandparents and doting aunts/uncles), caught up on scrapbooking (last project completed: 2005 trip to India...so probably only 20,000 digital pictures to sort through and artfully arrange/commentate), launched a small graphic design business, written a book proposal, and come up with a failsafe way to work out 4 days a week and put a balanced meal on the table six nights out of seven.

Soooo, as everyone but me saw coming, I'm starting this new year a little behind projections. Hey, at least the federal government and I have something in common. The good news is, I was able to absorb a carefully-worded request from my darling husband (who, in some long-ago psychiatry rotation, must have absorbed the number one rule: Don't tell the insane person that she is totally nuts) that I try to take some time to oh, maybe actually live life instead of obsessively reorganizing one room after another in a never-ending loop of crazy. Some people just can't see the beauty in a freshly-sorted desk drawer.

So we camped (not the best idea when it is 40 degrees at night in June; turns out toddlers aren't huge fans of sleeping in snowsuits and mittens). We hiked (nothing like a 28-pounder on your back yelling, "Go FASTER, Mommy!"). We had princess dance parties in the dining room (I don't think the kids are tall enough to be seen above the pool table; I'm sure that made for interesting viewing from the street). We made costumes just like the kids in Hannah's favorite bedtime book:

This one's a robot. We also had a queen wearing a dishtowel cape, Santa Claus, and a duck with my giant orange Crocs for feet. And it turns out that you should not make a ghost costume from a pillowcase because there's an inescapable Klan element in the final product.

And along the way, I did paint a few walls and design a logo or two. I'm working towards balance. I wouldn't say I'm there yet- I did make the mistake of picking up Martha Stewart Living in the airport, which then led me to believe that all of my Christmas presents should be made from color-coordinated tissue paper, crepe paper streamers and tinfoil. In coral, silver, and baby blue of course, NOT red and green, how gauche of you to even suggest such a thing. And there may (or may not) have been something about making all your holiday party ice cubes from freshly-melted Alaskan snow. I was coping with all that until I came to the story about making beautiful baby storybooks, as Martha is doing with photos of her new grandson. This (maybe unlike the ice cube bit) is completely true:

"Jude's Arctic Dream recounts Jude's first [fictional narrated] look at a walk hanging Grandmama [aka Martha] conceived after viewing the polar migration in Canada. Aunt Hosanna [TV show employee] fabricated the wall hanging using the fine caribou-hair sculptures made by Cree artist Jessie Wastasticoot that I discovered during the excursion."

Two thoughts: 1) "Aunt" Hosanna must have been thrilled to use her professional design pedigree and years of experience gained while clawing her way into television on a personal project for her boss's drooling grandson, and 2) I feel woefully inadequate as I have yet to scrapbook (let alone storybook, thanks Martha for finding a way to take it to the next level) past Hannah's first month of life and I don't think Norah even slept with a bumper on her crib, let alone underneath a handcrafted caribou-hair wallhanging. Although I will say I was a little relieved because on my first reading, I thought Auntie had made the sculptures herself from a bag of stray caribou hairs before then completing the wallhanging. Of course if that were the case, Martha would probably have gotten some Syrup of Ipecac slipped into her pre-show coffee by an extremely disgruntled employee.

Ok, I've totally lost the thread of this blog while on my "thanks for making me feel a little more inadequate, Martha" rant. Anyway. I start this new year still wishing I had gotten a couple more things done in 2011, but also realizing, finally, that these days of small, mostly-adorable children are going fast. Only now, with Norah pushing two and Hannah in that magical three-going-on-thirteen stage, can I finally begin to believe that the rest of my life will not be consumed with midnight wakeup calls, diaper changes and children clinging to my legs and screaming when I dare to try to pee by myself. So yes, I am going to try to spend a little more time this year holding onto them while they'll still let me. And I will also spend an afternoon soothing my OCD with a reorganization of my recipe binder while the girls are parked in front of two dozen episodes of Dora the Explorer.

Because so far as a mom, I've learned two things: first, it's all about balance. Second, kids don't have formative memories until three or four years of age. So you don't have to catch up on the scrapbooking now because you can make up all kinds of great stuff about the baby pictures later.

Already??

2012-01-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

I know everyone says time just keeps moving faster after you have kids, but I feel like I was still struggling not to write "2010" on my checks. How in the world can it be 2012?

Nick and I were talking about the past year and how quickly time is moving. Then we started discussing what time feels like to a kid (which we can barely remember)- how the days seem endless. It's hard to wrap my mind around the idea of having absolutely no responsibility- someone tells Hannah when it's time to get dressed, finds Norah's boots when it's time to go outside, presents a hot dog when it's time to eat lunch. They pay no bills, do no grocery shopping, answer no emails. Hannah has to remember to go to the bathroom. That's pretty much the extent of her forward-thinking responsibility. (On a side note, she didn't quite make it yesterday and somehow peed on the bathroom door and the floor, but not on her pants or socks?)

But on the other hand, Hannah has absolutely no concept of time. Every time she wakes up, she thinks it's a new day. This was especially clear while we were keeping track of Christmas with the advent calendar:
"Mommy! I'm AWAKE! Can I move the star?"
"No, we already moved the star this morning."
"That was YESTERDAY."
"No, Hannah, that was this morning. It's still the same day as before you took a nap. We can't move the star again until tomorrow."
"It is tomorrow."
"No, it's still today. Tomorrow is after bedtime."
"After naps?"
"No, after bedtime. When you sleep after lunch, that's a nap. When you sleep after dinner, that's bedtime. You sleep a long time and then it's a new day."
"But I just slept a really long time for my nap!"
"Hey Hannah, want to go paint your fingernails?" Because it is clearly pointless to continue this conversation.

Nick thinks that's why she moves so fast: to her, every day only lasts five and a half hours. It's hard to get enough playtime in if you slow down.

Ice Skating

2011-12-30T21:31:00.001-07:00

Nick decided to continue the Cantrell family tradition of Dangerous Christmas Gifts. Last year he came home from shopping and said, "I got Hannah something. I'm not going to tell you what it is." Probably because it was a hockey stick. Just what every two-year-old with an infant sister needs.

This year, following the winter sports theme, Hannah unwrapped a pair of ice skates. Thankfully Nick intercepted the salesperson before she sharpened the blades, so the skates probably aren't too treacherous. Unless she gets her hands on them when no one is watching and goes for a walk across our hundred-year-old wood floors. That could be life-threatening.

Anyway, Hannah was beside herself with excitement. I think her total knowledge of ice skating comes from watching Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! But she was thrilled.

We headed to the ice rink yesterday. I figured we'd be there for a half hour, tops. Once she realized that 1) skates do not magically glide themselves across the ice, 2) ice is really cold, and 3) it kind of hurts when you fall, we'd be out of there. Kind of like our two-run ski outing last winter.

This is how she started out. These trainer frames may have saved the day- not only could she push them and glide, but she could also swing on them like a monkey. I honestly can't think of any inanimate object that Hannah has not immediately tried to climb, jump off of, or swing from. (Notice the little girl in the background wearing a helmet. Yeah, that probably would have been a good thing to bring.)

Hannah being Hannah, she decided after about half an hour, "Mommy, I don't need that. I just want to skate." And this is how it went:

Seriously, whose kid is this? I was famously told by my high school basketball coach that he was initially unsure if I'd ever "be able to walk and chew gum at the same time." I saw Hannah land a standing jump-twirl the other day- not quite a 360, but easily a 270. We should start stockpiling gasoline now in anticipation of our four-hour drives to league games. I don't think we're going to be able to redirect her into theater.

Shoes, Glorious Shoes

2011-12-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should be writing about something Christmas-y, but it seems that the children are still children no matter what time of year it is. And today's topic is shoes. Or more precisely, a rabid need to remove them.

When Hannah was about Norah's age, one of her favorite things was to put sunflower seeds out for the birds and squirrels. We had a big bag in the garage and she liked to sprinkle a handful every time we came home. About this time, she also started taking her shoes and socks off every single time we got in the car. As you can imagine, this slows down erranding to something less than a crawl.

And so we told her that, if she took her shoes off, she wouldn't get to put any seeds out. She was talking a lot then, but it's always hard to tell how much a toddler really comprehends. Especially because she kept taking her shoes off. But I kept trying every time: "Hannah, if you take your shoes off, you don't get to do seeds. Leave your shoes on."

Then one day from the back seat, I hear: "No seeds! No seeds, Mama!" As Hannah is gleefully removing her shoes.

Well, we're right there again. Norah has easily-removed winter boots and takes them off like she's getting extra allowance for it. And she thinks it's hilarious. Hannah, of course, is indignant that Norah would take her boots off when "Mom told you to leave them on!"

Norah doesn't talk as much as Hannah, so it's even harder to discern what she really understands (although I know it's a lot more than she lets on). We've been talking and talking to her about leaving her boots on so that her feet will stay warm, etc. To absolutely no results. And it was just about making me crazy. We call Norah The Instigator because she likes nothing better than to do whatever will make someone (usually Hannah) totally insane. And then she laughs.

So one day we arrived home with Bootless Norah. And as I put each boot back on, she kicked it off.
"Norah, it's COLD. Leave your boots ON."
Boot comes flying off.
"Heh, heh, heh." Translation: This is awesome! What's she going to do about it now?

Someone may or may not have gotten plopped in the snow in their socks. And that someone may or may not have been quite sad and cold after about three seconds of Rude Awakening. (No, I didn't leave her there or make her walk in like that. I might have been frustrated, but I'm not mean.)

I can't claim this fixed things- the boots still come off from time to time. But now I hear "Uh oh, uh oh" instead of "Heh, heh, heh." I'll take what I can get.

The other side of the story

2011-12-21T13:25:00.001-07:00

It feels a little bit wrong, less than a week before Christmas, to have my most recent blog be about what a pain in the ass my firstborn can be. So here's a snapshot of our morning, a day-in-the-life of the charming side of Hannah:

We're at Best Buy, picking up a couple last-minute gifts. One of the workers is helping me find a CD, then we turn to go.
"Mommy, are we going home now?" Hannah asks.
"Not yet. First we have to go to the grocery store."
"YAY!! The GROCERY STORE! Today is the BEST DAY EVER! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!"
Honestly, I barely even register this, it's just another track on Hannah FM, the radio station I listen to 12 hours a day. The Best Buy guy absolutely cracks up, though. I think about explaining how the grocery store gives free cookies, hence the excitement, but decide to just let it stand as is.

Later, we're running an errand to the post office. No better place to be five days before Christmas with two small children. Luckily, I threw a couple of M&M snack packs into my pockets and they are agreeable and cheerful. We're waiting in line and Hannah is making friends with the woman behind us, telling her how good the M&Ms smell (? as she is obsessively sniffing them through the paper...), etc.

All of a sudden, she busts out with, "All grown-up mommies have mommy milk."
Oh crap. Luckily, the woman doesn't understand her: "What did she say?"
Hannah looks at her. "ALL mommies have mommy milk," patting me vaguely, luckily close to my belly button.
Somehow, Christmas miracle, the woman still doesn't hear it.
"What?"
"Oh, it's nothing," I say.
"Long story?" she asks, thinking it's some kind of involved toddler rambling about unicorns and rainbows or something.
Oh, if you only knew.
I can tell that Hannah is about to provide some clarifying information, so I redirect. "Hey, Hannah, what was that song you were learning at school for Christmas?"
And Hannah launches into full-volume Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Normally I would not encourage any "hey, see if you can get MORE attention" behavior, but I really didn't feel like having an awkward conversation about breastfeeding with a total stranger. Plus, everyone in line behind us needed something to do besides think about how long they were standing in line.

Then, as we were leaving, Hannah offered up a, "MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!"

Yes, it is.

Where's that line again?

2011-12-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I need to remind myself that Hannah is a joy and delight to nearly everyone she meets. She's never met a stranger and loves to sing and dance and generally embrace the world around her. Unfortunately, she also has certain personality quirks that can make the days quite hard on those of us who spend most of our waking hours with her.

Her newest trick is to follow the letter of what we tell her while gleefully ignoring the spirit. I am still trying to figure out why she enjoys seeing the "Mommy is about 12 seconds from a psychotic break" look in my eyes. I'm not sure how she could count it as a "win" if she ends up locked in the closet for the rest of the week.

Take decorating the tree, a lovely Norman Rockwell moment. Hannah was SO EXCITED to look at all the ornaments, and we were having a great time taking them out of the box and finding space for them on the branches. She kept putting the hooks in her mouth while holding the ornaments, not in a deliberate way, just not really paying attention to what she was doing.

"Hey Hannah, can you take the hook out of your mouth?" I ask, in a casual, friendly, and calm voice. "I don't want you to hurt yourself."
Hannah looks at me, considers, and takes the hook out of her mouth. And puts it, quite deliberately, on her lip.
Here we go. "Can you move it away from your mouth?"
Hook goes on her nose, aimed towards one eye.
"I need you to take the hook off your face," I say, trying to hold onto some sort of composure. "It's pokey and I don't want you to hurt yourself."
She puts it on her forehead.

And another nice family holiday moment:
We're playing in the yard, getting ready for a walk. Hannah found one of the big plastic candy canes that we're using for outside decoration and it's in her mouth.
"Hey Hannah, could you please not suck on that? It's been outside for a long time and I don't think it's very clean."
Hannah switches from sucking to licking.
"Hannah, please take that out of your mouth. It's not clean."
She proceeds to make giant licking motions while holding the candy cane about two centimeters from her tongue.

Thank you, Hannah, for teaching me the Family Version of the "I'm Not Touching You" game.

A Portrait of the Artist as a....

2011-12-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Hannah has been really excited about drawing recently. Sometime around Thanksgiving, she produced this picture. It is not, as you might initially assume, a frog wearing a Rapunzel wig. It is Hannah. As far as I know, this is her first self-portrait. I love that it has eyebrows. And that she signed her "name" in the corner.

I should also mention that those scribbles which look like a Hitler mustache and a soul patch are actually her lips (no, I don't know why the don't extend the length of her mouth. Maybe she's an Impressionist.) But the best part of this whole endeavor was this:

"What are those two big circles below your eyes, Hannah?"
"Those are my snotters, Mommy."
Oh, your nose?"
"No, my snotters."
"Ok. You know, they're not called snotters. They're . . ." And here I completely blanked on the word 'nostril.' I was just sitting there thinking, Ok, these have to have a name. Why can't I think of what they're called? Maybe they don't have a name. Maybe it's just all the nose. It must have been six hours before the word 'nostril' popped into my head.

'Snotters' is both delightfully descriptive and a lot easier to remember. Maybe we'll just go with it.

The 12 Blogs of Christmas

2011-12-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's a goal. We'll see.

On the First Day of Christmas, I very nearly ruined the entire holiday season for Hannah.

"Time for bed, Hannah. Grab your blankie."
"I can't find it."
"Well, keep looking."

Ten minutes later, still no blankie. Not in the car, not under a chair, not in the playroom. Gone. I had a sinking feeling that I'd dropped it between the gym and the car. And an even sinking-er feeling that someone could have easily mistaken a once-pink-now-gray, once-soft-now-tattered, blanket lying in the parking lot for a used janitorial rag and tossed it in the nearest trash can.

I cannot overemphasize how catastrophic the loss of Blankie would be. Blankie goes everywhere. Blankie's defining characteristic is the "special corner," where some of the once-satin trim came loose in a long piece that is perfect for holding and stroking. Sadly, the special corner's days are numbered, as microscopic bits of trim keep coming loose. Hannah is adamant that we sew them back on. Back on to what, I'm not sure, but I'm holding onto them anyway.

Back to the search. Before I raced out to search the gym parking lot and/or trash cans, we decided Hannah should get in bed. Breaking the news that Blankie was nowhere to be found was terrible- sobs and sobs and sobs. I got her in bed only with some fast talking about the quicker we did the bedtime routine, the sooner I could go find Blankie.

I pulled out all the parenting stops:
"Here, Hannah, let's cuddle up in these two blankets. Grams made this one and Grandma made this one, so you're wrapped up in lots and lots of love."

That seemed to go ok.

"Look, Hannah, Grams's blanket has soft ribbon on it, kind of like the trim on your blanket. [Or what the trim looked like about two years ago before it disintegrated.]"

Hannah reaches for the ribbon and suddenly pulls her hand back like it's burning her. I don't think Blankie will know if you take comfort from other satin. Are you worried your disloyalty will be punished?

I head out. No Blankie in the parking lot. No Blankie in the trash, although the can appeared to have been recently emptied. Yikes. I ask Nick to look around where the car was parked again while I get someone to open the gym day care door. Then the best call of Christmas:

"I found Blankie. It was in the snow on your side of the car."

Our street is really dark and Blankie is the color of dirty snow, but I have no idea how I walked right by it.Whatever. Disaster averted.

Nick took Blankie to Hannah's room for the joyful reunion. It went like this:

"Here's your Blankie, Hannah!"
"I can't see it. Is it MINE?" [Translation: You aren't trying to pacify me with an unacceptable imitation Blankie, are you?]
"Yep, it's yours. I found it in the snow."
"Where's my special corner?" [I'm still not sure whether to believe you. Prove it.]

Food, glorious food...

2011-11-22T20:49:00.001-07:00

Hannah. This is dinner tonight. You need to eat it.

Hannah stares at her chicken potstickers as though they had feathers and feet sticking out. She had already prejudged the grilled shrimp, even accompanied by the ever-faithful puddle of ranch dressing, with the Picky Toddler Anthem: "I don't like that."

Ok, no shrimp. Just eat two potstickers. You had two fishsticks and a segment of grapefruit for lunch. Half a string cheese for snack. You have to be hungry.

Turns out a three-year-old doesn't have to be anything she doesn't want to be. Hannah and her potstickers proceeded to share a delightful evening together, spending an hour and a half at the dinner table. The rest of the family ate, had dessert, did the dishes, and generally moved on with our lives. Hannah took a micro-bite every ten minutes, finishing just as her final ten-minute warning expired and dinnertime turned into pajama time.

Good grief. Like many parenting challenges, you have to have a picky eater to understand what the big deal is. If we just had Norah, we would have no idea what all the whining is about: you just give your kid food and they eat it. They stop when they're full, right? Ha ha ha.

I should mention, in Hannah's defense, that her food stubbornness may be a genetic trait. My darling husband once spent three hours (at least as he remembers it) at the table in front of a glass of milk that he refused to drink when it was no longer ice cold. I'm guessing it didn't get any colder while he sat there.

But back to our good eater. Since she started on solid food, Norah has clearly preferred whatever is on my plate over baby food/peanut butter/hot dogs. She consistently eats more food than Hannah and actually seems to view mealtime as a delight, not a variation on Chinese water torture.

Sadly, things have slowly been changing over the past few days. There have been attempts to fling bowls full of yogurt onto the floor. Chicken and mashed potatoes are rejected as sustenance but employed as art supplies for a highchair mural. Yesterday she screamed at her offensive Mini-Wheats for ten minutes before remembering that she had actually asked for them for breakfast.

Last night I got solid proof that those two little monkeys are working together. Hannah sat down at the table and happily ate half a veggie burger, half a banana and a bowl of applesauce. (Yes, some ranch dressing may have been present.) Ten minutes after she sat down, she was ready to move onto her cupcake.

Norah ate all her applesauce...and half a bite of veggie burger. Then indicated that she would like dessert. I KNOW she understands, "Eat dinner. Then you can have a cupcake. Eat your burger first." But instead, the little turkey would say, "Ah duh [all done]" until I clicked open her high chair straps. Then screaming and, "Dee! Dee! Dee! [Dessert!]" Followed by a fake-out bite and complete burger refusal. What a charming game.

Oh, and did I mention that one of my good friends has little boys who will gladly eat raw cauliflower for their afternoon snack? If you'll excuse me, I have to go bang my head against the refrigerator.

Da dum....da dum.... SHARK ATTACK!

2011-11-20T20:50:00.001-07:00

Norah has a big red circle mark that will most likely turn into a bruise. Because Hannah bit her. On the face. In the church nursery.

And Norah's egregious sin, according to the nursery ladies? Following Hannah under the crib. Because Hannah asked her to come play house. Yes, that's what we do at our home. Sometimes I just get so hungry that I have to gnaw on whoever is standing closest to me.

The funny/sad part of this was Norah. After she stopped wailing, she looked at me, pointed to her face, and said, "Bie." [Somebody BIT me!] All the way up the stairs to coffee hour: "Bie. Bie. Bie." [Mom, did you know that Hannah bit me ON THE FACE?]

She sat down at the kiddie table with her cookie, but every time someone mentioned the words "nursery" or "Hannah," [As in: "Where's Hannah?" "Oh, she's in permanent time out for trying to eat her sister while they were in the nursery,"] Norah would gesture vaguely toward her head and say, "Bie." I think after the cookie she sort of forgot exactly where she was bitten, but she sure hadn't forgotten that she had been wronged.

And Hannah? No real remorse about the teeth marks, but giant world-ending sobs when she found out she wasn't going to have a cookie today. Her reckoning will come someday, probably soon, when she discovers just how bad of an idea it was to give Norah a tutorial on biting.

Halloween

2011-11-09T15:12:00.001-07:00

6:30 a.m.

Mommy, can I sniff my candy?
No, Hannah, we're not getting the candy out until after lunch.
But I just want to smell it.

Ahh, Halloween candy, the bane of early November. In addition to requesting to "eat one piece," "eat just one more piece," and "Mommy, can I share one more piece with you?" Hannah has come up with two other ways to spend quality time with her individually-packaged sugar delights: sticking her nose in the bucket for a quick olfactory fix and "playing Memory" with it, which means arranging the candy by size and shape and generally fondling it while drooling slightly.

The more parents I talk to, the more I realize that the constant candy begging is a universal issue. Everyone has their own solution. Some kids get two days to eat it and the rest goes away. (I am pretty sure Hannah would eat every single piece if given a 48-hour window.) A friend whose dad is a dentist said they always got to pick 10 pieces to keep. Some people just take the candy away completely.

As much as I hate the constant candy power struggle, I can't justify taking it all away. True, we did sit down on Halloween night and skim as much out of her bucket as we thought we could get away with. Which led to, "Mommy, I can't find that green candy. You know, the one that smelled like lemon," but a little sympathetic ignorance on my part got us past that.

The bottom line is, she worked hard for that candy. Living here in South Canada, Halloween is cold and dark. The sun set at 5:20, so the sky was already fading as we headed out the door. Hannah spent an hour and a half running the streets (not so much Trick-or-Treating, more Candy Dashing) in pink wings and uncomfortable sparkly pink shoes to collect her loot. Taking it away after a day or two would be like living in Denmark: paying out 70 percent of your earnings in taxes. And she's not going to get a Snickers pension in her old age.

And she did a really good job trick-or-treating. Remembering last year, when she would occasionally substitute "I want a SUCKAH!" for "Trick-or-Treat," we did a little pre-Halloween manners practice:

Hannah, what do you say when someone gives you candy?
THANK YOU!!!
What do you say if someone gives you a box of raisins?
[Pause.] Thank you?
What do you say if someone gives Will a sucker [still the hot-ticket item] and you a box of raisins?
[Silence.]
You still say thank you. Just say thank you and move to the next house. You can always give raisins and the candy you don't like to Mommy and Daddy.

She said thank you, she waited her turn, and she didn't run into the street. Really, it was everything we could expect in a Halloween. She was even a good sport when everyone but her got too tired to keep going. I just can't justify taking away the candy, even though it's a little obnoxious to deal with. But I do have a brilliant idea for next year. The Candy Fairy. When they're ready, the girls will leave their candy out and the Fairy brings them a present. Six jolly ranchers and two Laffy Taffy will get you a new toothbrush, but a pile of Butterfingers and Reeses might just yield a My Little Pony. I'm hoping sibling rivalry will improve the level of giving. No one wants to play with their new can of crushed pineapple while their sister is enjoying a Rapunzel Barbie, right?

Here are some shots from our evening. First, I told Hannah that we could paint her face to go with her fairy costume. This seemed like a good idea to make a pink turtleneck, tutu and wings look like an actual costume. The deal was that she got to paint my face first. I am a cat, apparently. I got halfway through an adorable pink-and-purple fairy detailing and she announced that she wanted it off. Of course.

Hannah and her buddy Will, also known as Thing One. His baby brother was Thing Two. Yes, it would have been nice to have a picture of all four kids. It also would have been nice if unicorns slid down a rainbow and offered to fly the kids from house to house.

Norah, ready to go. Since Hannah was a fairy, Norah was a gnome. Or maybe she was The World's Cutest Gnome. I'm not sure. She got the hang of trick-or-treating VERY quickly. No, she can't say trick-or-treat, but she can hold out that candy bucket and smile! And she offers an adorable "Dah-duh" that sounds a bit like "thank you."

At the neighbors.

Hannah on the move. We went to one house where some of the young guys who volunteer at her school were handing out candy. When I came up with Norah, one of them said, "Where's Hannah?" She had dashed up and away so quickly they hadn't had time to recognize her.

Hmmm, what do I have that I can eat now?

And my favorite, from a Trunk-or-Treat the Saturday before. This about sums it up.

Just Plain Scary

2011-10-31T22:06:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago, Nick and the girls were Skyping with their Aunt Staci. She was having some sort of Internet connection issues that were distorting her voice, like playing a record (if you can remember such things) at the wrong speed.

So Nick says, "Hey Staci, have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs? Remember the guy who kidnapped the women and kept them in the well and lowered the bucket down to them? Can you say, 'Put the lotion in the basket?'"

She says it, all low and slow and scary. And probably because Nick started laughing, Hannah thought it was hilarious. And we added a little positive reinforcement when Nick asked Hannah to tell Mommy what Aunt Staci said, then laughing hilariously at her croaky "Put the soap in the basket." (Soap, lotion, whatever. You find it in the bathroom and put it on your skin.)

Anyway, fast-forward to last night's bedtime. Hannah is coming down with a nasty cold and after her normal 18-hour day as a human radio, her voice is starting to fade. We're lying in bed, saying her prayer. She prays (Thank you God for my birthday party, all my toys and my yummy yummy candy) then as I am praying, "Thank you for our nice warm house-

"Mommy. My voice is starting to sound funny."

"Yep, Hannah it's pretty scratchy. Thank you, God, for our good food to eat, and for our wonderful-

"PUT the SOAP in the BASKET."

Sorry, God. We're working on appropriateness. I had been thinking we should talk about being grateful for something besides dessert, but maybe eliminating Hannibal Lecter references should be our first priority.

Cranky old mommy

2011-10-10T21:14:00.003-06:00

I remember beingpregnant with Hannah and telling a woman who was due around thesame time that I was “so excited. I can hardly wait to my due date so I canmeet her!” I really felt like Christmas was coming.

I just couldn’tunderstand why she looked at me, not even trying to return my beaming smile, and said, “Letme guess. First baby? This one is my third. I can wait.”

I don't know how she could say that. When I look at my two darling sweethearts, my shining little princesses, I'm just blinded by the shining light of angelic. . . wait, I'm sorry, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. I get it now. Hannah and Norah are grinding me down into a sarcastic, jaded nub of a mother. I see Facebook posts from friends who are new moms, talking about how they're "so in love with this little person," or "I just spend hours and hours looking at her," and the first thing that pops into my head is, "Blah blah blah. Give it a year or two, you'll see. Pretty soon that 'sleeping angel' will slap you across the cheek and then laugh in your face. They don't seem so cherubic when you're telling them for the fiftieth time that they cannot throw rocks straight into the air when they're in the middle of a group of kids."

I try not to be that person, the all-knowing mom who loves to say, "Oh, you think having a one-year-old is hard? Just wait until she turns three! It gets a lot worse." But damn, it does. I mean, it gets better, too- Hannah has a real personality and the ability to be funny, kind, and wonderful- but for every Jekyll moment (he was the good one), there's a Hyde.

In September, I was talking to a mom of 19-month-old twins and she made a comment about thinking she was at the hardest part right then. Oh honey. I have to say that I can't speak to the twins experience, but in my life, the more words and arguing abilities Hannah develops, the more I have to fight the urge to put her on the back porch and lock the door.

To cap it off, I keep meeting moms who have some variation on this story: Four kids, all two years apart. Mom is dressed- including hair done, makeup and jewelry- and beams with love for her big, happy family. Oh, and she also homeschools, does all her own canning, and reads to the blind on weekends. Meanwhile, I am sweating through my t-shirt with the effort it took to get my two kids out the door, I may have makeup on one eye but probably not both, and I cannot wait for Wednesday because it means Hannah goes to school for the next three mornings. I am never sure whether I should be in awe of these women or asking them where they score their speed. All I know is that the idea of four kids makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry. I'm sure some day, when they're all able to go to the bathroom unassisted and don't require my complete undivided attention for 14 out of every 15 minutes, a big family could be lots of fun. I just don't think I have it in me to get there from here. Don't be surprised if you see me sitting in the corner at a baby shower like Kevin Kline's jaded Frenchman in French Kiss, "When people tell me zey are 'appy, my azz beegins to tweech."

Long before we met Hannah, Nick talked me into the idea of a three-kid family. And he's been spending the better part of the last three years trying to backtrack on all his arguments. I sometimes look at Norah and calculate how pregnant I was when Hannah was that age, then try to recover from the panic attack at the thought of actually being that pregnant right now. We haven't decided anything either way. Nick is a little terrified of the roiling emotional storms he'd have to weather in a house with three girls and a wife. I'm trying to figure out what I would do when I had to corral three kids with two arms. The one thing we keep agreeing on: Not Yet.

These. . .

2011-10-09T21:03:00.002-06:00

This is probably along the lines of all my poop stories as far as "mildly uncomfortable for people who don't have small children but hilarious for those of us who do."

Hannah is fascinated with breasts. And not the chicken variety. Obviously this started when Norah was born- we have lots of pictures of her wearing my nursing cover and "feeding" her baby- but we've had a steady parade of breastfeeding friends to keep up her interest.

The first tricky thing is that we don't quite know what to have her call them. I know that body parts have a name- a nose is a nose, etc. - but it's a little awkward to have a very loud, chatty three-year-old running around talking about everyone's BREASTS. And "boobs" just isn't right, either, for much the same reason. I had one friend say, completely joking thank goodness, "Just tell her the truth. They're Tits."

So our lack of decision has ended up with Hannah referring to them as These. As in, You have These. Yours are A LOT bigger than my mommy's. Or, patting my mom on the chest, You have These! Do you feed babies? My mom's very perfect answer: Not anymore.

My favorite was her introduction to Barbies last week, thanks to having a six-year-old neighbor. After nearly exploding with excitement over their fabulous outfits, she looked at them in confusion.

Mommy, why do they have These? They don't have a baby.
My answer: Oh, they probably will soon.
What I wanted to say: Hannah, Barbie has These because she values style over substance and beauty over personality. She clearly paid someone to install them because you will never see These like those in nature. Now let's put Barbie down and go play with your doctor kit.

As far as she is concerned, boobs are only for feeding babies. If you have them, then you can feed babies. We were watching a friend's nine-month-old who started to get a little fussy.
Mommy, I think he wants some milk.
You might be right. But we can't give him milk like yours. He's too little. He can't have cow's milk, just Mommy Milk.
But you have These, so you can feed him!

I love the way her mind "figures" things out. She pulled down the front of her shirt the other day and said, pointing to her chest, Mommy, is this where my baby milk is going to grow?
Yep, when you're bigger.
So I'll have These. And I'll get my different nipples [I haven't been able to get an explanation of how that happens but clearly some kind of exchange takes place], and I'll be able to feed my baby!

Yes. There's nothing like being a 24/7 human milking machine. It's pretty much a dream come true.

Gelatopia

2011-10-07T20:04:00.000-06:00

During our trip, we had a no-holds-barred policy on gelato. If we wanted it, we ate it. Of course Hannah had to be Hannah. Even though she loved gelato- oddly enough, her favorite flavor was cassata, which is basically vanilla with chunks of candied fruit that she thought tasted like gummy bears but were more reminiscent of fruitcake- she suddenly decided that she no longer wanted ice cream. She wanted popsicles.

Since it was her vacation too, I decided to indulge her whim instead of convincing her that ice cream is vastly superior to popsicles. So we went on a hunt.

Unfortunately, I didn't know the word for popsicle. And for some reason my travel dictionary didn't think it was one of the top 15,000 "need to know" Italian words. After a little fruitless wandering, I popped my head into a clothing store where two friendly-looking guys didn't seem too busy. My broken Italian charades went something like this:

Good day sirs. I am searching a thing for my daughter, I don't know the word. It is very, very cold [because I also don't know the word for frozen] and is like this [mimic licking something on a stick].

Ice cream?

No, it is not ice cream but it is like ice cream. Very, very cold.

Doesn't she like ice cream?

Yes, she likes the ice creams but...she is a small child and now she wants the other thing.

We don't eat much of that.

There was a store at the train station...

Yes, at the train station, but it's hard to find here.

Is there a supermarket in the near here?

Yes, you can try that.

So off we go. And the grocery store (hard to call it a supermarket because the whole store was the square footage of one aisle in the U.S.) had some popsicles. But what did Hannah pick? A pink tub of Hello Kitty-branded ice cream bites, coated in pink candy shells. Naturally.

Imaginary friend, Hannah style

2011-10-06T09:47:00.003-06:00

Hannah has an imaginary friend. It goes everywhere with her. She is very proud of it and can't wait to tell new people about it. Is it a little girl? A teddy bear? Dora the Explorer? Something adorable, right?

Nope. It's a pregnancy. Or, as she puts it, "the baby in my tummy." I was so thankful for the language barrier in Italy. For almost two straight weeks, Hannah could run up to a perfect stranger, announce gleefully that "I have a baby in my tummy!" and be met with a beaming smile and a blank stare.

For those strangers who speak English, this announcement seems almost as uncomfortable as if she were running around saying, "My mommy has something called herpes!" Unless they're in the pregnancy/baby phase of life themselves, just freeze up. Or they size up my belly. (NO would be the answer to that question.)

People who can roll with the punches usually ask what the baby's name is. And this is where it becomes clear that Hannah has a strong desire for attention but not any actual maternal instincts. "It's name is Nothing" or "It's called Not Anything" are the two responses. I'm sure if she had been a little older, she would have been campaigning for those names when I was pregnant with Norah.

We've been told that the baby in her tummy is hungry, that it's a little bit sick, and asked if we want to feel it. She talks a lot about when the baby comes out. Thankfully, she says she'll have her own house for the baby. Although she's not that concerned about the involvement of a father figure.

The other day I could tell she was roaming around her room when she should have been napping. Going up to investigate, I found her pacing.

Hannah. What are you doing? You're supposed to be asleep.
Mommy, the baby is getting ready to come out of my tummy!

Ok, I guess you don't have to try to nap if you're in labor.

An actual person

2011-10-02T20:56:00.000-06:00

It has recently occurred to me that Norah is fast becoming an actual person. Before we get into some kind of "life begins at conception" kind of debate about when a baby becomes a baby, let me clarify what I mean. Obviously she's been a human for a while. I would not spend that much quality time with poopy diapers for any other species. But she's turning the corner to being a functioning part of our family. And by that I mean: two-way communication.

There's something amazing for me in the first time one of my children expresses their thoughts in a way I can understand. It's like a light comes on: Oh, there's actually something going on inside that giant head of yours. You're growing into one of us. You're not just going to be a lumpy bag of needs forever.

Now neither of the girls got there right away. Norah's first word was Hi. Hannah's: Woof. Cute, yes. Helpful...not so much. But in July (yes, I've been meaning to blog this for awhile), Norah busted out my favorite sign: More. As in: Do you want more yogurt or are you all done? Since food is one of her three needs (the answer to your question: pooping and sleeping), being able to ask her about fullness instead of guessing is incredibly helpful in my day. Before "more" I was often either wasting hot dogs and mini wheats- wait, my kids don't eat that crap, I meant broccoli and free-range bison burgers- or provoking an insane rage by removing her tray too soon.

Here is More in all its glory on a camping trip:

Since then, she's added some actual words, like bye, night-night, mo' [more], hot [always spoken in an urgent whisper], bah [ball], buh [bird], baa-aah [I want to play Peekaboo Barn on Mommy's phone], and a garbled barnyard of animal sounds.

We also have signs for please, all done (and the words: ah duhhh), shhh, sleep, can I hold Grandma's new barn kitties (I'll try to get video of that one, it's a very specific sign), and those kittens are tiny tiny (also very distinct).

I'm wary of getting too excited about the talking because our other child is a human radio. We spend most of our day asking Hannah to please talk a little less. The last time she crawled in bed with me [only an option when she tries to get up at five and Nick is on call or out of town] she literally went from completely unconscious directly to, "Mommy, I'm awake! Are you awake? Can we get out of bed? I went back to sleep! Now the sun is up and it's light. I want to go downstairs, have some milk and a vitamin and watch a movie. Then I want to ride my pedal bike to the park, but not the park at the school, the far park with the fast slide."

This whole communication thing is a double-edged sword. Especially before that first cup of coffee.

Ciao, Roma

2011-09-22T14:40:00.001-06:00

"So, would you do it again?"

That seems to be the prevailing question about our Italy trip. Especially in light of my retelling of our terrible trip home: 25 hours door-to-door, Hannah sleeping for maybe three of those hours, barely making our Boston connection thanks to the immigration/customs/bag re-check/security re-screen gauntlet, then arriving in Spokane at 10:30 p.m. only to have both children get up around two a.m. to start their day. And repeat the next night. It has taken us a full week to recover from the trip home.

One of Nick's friends had commented that he wanted to buy a ticket just to sit behind us and watch us "enjoy" our vacation. There certainly would have been some good moments, such as when Norah nearly tipped an entire table of drinks and appetizers into my lap because she was tired of sitting in the high chair, or when Hannah decided to do her best impression of a strong-willed limp fish on the steps of St. Peter's and I thought, "Jesus said, Let the little children come unto me. And, although I am pretty sure this is not what he meant, I am tempted to send you to your maker right now."

So yes, we had our moments. But we had far more good times. It turns out each of our children needs only one thing to be happy. For Norah, it's chasing pigeons across a piazza. Kind of like watching Wile E. Coyote chase the Roadrunner; she always seemed surprised that they got away again. For Hannah, it's a street musician. The minute we'd hear the first notes of a live accordion we'd also hear, "I want to get out and DANCE!" coming from the stroller. And dance she did...as only Hannah can. We'd always have her put a few coins in the hat, a small apology to the musician for distracting from his art with her ridiculousness. Well, on one of our last nights in Rome, Hannah put on a show for us in the apartment- some combination of singing, dancing and "magic"- and then came around with her own hat, hitting up Nick and Norah for change. She learns fast.

She also learned about street vendors. Evening in Rome is packed with aggressive salesmen, pushing either roses or a variety of cheap, obnoxious toys. For some odd reason, the flower sellers didn't seem to think we were worth their time, but the toy pushers loved us. Nick taught Hannah that she should just say, "No, grazie" when they came up. First try: man with light-up bubble machine. Hannah waving her hand and saying, "YES, grazie!" I have to admit, it did look like a pretty cool toy. Even when she finally got the hang of it, she would sit at our outdoor dinner tables and make eye contact with every vendor that walked by, waving her hand in a vaguely no thank you...or do I mean hello, come over here way while murmuring, "no, grazie" very seriously.

Although they didn't get to indulge in any impulse shopping, Italy was pretty good to the kids. And they found out what celebrities feel like, as they will be playing starring roles in the vacation photo albums of several dozen Asian tourists. At the Colosseum, Vatican and Piazza Navona, Hannah and Norah were bigger attractions than the ruins. Why tourists would want pictures of other tourists I cannot say, but they would gather around and take pictures of and with (limited success there; even Hannah the Ham found it a little too strange for comfort) the little blonde girls.

So was this a crazy idea? Absolutely. Would we have had a more relaxing time without the kids? You bet. But we probably would have packed our itinerary with cities, ruins and churches. (Don't tell the culture police, but on our twelve-day trip, I set foot in two cities, two churches and zero museums.) There was an older couple getting off the plane in Rome with us who were going to be in Italy for about the same length of time, but were visiting four or five cities. When I told her our plans, she said, a little wistfully, "Wow, all that time in Rome...how nice." And it was. We didn't always have fancy or lengthy dinners, but we took the time to stop in the park and watch a silly puppet show. We discovered that Castel Sant'Angelo has a playground on its grounds. And that piazzas are a great place to make friends who might let you borrow their trike.

Would we do it again? Yes. I know the girls are going to be irritated that we took them to Italy when they were too young to hang onto the memories, but we will always remember Norah pointing at the gelateria and yelling "Aaaah! Aaaah! Aaaah!" [Translation: Ice cream now, please!] and Hannah, desperate to make friends, suddenly switching from Hi! Hi! Hi! to Ciao! Mi chiamo Hannah!

We went to Italy just to go. We went knowing that we would be spending much of our time doing the same frustrating parenting that we'd be doing at home. But we'd do it with a cappuccino in hand, a Bernini statue in the background, and the promise of a prosciutto-based appetizer in the near future. And we did. And it was wonderful.

MomGyver

2011-09-10T14:56:00.001-06:00

"Do you want to get the stroller out here or let the kids be loose until we get in the cab?" I as Nick as we're waiting at baggage claim after 18 lovely hours of travel from Spokane to Rome. "Lock them down," he says without a second of hesitation.We are exhausted. The kids are completely cracked, only partially controllable because the Rome airport has a small (and filthy) play area next to the baggage carousel. So I set about unpacking the stroller, which has an awesome padded travel bag. The only thing is that the perfect fit of the bag requires a bit of stroller deconstruction. The three small bike tires come off and, to make it zip well, I have to pop the axles out of the stroller. Dirty but not terribly difficult.I open the bag and find, unsurprisingly, a search notice from the Spokane TSA. I can only imagine what all that oddly-shaped metal looks like in an x-ray. I start pulling things out. Front wheel on, one rear wheel together, and . . . where is the other axle? Ok, it has to be here, I'm just too tired to see it. Bag emptied. Contents frantically reexamined. Nope. Nothing. I drop one of maybe three f-bombs I've said aloud in the past five years. (I am not required to claim the ones I may or may have not said in my head at the children from time to time.) "Nick, we are totally f----d. There's no axle."Really, it would have been better for one of us to lose our wallet. It's 88 degrees outside with 90 percent humidity and the only way we can go anywhere is for me to strap Norah to my back. And that leaves Nick with Hannah, who is extremely fast, impulsive, and selectively (like any request to do something contrary to her own desires) deaf. Hoping against hope that our fancy New Zealand-based double stroller is also sold in Italy, the motherland of well-designed objects, I hop on the Internet as soon as we get checked in. Good news: there are three stores in Rome that carry the Phil and Teds brand. Bad news: they're spread across the far-flung suburbs. Also, the Phil and Teds brand includes everything from high chairs to travel cribs and even stores selling strollers seem unlikely to have an extra axle on hand. Clearly this is going to require some phone recon, since I can't just pop down the street to the store. Now my Italian is decent, definitely enough to order dinner or chat about the weather (I even got into a discussion on how Americans currently feel about Obama with the nice man renting us our apartment), but let's just say "stroller wheel" and "missing axle" weren't part of the vocab I looked over before the trip. Plus, it is much, much harder to communicate over the phone. Especially when you're talking to people who do 70 percent of their communicating with their hands and facial expressions. So I spent a lot of time pondering my strategy, since we arrived on Sunday morning and everything was closed. Before falling asleep at naptime I practiced my sentences. I figured I'd end up spending all day Monday on this damn errand. When I wasn't practicing "asse di passegino" I was silently cursing the TSA and their asinine carelessness. Then, at the end of the day, it hit me. I wanted to dance. Except we were in the Villa Borghese gardens and I was wearing Norah. She's too heavy and I was too sweaty."hey, I don't think we need a real axle! Wouldn't it work to get a big nut and bolt? I know it won't be perfect, but it should work for the trip!""I don't think so," says the man who is not going to have to figure out how to navigate complicated phone conversations and the Roman bus system and who must be really tired if he's shooting down my brilliant idea a heartbeat after it comes out of my mouth. "Aren't there ball bearings in there to make it spin right? I dont think it will roll right with just a bolt." As soon as we got back, I beelined for the remaining axle. No ball bearings. I checked the spot where the axle would go (I don't even know what that's called in English). Seemed like it would work. I didn't let the continuing lack of enthusiasm from my husband slow me down. Another idea we'd thrown out was a bike store and I saw a bike rental place on the piazza. So bright and early on Monday, Hannah and I trekked down, axle in hand. I explained the problem to the old man renting bikes and asked if he knew where a hardware store was. I was feeling like my Italian skills were all in my head because he didn't seem to get it at all. I used the dictionary word for stroll, passegino, but he kept asking me if it was a bicycle. He told me to bring the stroller to him and he'd look. I didn't have the patience, or the vocal, to explain that I was not carrying a 30-pound stroller down 80 steps and then up four blocks just so he could look at it and tell me to go to a hardware store. We smiled, grazie mille, and headed off. Turned out the hardware store was not three blocks from the apartment. I explained the situation and what I wanted and they understood perfectly. Maybe the bike guy wasnt actually Italian. I got a big bolt and three nuts (for when the first nut inevitably comes loose and rolls down a Roman sewer drain) and we were on our way. But not before Mrs. Hardware Store cooed over Hannah and wished me "auguri" (congratulations) for having such a beautiful little blonde girl. Totally what happens when I go to Home Depot, too.Back up 80 steps and . . . success! I wanted to cry. I was so relieved. I literally danced around the apartment. TSA, you can make that replacement axle check out to MomGyver.** **thanks to AJ for the nickname! I love it. Even if my darling husband renamed me MomGeeker when he thought I was getting a little too excited about my accomplishment.

Siamo un po' pazzi...maybe more than a little crazy

2011-09-07T07:59:00.001-06:00

We are in Italy. Sounds like a dream, right? Oh, did I mention that we brought the kids with us? Yeah, that changes things a bit. It's not going badly. But it's still no romantic getaway with that guy I used to spend time with. Surprisingly, Hannah and Norah are still Hannah and Norah. Not showing a bit of interest in churches, museums or white tablecloth restaurants, they still just want to go to playgrounds, run screaming through piazzas (or anywhere, really, which is why we're not frequenting churches or museums), and do their best to devil each other and their parents. Hannah just wants to jump off stuff. Norah just wants to follow Hannah off each daredevil cliff.I will say my stress level has gone down quite a bit after surviving the most-dreaded part of the trip: the journey here. Two domestic plane flights then the big transatlantic hop, arriving in Rome when the Italians were redy for breakfast and our bodies were telling us it was midnight. Part of the reason we decided to come now (although I'm not sure how any form of the word "reasonable" applies to this crazy trip) was that Norah is still a free flier. Or almost free. After we bought our tickets, we found out that there's a fee for babies on international flights. To "pay the taxes," whatever that means. Fortunately it was only a small fraction of the cost of an actual seat. Unfortunately, not buying a seat meant that we (meaning me, for Norah has decided Nick is a second-class parent only suitable for emergency use) got to hold/wear her for 18 hours of travel. And let me tell you, the next-closest thing to flying with a 16-month-old would be traveling with a baby orangutan in a diaper. Interested in everything, satisfied with nothing, no social skills, extreme stubbornness, freakishly strong. Seems to understand everything, but only speaks in a smattering of sign language and grunts. In short: adorable, but not quite human. Not the kind of thing you'd bring on vacation. Which is why we refer to this as "the adventure" or "our trip" or, when one of the kids decides to see what's happening in the world at 3 a.m., "what the hell were we thinking, Disneyland would have been a lot cheaper." The V word, especially if mentioned as we're passing a beautiful restaurant where well-dressed Romans are enjoying vino and the evening air, en route to our pizza picnic in a piazza where our chaos will go unnoticed, might just make us both cry. But back to the plane. The first two flights went well, kids napped between Salt Lake and Boston and Hannah told everyone who would listen that she was a going to ITALY to see a PINK FAIRY CASTLE (I am not quite sure what my darling husband said that led to this interpretation, but am interested to see how he delivers on that one). Then the dreaded Boston to Rome leg. I honestly had visions of us boarding, eating dinner, giving the girls a little benadryl, and seeing them five hours later when breakfast was served. I don't know how I can still be so delusional after three years of full-time parenting. Hannah was super excited that we were going to make her a bed on the floor (and we were super excited about the Italian talent for looking past rule breaking in the face of common sense. All the flight attendants knew there were four of us, we'd had some seat assignment issues that required assistance, but no one seemed to see that the loudest of our group had suddenly vanished from sight and her seat had been taken by the lap rider). So we put Hannah to bed and make everyone around us suffer through the misery of the scream-to-sleep routine required to knock Norah out. Feeling pretty good and allowing myself visions of a few delicious hours of sleep for myself, I immediately feel the telltale creeper hand playing with my jeans hem. After a few rounds of Twinkle, Twinkle whispered under the tray table and, "I love you too, now GO TO SLEEP," it's clear this kid has no intention of easing herself into Italian time with a nice long nap. Since we can't make her sleep, we console ourselves by making her stay in the underseat cave. And she predictably falls into a deep sleep about an hour before we land. Norah four hours, Hannah one, parents scraped out maybe a combined 20 minutes. Vay-cay-tion, here we come.

Launching the fleet

2011-08-25T20:43:00.000-06:00

We were meeting a friend who has an almost-three-year-old and a brand-new (like less than seven pounds) baby. As you can imagine, she was twenty minutes late. (Which, if you adjust for that handicap, is actually fifteen minutes early.)

Anyway, she said, still somewhat stunned, "Man, leaving the house is like launching Normandy."

I would agree with that. Except I would imagine that when the Allied generals said, "Men, GO!" the men went. The generals probably did not have to ensure that everyone had gone to the bathroom, had full canteens of water, a snack just in case, and their comfort item of choice. They probably also did not have to bargain, cajole, threaten or physically carry the men into the boats. Or promise them a trip to the playground/bag of fruit snacks once they broke through the German line.

I mean, leaving the house is just a completely ridiculous undertaking. I can see why some moms aren't seen from their newborn's birth until the kid goes to kindergarten. Every little task- from mailing a letter to going to buy milk- is weighed against the toll that it will take to accomplish. Sometimes I just accumulate a giant pile of crap at the bottom of the stairs over the course of a day because I am not willing to face the meltdown that occurs if I run upstairs alone, or the 10-minute processional required to take both children up 15 stairs with me. This is why my diapers arrive on my doorstep from Amazon. Because I can make do without just about anything (yes, I've used powdered milk, foul as it is, to make a latte instead of going to the grocery) but I have not figured out a substitute for diapers. Although to be perfectly honest, I have reused an only-slightly-dirty diaper on at least two occasions, but those were extreme circumstances and probably not something I should record the details of for posterity.

This topic comes to mind because we had nothing planned this morning so I thought I'd take a bike ride. I know this is sometimes a terrible idea. But the girls have been doing reasonably well in the trailer and I really needed some exercise. They were both dressed and fed by 8, so I figured we could accomplish a ride in our morning. I really did not expect it to be the only thing we accomplished, but there you go.

I started getting ready at 8:30. Actually, I was already ready: shorts and shoes on. I could have been down the road at 8:35. Instead, at 8:35, I was rinsing the morning milk out of sippy cups and refilling. Then locating snacks (two of the same granola bar to prevent fighting), lovey/special blanket, hats, sunglasses, toys.

Hannah, what do you want to take in the bike?
Just this [book], my Dora necklace and bracelet. Mommy, WHERE'S MY NECKLACE AND BRACELET?
Ten minutes later, after shrieking and tears, bracelet and necklace located where small child left them. More shrieking and tears because smaller child got to them first and refused to relinquish them.

Hannah, you can't wear your princess dress in the bike trailer.
Whyyyyyy?
It's too big. Hoop skirts were not designed with child restraint harnesses in mind.
Hannah, where are your shoes?
I don't know, Mommy.
Can you go look for them?
I've looked everywhere. Meaning nowhere.

Norah, come put your shoes on! Norah runs away as fast as she can.

We make it to the garage. Hannah tries to climb in the trailer while I am backing the bike out. Norah heads for the power tools and antifreeze.

Two kids loaded. The smaller one immediately tries to wrench the sunhat off the larger one. Then take her Dora jewels. We are not yet out of the driveway.

All told, the "bike ride" took from 8:30 to 11:15. Actual time spent riding: about an hour. Minus the three or four times I had to stop to negotiate a truce.

Mommy, can we go to the playground after our ride?
No, Hannah, now that we're done riding it's time to eat lunch and take naps.

And hole up at home until the memory of this morning fades enough for me to venture out again.

Fair-ly great

2011-08-18T21:56:00.000-06:00

Little things are a big deal in a small town. Like the FAIR. Norah and Nick won't be back until the fair is over, so Hannah and I went this afternoon.

It took about 2.2 seconds from the time we laid eyes on the midway:
Mommy, I want to ride that!
"That" being the Ferris wheel, I said ok. (Then she asked to ride the Tilt-O-Whirl. I gratefully passed the buck to the "you have to be this tall to ride this ride" sign on that one.)

It didn't really cross my mind until we were airborne how incredibly dangerous the Ferris wheel could be to someone who has 1) a burning desire to jump off things and 2) absolutely no common sense. There's no seatbelt, no cage, nothing between you and certain death except your own respect for self-preservation.

To take you off the edge of your seat, Hannah did not try to scale/leap from the Ferris wheel. But I had a few too many "Mommy, watch THIS" visions to enjoy the ride. She's very three, very "I can do it myself. I don't need to hold your hand. DON'T hold onto me or I will squirm away from you and toward the questionable carnie-secured gate on our bucket." We came to a compromise whereby I was allowed to grip the hem of her dress with two fingers and she more or less agreed to keep both butt cheeks on the seat.

Feet firmly on the ground, we headed for the animals, meeting up with her good buddy Will along the way. We read the names of every draft horse and terrorized some bunnies in their cages (really, who puts a bunny rabbit cage at eye level with small children and then puts up a sign asking them not to stress the animals by touching them? I pretended I didn't know how to read. If you've done much people-watching at a fair, I'd say illiteracy is a pretty plausible excuse.)

Hannah proclaimed a sudden and burning desire to see the pigs. So off we went to the big barn, for pigs, sheep, cows and goats. Miniature horses. Regular horses. Corn dogs. Kettle corn.

I had promised one more ride before we left. Hannah decided on, and talked Will into, the "big strawberries" - actually something more akin to the Disneyland spinning teacups, disguised by a big, vaguely-strawberry-shaped metal shell. Knowing Hannah's love for spinning and my propensity to want to vomit, I offered to hold Will's baby brother while Jenny took the kids.

It didn't occur to me that Jenny hadn't made the same assessment of the ride that I had. Namely, she missed the part where you could control the speed of the spin- she thought the cars all whirled around at a predetermined rate. Tactical error #2: the cars were filling up, so she asked two 10ish, vaguely-delinquent-looking boys if they would share their car.

I tried to take pictures, but all I got was a whirling blur. Then a look of terror on Will's face, nausea on Jenny's, and pure delight on Hannah's.

All in all, an action-packed couple of hours at the fair. (This is Northwest Montana, not Iowa- a couple hours will pretty much do it.) Hannah and I loaded up and headed home, a little dirty and fairly worn out. She was zoned out in the back, so I asked what she thought about the fair.

Wow, Hannah, that was pretty great. I had a lot of fun with you, seeing all those animals. Did you like it?
Yeah, mommy. Pause. But where were the tapirs and otters?

It never occurred to me to prep her for the difference between fair animals and zoo animals.

One point for the parents

2011-08-12T14:03:00.000-06:00

Sometimes this blog feels like a chronicle of frustrations and failures. Not this time.

As some kind of terrible retribution for my no-sleeping blog, Hannah went on bedtime strike. The night before my birthday, we didn't get her to sleep until 1 a.m. Yep, she went to bed at seven like always...and simply refused to stay put and/or sleep. Just when it seemed like she might crash out, the thunder and lightning arrived. Awesome.

So we had had enough. She is enough of a challenge while awake; the bedtime circus simply could not continue. I joke about orphanages/gypsies/Craigslist, but after this last straw I found myself wondering just how inappropriate it would be to sell my child. Nasty looks from the neighbors? Or prison?

She's a little too verbal for us to get away with strapping her to the bed (I can just see the conversation unfolding in the church nursery), so I tried something less direct and more psychological: taking away her books. Every time she got out of bed or summoned us back to her room, she lost a book.

When I put her to bed, I explained that it wasn't ok to get out of bed after we said goodnight.
If you get up or make us come back in, I'm going to take one of the books from your bookshelf.
Pause.
Which book, Mommy?
[The one you like best. Now how smart do you think you are?]
I'm not sure. You probably don't want to find out.

Of course, she wouldn't be three if she didn't test this rule. Sure enough, ten minutes after bedtime, I heard the telltale trotting above our heads.

Hannah. You have to go back to bed. I'm going to take a book.

There's nothing that makes you feel like more of a card-carrying fascist than hearing a small child sob, "Nooooo! Not my books!" as you coldly walk out of the room with a precious printed treasure under your arm. But the books went on top of my dresser, not on the burn pile. And she got to earn them back by staying in bed for the next bed/nap cycle.

Cold? Yes. Effective? You betcha. And I would argue that it actually is a good thing for her love of reading- by making the removal of books the punishment, we're telling her that books are valuable and wonderful and something that she should be sad to lose. On one round of book-forfeiting, she said, "No Mommy, not the Jesus book!" Um, give me a little credit. Even I, in all my burning frustration, would not take away her Bible. I will admit, however, that we use this rule to selectively remove the books we can no longer stand to read. Suppertime for Frieda Fuzzypaws may never see the light of Hannah's room again.

Part of our regular bedtime routine is the telling of a story from when Nick or I was little. One night after all the bedtime hoops had been jumped, Hannah called Nick back (against the bedtime rules) to ask for another story.

As he perused her bookshelf, he said, "When I was a little boy, I got out of bed and my parents took ALL my books. Goodnight."

Quite the little joker.

2011-08-02T21:43:00.000-06:00

Hannah and I were walking to the coffee shop this morning.

Hey, Hannah Banana, do you see that airplane?
Mommy. [I get the I Have Something Important to Tell You Face.] I am not Hannah Banana.
What do you mean? I always call you Hannah Banana.
I'm not Hannah Banana anymore. I'm three. Big girls who are three are not Hannah Banana.

Do you hear that sound? Yeah, that's my heart breaking a little.
So what should I call you now?
Pause.
Apple Banana!

Somehow the kids are still alive. I'm focusing on that.

2011-07-31T21:45:00.000-06:00

We are officially the world's worst pet sitters. Our friends asked us to watch their dog...and he escaped from a fenced yard and got picked up by animal control. For some inexplicable reason, these same friends gave us their guinea pig while they went camping this weekend.

"Just leave his cage outside," they said. "It's not supposed to get too cold at night." I'm sure they figured that, as two reasonably functional adults, they didn't need to specify that we should not leave a very furry small animal in direct sunlight in July.

I would like to point out, before this story takes its inevitable terrible turn, that Pinky spent his last day showered with love and affection. Hannah wanted nothing more than to sit and hold Pinky while Norah fed him baby salad greens from the fridge. He was loved, fed and gently petted.

Too bad the adults around here have the same attention span as the toddlers. Lunchtime came and Pinky went outside. The shade moved but Pinky's cage stayed put. By the time naptime ended and the request to visit Pinky was made, he was not in good shape. We brought him inside and tried a little water spritzing and a fan, but Pinky eventually transitioned from "sick" to "sleeping."

We told Hannah that Pinky needed a nap in the fresh air. The kids transitioned to other activities. We notified Pinky's family [reportedly not a weeping and gnashing of teeth; the six-year-old merely shrugged and went back to camping activities]. The baby-sitter came. We left for the evening.

Two miles down the road: "Oh crap. Do you have Molly's number? I completely forgot to tell her about Pinky."

Nope, neither of us thought to write down the sitter's number. And yes, Hannah did in fact decide to introduce the sitter to her new furry friend. Did I mention Molly had never been to our house before? Who knows what she thought about the family with a dead rodent "pet" on the deck. Luckily she recognized Pinky's rigor mortis before Hannah asked to hold him.

This morning:
Mommy, is Pinky still here?

Well, Hannah, in some ways he is. But the essence of Pinky is gone. That's quite a deep existential question you're asking.

Puzzled look. Take two:
No, Hannah, Pinky is gone.
Where he go?
He went home.

To the big hay-filled field in the sky. Swing low, sweet cedar-lined chariot.

Great idea. In theory.

2011-07-20T20:40:00.000-06:00

Hannah and Norah had a joint check-up today. Three years for Hannah, fifteen months for Norah. To my great surprise, they do not weigh the same. Hannah has a slim four-pound lead on Norah.

So Norah is a big kid. She doesn't fit comfortably in her rear-facing car seat anymore. To say nothing of the part where a rear-facing car seat doesn't fit comfortably in our cars (it's such fun to drive with a steering wheel embedded in your sternum) or our lives (try handing a snack to a little person sitting directly behind you who is facing backwards). The nurse practitioner I saw today seemed like a reasonable, practical sort, so I floated the question:

"I know the recommendation is to keep them rear-facing until two, but she's so big- can we safely turn her around?"

She looked at me like I had just asked if fifteen months was too early to give Norah a large Maori face tattoo. "No. They need to be rear-facing until two."

"But she doesn't really fit- she's so tall that her legs are all crunched up against the seat and she has to sit like a frog."

"It's to protect her neck in case of an accident. If she's forward-facing, she could get whiplash. Maybe you could call the car seat company and see what they suggest."

Also known as: You probably have the seat installed wrong. At this point, I should have realized that our healthcare professional, who looks to be in her mid- to late-forties, was too old to have small children of her own and too young for grandchildren. She probably hasn't been within 100 yards of a car seat in a decade. Nod and smile, Katie, nod and smile.

If only. "I just don't think car seats are designed for that time when kids are too big for an infant seat but too young to face forward. There isn't any other way to install it- she just doesn't fit anymore."

"Do you have access to the Internet? Maybe you could Google it."

Um, this is 2011, right? I'm about the only person I know who doesn't have access to the internet on my phone, but we do own three computers...wait, do I look like a meth mom?

I managed to shut my big mouth and smile before I got a note in Norah's chart (Mother lacks interest in vehicle safety. Possible neglect issues. Social services follow-up recommended.). I hope.

2011-07-14T12:41:00.000-06:00

Hannah comes trotting into the kitchen, Nick following.

Mommy, can I have a Diego, some milk and my vit---
Hannah, what are you supposed to say to Mommy?
HappybirthdayMommyCanIhavesomemilk,avitamin,aDiegoandanM&MbecauseIstayedalldryinmypulluplastnight?

Thank you, Hannah, for shattering any illusions I might have had of my birthday being about me. I remember when I was little and we'd celebrate my grandpa's birthday. He'd always grumble good-naturedly (sort of) about how he was going to stop having birthdays. An idea totally inconceivable to an eight-year-old. The thought of a year without a birthday was as terrifying as the knowledge that some day I'd be in high school and have to go through an entire day with no recess. I simply didn't see how it could be possible. Since I was born in July, I had the luxury of neatly splitting the year between anticipating Christmas and waiting for my birthday to arrive.

And now...well, I must officially be old. There are times when I can only remember how old I am after taking Nick's age and subtracting four. And the birthday was sort of a schmirthday this year. I'm not playing the saddest song on the world's tiniest violin- I didn't spend naptime crying because the singing telegram and long stem roses failed to show up at my doorstep- but there's only so much you can do to celebrate when you are still going to spend most of your day parenting. Birthdays = all about you; Parenting = the opposite.

I think my birthday feels like less of a holiday for a couple of other reasons, too. For one thing, I'm past most of the milestones (license, adulthood, alcohol, car rental, the big 3-0) and still thankfully quite far from 40. And the other thing birthdays often inspire is introspection: what am I doing with my life, am I where I thought I'd be by now, etc. This year, at least, I just don't feel the need. My life is full. I can't imagine taking on anything in addition to what I already have, and I can't really change careers unless we decide to sell the kids. I am constantly teetering on the edge of overwhelmed, but that's kind of who I am. And most of the time, on most days, I'm glad I'm home with these two little turkeys.

So I had to make my own special birthday breakfast this year and try to eat it amid summons to please get the crayons down, come play with me, get Norah away from my stuff...someday I'm sure the house will be quiet and I'll get to eat a gourmet meal before my coffee gets cold. And I'm sure I'll miss these days. Probably because I'll have early-onset dementia.

That bleepity-bleep bedtime....

2011-07-11T21:03:00.000-06:00

The other night when I really should have been going to bed, I found myself on the Internet digging around on the latest buzz in the parenting world, Go the $*&! to Sleep. In case you haven't heard, a guy wrote a book in a style reminiscent of Goodnight Moon...with a healthy dash of parental rage and a carefully-curated selection of four-letter words.

Sounds terrible. And it is...unless you have, or remember having, a toddler. Bedtime is when toddlers exact their revenge. Because we can call the shots all day, make them share their toys, be nice to their friends, eat some form of nourishing food, but we cannot make them sleep. And they know this. They know that we are exhausted and counting on that hour or two of quiet time. And because of that, their resistance will be most effective. We're the British and they're William Wallace. They might not have the power to win the war, but they know how to make their opportunities count.

We really have very little room to complain about Hannah's sleeping habits. She has consistently slept through the night since about nine months and is almost always in bed by 7. And yet, lately, she's become kind of a creeper. She'll go to bed just fine, no protests, then 20 minutes later we'll hear suspicious traveling sounds overhead. And she's sitting by the baby gate at the top of the stairs. Or she's hanging out on the potty. Or "Mommy, I heard somefin'."

And we'll put her back in bed. And the summons will come again. "Mommy! Mommy! Moooom-eeeee!"

Hannah. What do you need? It's time to go to sleep.
Mommy. I need to tell you somefin'.
What is it?
I...yesterday....tomorrow I was going to color in my coloring book, but there was a bear...and he was wearin' funny shoes...and did you know that Norah pooped in her diaper today?
Ok, Hannah, that's it. Thank you, I love you, good-night. Go to sleep.

Ten minutes later.
Mommy! Mooommm-eee!
I ignore.

Screams from upstairs:
MOOOMMM-EEEE! I NEEEEED YOU!
I respond because if she wakes up Norah, I just might dangle her out the window by her heels.

Hannah. What do you need? It's time to go to sleep.
But I can't go to sleep!
Did something happen?
No...yes... [She capitalizes on my rookie mistake of using a leading question.]
I'm going to turn your stars nightlight on. You can look at the stars and fall asleep.
But [beginnings of sobs] I CAN'T FALL ASLEEP. [This is a new favorite, from the same page of the Toddler Playbook as "Because I Want Milk, I'm Going to Throw a Fit, Screaming that I Don't Like Water."]
Yes. You. Can. I love you, here's one more hug. Now. Go. [the #&%*] To. Sleep.

So there I was at 10:30, sitting on the couch when I should have been asleep, crying from laughter at the Samuel L. Jackson narration of Go the *&$% to Sleep. And I hate that word. I find it offensive. Except when it is exquisitely hilarious. This page of narration captures it perfectly:

Some day my prince will come...

2011-07-09T22:44:00.000-06:00

Mommy. You shouldn't drink out of Daddy's water. You're gettin' his GERMS.
It's a good thing I have Hannah around to watch out for me. As she apparently knows, I might just step off the curb into oncoming traffic - or worse, share a water bottle - if she's not around to watch me.
Hannah, it's ok. Daddy and I can share germs. We're married.
Now keep in mind that this conversation is taking place next to a very busy Glacier Park trailhead.
Mommy, you not married.
Yes, [for the benefit of those around us tuned into this conversation] DADDY AND I ARE MARRIED. We've been married for A VERY LONG TIME. FOR YEARS BEFORE YOU WERE BORN.
No, Mommy. You not married. You not wearin' a dress.
Aha.
Oh. You're right, we're not getting married. We're not having a wedding right now. We're already married. It's the part that comes after the wedding.

The part that Disney can't romanticize. Even Cinderella wouldn't look so good vacuuming the living room rug with one crying child attached to each leg while secretly cursing Prince Charming for letting the toddler roll a sippy cup of milk under the couch last week and then promptly forgetting it ever existed.

This might be tacky, but...

2011-06-29T19:28:00.000-06:00

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed for the past few weeks. Ok, I've been feeling a little overwhelmed since Norah was born, but lately it feels like something extra. In theory, this should be the best June in several years. It's the first time since 2006 that June hasn't also been known as Moving Season. Yep, four moves in four summers. I've only just realized that it meant effectively losing two months out of every year to packing and unpacking (not because we have that much stuff, but because the little people who live with us allow us approximately two hours a day for all non-child-related tasks). So this June should be amazing.

And yet, every time I turn around, the house is a complete disaster. Bad enough that I don't want anyone to "just stop by" and I made a friend promise to close her eyes when she needed to use the bathroom during an outdoor playtime (fortunately she didn't break any bones. I think she must have peeked). I think the new friends I've made here are starting to doubt my claims of being an extremely anal person and a neat freak. I think our neighbors have gone from thinking of us as "that nice young family" to "those slobs down the block."

And I think I know the reason: we have too much house. I know this is not the kind of thing one can complain about in good taste. It's like saying, "this diamond ring is sooo heavy it's making my arm sore," or "I wish I could just sit in a coffee shop for once without a male model hitting on me." We really do have the house of our dreams, thanks to an extremely buyer-friendly real estate market and previous owners who were desperate to sell. It has 100-year-old woodwork, a front porch with a swing, and a back yard big enough for a volleyball court. It also has enough square footage for the children to completely trash one room and simply move their Circus of Destruction (known in less sarcastic circles as "playtime") to the next room without skipping a beat.

Could I have them clean up after themselves? Well, Hannah is certainly big enough and on some occasions even willing. But Norah, at 14 months, is in the prime of her room-destroying abilities. Mobile, endlessly determined, and tall for her age. It is completely pointless to have Hannah pick anything up with Norah around because Norah will just come behind her and empty it again. Norah's idea of a good time right now is to go into the living room, where there aren't even any real toys, and: pull all the DVDs out of the drawers; grab a box of kleenex and empty it tissue-by-tissue onto the floor; take all the remotes and, after mouthing/dropping them, hide them under furniture in other rooms; push all the magazines off the end table to the space between it and the couch; and, if still uncaught, shake the liquid from her sippy cup (usually water, thankfully) onto the rug. Awesome. And all that takes about six minutes, leaving plenty of time in the rest of her day for the dining room, kitchen, office and playroom.

I am choosing to blame our domestic disaster zone on the house rather than some controllable factor (my parenting style? time spent on Facebook instead of corralling toys?) based on our time in Wisconsin. We had one main living space encompassing dining room, living room and office. Granted, we only had one kid, but it was Hannah. (If you haven't met her, that was like three regular-speed toddlers.) That space was all we had to live in, beside the bedrooms, so we couldn't ignore the mess or live around it. But now we can. And we do. I swear I am trying to fight the good fight, but when I sign off here, I will walk from the porch into the house, leaving behind: the giant box the girls' sand table came in, recently reused for birthday party art projects; six metal pails that were theoretically bought to hold poles for (still unpurchased) deck light strings but are currently filled with the drained water and sand from when we moved the girls' sand table; a can of sunscreen; a volleyball and a kickball; a folded-up stroller; an old crate I bought at a yard sale but have yet to clean up; a pair of work gloves from two weeks ago; a measuring tape we used to figure out the fence lines yesterday; a giant recycling bin; and, most proudly, a string of squirrel-chewed Christmas lights that I removed from an outside tree last weekend.

I can't figure out why House Beautiful hasn't returned my calls.

We WILL do this and you WILL like it

2011-06-06T20:46:00.000-06:00

The problem with deciding that a tired baby needs to take a nap and that you are NOT going to go back in her room, even if she's crying, is that by the time you decide that maybe something is really wrong, she's had ample opportunity to reach through the crib bars, fish an unsecured poopy diaper out of the Diaper Champ, open it up, and by the looks of things, generally have a poop-tastic time.

If you've never walked into a room of uncontained feces...wow. It's enough to peel your eyeballs. Today was a nice, warm day and Norah has two skylights that shine directly on her bed. By the time I got there, she was fairly traumatized by the horror she had wrought. I was fairly traumatized that she had been at it long enough to have poop caked on and dried under her fingernails. We went through a hose-down in the shower and then a bath before I could pick her up without fear.

And that was just the capstone to a day that can only be described as eventful.

We woke up this morning to bluebird skies and a forecast of impending afternoon rain. So what else to do but bomb out the door for a Glacier Park bike ride? Three moms, six kids three and under. If you're thinking, "That sounds like complete chaos," you would be right. First, in the five minutes I let Hannah out of the car at Mom #2's house while we were waiting for Mom #3, she managed to jump off their short deck (not in itself an issue) and catch a chunk of her back on the one nail of their entire deck that was not fully pounded in. Not stitches-worthy, but a pretty good cut with some blood and lots of tears.

Then, after a band-aid and an ice pack got us rolling, one of the bikes tried to end it all by partially dislodging itself from the rack 10 minutes down the road. (It must have known what we were in for.)

Solved that problem, finally on to the park. I don't know how to describe our ride, other than to report that we made it a whopping 2.5 miles in an hour. To give ourselves some (but very little) credit, it was basically uphill the whole way and we were each pulling 50ish pounds of kid. The rest of the time was sucked up by parenting while riding. Hannah and Norah were fine until Norah's snacks ran out. Then she had to direct her attention to her second-favorite hobby: deviling Hannah.

Flashback: When Nick brought home a hand-me-down double bike trailer, I said, "Do you think this is going to work? Or are they just going to kill each other?" He said: "There's only one way to find out." Half a block into our test walk, we had our answer:
Ow! OW! OWWWW! MOMMY! No-wah's pullin' my hair!
As we peek, Hannah is cowering in the corner as Norah gleefully frees big clumps of blonde strands from Hannah's head.

Yep, you might call it a bike trailer, we call it The Octagon. Today I had put Hannah's hair in a ponytail in an effort to preempt the screaming, so Norah went for the kill. The Blankie. From what I could piece together through the screams, Norah was "tyin' to take my BANKIE! Noooo! No-wah! It's my feshial bankie!"

Knowing as I did that the bike trailer is approximately the size of a medium cardboard box, there was no physical way that Norah could get the blankie completely away from Hannah. Turned out, though, that reasoning was not the right tactic. Before I knew it, Hannah was crying hard enough that I was half expecting vomit. Sooo we stopped the bikes and did a little shuffle, trading Norah for Hannah's buddy Will. Norah got to ride with a six-month-old, but only after a stern lecture from her mommy about how it is not polite to maul little babies. Especially ones that will grow up into boys you might want to date someday.

Hannah and Will enjoyed each other's company until an argument arose about when they were going to read Will's book of Bible stories. (Ironic? A little.) Hannah wanted Will to agree with her that they would read the book when we got to the lake. Will, I think, was just enjoying the mouthfeel of the word "NO." After a little back-and-forth (during which time they each jumped back and forth between "yes" and "no" and must have completely forgotten what the argument was about), Hannah gave up on verbal deliberation and started pounding Will with a rock. Awesome.

I'm sure there were about 52 other reasons we stopped. I can't remember for sure. Maybe I hit my head on one of the TWO times I had an up close and personal with the pavement. Turns out that clip shoes are cool...but only if you remember to unclip before you stop your bike. Anyway, one hour and the previously-mentioned 2.5 miles in, we stopped for lunch. That seemed to help everyone's mood. And on the way home, the girls got The Enforcer- a large piece of cardboard wedged in the middle of the trailer. Stylish, no. Effective, yes.

I'm sure this morning, as I was rounding up gear and he was heading off for work, Nick was thinking that he would trade me places in an instant. Was it great to be outdoors? Yes. Did I get a good workout? Yep. Was it fun? Maybe. An hour and a half of packing and rounding up, another hour and a half in the car (there and back), all for an hour and a half of riding while simultaneously distracting, redirecting and refereeing kids who were only marginally on board with the whole idea.

If your idea of fun is, We are going to go on a bike ride and we will enjoy it, dammit, then yes, we had a great time.

Food, food, food

2011-06-03T20:47:00.000-06:00

How much is a one-year-old supposed to eat? In our family, I feel like the answer to that question is the same as the punchline to that old Tootsie Roll commercial: The world may never know.

When Hannah was 13 months, we were elated if she ate one whole fishstick for dinner. Norah put down four the other night. Then some cheese chunks, grapes, and a few bites of whatever I was eating. Oh, and a cookie. Try feeding the older child dessert in front of the younger one without giving them a helping, too. Sorry Dr. Reed...we'll try to brush her teeth.

We used to have about five minutes to get Hannah to eat before her head started spinning from being confined to a high chair for too long. With Norah, we have 2.5 seconds after her tray clicks in place to put food in front of her or we will feel The Wrath. And it is fierce.

I can't count the number of times that I have put what I thought was way too much food (a whole string cheese stick, a banana, an entire cut-up hotdog) in front of Norah, stopped paying attention for three minutes while I emptied the dishwasher or paid attention to Hannah (or, ahem, checked my email) only to come back to find her tray empty. Surely it must be on the floor...or wedged down in her seat...we don't have a dog...did you really just eat all that? And now you want some more?

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with having a big eater, other than readjusting my expectations and portion preparation. Especially when we remember back to the hoops we used to jump through to get Hannah to ingest more than 112 calories per day. I really thought I had blogged about it, but I can't find a post. I was probably too embarrassed at the ridiculous levels to which one strong-willed toddler can take two reasonably-competent adults.

Our house at mealtime was simply a three-ring circus. Like twirl a baton in my sparkly leotard as Nick balances on a giant ball while juggling flaming rings. Everybody knows "here comes the airplane, where is the hangar?" That's so minor league. Some of the lowlights of our eating antics:

Inanimate objects encouraging each bite. Hannah's plastic collection of zoo animals would take turns cheering, complete with funny accents and appropriate animal noises, every time she took a bite. Oh, and I'm not proud of this, but when Norah was a newborn, we'd raise her arms and throw in a little ventriloquist "Yay Hannah!" to mix things up. No wonder Hannah thinks we're all just members of her entourage.
When the animal cheering became passe, the zoo stepped it up. The chosen animal (Hannah's choice, of course) would take a step up her arm with each bite (yes, also cheering) with the goal being to have them get to her face and kiss her on the cheek.
Food would also run away in fear. As in: Ooooh nooo, don't eat me! I'm going to run away, I hope that sneaky Hannah doesn't get me...oooh nooo, here she comes! Aaaaagh!
Sometimes we would pretend that we were going to eat her food so that her competitive nature would kick in and she would madly eat to keep it away from us. (I would not play this game on Fishstick Night as I find them disgusting.) If that doesn't sound like a recipe for food issues later in life, I don't know what is. Competitive eating? Check. Bingeing for fear of going hungry? Check.

I know they say that kids have an internal hunger monitor that will tell them when they're full. Our pediatrician never said he'd seen a child with access to food starve. But we had a one-year-old who literally could not keep her pants up, even in a cloth diaper, and Nick had seen way too many little kids get a winter flu, lose a little too much weight, and end up in the hospital on an IV. If we couldn't keep her in a high chair, we really couldn't imagine (and could hardly stand the thought of) keeping her in a hospital bed with a needle in her arm. So every meal...la da dada dada la da da, SHOWTIME!

Educational television

2011-06-02T14:53:00.000-06:00

We decided to teach Hannah some Italian the other night. I figured we should start with something relevant to her life and motivational, so I chose the phrase, "a hot chocolate, please."

Ok, here we go. Una...
una...
chee-oh-co-latta...
Hannah looks at me. I try again.
Una chee-oh...
una...dos tres!
[I am now trying not to laugh too much] That's good Spanish counting, Hannah, but let's try to say "hot chocolate." Una chee-oh...
Una dos tres!
Hannah. Are you trying?
Mommy. That's how Dora says it.
That's true, Dora is counting one, two, three in Spanish. But we're trying to speak Italian.
By the look on her face I have no hope of explaining what a "language" is. I try again.
Hannah, Dora does say una, dos, tres. But does anyone give her hot chocolate when she says that?
The lightbulb comes on.
So, let's try: una chee-oh-co-latta...
una cho-catta...
calda. una chee-oh-co-latta calda.
una cho-cotla cada.
Awesome! Here you go!

Who needs pronunciation when you have adorableness on your side?

2011-05-31T21:48:00.000-06:00

Sorry not much has been posted lately. I blame my lack of inspiration on the weather: the whole country is having a heat wave and we're sitting here under 50-degree cloudy skies.

But today was sunny and we headed to the Park (that would be Glacier Park, our backyard playground) for a hike with friends. So I pick Hannah up from school...

Mommy, where we goin'?
We're going to go hiking with your friends. With Will and with Liam?
But Mommy, we don't have my hikin' stuff.
[Hmmm.] No, I put it in the car. We have the backpack, a hat, sunscreen, snacks, water, and your jacket. [She is wearing a sleeveless dress and pink leggings. Maybe that's the "stuff" she's talking about.]
But Mommy, we don't have my helmet.
Helmet? Hannah, we're going hiking. Not biking.
No, Mommy, I need my helmet. I might slip on the ice and bump my head.
[Has Dora the Explorer been visiting Everest? Where is she getting these ideas?]
Well, Hannah, it's good to be safe, but I think you'll be ok. We're hiking, but we're not mountain climbing. And there might be some snow, but there probably won't be any ice.
She looks extremely skeptical, like we might be guilty of reckless endangerment of a child. The helmet talk goes away, though, when we all unload and neither of her buddies are gearing up.

Then we start down the trail and realize that she might have been right, as Hannah is running at top speed ahead of the pack, over rocks, roots, puddles and branches. Our peaceful woodland hike turns into an unending chorus of, "Hannah, pick a tree and stop by it. STOP, Hannah, and wait for us." I am mostly thinking about Hannah rounding a corner directly into a grumpy bear. Nick seems to be more worried about her taking a massive fall. After we get tired of our own voices, she goes in the pack, despite tears and assurances that she was listening.

I know you were trying, Hannah, but you were having a hard time slowing down. There are lots of rocks and branches on the trail and we didn't want you to trip over them.
But I can just jump over they.
Right, you did a pretty good job, but what if you fell? It would really hurt.
But I didn't fall. I'm really good at running and jumping.
Yes. But you're staying in the pack. I need a break.

It's not quite because I said so. Not quite.

No, YOU'RE the best!

2011-05-24T20:46:00.000-06:00

We have turned a corner. Hannah is finally mature enough to actually play with kids her age. As opposed to what? Well, as opposed to ripping toys out of their hands, pushing them down, and ordering them around.

Hannah sees Marri every couple of months when we go to my parents' house. So she knows who Marri is by now, but I'm never really sure if she totally remembers. (Case in point: I said something about Kami, Marri's mom, today. We just saw them yesterday. Hannah looks at me and says, "I don't know her." Riiight.)

Anyway, Hannah was anticipating Marri's arrival yesterday morning. Their car pulled up and Hannah went flying out the front door as Marri was getting out of her car seat. They went running towards each other, arms wide open, like one of those slow-motion-romance-in-a-field film scenes. I was totally expecting their heads to collide like two ripe coconuts. But no, they managed a very graceful hug.

Mah-wee!
Hannah!
I missed you!
I love you!
I like your shirt.
Do you like my skirt?
It's pretty.
It spins!
Show me!

Could it get any more ridiculous or adorable than that? And they continued to play together, pretty much without incident. They had some lunch then went looking for tigers. Which went something like this: growl like you are a tiger (apparently they were calling the tigers in?), then run away shrieking and yelling and find a place to hide from the tiger. And repeat. Eventually the imaginary tigers got too boring, so they started playing Hide From Norah.

No-wah! No-wah! Come here!
Norah toddles into the room, eager to play with the big girls.
Aaaaagh! Here she comes! Hide from No-wah!

So sad that she's already the annoying little sister. Luckily she has no idea yet- she was just as entertained by having them flee from her as actually play with her. Given that Marri beat on her relentlessly the last time we saw them, she might actually have preferred to have them run away.

A couple of monkeys, for sure.

Maybe next time

2011-05-14T21:12:00.000-06:00

It's not even the end of May and I am once again completely out of the running for Mother of the Year. I had high hopes for 2011. But, just like 2008, 2009, and 2010, they were dashed on the Cliffs of Parental Neglect.

Norah and I were having some time together this weekend while Nick and Hannah were at a soccer tournament in Idaho. I made plans to go hiking with friends this morning and Norah seemed totally on board...until five minutes before we left the house. Then she totally melted. She wasn't hungry, wasn't thirsty, wasn't poopy. It was only 8:20 so I didn't really think she could be tired yet. She was just MAD. So we went hiking anyway. Norah put on an impressive display of lung capacity, screaming in the pack until she passed out, then waking up to scream if I stood still too long.

She probably got at least 45 minutes of naptime on the hike, then fell asleep in the car on the way home (after some more lovely screaming). I plopped her in bed around 10:30, figuring she might have another half hour in her. Sure enough, 30 minutes later I heard a couple insistent wahs, then...nothing. She did that a few more times, but was sound asleep when I peeked through the crack at 12:30. At three o'clock I figured maybe it was time to wake her up.

I went upstairs, attributing the morning ScreamFest to some unexplained exhaustion. I mean, she went to bed at seven last night and got up at six-thirty. How could she have been so tired at eight o'clock? Did she slip out of her crib last night and hit the bars downtown?

Then I opened the door. What the heck? All I saw was red splattered everywhere. Norah was waking up, though, so that was a good sign- she apparently hadn't managed to slice a vein in her sleep. Wait, it wasn't really red, more like pink. Flashback to breakfast, polenta with berry sauce. Norah eating half my bowl. Yes, my darling little girl was sleeping in a splatter painting of berry vomit. On all four side of the crib bumper, from one end of the sheet to the other, all over both her blankets, plus a big puddle on the floor.

My first question was, of course, how long she had been like that. On closer inspection, I also started wondering exactly how hard you have to throw up in order to get vomit all the way under the crib. And yes, I also thought about how glad I was that this happened in bed and not mid-hike when she was riding on my back.

Sadly, Letting Your Child Sleep in Their Own Vomit is an automatic disqualifier for Parent of the Year honors. Sorry, girls, maybe I'll do a better job in 2012.

Two llamas and a ring toss? You've got yourself a party!

2011-05-13T11:26:00.000-06:00

Aaah, a parent's rite of passage: manning a booth at the school carnival. I had my induction yesterday afternoon with the Bean Bag Toss, featuring some exceptionally grimy bean bags and an only-slightly-scary clown cutout.

You learn a lot about kids through a carnival booth. Namely, that a flimsy plastic toy made in China for a nickel is more valuable than a big bucket of gold if you call it a "prize" and set an achievement barrier for ownership. I had kids spending a full five minutes weighing the pros and cons of a temporary tattoo vs. a three-inch plastic whistle.

There are also several types of carnival kids (kids at carnivals, not young Carnies): the Show-Off, who does his own running commentary and a full-on end zone dance for every successful toss; the Obsessive, who will rotate through your booth every seven minutes for an hour until he can repeatedly nail five in a row, thereby collecting both the fuzzy dice AND the plastic pirate sword; the Jock, who can throw beanbags like baseballs from fifteen feet away and get a perfect score on his first try; the Not-Jock, who can stand within arm's length and will still completely miss the board, despite being ten years old; and the Three-Year-Old, who may or may not comply with any of the rules of the game but doesn't really care at all because she got A PLASTIC FROG! Oh, and the Older Sibling, who will accompany her six-year-old brother and say helpful things like, "Ok, now throw the beanbag in the hole!" as though he could not possibly breathe in and out if she weren't there to tell him how.

After a little time working my booth, I got to hit the other games with Hannah. No surprise, she wanted to do IT ALL. AT ONCE. We made the tactical error of hitting the petting zoo (three puppies, three adult alpacas and two baby alpacas) before sampling the Taste of Montessori chocolate contest…nothing like chocolate cheesecake with a strong undercurrent of wet llama. (Yes, I realized too late that some handwashing might have been a good idea.)

Then face painting, cake walk, ring toss, dart throw (terrible idea, but thankfully we all still have two working eyes), bouncy castle, sponge-in-the-face throw (very good sport of a dad working that one) and phew, time to go home. Unfortunately, just as the carnival was shutting down, Hannah spotted the pony rides…thereby enacting the Fourth Rule of Toddlerness: Every Fun Activity Must End in Tears.

But she was able to recover with some banana pancakes at home (yes, I still neglected to wash the llama off her hands), just in time for another meltdown when I broke the news that we had to wash the face paint off before bed. But I 'ike gettin' it on my bankets! Sorry, kiddo, maybe when you learn to do the laundry. I tried to pacify her with the reminder that we had a picture of the face paint, done by her beloved teacher, so she could look at it and remember how cool it was. Didn't do much in the moment, but I know I'll look back on this one fondly:

To my mom

2011-05-08T14:00:00.000-06:00

Aaah, Mother's Day. I think if you have kids under 5, it ought to be Mother's Month, but that's a whole different topic.

At this point, I don't have a whole lot to say about Mother's Day in my own life. Hannah sort of threw her Mother's Day painting at me in the middle of a convoluted, rambling demand for Easter candy at 7:30 this morning. (Thank you, Nick for making the effort. It is really sweet and I'm sure over the years I'll start to believe it was presented in a spirit of love and thankfulness.) Then the church gave all the mothers carnations...which Hannah was desperate to hold, then proceeded to whip around until it snapped in half.

I love my girls and I am so thankful to be a mother; I'm just saying thankfulness is pretty much a one-way street around here.

So I thought I should take this time to be thankful for my own mother. And oh how I wish my baby album were here so that I had access to some pictures from the super-cute baby years instead of the teen years, but this is what I could dig up:

I'm sure it was fashionable to have high-waisted shorts in 1992. And curly bangs.

Slightly better: at the Cheers bar in Boston, around 1996.

What can I say about my Mom? She is pretty much the standard by which I judge myself as a mother. The best way I can sum up my mom is that she was, and is, always there. There in the sense of sending us to school with a lunch and a hug and picking us up and making us dinner at the end of every day.

There as in paying attention, making sure I didn't watch a PG-13 movie at 12 1/2 (something I can only appreciate now that I have little innocent people of my own to watch over); that I knew how to write a sincere and timely thank-you note (again, not something I valued in the moment); that my friends were good kids whose parents were also paying attention (probably why we're still all friends today); that I realized that I was smart, special and capable of anything (did you have the record titled "My Mommy is a Doctor"? I sure did.). She was there in a way that made me want to make the right choices because I didn't want to disappoint her. (By the way, Mom, I could really use the secret to that.)

There as in present for all of my events. I can't even count (and wouldn't want to think about) how many terrible sporting events she drove hours to sit through, from 40-degree T-ball games to junior high girls basketball (final score after 40 minutes of play: 10... to...12). Livestock shows, transporting sheep in the back of the Jeep because we were not a farm family with a stock trailer. Piano recitals. Campfire meetings. FFA competitions. I'm sure there were days that she would have rather been sitting on the porch reading a book, but she was always there and excited, whether I was in the game for two minutes or played in the wrong key at the Christmas recital.

And, most importantly, there as a listener. I haven't lived closer than a four-hour drive since I went to college, so most of our adult relationship has taken place via phone, email and letters. My mom always listens, always laughs at my jokes, always empathizes. She never tells me how to fix my problems or to quit my whining (although someone probably should).

She feels bad when I am sad and shares in my happiness. Like when I was engaged. My mom is not a clothes person- she always looks great, but has never really loved shopping. But she was excited to come help me find a wedding dress. We went all over San Antonio, ending the day at a schmancy boutique. I am pretty frugal and practical about most things, a trait I think I learned from her. So I wasn't planning to spend a lot on a dress that I was only going to wear for a few hours, but we decided to check out this store for the fun of it. And of course I found something gorgeous. And expensive. Not Celebrity Wedding expensive, but waaay more than I thought was reasonable. And my mom looked at me and without a moment's hesitation said, "You can have it. I have the money. We don't have to tell anyone how much it was." She would never in a million years do something like that for herself, but she was so happy that I was so happy in love that she wanted me to have anything. We didn't walk out with the dress- I could never have taken her up on it- but I will never forget what that moment meant.

Thank you, Mom, for being there. From the day I was born until now, I've always known you would be. And that makes all the difference.

Driving Miss Nosey

2011-05-04T22:36:00.000-06:00

Hannah has taken an abnormal interest in the rules of the road. Abnormal as in: she has an interest. Aren't most two-year-olds more concerned with what is in their snack cup than what the big red octagon is for?

This has been going on for months. It began something like this:
Mommy, why you stoppin?
The traffic light is red. We stop when it's red and we go when it's green.
But doze cahs not stoppin'! [She points to the cross traffic.]
Well, those cars have a green light. It's their turn to go.
The turn light next to us turns green.
Mommy, go! Da 'ight is geen!
That's not our light, Hannah. Ours is still red. That's a light that lets the other cars turn.
Our light turns green.
Mommy! Now it's you turn! Go!
Well, Hannah, we have to wait for the cars in front of us to go. We can't drive until they move.
But da 'ight is geen! You supposed to go!
[Note to self: cannot yet rent Hannah out as seeing-eye driver, even though she can finally name the right color. At least 98% of the time.]

The next week:
Mommy. You not divin' 'ight. You need to put two hands on da wheel.

At this point I was floored. Where on earth did she learn that?
Um, from me apparently. My darling husband gave me the one-raised-eyebrow look when I related my astonishment at that comment, indicating I really should be aware by now that I am a crazy control freak of a passenger-seat driver. (I am aware, although I think I've shown admirable restraint at times by simply requesting hand-wheel contact and not just grabbing the door handle and praying to see another day.)

It got even better on our San Diego trip. I brought our Garmin along for assistance. Hannah nominated herself as its sidekick. Most of our drives went something like this:
Greta the Garmin: Turn left then turn right.
Tuhn 'eft, Mommy! You tuhnin' 'eft? Then tuhn 'ight.
Yes, Hannah, I'm turning left.
You tuhnin' 'ight?
Yes, Hannah.
Yay Mommy! Good job!

The time I decided to take local roads instead of the freeway really threw both of them.
Greta: Turn right.
You tuhnin' 'ight, Mommy?
No, we're going to go a different way. I didn't turn right.
Greta: Recalculating...
Hannah: Mommy. You not 'isten to Getta. You tell Getta you sorry.
I'm sorry, Greta, I'm going a different way.
Greta: Turn left, then turn right.
Mommy, tuhn 'eft. You tuhnin' 'eft now?
Yes, Hannah. I just turned left.
Yay Mommy! Good job 'istenin' to Getta!

Now Hannah has added navigation to her backseat duties, in addition to stopping and turning:
Mommy, wheah we goin'?
We're going to the playground.
[Disapproval] Dis not da road to da paygwound.
We're going to a different playground today, not the one by the school.
[Slight panic] But I don't know how to get deah!
Hannah, are you driving?
Silence. Either she's ignoring me or she really does think she controls the car.
Do you think I know how to get to the park?
But Mommy, how do we get deah?
We're going to turn right then turn left. Do you know which way left is?
She points to the left. Scary.
What about right? Which way is right?
She points straight up.
Ok, good. She really is only two.

Faster and faster

2011-05-03T22:15:00.000-06:00

Days, weeks and months are slipping through my fingers like quicksilver.

Whoops, I just found out that "quicksilver" is a schmancy poetry word for mercury, yes that highly-toxic liquid metal. Maybe I should stop being dramatic and just get my hands out of it.

But the general idea is true. I cannot begin to explain where the time goes. I remember when Hannah was born and a friend of mine asked, out of genuine curiosity, "Ok. I know that having a newborn is really busy, but how? What do you do during the day?" And I couldn't really answer it- what did I do? Wake up early, feed the baby, change the baby, take a power nap with the baby, possibly empty the dishwasher, maybe go to the grocery, usually take a shower, repeat all the above baby duties...and what do you know, it's eight p.m. already. I wasn't even on Facebook then, so I really have no idea how the days went so fast.

The scary thing is that those days were nothing compared to now. I have managed to make showering a priority- it's often the only thing that stands between me and mental instability- but that's about all I can count on for the day. I've realized I could work as hard as I can from morning to evening and there's still no way I'd arrive at the end of the day with dinner made, dishes done, and even a moderately crap-free house. Even if I let Hannah watch all the Dora she puede ver.

And I know that these things are not as important as time with my little people, who are already seeming not-so-little. And I know that cleaning while your kids are little is like shoveling while it's snowing (thanks, Lauren, for that statement of truth). But the problem with comparing kids to snow is that it's snowing inside my house, and if I don't occasionally at least clear a path, we're going to have to dig little crap-caves to sleep in.

Speaking of not-so-little people, I honestly cannot believe Norah is already one. Did I take enough pictures? Record enough video? How will I hold onto the days of my sweet little baby? According to my pediatrician, who I normally love, these days are already over. He informed me that my baby is almost gone and by her fifteen-month check, she'll be a little girl. Really? After 30+ years as a pediatrician, is that your idea of a mommy pep talk? It's almost enough to make me want another baby already...ha ha ha.

I love most of the milestones that Norah has passed this year...except teeth. Top teeth, specifically. Not only are teeth literally a pain, but when Norah got top teeth, she went from being my adorable little gummy grinner to what I keep thinking of as "teenage baby." A little awkward around the edges. Not only does she look slightly goofy when she smiles, but it's a constant reminder that sweet Eleanor is leaving the Baby Station and heading full speed ahead to Toddlerville. And it's a pretty rough neighborhood.

Almost as unreal as Norah turning one is that Hannah is almost three. She's over halfway to kindergarten. How is that possible? And even though she does her best to make us completely batty, we are still the center of her world. She'd rather have her Mommy and Daddy's attention than anything else in the world. [If only she could differentiate between positive attention and negative attention, we'd all have a lot more fun.] And I know those days are numbered. So maybe tomorrow I'll put down the dish gloves and pick up the baby dolls. And I'm sure Hannah will get a huge kick out of shoveling her own sleeping spot at bedtime.

Funny Girl

2011-05-02T21:58:00.000-06:00

I notice Norah's emerging personality a little more every time I turn around. I can't quite put my finger on very many specific things, but I keep seeing her think as she goes about her day. In the bath recently, she kept dunking her hands under the water, then picking them up and staring at her palms, like she was thinking, "I can feel this wet stuff. Why can't I see it?"

It's great. There are moments when I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (and I am choosing to assume it is not an oncoming train) when Hannah and Norah will have fun together. On our last car trip, Norah initiated a game of peek-a-boo (such as it is played by an 11-month-old) with Hannah in the back seat. She put her little lovey on her head then pulled it off, grinning at Hannah. It was hands-down the funniest thing Hannah had ever seen. She laughed so hard that I half expected her to wet her pants. And that went on for a good twenty minutes, the best third of an hour that I've had in the car in the past year. The game worked especially well because Norah is rear-facing in her car seat and Hannah looks forward, which is either wonderful (peek-a-boo) or terrible (pretty much the rest of the time).

But we're focusing on the positive. Today, Hannah was having a full-scale meltdown over putting her shoes on (I think she has some sort of secret Toddler Meltdown Quota that she's required to fulfill each day). Norah wandered away and came back with a garbage can lid on her head (the small-office-garbage kind of lid, not the outdoor-trash-with-maggots-in-the-cracks kind of lid), lurching around with a ridiculous grin that said I am hilarious. Hey Hannah, look at how hilarious I am. You do realize that if you don't stop crying and start thinking I am hilarious, Mom just might put you in a closet and lock the door.

There's just no way around adoring that little monkey. Even when she's fishing dirty diapers out of the bathroom garbage (a repulsive yet compulsive habit of hers), dialing China because someone left the home phone on a low-lying table, or covering the newly-swept kitchen floor in two pounds of cracker crumbs while ingesting half an ounce of actual cracker, I just can't get too mad at those big blue eyes and goofy What? Me? grin.

I mean really.

Oh Brother.

2011-05-01T21:36:00.000-06:00

Whoops, got sidetracked last night watching the royal wedding with friends. I am very grateful for DVR, both because I was not required to be awake in the middle of the night (it would not have made for successful parenting on Friday) and because we were able to condense the SIX HOURS of coverage into (a still ridiculously long) three. Anyway, I'm back on track today...

We figured Hannah and Norah would have some relative who would be a bad influence. The early contender was my brother, who sent baby Hannah a Bob Marley onesie (at least Bob was smoke-free in the picture), a drum, and most recently, a xylophone and a child-sized accordion. Nick's brother also has a similar type of humor, but he was married shortly after Hannah's birth and I'm crediting my sister-in-law as a wonderful taming influence.

Why do I bring up the topic of a bad influence? Well, the other day Nick came in the kitchen.
Um, have you been teaching Hannah how to play dead?
Play dead? No. That doesn't seem like the kind of thing we should be teaching a two-year-old...
Then you have to see this.
We walk back in the living room, where Hannah is playing with a collapsible tunnel that looks like a train.
Hannah, show Mommy the game you were playing.
Hannah crawls through the tunnel, then lies down next to it and rolls it on top of her. She closes her eyes and sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, lying motionless on the floor. It looks like an old-fashioned cartoon where you'd expect to see Xs where her eyes are.
What are you doing, Hannah?
I payin' dead!!

Then, not two days later, we're in the car on the way to school:
Mommy! 'Ook! Dere's a doggy!
Pause.
Mommy, did you know doggies POOP and den dey eat it?
Doggies eat their poop?
Yeah, doggies EAT dey POOP. Icky!
Who told you that, Hannah?

I am fully expecting the name of one of the boys in her preschool class. Who else would indicate to a two-year-old that poop is in any way an edible substance? But the answer I get is the same as the response to my question, "Who taught you to play dead, Hannah?"

Joff.

Yep, that would be Jeff. Her grandpa. My dad. Awesome.

Maybe this summer he can teach her how to start a fire with a magnifying glass or explain how they make glue out of old, tired horses.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Given the potentially slanderous content of this post, I felt compelled to fact-check with my father. He emphatically denies any involvement in the above incidents, although it did give him a good laugh.

I would once again return blame to her male classmates, but none of them would know she has a "Jeff" instead of a Grandpa. I can only assume sneaky Uncle Andy is somehow at the root of all this. Or her even sneakier father. All I really know is that I am not the one teaching her about edible poop. I have enough problems on my hands as it is.

But No-wah was 'ookin at me funny...

2011-04-29T22:30:00.000-06:00

No overarching theme today, just a day-in-the-life story.

This morning, we're sitting in Nick's office and I'm about to queue up an episode of Dora the Explorer. I am silently thanking Netflix for the 24 minutes of peace I am about to enjoy. Hannah is sitting on the couch behind me, holding a random Beanie Baby that she has claimed as her "feshial tee-oh" [special toy] of the moment. Norah is roaming in her vicinity.

As I am about to press the play button, I hear the suspicious smack of bean-filled faux fur against something solid. Then Norah wails.

HANNAH. Did you hit Norah with your baby?
No mama.
Then why is Norah crying?
She...I hit her wif my baby. [starting to lie, which is not good...still really terrible at it, which is kind of endearing.]
You CANNOT hit Norah. You do not get to watch Dora this morning.
Why I am choosing to punish myself for Hannah's transgressions, I am not sure. The predictable waterworks, flailings, and promises that "I will 'isten now, Mommy! I ready to 'isten!" follow. That's great, Hannah, I'm glad to hear it, but you still don't get to watch Dora. And it's time for school.

Hannah ships off. She comes home three hours later, takes a nap, and the first thing out of her mouth upon waking up is:
Mommy! I ready to 'isten! I won't hit No-wah in the office anymoh'! I want to watch Dora now!
I guess we have to work on not hitting Norah at all. But a small violence-free zone is better than none at all.

One vs. Two

2011-04-28T21:26:00.000-06:00

It looks like the only way I can get anything done on this blog is to publicly hold myself accountable. I have all kinds of thoughts rattling around in my head that I never seem to get down, so here we go...another 7 blogs in 7 days!

Shortly after Norah was born, Nick remarked that several people had told him it was a lot harder to go from one kid to two kids than from zero to one. I remember thinking that was crazy. Ok, this time around, I actually know what to do with an infant- I'm not constantly worried that letting her cry for five minutes or skipping a nap will damage her for life. And Hannah can be tricky, but I sort of know what to do with her, too. Or at least where the time-out corner is.

Ha ha. When I was thinking those things, I didn't have two kids. I had a kid and an infant. Want to know when you have two kids? When the second one gets big enough to touch the first one's stuff. When the first one gets the idea to whack on the second one just to prove that she can. When one kid falls off the stairs while the other one whacks her head on the table; they're both crying and you can only pick up one (and don't think Hannah isn't watching and tabulating who gets picked up first each time). That's when I realized what "they" were talking about.

It's the two kids melting down simultaneously that really gets me. I am so inherently selfish that when Norah is crying because she just might die if I don't give her the peanut-butter covered knife that's sitting on the counter (not going to happen for more reasons than she can comprehend) and Hannah is crying because she got a red vitamin instead of an orange vitamin, my gut instinct is to shout, What about ME?? Do you know that I am also a person? Did you know that sometimes I want things? How about you let me sit down at this table with my coffee and drink it while it's still somewhat warm shouting at me, hanging off me, or whining in my general vicinity? Are you aware that, in some circles, I am considered a person of value and that when I talk, people mostly listen? Do you think you could at least pretend to listen to me before continuing with your river of ridiculous and unceasing demands? And then I realize that those thoughts make me no better than they are. And while I would like to throw myself on the floor and flail, someone has to be the parent. As I seem to be the only person in sight qualified to use knives or scissors, I'd better buck up and get back to work.

I know that parenting any number of children has its own challenges, but I finally get the old Bill Cosby standup bit about people with one child aren't really parents. As he put it, "A person with one child does not have to deal with "Willyoustoptouchingme?" If you've got one child, and the child's doing that, you gotta take it away."

And that is the hardest part of parenting right now:
No-wah is touching my stuff! Eeeeeee! No-wah is comin'! She's gonna get my fings! Whack. Norah wails. Hannah gets in trouble for whacking Norah, who she now resents even more because Norah is getting away scot-free after touching Hannah's precious "treasures." [A medallion of Cinderella, a mini American flag from last summer's parade and two strands of Mardi Gras beads. Truly worth defending tooth and nail.]

Hannah. Stop rolling on Norah. I don't think she's having fun anymore. Norah wails and pulls out a big clump of Hannah's hair. Hannah wails. What do I want to tell Hannah? Something sassy about the repercussions of not listening. Or about being bitten on the ass by karma. What do I tell Hannah? Wow, I'm sorry Norah hurt you. She was trying to tell you that she didn't like that- did you hear her start to whine? Maybe you should listen next time. Or ever. Just once, try listening.

But I've also seen firsthand the challenges of parenting an only child. Our neighbors have a kindergartner who is so desperate for playmates that she actually wants to play with a two-year-old. At least in theory. Then she gets here and Hannah drives her bonkers. They were sitting on our window seat, coloring or something, and Hannah started bouncing up and down like crazy on the cushion. So pretty much a normal afternoon in our world, but it drove our little friend insane.

Kaaa-tie, will you tell Hannah to stoooop bouncing?
Hannah, can you stop bouncing? I think it's bothering your friend.
Hannah gets that gleam in her eye. Aha! I'm annoying! Excellent! Bouncing continues, double-time.
Haaannn-uuuuh! Will you stooo-ooop? It's hurting my ears!

Wow, not even a plausible complaint. Anyone who had to put up with the regular torture of a sibling's presence would have been able to pull out "it's making me color crooked" or "you bumped my elbow" or "you're making the cushion lumpy." Or, in true big-sister fashion, would have simply stiff-armed the little monkey off the window seat.

I'm sure somehow that which has not killed us (at least not yet) is making us stronger. I would just like to know who decided that I needed so much strengthening. I really think I would be ok with being a little wimpier.

It's like deja vu all over again...

2011-04-09T13:53:00.000-06:00

We were standing on the cliff above the beach, watching the waves. And the surfers.
"Hannah, look at that! Do you see those people out there in the water? They're surfers!"
"Mommy, I want to do dat!"
"Well, surfing is really tricky and you're pretty little. Those are grown-ups out there. Surfing might be a little too hard to do right now."
"No, Mommy. I'm gettin' biggah. I a big gihl now. I know how to suhf. I want to do it!"

How can you argue with that kind of unbridled enthusiasm? Of course we had to let her try...although I had that strange feeling that we'd had this discussion before, somewhere colder and snowier...

So on one of the few sunny days during our San Diego vacation (the weather did not quite provide the respite from dreary Montana that we'd been hoping for), we picked a boogie board from our vacation rental's garage (Nick swears that Hannah was solely responsible for picking the crazy-eyed frenzied shark design; I have my doubts...) and headed for the water. Hannah was so excited she could hardly stand it. We'd made her put clothes on over her suit for the walk over, since the temperatures were just in the low 60s. The whole way down to the beach, she kept yelling, "I want to take my pants off! I 'ike takin' my pants off!" Meaning, of course, I am quite excited to be wearing my new swimsuit and am anticipating an enjoyable afternoon of surfing and beach time. Hey, just as long as she's yelling that when she's two and not when she's 19, we can work with it.

We had gotten an enlightening peek into Hannah's worldview the day before at the playground, when the only other kids were a couple of 8 or 9-year-olds playing a game of tag on the play equipment. Hannah watched them intently as they chased each other around, clearly itching to get in on the fun. Nick indicated that she might be a little bit too small to chase those girls, pointing out that they were a lot older than she was.
"No, Daddy. Dey not oldah, dey just tallah."

And now that attitude was about to take on the Pacific Ocean. But fust, we were informed, we need to sped out my towah. Apparently you can take a girl to the open ocean, but you can't take the OCD out of the girl.

After the towel was acceptably spread and wrinkle-free, surfing could commence. Nick had the bright idea of having her stand, surfboard-style, on the boogie board and skimming her along the incoming surf. With one hand on the board's leash and the other clinging tightly to Nick's, she actually did really well.

Of course, it only took about five minutes for her little body, with its two-percent-or-less body fat, to turn blue and start shivering. But it took a good thirty minutes for her frozen limbs to outweigh her determination. So as Hannah nears age three, we've already checked skiing and surfing off her to do list. Next year, we need to be careful not to vacation anywhere that people might be bungee jumping or cliff diving.

And where, might you ask, was Norah during the Great Surfing Adventure?

Sitting in the sand, licking rocks.

It seemed to be as big of a rush for her as the one Hannah was getting on the surfboard. We hope she doesn't have pica.

The hard stuff

2011-03-30T22:57:00.000-06:00

What do you tell a two-year-old about death? Sadly, we had to make some crash-course parenting decisions last weekend when my "extra grandpa" Mr. Wayne (lots of love, no blood relation) passed away. It's sad for us, but he was a 92-year-old who until recently could have passed for 72, so it's hard to ask for more than that.

Anyway, Hannah had seen him almost every time we made it home since her birth and we were in the car on our way to visit his wife. We knew she would recognize his absence, but what the heck were we supposed to tell her? A two-year-old is obviously not going to understand the concept of death, so we were really just shooting for damage control. Trying to pick the explanation that would provoke the fewest awkward or inappropriately-timed questions. I was optimistic because all my parents' animals (two cats and a dog) died between Christmas and Valentine's Day and Hannah handled Death Lite (is it terrible to think of it that way? I'm just not really an animal person...) with barely a blink (she might not be an animal person either...). So I dove in, completely winging it:

Hannah, we're going to see Mrs. R, but Mr. Wayne won't be there.
Why not? Wheah is he?
Well, sometimes when people get really old, they get sick and their bodies don't work right anymore. [Please don't infer that getting sick means that you're dying, or that everyone you know who is old is about to die. Because you just told a whole planeful of people that Grandma is "reah-wee old." (Sorry, Mom. If it's any consolation, she thinks a fifth-grader is also really old.)]
Can we fix him?
No, we can't fix him. His body just stopped working and he died and went to heaven to be with Jesus.
But does she have toohs?
Where is this going? Does Mrs. R. have shoes?
No, does she have toohs.
Oh, tools? [Rip my heart out right here.] Sweetie, she can't fix him. None of us can fix him. He's with God now.
But does God have toohs?
I cannot get into a theological debate about why prayers are answered/unanswered with a two-year-old.
Sweetie, we aren't going to be able to see Mr. Wayne anymore. But we can see Mrs. R and give her a big hug and show her your paper dolls and help her feel better.
At this point, of course, I am crying, which I think is freaking Hannah out a little. Not my plan, but it does stop the questions. We have a nice visit with Mrs. R (if you can count Hannah bouncing between jumping off the furniture and marching around singing "songs" at the top of her lungs as a nice visit) and only one "Wheah is he?" question that I manage to deflect with a paper doll in a pharaoh costume.

Even if Hannah could understand death, I wouldn't explain it to her. Time is moving way too fast as it is- she's started to bring little annoying habits home from preschool, her first steps into the real world. I don't see any reason to erode her island of innocence any faster. I can't stop her from learning new and more-efficient ways to pick her nose, but I'm perfectly happy with our world of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Mommy the Genius.

Yeah, she already knows one of those is fiction. And it ain't the man in the red suit.

Really Hot

2011-03-15T21:36:00.000-06:00

Lately we've been spending time with friends whose kids are about our kids' ages. Hannah is especially attached to their older son, who, because I don't know how his parents feel about the Internet and privacy, we'll call Seamus.

In many ways, Seamus is the anti-Hannah. You give Seamus a meal, he eats it. You ask Seamus to pick up toys, he starts putting them in the bin. You tell Seamus not to do something, he stops. I sometimes entertain thoughts of a child swap. But then I remember that Seamus rarely naps or sleeps through the night. Oh, and his parents know where I live.

It is always entertaining to see Hannah and Seamus together. As I noticed the other day, as we were off on an outdoor adventure involving baby carriers, covered sleds, ice shoes and a partially frozen lake shore (yes, these friends are extremely cool), Seamus looked like Explorer Bill of the North: fleecy blue pants, red-and-black logger shirt, red down vest with Wilderness Medicine badge (I don't think he really earned it but I try to be polite and not point that out to him), tough black shoes, big mittens, no-nonsense wool hat. He looked, in short, like someone who headed out to explore an icy lake shore.

Hannah, on the other hand. Well, the phrase "hot mess" is the only thing that came to mind. It's one of those phrases that I sometimes use without knowing exactly what it means. So I looked it up. It hasn't made Webster's yet, but Urban Dictionary describes it as either when one's thoughts or appearance are in a state of disarray but they maintain an undeniable attractiveness or beauty OR a derogatory term describing a situation, behavior, appearance, etc. that is disastrously bad. Think "faux pas" times ten. Possible origin is literal (think, steaming dogpile).

Turns out both apply to our dear Banana from time-to-time, but our outdoor activities fall into the "disastrous but still cute" hot mess category. As best as I can describe, she looked like a tiny Paris Hilton who got lost on her way to a tea party. Fur-lined hooded jacket, pink pants, pink Hello Kitty rain boots, purple turtle purse slung over one arm.

Our bike outing with Seamus and Co. was even better, thanks to the diva sunglasses:

The Did my agent clear you to take that picture? facial expression is purely coincidental. I think.

Here's a small photo gallery of Hot Mess Hannah:

Enjoying some hot chocolate...in one of Norah's headbands. While wearing legwarmers as sleeves.

Hannah loves chapstick. This time she found my tinted chapstick. Note that it is everywhere but on her lips.

(Side note: It was really difficult to take a picture of this without implicitly reinforcing this behavior. Hey Hannah, let's take a picture...because it's Tuesday.)

Wondering what to wear today? Why not a pink poodle costume, two sizes too small, with diva sunglasses and a Snoopy backpack.

It's a serious wedgie, but such is the price of fashion.

Just a 'ittle

2011-03-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Hannah had a naptime accident today. It happens. We changed the sheets, changed her clothes. I was trying to figure out which of the six blankets piled on her bed might have gotten wet, too. And this is how I know my child is still innocent at heart:
Mommy, what you doin'?
I'm trying to see if your blankets are wet and if we need to wash them. I think they're ok, though.
Mommy, my feshal [special] bankie is wet.
It is? [Clearly you have not yet grasped the time and place for a good self-preserving white lie.] You know that means we have to put it in the wash.
Here I am bluffing with no backup plan. We're temporarily without a washing machine due to some remodel work and I think I would rather let her drag around a really stinky blanket than kill an hour and a half at the laundromat with two little kids.

Hannah's eyes grow to the size of headlights at the thought of more than a nanosecond of separation from Bankie.
Mommy, it's a 'ittle wet. But not too much.
Oh, not too much? That's good.
Yeah, not too much. [Brightens, both with relief and her new genius idea. . .] You want to feeh it?
And Hannah offers me Bankie's peed-on corner like it was the holy hem of Pope Benedict's robes.

Are children innately self-centered? Well, the greatest gift my child thought she could give me today was the permission to touch a raggedy, stained old blanket soaked in her urine. You be the judge.

Hey, at least it's not another poop story.

2011-03-01T22:33:00.001-07:00

Take two small children. Add one long winter spent indoors with their fellow small, adorable germ-spreaders. What do you get?

Vomit.
The stomach flu hit in a big way this weekend. (Actually, it just hit me. But I blame the children because hey, that's what they're there for.) I spent the better part of a day calling Ralph on the Porcelain Phone, doing the Technicolor Yawn, Insert your Favorite Vomit Euphemism Here. Then another full day in recovery. And I figured out a couple things.

One: I now have a great advertising pitch for stomach flu. "Want to lose five pounds fast? Try stomach flu! It's both incredibly effective and hideously disgusting. Like the concept but not a fan of revisiting your lunch? Try our other product line: Tapeworms!" (What can I say. When you're in bed for two days straight, you have a lot of time on your hands and only so many Glee reruns on Fox.com.)

Two: Being very ill and confined to bed isn't all bad. I mean, it's not exactly Disneyland (unless your trip to Disneyland involves some serious Spinning Teacups-induced motion sickness), but there was definitely something to hearing Hannah have a serious breakdown over an imaginary issue (Daddy! No-wah was 'ookin' at my stuff! [sob sob sob] . . . Daddy! [sob] I bump my eh-bow on da [sob] piddoh [pillow]!) and think, "Wow, sounds like Hannah's being overly dramatic and hard to parent. Too bad I can't get out of bed and go help. I should probably take another nap now." It's like when my friend, who has school-age twins, told me that during their early years she used to fantasize about coming down with a disease that required hospitalization and someone feeding her ice chips for a few days before she made a miraculous recovery and rejoined her family. Sometimes you take your respite where you can get it. [Note to Nick: I did not eat the suspicious chicken in the back of the fridge just so that I could escape my parenting duties for a couple days. I'm not saying I wouldn't, just that I didn't.]

Three: On the heels of Reason Two, I am so very grateful and thankful for my husband, who got a serious dose of solo parenting this weekend, did not complain, made me noodle soup and toast, and brought me a French film from the video store.

And I am thankful that I got sick on a Saturday morning, not a Monday morning just as his truck was pulling away from the house. I cannot imagine how you could have the stomach flu and be expected to parent. Hannah would have been in charge of Norah. Hannah would have been cooking her own fishsticks for lunch. Hannah would have been feeding Norah fishsticks straight from the freezer. I think we can see that it would have gone very badly, very quickly.

I have several other mom friends who I could normally call if I needed help with the kids, but you can't really call someone up and say, "Hey, I have a terribly contagious, extremely violent stomach bug. Can I send over my kids, who may soon start vomiting themselves? Or they may just be carriers; you (and your children) should know in four to seven days." Unless you don't care whether you ever hear from them again.

Four: There is no surer sign of love than vomit love. Last night, mostly recovered, I was putting Norah down for the night. She and Hannah both have hacking colds. Just after a full meal followed by a full bedtime nursing, she started coughing. She must have choked a little, because Holy Gag Reflex Batman, suddenly it all came up. It was like the Exorcist, or Poltergeist, or whatever that classic vomit movie reference is. (I'm not going to pretend to know; I had a childhood sheltered from non-Sesame Street pop culture and haven't seen either one.)

Anyway, the point is that if it weren't my child, I would probably be telling you about my trigger for another round of Barf-o-Rama. And yet, the only thing that ran through my head was not "I suddenly smell like Monday morning in a frat house basement," but "Oh my gosh, are you ok? Don't breathe any of it in, just puke it all out on me." I mean, I didn't even realize I had puke dripping off my cheek until I'd gotten her in the tub. Whoops, too much? Sorry.

Let me leave you with a funny Hannah vomit story (hey, if you're still reading, you must be able to find humor in vomit). A couple days ago, Hannah had been coughing all through her nap. When she woke up, I went in and the room smelled suspiciously like puke, but Hannah was sitting up in bed like nothing's wrong.
Hannah, are you ok?
Mommy. I buhp and dere was icky stuff in my mouf.
[That explains the smell. But where is the vomit? Did she chew it back down??]
Ok, are you alright? Do you want some water?
Yeah, I want some wat-uh.
I bring the water and reach to pick up a random red sweatshirt in her bed.
No, Mommy! I need dat!
Oh, are you going to put it on?
Yeah, I got da icky stuff on my other fet-uh [sweater]. So I got da Bucky fet-uh. [Yes, Grandma Sally, she knows Bucky the Badger by sight. Class of 2030, here she comes.]
Where's the other sweater?
Looks at me, matter-of-fact.
I put it back in da doh-wuh [drawer].

Oh good, I'm glad our work in picking up the bedroom kicked in today.

Toddler World: All Sunshine...and Stickahs

2011-02-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

At the time, I was incredibly thankful for the thoughtful post office worker who rewarded Hannah's ability to stand in line (sort of- her head didn't actually explode while we were waiting) with a smiley face sticker. I thought that this could be the beginning of something big in our world, an occasional reinforcement for patience and good behavior.

Well, I was right about the "something big" part. I momentarily forgot the First Rule of Toddlerhood: Treats Are Never Forgotten and Always Requested. When combined with the Second Rule of Toddlerhood (Things That Are Similar Are Actually the Same), it means that any cash register sighting triggers Mommy, do you fink dey have stickahs? Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Do dey have stickahs? Wih you ask if dey have stickahs?

I usually respond with something like, "I will ask, Hannah, but not everyone has stickers. Sometimes we get stickers, but not always." This is a good life lesson, right? You're not always going to get everything you want. Sometimes life is stickers and sometimes it's just switchplate covers at Home Depot.

The problem with this is that Hannah is really stinkin' cute. Cashiers seem powerless in her presence. I've seen grocery cashiers go two checkstands over in their quest for something brightly-colored and adhesive. The thing is, it's all about The Get, not about the sticker itself. We're not carrying around a sticker scrapbook for these temporary treasures. Once the thrill of receiving a treat is over, the sticker usually goes on her face, her shirt, or (her favorite by far) Somewhere on Mommy. Yes, I have been approached by strangers at a coffee shop because I am wearing Hannah's church nursery sticker on my back. And of course this only happens when I don't actually have any children with me, so I pretty much look like I've wandered away from my life skills assistant.

And, ironically, while Hannah prefers stickers of the "500 for a Dollar" quality, she often gets upgraded to swag of the Rear Car Window Life Statement variety. Snowboard logo sticker from the ski rental place. Euro-style oval logo from the coffee shop. Swanky artisanal ice cream store logo.

The ultimate prize so far was at a home decor shop a couple weeks ago. The cashier: A twenty-something dude.
Hannah: MOMMY! You ask him if dey have stickahs? Do dey have stickahs? Do dey, Mommy? You ask?
Me: (supressing a sigh) My little girl wants to know if you have any stickers.
Dude, confused: Um, if we do, they'd be back with the other toys by the rugs and stuff.
Me: No, I mean stickers up here at the cash register. Some places, like the post office or grocery stores, keep stickers for kids. (Having done my asking duty, I backpedal as quickly as possible) But it's ok, really. No big deal. Sorry Hannah, they don't have any stickers today. We asked, but there aren't any.
Dude, not helping me out: Oh, riiight. Hmm, let me look.
Me: No really, it's ok. [If you find something, it's only going to reinforce her belief that the world exists to provide her with stickers. And I'm starting to feel like I'm begging. It's not like we can't afford stickers.]
Dude: Hey, what's your favorite color?
Hannah looks at me, confused. "Favorite" is a word she uses, but not anything she comprehends.
Me: Hannah, what color do you like? Green?
Hannah: Yeah, green. No, PUH-PUL!

From his drawer, Dude pulls out not a sticker, but a beautiful Asian-looking little fabric bag, like something you might put a gift card in. Very, very nice of him. Unfortunately all I can see is that cash register treats have just been upgraded from stickers to actual toys. I can only assume she will be looking for a pet hamster next. Fortunately, I do not look at the world like a two-year-old.

Me: Wow, Hannah, a BAG! What do you say?
Hannah, confused: Wheh my stickah?
Me, talking quickly: No, Hannah, that's a really nice thing he gave you. Can you tell him thank you?
Hannah, catching on: Tank you! Bye! Tank you!
[As we head out the door] Mommy, what dis foh?
Me: Well, maybe you can put all your stickers in it.

No seriously, what DO you do?

2011-02-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight, around the dinner table:
Daddy, how was you day at wohk today? [Once again, reminding me that I should not swear or use other choice phrases around our little sponge.]
My day was good, Hannah. You know what? I met a little girl today.
What her name?
Her name was Jenny.
What she doin'?
She wasn't feeling very good. She was a little bit sad and a little bit sick.
You tahk to her?
Yep, I talked to her.
Why she sad?
She was sad because she didn't feel very good.
She not feeh good? She shood go to da doctah.

And, because Hannah is nothing if not equal opportunity, here was their bedtime conversation:
Daddy, ah you goin' to wohk tomohwoh?
Yep, Hannah, I'm going to work.
When I a gohwn-up, I go to wohk too.
What are you going to be when you grow up?
I goin' to be HANNAH.
Yep, you'll always be Hannah, but you can be something else, too, like Hannah the Teacher or Hannah the Lawyer or Hannah the Doctor.
I be Hannah Doctor. When I a gowhn-up, I go to wohk tomohwoh.
[Pause]
Maybe when Mommy a gowhn-up, she go to wohk, too.

Skiing: Epliogue Two

2011-02-03T19:26:00.000-07:00

At her request, we took Hannah back to the Magic Carpet today. In pursuit of that goal, I think I burned approximately 1,000,000 calories. I had been out skiing by myself and the plan was for me to meet Nick, Norah and Hannah at the base lodge. Nick would hang out with Norah while I took Hannah for a spin or two on the Magic Carpet.

Just as I sat down in the lodge with my hot chocolate to wait for the crew, Nick calls.
Um, do you have the key to the ski locker?
Crap. I can see Hannah's tiny yellow skis leaning against the locker wall. Yep, it's in my pocket.
I already have the girls packed and ready to go. Can you get to it and back down to the base lodge?
Sure. I have no idea how, but I can't be that far from the condo.

Turns out it can be that far back. I hopped on the chair by the base lodge which took me almost (almost being the key word) back to the village level. Here I could hop another chair that would take me halfway up the mountain, at which point I could ski leisurely and directly to our condo. I picture Nick sitting in the lodge trying to manage a fast-moving baby and a lightning-fast toddler while I took one more run. Hmm. Probably not the best plan.

Option B started with schlepping my skis up a 150-foot staircase. All I can say is that I'm thankful we don't live in Colorado, because the mountain elevation here was only about 6,000 feet and I nearly died. Willing myself to keep breathing and trying not to remember that I used to play volleyball every day at 6,200 feet, I strapped back into my skis. . . so I could skate-ski myself uphill for another 100 yards to get back to the damn ski locker. I was thankful for the slight downhill right before the condo . . . until I had to turn around and ski back up it on my way out, now also carrying toddler skis and boots.

Needless to say, I was a sweaty mess by the time I reached the base lodge. But it was ok because I arrived just as Nick and the girls walked in the door. After some more logistical wrangling (nothing like a fully-snowsuited toddler who suddenly has to go to the bathroom), Hannah and I headed out the door. Magic Carpet at last. As I described earlier, the trek from the lodge to the carpet is less than the flat/downhill walk in the park which you might hope for when maneuvering a lump of dead weight that has not yet grasped the skills necessary for towing. Instead of messing with the various maneuvers I tried yesterday, I decided I might as well see exactly where my VO2 max is these days. So I just picked Hannah up before once again skate-skiing uphill. Hey, it's not like I was going to get any sweatier.

I don't even look up to see if yesterday's scornful Brazilian liftie is still at his post. I am too busy reveling in my accomplishments as we go up. My legs are burning and I could wring out my socks, but my little girl is back on the mountain. She wants to ski and I made it happen.

We only have a half an hour before the carpet closes, but hopefully that will be enough time to scratch her skiing itch. I figure we can get four or five runs in. We dismount the carpet successfully (an achievement in itself) and I am all sunshine and positivity.
All right, Hannah! Here we go! Are you ready to SKI?
Mommy, [she looks at me with the smile that says "I've been plotting something and, since I'm smarter than you, I know you won't see through it"] I'm ahl done.
[Wait for it...one thousand one, one thousand two...]
Can we go inside and get some hot chokate?

But I WANT to!

2011-02-03T12:21:00.001-07:00

You just can't tell a two-year-old anything. Anything at all. For example: Hannah has been completely convinced for at least a month now that she needs to ski. We came up to the local mountain a couple times to check out the view of the valley and every time she saw skiiers go by, she'd tell us, "I want to do dat!"
Last time I said, But Hannah, we don't have any of the stuff. You need special shoes and skis to go skiing.

No, I do it in my boots! I want to schee! I want to schee NOW!

So yesterday we went schee-ing. We had stayed up on the mountain (we were having new windows put in our house and didn't want to be there to experience the arctic blast indoors) and were ready to rock-and-roll in the morning. Yes, I know that 2 1/2 is a little young for skiing. Yes, I know that she hates having snow go down her boots, get in her mittens, or generally disturb her oh-so-delicate sensibilities. I really didn't think we'd get past the parking lot and was expecting a giant "feek out" when she had to walk in those uncomfortable boots. But there just wasn't any way to convince her that skiing would be anything less than the pinnacle experience of her young life. So off we went.

Amazingly, the boots were no problem. They simply slowed her from warp speed to normal speed.

Logistics were our first real hurdle. We were staying in a ski-in, ski-out place...but I couldn't see any way to dump Hannah on the mountain and ask her to navigate a couple hundred vertical yards of terrain en route to the kids' run. In retrospect, we probably would have been better off if I had picked her up and held her under one arm while skiing down the mountain (come to think of it, that's exactly how the morning ended . . . and it was the easiest part of the whole experience). Anyway, we instead drove down and parked by the base lodge. Luckily Nick thought to throw our sled in the car before we left home, so I towed Hannah, her skis and my poles across the parking lot while also carrying my skis. Awkward, yes, but not terrible.

The real fun began when we got to the front of the lodge and I realized the Magic Carpet- an ultimate beginner hill featuring a conveyor belt instead of a chair lift- was behind (also known as above) the lodge and we now had to navigate about 40 winding concrete steps without the aid of the sled.

If you've never worn ski boots, imagine trying to walk in an ankle cast. Now picture yourself with two broken ankles. Now pick up a pair of skis, a pair of poles, and a second pair of mini skis while climbing a staircase in your double casts. And now imagine that your child also has two ankle casts on which cause her to fall on nearly every step and wail that she needs to be picked up and carried. The fact that you are already carrying 25 pounds of unwieldy equipment does not seem to matter to her.

Ten minutes in and I was already sweaty and seriously questioning my judgment. I also desperately wanted to put a sign on her back that read This Was Her Idea, Not Mine.

We get to the top of the stairs. I am physically and mentally exhausted. Miraculously, Hannah still wants to give this skiing thing a try. Unfortunately, although we are now in the ski area, we are still about 20 yards away from the Magic Carpet. Twenty yards away and still downhill from our destination. Well, crap.

My first idea, pulled from the dim memories of my own childhood ski experiences, was to have her hold my pole while I towed her. Terrible idea for someone who has no clue how to keep their skis from going every which way underneath them. Total faceplant and tears. (I may have said, for the benefit of my audience, "Hannah, are you sure YOU still want to do this?" as I got her up.) I tried putting her between my legs and having her hold my poles across her stomach while I skate-skiied us along. Really terrible idea. Turns out Hannah is not actually strong enough to keep the poles from creeping up and across her windpipe as she is dragged along. Ultimately, I picked her up and put her on my hip to skate-ski the last 50 feet to the Magic Carpet. You might argue that any child who can be hip-carried while wearing skis is a little too young for skiing. I would agree. Please come over and explain that to Hannah.

Amazingly, she went up the Carpet without incident. I ignored the Really, Lady? look from the Brazilian manning the Carpet Loading Zone. (Um, you came all the way from South America for your glamorous U.S. ski job and you're running a conveyor belt flanked by smiling suns and flowers. Are you really in a position to give me grief?)

Now for the fun part: down the hill! I don't know quite where my vision came from, that Hannah would put her two-foot-long skis into a tiny snowplow (or, more likely, point her tips straight down the hill) and we'd be off. Instead, she was very timid, extremely hesitant, and wanted me to hold her hand while we skiied. Except for the part where holding my hand pulled her backward when she needed to lean forward, this would have been fine. We ended up compromising with me skiing backwards in front of her while holding her hands and trying desperately to get her to bend her knees or do anything else that might help her stay upright. (It turned out that "bend your knees and lean forward" means nothing, but "sit like you're on the potty" is fairly effective.) Needless to say, we went straight from our 40-foot run to the lodge for hot chocolate.

I gotta give the kid props, though- when we went back outside and I was pushing to go back to the condo and telling daddy how GREAT a job she did (I do want her to ski someday), she wanted to try again. I ok Mommy, I not cry dis time. How can you say no to that? So we tried. . . and I have to admit I was a little relieved that she had a meltdown before we were halfway to the carpet. Sweet, back to the car! And although it was only 10:30 and we'd been gone maybe an hour and a half, Hannah completely passed out on the three-minute drive back to the condo. Kind of nice to know I wasn't the only one working hard out there.

Epilogue: Later that afternoon, we took Hannah out behind the condo to let her try again on some mostly flat snow. Two adults in regular boots did a much better job and Hannah at least began to get the idea of standing on her own on skis. After successfully navigating a slight downhill stretch (with Nick holding the back of her snowsuit), she pointed at the chairlift behind us and said, I want to go on dat now!
Well, Hannah, you're not quite ready. You have to learn to turn and stand up by yourself first.
No, I ready. I want to go deah now!
If determination is worth anything, you might want to keep an eye out when the 2028 Winter Olympics roll around.

Turns out kids can be cruel by accident, too

2011-01-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Mommy, can I see you beddy button?
I already know this is not going to end well. But I comply, lifting my shirt slightly to show Hannah my less-than-sixpack abs.
Mommy! You have a hohl in you beddy button! I can put my fingah in it!
Hannah lifts her own shirt, contemplating her navel. It lies flat against her one-percent-body-fat stomach, which would be a sixpack if it didn't still have to pooch out to accommodate those pesky internal organs.
I no have a hohl in my beddy button. Un'ess I do dis [folds herself pretty much in half]. NOW I can put my fingah in my beddy button!
Yes, thank you for that lesson on our physical differences. Why don't you go play by yourself for a while. I have to dig through some old boxes. There has to be an Abs of Steel video in there somewhere.

Sigh...

2011-01-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

Mommy, I'm peein'!
Hannah said this while sitting on top of the heat vent in the kitchen. Happy Monday to me....

What was I thinking?

2011-01-19T22:29:00.001-07:00

Hmm. My blog challenge seems to have gone much like my marathon training: set a goal, achieve it, then quit cold turkey. I don't think I've run more than six miles at a time since February 2004.

It's not that I dislike running. Or blogging. I'm not running anymore because my joints were not really in favor of it. And because Nick kept giving me The Look and saying, "I'm not going to push your wheelchair when you're 40 if you ruin your hips running." And as for blogging, I am so far in the weeds with these children that I cannot even see the sky anymore. It was great to have the Seven Blogs in Seven Days to keep me going, but I would literally be lying on the couch at 9 every night and think, Oh crap, I have to write something. And all I want to do is go to bed.

Earlier this summer, a friend of mine asked my opinion on having kids as close together as Hannah and Norah. It must have been a really good day because I said something like It's really great. We weren't really out of the baby phase yet- still doing diapers and naps- so it wasn't a big deal to start over. We're hopeful they'll be good friends because they're so close together. The days are a lot busier, but it's totally manageable.

I must have been insane. I clearly did not take into account the difference between having a not-quite-two-year-old and a newborn and having a two-and-a-half-year-old and a nine-month-old. Yes, it was completely exhausting when Norah was awake a lot in the middle of the night and I still had to get up and parent all day long. But she didn't do anything. Hannah and I did what we always did; I just had to stop occasionally to feed the little lumpy thing in the baby sling.

Compare that to now. Hannah "needs" me more than ever, either to fetch something for her (Yes, Your Highness, is there anything more that you require? Oh, the sippy cup with the green lid is not to your liking? Yes, I will straightaway search out the blue cup with the purple lid, Your Highness); play something with her (Let me get this straight: You want me to play dollhouse but I can only have my doll say what you tell me to make it say? Ok, just wanted to make sure I didn't play in a way that is displeasing to you); or be present to generally watch and admire her greatness (Wow, Hannah, I've never heard Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as though it were being sung by an angry, tone-deaf tiger before. That's....something).

And while I am attending to Hannah's whims (or, as more often the case, not fully attending to them and dealing with those consequences), Norah is on a path to self-destruction, amplified by her new abilities to pull up, stand freely, and grab things from tables/couches/stairs/benches. If she's not directly pursuing harm by eating everything she can find on the floor (I cannot count the amount of wrapping paper I fished out over the holidays), she is risking life and limb by messing with her sister and/or her sister's possessions. Or she is looking like she might touch Hannah and/or her stuff. Any of the above offenses apparently justify a Hannah foot in a Norah face. Norah falls down, Norah cries, Hannah goes to time out, Hannah cries. And repeat. All day long. Sometimes Hannah mixes it up by prying Norah's fingers off whatever she's using to balance herself, or headbutting her, or lying on top of her and growling. I'm not sure we have 10 minutes in a day when no one is whining or in tears. At some point, Mommy goes in the other room. Mommy cries.

The kicker lately was a stretch of Hannah having bathroom accidents that just didn't seem accidental.
Hannah, do you need to go to the potty?
No, Mommy, I ok.
Are you sure you don't need to go? It's been a while. Let's just go try.
NOOOOO! I don't want to!
[30 second delay] Mommy, I pooooped!

She never has an accident at school, at church or when we're out and about. Only at home, and coincidentally only when I am not paying attention to her. I cannot begin to describe how completely unhinged this makes me. (I should point out that I am rarely allowed to sleep through the night and it tends to make me a little irrational.) It's messy, it's nasty, and I am fairly sure it has been on purpose. Most of the time, I have to leave Hannah in the bathroom after she's clean so I can take a few deep breaths and remind myself not to stick her outside in a snowbank and lock the door. She always wants to know where I'm going and why she can't come, so I tell her that I have to give myself a time out.

Anyway, the accidents have mostly stopped again, but the day before yesterday she didn't quite make it to the potty and peed through her pants on the bathroom floor.
Mommy, I have a accident!
It's ok, sweetie, did you try to get to the potty?
Yes, I try but I not make it.
Well, let's get you dried off and changed.
And then time out?
No. . . you don't have to go to time out. You tried to get here, you listened to your body [we're big on talking about listening to your body so you know when you need to go], you just didn't make it. It's ok, I'm not mad.
No, Mommy, you go to time out?

Whoops, maybe I've over-used that one a bit. Time to get a grip.

Best Year Ever, Best Year Ever, Best Year Ever.

Oh Blankie, My Blankie...

2011-01-07T23:08:00.000-07:00

I never had a security item, blanket or otherwise. So I can only assume that the blankie-craving gene is a dominant trait the girls received from my husband. He would have been dragging his blankie Linus-style to kindergarten if his parents hadn't intervened.

Hannah totes around the 'Bankie' Formerly Known as Thlish. Sadly, no one will ever know where "Thlish" came from. Or where it went. It was the name for her blanket back when her vocabulary was in the single digits. Then, sadly, one day it was just gone. Now we have Bankie. Much easier to understand, but I miss that bit of baby weirdness.

Bankie started out as an unbelievably soft, satin-trimmed pink blanket. If you ask Hannah, it is still pink and heavenly to touch. If you ask anyone else who has eyes or fingers, it is dirty gray, sort of matted, and icky-feeling. Needless to say, Bankie goes everywhere, hence the nasty color and texture. It has been dropped on the streets of Chicago and run over by the stroller in San Francisco. (It's a good thing Hannah is up-to-date on her immunizations, because who knows what came off the pavement with it.)

It rarely gets washed because the withdrawal symptoms are too severe. Each wash cycle comes with several tearful trips to the laundry room:
"Can I have my Bankie now?"
"I'm sorry, sweetie, it's still washing. It smelled like pee/was almost black with dirt/was wet because your Moron Mom dropped it in a puddle and it needs to get nice and clean." If only that were actually possible.
"But I NEED MY BANKIE!!!"

Bankie is healer of all wounds, fixer of all sadness. It is summoned after falls, disappointments and disciplinings. Hannah runs its satin trim (or the shreds of it) between her fingers and strokes her cheek with the corners. If she's feeling especially philanthropic, she will stroke my face with it, being sure to get it close enough to my nose for a nice, big whiff of . . . well, I'm not sure what, but it definitely isn't anything I associate with aromatherapy. While I'm receiving this 'treat,' Hannah is telling me, "Oh, the Bankie is so soft. You feeh it, Mommy? It is so soft on you face." And I am thinking: Smile. Be convincing. She's being sweet. Don't blow this moment. Ok, it's been long enough. Initiate evasive maneuvers immediately.

There is no ice-in-the-gut feeling like being in the car in the middle of errands and hearing, "Can I have my Bankie?" and realizing that no, you cannot have your Bankie because Bankie is still sitting on the couch, probably enjoying Sesame Street without you. (Or maybe Maury Povich. I can't really get a read on Bankie's personality.)

I am pretty sure Hannah would rather give up a limb (or her entire little sister) than give up the Bankie. My parents took her to a big park in Spokane and realized, halfway through their outing, that the blanket was no longer with them. Luckily, they were able to retrace their steps and recover it before Hannah even noticed. (I can't imagine why no one had walked off with a treasure like that.) Which is good, because as I told them, if they lost Bankie they had to keep Hannah.

Having a One and Only Bankie was a rookie mistake. We realized the potential horror of the lost blanket when she was about a year old and tried to scrounge some backup blankies. Unfortunately, there is Only One. A backup blankie will do when the good one is in the wash, but they are "not soft." Hmm. They are both fluffy and lovely. Maybe I should ask Hannah what exactly "soft" means.

So we're thinking we've gotten smart(er) the second time around. We weren't able to direct Norah's lovey fixation, which is unfortunate because my grandmother got her two identical blankies to alleviate the washing issue. Luckily, though, Norah latched onto a tie blanket made by a college friend. (It was actually a gift when Hannah was born. Please don't ever tell either of them that. It will aggravate Norah's Second Child Syndrome and Hannah will probably initiate repo proceedings.) With my old roommate's blessing, my mom and I performed a Blankectomy on the chosen blanket and now have four identical loveys. A pretty good cushion to prevent losing Norah's One True Comfort.

You may wonder how I can know that an eight-month-old is really attached to something. Well, when she starts suddenly wailing uncontrollably during naptime, I can be nearly 100% sure that I will find her standing at the rail, staring down at the lovey she has just dropped on the floor.

So now we have Bankie and Loveys I, II, III and IV. And actually, after a little thought, I realized that I have a security blanket of my own. It's called a Morning Latte. With it, the birds are singing all things are possible. When we are out of coffee beans or milk, you just might find me on the couch in the fetal position, crying softly. Latte, latte. Can I peese have my latte?

I really love them, it's just sometimes...

2011-01-06T22:21:00.001-07:00

So you could spend an afternoon with a two-and-a-half-year-old and an eight-month-old. Or you could invite over a really drunk college kid and adopt a puppy. And it would be pretty much the same thing.

Drunk college kids think that everything they do is hilarious and charming, while they are actually annoying the crap out of everyone around them. Today College Kid decided that, instead of walking to the bathroom when I asked her to, she would crawl at sloth speed while making fake baby crying noises, telling me, "I'm 'ike a tiny baby. Waaah! Waaah!"

When I went to pick her up at school, she crawled under the bench and refused to come out, informing me that "I'm hidin'."
Yeah, no kidding. GET UP. "Hannah, it's time to go. The kids who are staying need to take their naps."

"Mommy, you can't get me. I'm hidin'!"
Oh, I am going to kill you if you don't get up right now. [Did I mention that I also have Norah strapped to my back?] "Hannah. It's time to go. Can you come get your boots on?"
"Do you see me, Mommy? I peekin'. PEEK!"
If I weren't trying to be on my best behavior for your new school, I would drag you out from under there by your armpits. Or your hair. "Hannah, it's time to go. You can come out now or you can go to time out."
"Noooooo! Mommmmmy! I have to go potttttyyyyy!"
And she runs for the bathroom, informing me that, "Mommy, you go away. I do it mysef," right before she plunks the toddler seat and her hand directly into the toilet water, causing major angst for someone who hates to be wet and/or messy.
Hannah, sometimes karma's a bitch. "Whoops, did you have a problem? Do you need some help?"

Then we had a major meltdown when College Kid asked for "appah" for a snack. (This called to mind the kind of irrational emotional responses you see at 2 a.m. in a college dorm.)
I said, "Apple snacks [a packaged dried fruit she likes] or some apple?"
Sobbing. "NOOOOO, mommy, [sob sob] REAH appah!"
"Yes, Hannah. Some apple. Some real apple."
"And sing cheese!"
College Kid has categorically despised string cheese for probably the last six months. "We don't have any string cheese. We have orange cheese." The kind of cheese you love and eat EVERY DAY. "Do you want that?"
"NOOOO, mommy, [sob sob] SING cheese!"

Meanwhile, the Puppy spent the afternoon trying to find unattended electrical cords and scraps of paper to eat. Then she crawled into the closet and started chewing on Hannah's rain boot. When we put her in her crate (actually the ExerSaucer, just in case CPS is monitoring this blog), she started whining because of the lack of attention.

The good thing about the Puppy is that, unlike the wildly moody College Kid, she is always happy to see you. Anything you do with her is the best part of her day. (Unless you're wiping her face. But what puppy likes bathtime?) She will play peek-a-boo until you drop, and seems to actually be surprised, on Round 1,000, that it is still your face appearing from behind the blanket.

Unfortunately, the Puppy also sometimes seems bent on her own destruction. If she's not eating indiscriminately from the floor, she's trying to do things way beyond her coordination level, like climbing stairs or standing independently while chewing on a wooden puzzle piece. Yes, it nearly always ends badly. But it's ok because things are Out of Sight, Out of Mind and we're soon back to Love Me, Look at Me, Play with Me.

I'm going to add this last story because Nick thinks it's funny. I'm still not convinced it's appropriate for an audience. But hey, college kids have a raunchy sense of humor, too.
We're making one last trip to the potty tonight and College Kid announces, with her customary excitement, that she has to poop. And she does. Then we have to check it out.
"Mommy, it's a BIG poop!"
"Yep, let's go brush your teeth."
"But Mommy, he's ahl ahwohn in deah."
"It's ok, flush the potty and let's go brush your teeth." [Clearly I am not the one who taught Hannah to analyze her bodily functions.]
She goes to flush, speaking to, well . . .
"Ok, you go now. You go find you mommy and daddy. Bye-bye!"
And, I am not making this up, she blows a kiss to her poop.

Dear Norah,

2011-01-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

I am sure you're starting to feel like this blog is all about your sister. I'm starting to worry that you're going to end up like Jan Brady, walking around saying (or at least thinking), "Hannah, Hannah, Han-NUUUH!"

So let me tell you now, little one, that you are my whole heart. Hannah is my whole heart, your daddy is my whole heart, and you are my whole heart. So many nights I sit and hold you after you fall asleep, studying your perfect little face that looks so much like the little face I met eight and a half months ago, but is already so different that I have to work to find Newborn Norah.

Never in my life has eight months gone so quickly. You let go of the couch and stood on your own today. (Of course, when I said, "Norah! You're standing!" I surprised you and you fell over. Sorry about that.) How can that be? I know I haven't taken enough pictures, shot enough video, or recorded enough moments. Someday I hope you'll understand that it's not about love, it's about time and free hands. And there just isn't much of either around here right now, but there is more love for you than all the stars in the sky.

Let me take this brief moment to record some memories. Let me tell you about you, at eight months, one week and five days.

You have huge eyes (that's the first thing anyone says about you), the world's biggest smile, one and a half teeth, and enough hair coming in that I can no longer see your birthmark. There must be more teeth coming because you are chewing on everything. Your two favorite teethers are electrical cords and . . .

paper.

The other day you took a really hard bonk, and while I was trying to rock you happy, I discovered a wad of leftover wrapping paper that you had stashed away on the roof of your mouth. Let's just say that fishing it out didn't help the situation.

You learned how to pull up while we were in Texas in December. Now it's the only thing you want to do. You crawl so fast, too- I set you down and you're gone by the time I turn around. There must be electrical cords around here somewhere. Your dad has taken to creating a large barricaded area for you in the living room, so you can "watch football" with him.

You love chewing on your lovey. And peek-a-boo. And, inexplicably, being steamrollered by your sister. You think everything she does is amazing and hilarious (she doesn't appreciate how often you are the only one in her fan club). My wish for both of you is that she returns the favor someday. I'm not counting on it anytime soon (see steamroller, above), but I hope you can have a relationship of mutual admiration.

My favorite time of day with you is right before bed. There is something about putting your jammies on that makes you downright giddy. I tickle your legs and you laugh. I tickle your armpits and you laugh. I tickle your tummy and you laugh and laugh and laugh. I wish I could bottle your laugh and give it away as an antidepressant. I wish I could hold the sound of your baby laugh in my head forever. I hope I will raise you in a way that helps you hold onto the pure joy and love that you give so freely now. I love you to the moon. . . and back.

Big Day for a Big Girl

2011-01-04T21:59:00.000-07:00

Update: the pack n' play maneuver seems to have been successful (knock on wood). Hannah has been in bed for three hours without a whimper or the pitter-patter of scampering feet. When Nick put her down, she told him, very seriously, that "Mommy put me in da pack n'pay 'ast night. I not seep good in deah. I don't want to go in deah again."

Speaking of Hannah, today was her First Day of School. Actually, according to Hannah, she went to "shul." If Montana had a bigger Jewish population, that could have been confusing.

Here is the first of many goofy "Mo-om. Really?" first day of school pictures:

When you start school in Montana in January, you wear a snowsuit. When you go to preschool, you take your "bankie." And yes, she is completing the ensemble with a backpack. When we first started talking about going to school, she said, out of the blue, "Mommy, I need a packpack for shul."
"And what are you going to put in your backpack?"
"Nufin. I need a packpack."
We managed to put her slippers (fire code requirement, although I'm not sure being in two feet of snow in slippers is a whole lot better than in socks). She also had to take a plant. Part of her class, and maybe the Montessori philosophy (I sort of skimmed the parents' guide), is learning to care for other living things. (When they move from the 2-year-old class to the 3-year-old class, do they upgrade to a hamster? Shoot, by the time she's in kindergarten, maybe she'll be able to take care of Norah.) Hannah was very concerned that we didn't water her plant before we took it. "Mommy, do you fink dey have watah at shool?" "Yes, I think they have water." "Maybe I will ask Miss Jessica if dey have watah fo' my pant."

I was more concerned that Hannah would tell everyone that she's never seen a plant before, as it had made me realize that we don't have a single green and growing object in our house. Unless you count the fridge.

I absolutely adore this little preschool. They have fish in the classroom. They eat lunch, which the kids help prepare, family-style at little tables. It's very touchy-feely and terrific, but some parts of the Montessori philosophy seem like a bit of a stretch for two-year-olds. When we got to class one of the teachers tried to introduce Hannah to a little boy. Lennon, this is Hannah. Do you want to say hello and shake her hand? Lennon stared. Hannah stared. Neither moved so much as a finger toward the other.

The parents' handbook talked a lot about leaving your children for the first time and how it can be hard to pry yourself away from a little, tearful face. It even suggested staying with your child for the first hour or so for a few days until the child becomes accustomed to the environment. Here is Hannah approximately 2.2 minutes after we got to class:

I think she may have said good-bye to me.

Looks like this school thing just might work for her.

The Best Year Ever, Dammit.

2011-01-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

I am excellent with details but not always the best with the big picture. This makes me really good at things like web design and penmanship, but not so great with bigger things like...life. (I nearly cried last week over my failure as a parent. We forgot Hannah's dental appointment and, because it was her first appointment and we missed it without calling (we called 15 minutes after her appointment time), they won't reschedule her until June. Yes, I would agree that does seem ridiculous, but really, not worth a round of self-flagellation.)

So anyway, my 2011 resolution is that this is going to be The Best Year Ever. It's a pretty good mantra: whenever I start to get irritated or negatively sidetracked by some insignificant detail, I just tell myself that this is The Best Year Ever.

The only flaw in this plan is that the first three days of The Best Year Ever have been Less Than Delightful. I've already mentioned kicking off 2011 with a banging hangover. And right now, Nick and I are sitting on the couch comatose because no one really slept last night. And it wasn't Norah's fault, for the most part. She was up once to eat, but Hannah was awake and needy from 2:30 to 5:30. This never happens. I did the first 20 minutes, then passed her off when Norah woke up. So I am really tired and Nick is a zombie, having been unable to get Hannah back to sleep in her own bed and winding up sharing the guest room with her.

And tonight she completely refused to go to bed, another thing she's never done before. We put her down, she cried and got out of bed. And repeat, repeat, repeat. It was one of those terrible parenting moments when you have no idea what to do. We don't want her to learn she can stretch out bedtime infinitely by throwing fits. But we don't want to be heartless if something is really wrong. We couldn't get her to tell us anything besides "I can't fall asleep." So was she terrified of something? Just being obstinate and difficult? Overtired and irrational? We have no idea.

And it was about the worst night for this to happen. Thanks to sleep deprivation, we had maybe five minutes of patience between the two of us. (Hannah once again showing her innate gift for impeccable timing.) We did five or so rounds of putting her directly back in bed, kindly but firmly telling her to go to sleep, and leaving. This resulted in the gagging kind of crying. I tried one of her favorite things: talking about "what we do today" in exchange for her not getting up again. Ha ha. So she went into the pack n' play, which may not completely keep her in but will at least slow the escape. That didn't cure the crying, so Nick ended up singing her almost to sleep. She has no idea how lucky she is to have a dad who can dig down deep enough to find one more ounce of compassion at the bottom of a pit of exhaustion.

Now we head to bed, crossing our fingers for the night ahead.

Best Year Ever. Best Year Ever. Best Year Ever.

The Things I Carry

2011-01-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

Before I begin today's blog, let me add a detail I forgot about yesterday's story: While Nick and I were sitting at the breakfast table, feeling slightly deathly, Hannah trotted off to the playroom and came back with something she hasn't played with in months. A toddler-sized snare drum. And drumsticks. Two things: 1) How did she instantly know the worst toy for the situation? 2) Uncle "Ha ha ha, I can give your children loud musical instruments and there's nothing you can do about it" Andy almost got a very early, very loud phone call.

Anyway, onto today.

I've been noticing recently that I end up with the most random assortment of things in my pockets by the end of the day. Things I confiscate from Hannah due to improper use. Things I remove from Norah's reach or fish out of her mouth. Things I pick up intending to put away. Here's a random sample of about a four-day span:

One baby bootie. Hey, two shoes aren't really crucial if the baby isn't walking, right?
Two half-used kleenexes. Gotta love cold season.
A new discount card and two key tags for Smith's grocery store. It was my first visit there in over a year. I bought three avocados, all of which went directly from rock-hard to rotten. I don't think it counts as saving money if you can't actually eat the food you buy.
Two subscription cards to Backpacker magazine. Oh right, I told Nick he was getting a subscription for Christmas. Hmm, should probably send one of those in.
One Nick sock with a big hole. Did I really think I will be carving out time to darn socks? I must be delirious from lack of sleep.
Punch card from coffee shop, wrestled away from Hannah. No one stands between me and the pursuit of a free latte.
2/3 of a bag of M&Ms. Potty-training bribery for Hannah. I'm thinking she found the bag and was trying to five herself a little extra positive reinforcement.
A ponytail holder. Not sure where that came from; I haven't had enough hair to use one since July.
Gym membership card. I can NEVER remember where this is. (Probably wouldn't be a problem if I went a little more regularly.)
Tinted chapstick. Hannah is a little obsessed with applying chapstick and I think I was trying to keep her from looking like a tiny, scary prostitute.
Tube of lanolin breastfeeding cream. Hannah was probably trying to apply it like chapstick, which would have made her both very sticky and sheep-smelling.
Socket from the tool set. Hannah was "fixin' somfin" and it had to be confiscated before that something really needed fixing.
Smaller socket from tool set. Also known as Norah's Very Hazardous Teething Toy.
Piece of wooden watermelon fruit. Confiscated due to use as Norah-whacker.
Bouncy rubber eyeball. Leftover from Halloween. Yes, it is December. Not sure where it had been hiding, but Norah found it and deemed it delicious.
Movie ticket for The Social Network. Excellent movie, and proof that we must have left the house without the children at some point.
Ten felt squares off Hannah's homemade bracelet. She had a small meltdown when it came apart and these fell off. I "fixed" it by retying the bracelet and hiding the loose squares in my pocket, a la Zuzu's petals in It's A Wonderful Life.
Small strip of leather off one of Norah's moccasins. We haven't had the moccasins out since her six-month pictures.
Two Hannah ponytail holders, a barrette, a claw clip and a bobby pin. All were probably in Hannah's hair for the 2.2 seconds between when she wanted them put in and when they became mortally offensive to her.
Three wooden dowels. I bought them to hold Nick's dresser together. We've had the dresser for a year and the dowels for two months. Apparently they aren't crucial.
Warhead hard candy. I almost let Hannah have this to prove that she really wouldn't like it, despite her arguments to the contrary.
A 3M velcro strip and accompanying removable adhesive strip. I wonder what I was planning to hang.
A button off a floor cushion. Maybe I'll reattach it at the same time I get around to darning that sock.
A used screw and two small used wall hooks. I sort of remember taking these out of somewhere. Not sure why I put them in my pocket instead of the garbage.
Bit for electric screwdriver. Was trying to make sure Hannah wasn't headed off to "fix" somefin else.
Stickless sticker (applied to many parts of Hannah's face before losing stickiness), paper clip, AAA battery.

What do I get out of this? 1) I am constantly distracted before I can complete a simple task. 2) I feel pretty good that there wasn't anything truly terrible in the pile, like needles or shotgun shells. 3) I seem to have my own weight-training regimen as I appear to be carrying five or so pounds of crap around in my pockets at all times. 4) Our life is nothing if not weird and diverse. 5) Now I know where Hannah gets her tendency to fill the doll stroller with all kinds of household flotsam.

Brand New Year

2011-01-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

In an effort to start the new year off on the right foot (or make yet another easily-broken resolution), I'm issuing myself a Seven Blogs in Seven Days challenge. I'm telling you in an effort to keep myself honest. Here we go:

2011 didn't exactly get off to a stellar start this morning. Hannah woke us up sometime before seven, which is not unusual. What was unfortunate about today was my dreadful hangover. And even more unfortunately, I hadn't behaved in a way to warrant such a terrible morning. True, Nick and I did go out for New Year's Eve last night. Oh, but by going "out," I mean we had a champagne toast with my parents and then went to dinner. I had two, count 'em two, cocktails. We were home by 9:30, asleep by 10:30. (I would like to point out that this was after midnight in New York.) And yes, I am old and sad.

Anyway, this unpleasant morning reminded me of the last terrible hangover I had, which I most certainly did earn. A close friend's bachelorette party, downtown Seattle, August. Hannah stayed with my parents, three-month-old Norah slept in the hotel room with a babysitter, and I hit the town with the girls. I don't remember when it was, maybe when we were at the all-night diner and I was trying to decide whether to eat my hash browns or vomit in them, but I had a moment of questioning my parenting fitness. It occurred to me that my mother probably was not in a bar dancing to "Single Ladies" (or its 1982 equivalent) when she had a small child and an infant. (I checked, just to be sure. She did no such thing.)

I have to be honest: it feels a little trashy to pay a babysitter while you are pretending that you are not extremely drunk. Almost as trashy as it felt to take a stroller down to the hotel lobby, hungover like death, to choke down some alcohol-absorbing continental breakfast. Why exactly, when I had not consumed more than one alcoholic drink in an evening for probably two years, I thought I could drink rum and cokes like water escapes me. It was The Worst. Idea. Ever. Not the part where I went out and pretended I was 21 again, but the part where I forgot I would be waking up to the responsibilities of a 31-year-old. Thankfully Norah was too little to either remember or pass judgment. I believe at least some responsibility goes to my pediatrician, who told me that I "could not drink enough alcohol or caffeine to harm the baby." Apparently I needed reminding that I could drink enough alcohol to harm myself.

Luckily for both the children and me, last night's old-person New Year's Eve made for only a slightly punishing morning. A little food, a little coffee and I was good to go again. I would say that it will be a long time before I do something like that again, but I'm still not really sure what I did to bring that on. I'm going to blame it on the champagne. And maybe, somehow, the pediatrician.

Just no silver lining

2010-12-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I was having a party. A Pity Party, to be exact, table for one. My life was sooo hard. My spouse and children were existing to make my life more difficult, happily pitching bricks onto my already-backbreaking load. I whined to myself about the laundry, the grocery shopping, the house cleaning, the diaper changing, the bill paying. I could practically hear the little animated mice following me around, singing, Cinderelly, Cinderelly, wash the dishes, clean the floor...

Then I logged onto Facebook to discover that a college friend and teammate of mine had just lost her husband suddenly and unexpectedly to an undiscovered brain tumor. And I was instantly shamed by my ridiculous manufactured troubles. I kept thinking of their families dealing with all of the senseless randomness of cancer with none of the time to prepare or say good-bye. But what put the ice in my gut and stopped me in my tracks was the other part: she is having their first baby in a couple weeks.

I cannot imagine. I simply cannot imagine. I know we usually find some way to cope with whatever life deals us, but I can think of few things more difficult than trying to grieve the loss of your husband while learning your way through parenting. Not only would I be missing my partner to share the load through the hard parts, but every milestone and happy moment would find me looking to share the moment with someone I can no longer touch. Every happy baby moment would have a twist of bittersweet to it. I absolutely believe in God and the master plan, but it is so far beyond my ability to comprehend how something like this could possibly fit into the scheme of working all things for good. Every way I look at it, I just see my worst nightmare. I picture myself pregnant and wanting to cry when I feel the baby move, knowing I'll never get to see my husband hold our newborn. I don't want to go any farther down this path, but all you parents know exactly what I mean.

And I don't like what it says about me that I would need someone else's tragedy to remind me how fortunate I am to have a scatter-brained, clutter-wallowing husband and two busy, curious, and time-consuming children who need my love, attention and considerable cleaning powers. Everyone says that these are the days to cherish, but no one tells you exactly how you're supposed to remember to do that when you wake up every morning with a mental list of 427 things that need to be done and approximately 37 minutes of free time in the day to do them. I don't think I'm capable of the radical personality transplant that would be necessary in order to expect less of myself.

The best I think I can do is to remember my friend and her baby in my prayers at night, although I still don't know exactly what to pray for that could possibly help. Peace in their hearts and a baby with an easy disposition who sleeps well is the best I can come up with. And I will try to remember to ask God for the gift of perspective in my own life. He has not answered my prayers for a Magical Laundry Fairy, so perspective is probably a more appropriate (and mature) request.

But I 'ike it...

2010-11-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

The other night was my least-favorite kind of night. It was one of Nick's late work nights, the kind where I know I'm on my own for the girls' dinner and bedtime. And on top of that, it was a night where I made a series of tactical errors that led to a rather large mess.

Tactical Error #1: I let Hannah decide whether I should put Norah or Hannah to bed first. Naturally, she chose Norah. But I put on a Sesame Street, so I figured it would be just like naptime: she'd hang out on the couch with Elmo until I came back downstairs.

Norah and I headed upstairs. I heard the thump-thump-thump of trotting feet and thought Hannah had come upstairs. Then I heard a few more odd thump-like sounds. Does that sound like a hammer? . . . I really don't think that's a hammer, so whatever it is can't be that bad. It doesn't even sound like she's jumping off anything. (Tactical Error #2. I should have gotten up to investigate the odd-but-suspicious sound.) I thought she was in her room dragging her little kid-size chairs around.

Norah goes to sleep. As I start down the stairs, I hear: Mommy! Mommy! 'Ook what I'm doin'! I FINGAH-PAINTIN'!!

Sure enough, I round the corner to the kitchen and see Hannah at the table, fingah-paintin' on her new finger-painting paper with a GIANT puddle of green and blue fingerpaints. All four fingerpaint bottles are on the table, but apparently she'd only had time to work through the first two colors.

And here you're probably thinking that Tactical Error #3 was leaving the fingerpaints on the table. Except that I didn't. I had deliberately put them in the middle of the kitchen counter where I knew she couldn't reach. I couldn't figure out how she got them- she's a monkey, but I couldn't see a way for her to free-climb the counter and still have a hand to grab the paint. Could she have opened the dishwasher and used the lid as a step? It seemed unlikely that she would have thought to close it back up again since she clearly was making no effort to hide her activities.

Since she was so proud of herself, all I had to do was ask.
Hannah, how did you get the paints off the counter?
I take my sool [stool] fohm dee bathoom. 'ike dis!

Yes, the real Tactical Error #3 was not accounting for the increased reach provided by her new bathroom step stool.

Hannah, do you remember that you're only supposed to finger paint when a grownup is with you?
Yes. But Mommy, i 'IKE fingah-paintin'!

I'm grateful that she 'ikes finger painting and not coloring the furniture with Sharpies. Speaking of which, I should go move all potential art supplies out of step stool reach.

More Hannah musings...

2010-11-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

So I know there's a lot of toilet talk on this blog, but if it makes you feel any better, it's only a fraction of the toilet talk in our lives right now. Parenting books talk about making sure your child doesn't feel that going to the bathroom is a shameful activity...check. Hannah thinks it is SO COOL and will tell anyone she sees, in detail, what just happened in the bathroom.

Today she was hanging out on the potty, probably stalling before her nap, and came up with this little story (she has accidentally dipped her behind a couple times, which might be where this idea came from):

If I fah in dee potty, you might fush it. And den I wood go down down down and No-wah woodn't haf a sistah any moh'!

Oddly enough, she didn't seem concerned with the idea that she might be flushed down the toilet and disappear forever. It's just one of those things that happens sometimes... we probably shouldn't introduce that urban legend about alligators in the sewers, though.

Say what?

2010-11-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Nick got Hannah up this morning with the news that it was "Turkey Day!!"
And it's cow day and hossie day and goose time and pig time!
Hmm. Thanksgiving is clearly a learned concept.
This must have all been ruminating in Hannah's mind for a while, because later over breakfast she looked out the window and said:
Baybe the tuhkeys wih come in we house.
Do you know what turkey day means? It means we eat turkey today.
I get a look that says, "Ok, crazy lady, sure."
No, we no eat tuhkeys. Da tuhkeys come in we house.
Yep, on a plate.
No, if dey wuh on a pate, dey might bite. Dey have 'ong, 'ong bitey fings [she chomps her teeth]. 'Ike beaks.
Thinks some more.
Baybe dey might 'ay eggs. But pobabee dey won't 'ay eggs.

Wherever you are, whoever you are with, we hope you have a warm, merry Turkey Day. Or Goose Time. And here's hoping that no one gets bitten by their Thanksgiving Turkey.

We like to potty

2010-11-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

Not to jinx ourselves, but this whole potty-training thing has gone pretty smoothly. Although it's not quite the liberating experience I was anticipating- instead of changing stinky diapers, I am now constantly computing the complex mathematical formula of

L(m)/B(f)

Where L = the volume of liquid in a sippy cup; m = the number of minutes since the last potty run; B = the approximate size of a 2-year-old bladder; and f = of the number of things currently going on that are more fun than going to the bathroom.

Hannah has been in her underwear for about a week now with only a handful of accidents. I attribute this entirely to the magic of the sticker chart. As I think I've mentioned, she gets a sticker for wearing underwear all morning and another for wearing them all afternoon (we haven't braved naptime yet. I feel like I do an army's worth of laundry as it is).

She literally wakes up talking about her stickers. At ten minutes before six (yes, a.m.), this is what I hear: "MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!"
I would curse, but after having been up sometime in the past few hours with Norah, I am too tired to formulate the words. I drag myself in.
"Mommy! I awake. We go downstaihs, I get my sickuh chaht, I get a SUPISE! YAY HANNAH!"
She gets a treat after every five stickers. Unfortunately she is convinced that every sticker will be the magic number five (she can count from one to five but apparently those words have no actual meaning), so there are usually some tears when she realizes that all she gets is a sticker on a crummy piece of paper and not a 'supise.' (Also known as a sucker. I had intended to make the surprises a variety of things, like an extra trip to the playground. However, I made the tactical error of the first surprise being a sucker and now anything less than a Dum-Dum would be catastrophic.)

But even the non-surprise days are ok because she has a serious love affair going with her underwear. She likes to carry around a big armful and play a complex game. . . that consists of flinging them as high as she can in the air. She hooked one on the living room light fixture yesterday. I told her that was ok, but under no circumstances were her underwear to be hanging from a light fixture in a frat house 16 years from now. I'm not sure she got it, but I'm holding her to it.

This chapter of our lives is teaching us all kinds of new things, like what to do if you don't happen to have a ski mask handy. I think it's a little bit of Martha Stewart-esque ingenuity.

In general, the big transitions in her life have gone really well, which is a little bit mystifying. We can't get her to put on a sweatshirt in ten-degree weather or eat more than fifteen calories for lunch without major drama. But weaning? Sure, a bottle of cold cow's milk is just as good. Moving to a big bed? Two rounds of whimpering and we're good. We travel and tell her, "This is your bed tonight!" and she sleeps there (even when it's a mattress on the floor in the bathroom). No more diapers? Well, as she tells us, "I a big giuh now." [This is also the argument she used to tell us that she should play street hockey with the neighbors.]

So would I rather have easy everydays and terrible transitions? Hmmm. I really don't know. For now, I'm just grateful that something in our life happens easily these days.

2010-11-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

Haven't written much lately. I'm following the philosophy of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

Norah, usually such an agreeable soul, came down with a nasty cold last Friday that found me spending big chunks of the weekend nights in the recliner with her on my chest. Sad for her, painful for me, and probably the worst for Hannah because lack of sleep grinds my patience down to a tiny little nubbin.

It's almost like there's a perverse toddler personality trait (I've talked to some other moms; I'm pretty confident this isn't just Hannah) that recognizes a short fuse and decides to push even harder. Wow, she looks pretty angry and unstable, but she's not completely insane with rage. There must be something else I can do . . . I know, I'll bring a metal tractor into Norah's room and drop it repeatedly on the wood floor while Mommy is trying to put her down for a nap. She's already told me a dozen times to stay downstairs. Perfect!

This is the moment where I take a big leap of faith as a parent and confess something that I'm fairly sure happens to most parents...but there's a little voice inside of me that says, "You know, that might just be you. And you might not want to open that up for the whole world to see." Like you think you're going to an AA meeting, but when you stand up and say, "Hi, my name is Bob and I'm an alcoholic," instead of everyone saying, "Hi Bob," they avoid eye contact, mumble something about overdue library books, and scoot their chairs away. Anyway, here goes.

There are days when I know, when I understand on the most visceral level, why people hit their kids. And there are moments (not whole days, thank goodness, at least not yet) when the red curtain of rage descends and I just want to smack that sassy little face into compliance. Exhibit A: The previously-mentioned tractor driving at Norah's naptime. Not making that one up. And that was after she tried to climb into the recliner while I was nursing Norah. You would think someone as smart as she is (and hungry for parental attention) would be able to realize that a napping baby is a good thing.

And those are the days when I know I have failed as a parent, when the best thing I can say for myself is that I did not hit my child. When somehow, despite my 19 years of education and 31 years of life experience, I have been bested by a two-year-old. And this is also how I know that parenting books are written in the rosy glow of hindsight. Because first of all, you would have to be on speed to have enough waking hours for both full-time parenting (such as you would need to write a parenting book) and writing. And I think amphetamines would seriously affect your ability for coherent sentences. Second, I think you have to block out the toddler years when you present parenting strategies. Whatever wonderful amnesia helps people say, "Oh, two is such a fun age" (and no, they're not saying it sarcastically), also generates If you treat your child with love and respect, she will treat you the same way advice. Then, in my world, this happens:

We have a very nice pre-nap ritual of books, songs and hugs. We talk about what we did so far today. Hannah is perfectly compliant until I am about to close the door. Then she has to potty again (despite having just gone 10 minutes ago). So we potty. Then it's time to put her diaper and pants back on. I explain what needs to happen and ask her repeatedly, and nicely, to cooperate, but I would have better luck with a Portuguese-speaking alligator. I have arrived at the critical moment where 1) I know she is trying to stall, 2) I can't leave her in bed without a diaper unless I really just want to punish myself, 3) I am exhausted and want nothing more than a nap of my own and 4) the books tell you not to threaten or physically dominate your child, but say nothing about what you should actually DO with a bare-bottomed nap-staller. So she gets gator-wrestled into her diaper, at which point she grabs her ankles and pulls them over her head, staring me down and effectively daring me to try to put her pants on. And this is my AA moment: I yell, "FINE!", throw her pants on the floor, and leave.

You may avert your eyes from my parenting; I certainly wanted to. When I am at my most-rested and best-functioning, I can usually avoid moments like this. But no matter how on my game I am, there is just something in my toddler that keeps her on the scent of weakness like a bloodhound. And this is where the logic of parenting books fails. At least, the ones I've been reading. They make comparisons like, You wouldn't threaten your friends if they didn't do what you wanted, why would you threaten your child? I don't know about anyone else, but the only time my friends have thrown their food on the floor or tried to run away in a public place, they were pretty drunk. If they acted like my two-year-old on a daily basis we probably wouldn't hang out anymore. But I hear that's not really an option with your children, unless you want the nice lady from the state to come visit and take them away in her station wagon.

So I will try to focus on the fact that tomorrow is another day and hopefully I can remember to parent in a way that will leave neither physical nor emotional scars on any of us. And I'll put a couple dollars in the Future Therapy Sessions jar, just in case.

Up, up and away...

2010-11-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

We've made the big step to wearing underwear. (And by 'we' I mean Hannah. I mean, the adults around here wear underwear too, it's jut not a recent development.) Anyway, it's a pretty big deal- M&Ms when she potties, stickers on the sticker chart when she keeps her underwear on (I don't even care if they stay dry yet; just wearing them while also wearing pants is a good first step around here). She's super excited about it, especially about her ability to go to the bathroom "all by herself." Like last night. She took off while we were finishing dinner and came running back in, announcing:

I went potty awh by mysef! And I put on my UNDEHWEAH AND MY PANTS! I'm a big giwohw [girl]! YAY HANNAH!

We live in a pretty safe place. But just in case, it's good to know we have our very own live-in superhero.

My civic duty

2010-11-02T21:21:00.000-06:00

Mommy, wheah we goin'? Hannah asks from the back seat.
We're going to vote.
Boat? [I can see her thinking that we are driving toward Nick's boat, which she LOVES, and need to clear things up before we arrive at the very-disappointing fairgrounds expo building/polling place.]
No, I'm going to vote. [Hmmm, how do you translate that into two-year-old?] There are some people who want some jobs and we get to go decide who does those jobs. [That is a pretty sweet explanation if I do say so myself.]
Mommy, YOU A GOHN-UP! YOU DO DEE JOBS!
But I don't want these jobs, Hannah, other people do.
NO, MOMMY, YOU DO JOBS! HANNAH TO 'IDDLE FOR JOBS. NORAH NOT DO JOBS. YOU DO JOBS!
Apparently I need something to do with my mountains of free time. County Commissioner Cantrell? It has a nice ring to it. And I'm sure Hannah will do a great job raising Norah.

Path of least resistance

2010-10-26T20:15:00.000-06:00

If you have spent more than two minutes around Hannah, you'll probably agree that it's not an exaggeration to say she's a strong-willed child. Lately she's taken to arguing with me ("Hannah, don't grab the knives off the counter. They're sharp and dangerous." "NO, Mommy, I CAN have them!")

If you were thinking that his is a really annoying and unpleasant way to spend the day ("Hannah, it's cold and raining outside. You need to wear shoes." "No, Mommy, I DON'T! I set my piggies free!"), you'd be right. So today, when Hannah got into the bucket of summer stuff that's still in our bathroom (I don't know what happened, but I swear it was just August yesterday) and came out wearing nothing but a swim diaper, I just went with it.

Mommy, I 'eady to go simmin' in the simmin' pooh.
In our pool outside? I don't think you want to do that. It's a little cold (like it's snowing in the foothills right now).
NO, I CAN go simmin'!
Are you sure? It looks really cold out.
Yes, I go simmin'!
Ok, let's go outside.

We walk outside, onto a freshly-rained deck. I don't even think it had hit the day's high of 40 degrees yet. Hannah was barefoot and essentially naked. We walked down the deck steps to the kiddie pool, which has about two inches of water and a nasty mulch of leaves coating the bottom. (Yes, someone SHOULD do something about that, but "winterize the kiddie pool" is still below "scrub the mildewing toilet that grosses you out every day before you forget about it again" on the to-do list.)

Hannah contemplates the ick before her.

Mommy, dat pooh not keen. You put some mo' watuh in the pooh?
Nope, if you want to play in the pool, this is it. Do you want to get in?
Hannah seems like she wants to reconsider her position but is unable to admit defeat.
YES!
Sticks one toe in, coating it in frigid water and leaf yuck.
NOOO! It's cohd out heah!
A small amount of tears and panic ensue as child realizes she is, in fact, without clothing in hypothermia-inducing weather. She then sprints for the house, where she demands drying and warming.

Not that she would admit it, but I'm counting it as a win for the Mommy. I just wish I'd grabbed the camera.

Ironically, this is the picky eater

2010-10-20T18:45:00.000-06:00

The scene: I am in the living room, ironing our new dining room curtains so we can stop performing "The Cantrell Family at Home" for everyone walking by our house after dark. Hannah is running around nonstop, trying to get my attention. Also known as The Usual.

Mom! Mommy! Mom! Can I show you sumpin'? [I want you to stop what you are doing and pay attention to me. I may or may not have anything in particular for you to look at.]
Sure, Hannah, I'll come look after I finish this curtain. [All I want out of today is ONE TASK done from start to finish without an interruption; is that so much to ask?]
Mom! I taste it on dee table!
Oh really? [I run through the possible options for "it," figuring it can't be anything worse than a smear of ketchup left from lunch.]
Mommy! Can I show you sumpin? I taste it on dee table!
Hannah trots into the room carrying the top to the drill, which I had been using earlier to hang new curtain rods and had indeed left on the table. She then proceeds to stick out her finger, touch the tip of the drill bit that is coated in sheetrock (and probably bits of lead paint), and lick it.
Oh, Hannah, no! That is icky! You don't want to eat that! [I would think the taste of sheetrock would tell you that, but then again, I've never considered eating it.]
She looks at me as if to say, Oh, mother. . . really?
I arredy taste it 'esterday.

Who is watching this kid, anyway?

Second time around

2010-10-19T16:02:00.000-06:00

Through Norah's infancy, I've thought about how things are just different with your second child. The old joke is that when your first baby's pacifier hits the ground, you immediately wash and sterilize it before giving it back. When baby #2 comes along, you run it under the faucet; by baby #3, you wipe it on your dirty jeans and give it back.

Well, neither girl took a pacifier, so I don't know about all that. But things are a little more laid back this time. I've already mentioned my irrational midnight sobbing over Hannah's thoracic tumor (yep, it was in fact her very normal xyphoid process). Several other differences I've noticed in my parenting this time around:

1. Sleeping. The first time Hannah slept more than three hours, I woke up in a mad panic and flung myself out of bed, sure that she had somehow suffocated in her crib. The first time Norah slept for a five-hour stretch, I woke up when she started crying, not a minute before, and thought, "Oh thank you, Lord, for a decent stretch of sleep."

2. Irrational developmental worries. For some odd reason, I got it into my head when Hannah was an infant that I needed to pay attention to her while she breastfed in order for us to bond. I think I was worried that she would think I was detached and distant if I was doing something else, and maybe my lack of attention would make her autistic. Yes, I know. Completely bizarre.

So anyway, I wouldn't watch TV. (Yes, I missed out on a lot of really good shows, like probably a whole season of Project Runway.) I would occasionally try to read a magazine, but I wasn't even sure about that. I actually remember reading The Economist out loud to her when she was about a month old. I don't even know why I was trying to plow through anything deeper than People magazine then. But I'm sure she appreciated the analysis of Ghana's financial structure and how its sub-minister for economic development is creating growth on the African continent.

Norah and I . . . well, let's just say I looked forward to feeding time so I could catch up on So You Think You Can Dance. And we don't even get The Economist anymore because, after having two children, we're no longer up to that reading level. Hannah has to tell us what Green Eggs and Ham is all about.

3. Crazy eyes. Newborns, at least our newborns, have what we called exorcist eyes- they fall asleep but their eyelids don't close and you see their eyeballs twitching and rolling around. Doctor Daddy worried that baby Hannah was maybe having seizures. Norah did the same thing...and we laughed.

4. Hygiene. Hannah probably got two or three baths a week. Norah gets a bath when she starts to smell really funky, or if she has a giant blowout that smears all over her head while I'm trying to get the contaminated onesie off. Although I have to say, it's a little embarrassing when your infant has really dirty fingernails. How exactly does that happen when she's really only touching her parents and her bed? Hmmm. Maybe more baths all around would be in order.

17 syllables is all I have in me today

2010-10-18T18:48:00.000-06:00

My baby sleeps

sweet weight on my chest

calming pressure soothing my soul

You got that right

2010-10-08T20:27:00.000-06:00

Last night Nick took Hannah to brush her teeth before bed. She is usually chatting away at a million miles a minute, to the point that it's almost impossible to get her to stop talking long enough to brush. This time, though, she was watching Nick intently (and silently) as he put a big glob on her brush and another smear on the tongue scrubber on the back. (He probably thought she was just in awe because Mommy is so stingy with the toothpaste.)

Normally, Hannah sucks the toothpaste off the bristles before any brushing takes place. This time, though, she took the toothbrush and examined it. Then she stuck out a finger, dipped it in the toothpaste, and tasted it.

"Dis not 'ight, Daddy."
He looked at the toothbrush, looked at her.
"Dis keem."

Yep, instead of Colgate for Kids, Nick had picked up a travel-size tube of Boudreaux's Butt Paste.

He would like me to tell you that the tubes look very similar.

Potty time

2010-09-30T11:57:00.000-06:00

WARNING: Potty training story. Lots of poop talk. I'm sorry, but it's what we do around here.

For some time now, Hannah has been occasionally entering the room with the lovely declaration of "I pooped in my diaper." We figure that anyone who can discuss their bodily functions in complete sentences could also probably understand the logistics of using a toilet, but unfortunately The Pooper had not been showing any signs of climbing on board that train. We have the Potty Book for Girls, featuring a little girl named Hannah. Our Hannah requested the book nightly for weeks...and pooped in her diaper. We have the graphically-illustrated Everyone Poops book, which leaves nothing to the imagination of what you do on the toilet. Hannah has read it about 500 times...and poops in her diaper.

We picked the brain of Aunt Staci, who has a long history of nannying and day cares and has probably been through potty training more times than any big-haired Fundamentalist Mormon family. Her advice was pretty simple: make it Hannah's idea, make a HUGE deal out of any success, don't dwell on accidents, and have some kind of reward.

Well, the reward option was obvious: M&Ms. As I may have mentioned, she'd rather have a handful of M&Ms than her very own pony. We figured she'd do just about anything for M&Ms...except, apparently, use the potty. She would tell us from time to time, "When I poop on the potty, I get M&Ms!!!"
And we'd say, "Yes, that's right! Do you want to try to use the potty?"
"NOOO!"

Hmm, apparently this concept is not as cut-and-dried as it seems.

A few weeks ago, however, we had a major breakthrough, courtesy of a six-year-old friend. Molly was over for a couple hours and, naturally, used the potty a time or two. With an entourage. (That's what happens around here if you don't shut the door firmly.) Afterwards, Hannah informed me that, "Molly pee in the potty."
"Yes, she did. And pretty soon you'll pee in the potty and-"
"GET M&Ms!!!"
"That's right." But this was the usual enthusiastic response-without-results, so I didn't think much of it.
Sure enough, though, about a half an hour later Hannah announced that she wanted to use the potty and then did. I can only assume she was thinking, Wait, that's all I have to do to get M&Ms? I can do that. Yeah, kid, we weren't asking for groundbreaking work on theoretical physics.

Ever since, she has been one reward-oriented potty-er. (I'm making up the word and 'pottier' looks way too French and refined for something that means 'user of toilet.') Don't get me wrong- we aren't remotely out of diapers. I think she just gets a craving for M&Ms and wills herself into action. We may have to switch from Desitin to Preparation H.

Anyway, one of the lines in the Potty Book for Girls (yes, I do have the whole thing memorized; I don't even want to think about what useful information this displaced in my brain) is "Dad says let's call Grandma- this is news she'll want to hear." So we have called Grandma. Being an excellent sport, she is always appropriately thrilled. My favorite call, however, was when Grandma wasn't home and Jeff (aka Don't Call Me Grandpa, I'm Jeff) picked up. To Hannah's ears, he was just as excited. Knowing my father as I do, though, I could hear the underlying mantra of "I love my granddaughter and I can do this, I love my granddaughter and I can do this, I love my granddaughter and I can do this" as he powered through a conversation centered around the excitement of excrement.

So it's a good thing Jeff wasn't at our house last night. Hannah was still flopping around her dinner when she should have been in bed and was completely exahusted and wired. We had been to the potty about three times (all successful, amazingly enough) over the course of the meal and I was getting a little tired of eating one bite every ten minutes. So when she proposed another "I go use the potty?" I assumed it was a stalling tactic and told her to go ahead. (She can go by herself because she has a little potty seat on the floor, complete with removable. . .well, for lack of a better word, bucket.)

Fortunately, the downstairs bathroom is probably 20 feet from the dining nook. This gave me time to 1) quickly swallow my mouthful of soup and 2) avert my eyes as I heard the pitter-patter of running feet, caught a glimpse of a speeding bucket, and heard, "MOMMY! Look! Look! I POOPED!"

Silly me, I thought using the potty would be less stomach-turning than changing dirty diapers.

Words and actions

2010-09-28T21:47:00.000-06:00

When we are walking down the street and Hannah is singing the words to "Jesus Loves Me" at the top of her lungs, I suddenly become very conscious of how I am acting. If we are going to go around as a giant rolling billboard for Christianity, I should probably try to be patient with my children and nice to the people we come across. And yes, I am aware that it should not take a two-year-old to remind me that if I'm going to be a Christian, I better BE a Christian. Especially when this two-year-old is singing, "Jesus 'oves me, iss I know, fo' the Fivel tehs me so..."

She hasn't ever seen An American Tale, but I swear that's what comes out of her mouth every time. He is a cute little mouse and everything, but I don't remember anything about his evangelism qualifications. And anyway, she probably shouldn't be taking any religious doctrine from a cartoon mouse in a big floppy hat. It just sounds like a cult waiting to happen.

Who's running this show?

2010-09-23T21:57:00.000-06:00

Just to set the record straight, it's not all watch-me-pull-my-own-hair-to-spite-you moments, around here. The scene this morning: Hannah was on my hip while I was fetching her a package of craisins from a box that just barely fit on the shelf. With her in one arm, I was trying to wriggle out the box with one hand and, apparently, it didn't look like I could do it. Luckily, I had my very own Little Mommy along:
"It's ok, it not stuck. It's ok, you can do it. It not stuck."
(I hadn't realized that I was thinking it was stuck.)
Anyway, I finally pop the box out.
"See? It not stuck. You did it. Good job."
I fetch the packet of craisins and turn to go, leaving the box ajar and slightly off the shelf. Hannah was not impressed.
"Wait, you no 'eave dat 'ike dat. You put it back on the shef."
Duly chastened, [we're at my parents' house and I should probably be helping to control the hurricane, not add to its destruction] I seal the box and replace it in its proper position.
"Good job, Mommy."

Hmm, my words coming out of her mouth. She must occasionally be listening.

...continued

2010-09-12T20:50:00.000-06:00

I realized that I forgot one of my best recent anecdotes when I was writing yesterday's post.

I have several friends who never seem to need a break from their children. They seem to prefer to be with their children rather than away from them. Don't get me wrong, Hannah, Norah and I have a lot of fun, but I would rather have an hour to myself than a big pile of gold. I'd even take it over a chocolate cake. Sometimes I wonder what might be wrong with me- am I somehow less maternal than these other rockstar moms in my life? Then something like this happens:

I go to get Hannah out of bed after a nap. We're chatting while she's lying there and it's really a sweet moment. I don't remember what we're doing, but I'm making her giggle and she's making me giggle and we're having a good time. Then, when I bend over to pick her up, she grabs a big handful of my hair.

"Ow, sweetie, please let go. It hurts when you pull my hair."
She looks at me like I am trying to trick her. She lets go, but then grabs right back on.
"No, Hannah, that hurts. It hurts when you pull hair."

As you read on, keep in mind that I have been using my patient "Let's Not Ruin the Fun" voice, not my big, bad "I Have a Last Nerve and You Are Tap Dancing on It" voice.
Hannah gives me the Death Scowl, lets go of my hair, grabs a big handful of her hair and yanks. She comes away with a couple dozen blonde wisps in her fists, all the while maintaining Eye Lock and Death Scowl. You're trying to tell me that hurts? Please. If that hurt, wouldn't I be crying now? You're a pansy and a liar.

And so it occurs to me that my friends who never seem to desperately need to be away from their children, although they doubtless face their own challenges, maybe don't deal with scenarios like this. I figure I'm doing pretty well just to not be a chain smoker or noon drinker by now.

Slippery Slope

2010-09-11T21:14:00.000-06:00

Recently, I heard the mom of another two-year-old comment, "You know, by the end of the day I'm just really tired of being bossed around."
My first thought was Boy that would be annoying. . . and thank goodness we make Hannah say "please" and "thank you," so we don't have to deal with that issue.

I'm really not sure how, after more than two years of parenting, I can still be such a sucker. We talk all the time about how Hannah bosses other kids around; how exactly I thought we were immune to her dictatorial whims baffles me. When I started paying attention, I realized that for every time we make sure she includes a please with her request, there are approximately 10 demands that sneak through (usually met on command by her beaten-down parents) without any parental correction. This is now the soundtrack of our lives:
I want a gass of wa-tuh. Put No-wah down and pay wif me. I want to watch WALL-E and sit the couch and dink my mehk. Mommy, you come pay wif me. Mommy, you get my banket. I want cimmanin cackers. You go find my mehk. Come outside and watch me swing. You put me in the cah and come back fo' No-wah. You tell No-wah: 'No, No-wah, don't eat Hannah's cackers.' You tell No-wah: 'No touch Hannah's banket.' You pick up the cackers. No, you do it.
And on and on and on...

I finally understand how parents- even well-meaning, intelligent parents- end up with tiny tyrants ruling the family with an iron binkie. First of all, there is nothing more demanding than a two-year-old. (At least I hope hope hope there isn't.) If Hannah could be taught the finer points of law, she would be a thousand-dollar-an-hour contract negotiator. She presents her list of demands and simply refuses to acknowledge any counter offer or compromise.

"I want M&Ms!"
"It's breakfast time. Do you want yogurt, toast with Grandma jam, or granola?" [This is a technique I read about. Apparently your children will respond better if you don't say "no," but instead redirect or offer alternatives.]
"I want M&Ms!"
"You can have M&Ms later, after lunch. Now it's time for breakfast. What do you want to eat?"
"No, I WANT M&Ms!!"
[Apparently the aforementioned technique is crap.]
"No M&Ms for breakfast."
"But I want M&Ms!"
"When you go to college, you can eat anything you want for breakfast."
[Confused look and death scowl.]

The fact that she has never gotten M&Ms before noon doesn't seem to matter. She will ask again tomorrow, with total certainty that I will accede to her demands. We are the rocks, she is the water, and this will continue until we are ground into sand. Which at this rate may be next week.

The only thing worse than the constant demands are the repercussions when a toddler's will is denied. I have actually caught myself weighing whether or not I have the strength to deal with the potential meltdown when considering any sort of request denial or corrective parenting. Today we were playing with the playhouse when the baby (toy baby, not Norah) started 'shrieking' (sound effects enthusiastically provided by Hannah). I asked the baby not to shriek because it was hurting my ears. The baby kept shrieking. So I asked Hannah not to shriek.

"I not feekin', the baby is feekin'."
"I understand that you're pretending, but we don't shriek in the house. It hurts mommy's ears [and that sound makes me completely insane]."
Cue death scowl and throwing of toy baby and playhouse furniture.
"Ok, you're throwing a fit. We don't throw fits. I'm not going to sit here while you're throwing a fit."

I get up and leave. The fit escalates to howls and sobbing tears. I sit down in the dining room to read a magazine, sobs continue. The sobber, dragging her Linus blanket, now climbs into my lap and makes some sort of tear-filled, hiccupy, supersonically squeaky request (probably something to do with M&Ms). I tell her that I can't understand her (knowing full well she can turn off the waterworks in a nanosecond) and that she needs to use her big girl voice (as in one that can be heard with human ears) if she wants to ask me something.

This sends the sobber into new depths of Mommy Dearest torture. Now she wants to sit on my lap but I am apparently not allowed to touch her. We sit like this for about ten minutes before she gets up, wanders off towards a map, and just starts talking in a totally normal voice about where Texas is. What fit? I don't throw fits. Silly mommy, that must have been Norah.

and I will love him and squeeze him...

2010-08-23T20:10:00.001-06:00

We have a lot of ants around our house, or as Hannah likes to call them, "buggies." As in, "Mommy! I found a buggy! 'Ook at my buggy!" Mmm, yes, thank you, not so close to my face, please. She's a little obsessed with her buggies. Luckily for most of them, their dodge-and-avoid tactics are more advanced than Hannah's fine motor skills, because anyone unlucky enough to get caught has a guaranteed ticket to the Big Anthill in the Sky.

You might remember the old Loony Tunes clip with the Abominable Snowman who picks up a tiny Daffy Duck and basically annihilates him while saying, "And I will name him George and I will love him and pet him and squeeze him." If not, here's a refresher:

So today in the playroom I hear, "Mommy! Heah's a buggy! I find a buggy inside!"
Greaaaat.
"Here, Mommy!" She thrusts the ant, which she has firmly between her thumb and forefinger, at me.
"Um, no thanks, I don't really want the ant. Why don't we take him outside?"

Of course, by the time we get to the front door, what was once an ant is now a mangled piece of crunchy blackness. There is no way he is still alive, but Hannah is completely oblivious. She sets the corpse down on our walk where a dozen or so other ants are scurrying around and proceeds to give her little buggy buddy some instructions.

"Ok, buggy, you ow-side now. You go pay wif you fehnds? You go home wif you mommy and daddy, ok? Ok, bye!"
Up the stairs, big grin on her face. "I put him ow-side, Mommy! We go pay in the pay-woom [play in the playroom] now?"

Sorry about that, George.

Thank you, whoever you are...

2010-08-17T12:12:00.000-06:00

If you are reading this, thank you. I realized that I haven't done a very good job at acknowledging everyone who reads, comments on and likes this blog. Sometimes I think about responding to your comments, but nearly as soon as the thought crosses my mind, the girls cut me off. (Having been on the computer for more than 2.5 seconds at that point, I have clearly been neglecting them for an intolerable amount of time.)

So let me just tell you that I appreciate each and every one of you. It is especially thrilling to me that I apparently have readers that I don't know personally- I really thought most of the people who tuned in would be relatives or lifelong friends. In other words, those of you who would be expecting a quiz later.

This blog has been somewhat of a lifesaver for me as I left the real world and entered the alternate universe of parenting. Yes, having children is my life's greatest joy (blah blah blah), but it's a little hard to keep that perspective when some days - or weeks - have no visible rewards. Especially when you're married to a truly wonderful man, but someone who is also A Doctor. Everyone admires A Doctor (even his wife), but sometimes all the instant respect and adoration just makes me want to say, "HEY! That guy was a salutatorian! Guess who was a valedictorian? ME!" These thoughts usually occur around the time that I am using my perfect-verbal-SAT skills to come up with a convincing argument as to why the toddler (who generally neither respects nor admires me) needs to keep her hands out of her private bits when we're changing a very messy diaper. I know, the bragging is ugly and tasteless. I'm just saying, I'm more than a trophy wife. (And also very much less than one.)

So thank you for making this blog a rewarding experience. When you read and comment, it reminds me that I do have skills beyond getting my food-adverse child to eat two whole fishsticks for dinner. The real problem, I think, is a quote I once heard (that I will now probably misquote) about women of my approximate generation: "When they told us we could do anything, we heard that we should do everything." It is hard to remember that I can't be a full-time professional and a full-time mom. I wouldn't trade what I have for the best nanny in the world, so I am trying to learn that I really can't do everything. But sometimes I can blog, and sometimes you read it and tell me you like it. And that - plus the love of my husband, the laughs from my toddler, and the drooly, toothless grins from my baby - is enough for now.

A special kind of stupid

2010-08-16T11:34:00.000-06:00

Back in high school, girls did the silly posturing about eating that teenage girls do. As in, "Oh my gosh, I totally forgot to eat lunch today!" My friends and I were never in that camp. We liked food. A lot. We decided that forgetting to eat fell under the category of "A Special Kind of Stupid."

I would still agree with that, but I've also found a new and equally-special kind of stupid that only applies to parents. Electing Not to Nap. As in, your child/children are asleep (in the case of multiple children, they have given you the rare gift of actually sleeping at the same time) and you are maybe a little tired. Or walking-zombie tired. But then you look at the mountain of dirty dishes/list of unwritten thank you notes/really good book you are theoretically reading and you think, "I don't really need a nap today. I'll use this naptime to get something done. I'll be fine."

If you are me, "fine" actually means "homicidal from lack of sleep by six o'clock." And yet, I rarely seem to learn my lesson. I think the first problem is that my morning coffee has me feeling pretty good until about one o'clock...and Hannah usually naps from 11:30ish to 1:30ish. So right about the time my body finally convinces me that sleep would be really useful if I want to be able to competently cope with another five hours of "Mommy come pay wif me! I want a cookie! I want M&Ms! Why? Why? Why? Why? I poopy! Put No-wah down [who is most likely screaming] and pay wif me! Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" Hannah wakes up. Oh joy.

I tell myself every morning, Today I will nap. I am an unrepentant liar, apparently. And in my truly special kind of stupid, after somehow dragging myself through to the kids' bedtime, I am unable to go to bed myself for at least two or three hours, no matter how tired I am. It's amazing how nice it is to have time to just sit and ~~think~~ [who am I kidding? my current capacity for thought is right up there with my ability to do ballet], ahem, sit and watch TV without anyone demanding anything of me.

Even though I know every minute I sit there is going to make tomorrow that much more painful. Even though I know that this isn't some short-term project I can just push through and then recover from. Even though I'm watching Project Runway, which is adding absolutely nothing of value to my life and may even be taking something away.

What can I say? I'm special. Really, really special.

Mine, all mine

2010-08-07T19:32:00.001-06:00

Hannah has a double stroller for her dolls, a hand-me-down from the neighbor girls who lived near our rental house. It has been pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread- we have gone on numerous "sto-doh wahks" with various dolls and animals over the past few months.

Things are starting to take a concerning turn of events, though. Over the course of the last few days, Hannah and my mom have been playing while I organize the house. The stroller has slowly morphed from a vehicle for Hannah's babies to the transportation platform for a good chunk of her worldly possessions. She keeps filling it, changing her mind, taking some things out and adding others, with no discernible rhyme or reason. I'm not even sure exactly what's in here...

Looks like it includes her purse (also filled with bits of flotsam she has commandeered from around the house), a play cookie sheet, a doll, a bowl filled with wooden velcro-on cake decorations, one of my oven mitts, an old greeting card box, a gift bag (containing yet more flotsam, no doubt), a hawaiian sun hat, a plastic orange, and about 20 other things lurking under or between the previously mentioned items.

When Hannah and my mom change play areas, the stroller comes too. We are not allowed to unpack or rifle through it. She did not want her picture taken with it (I got one, but with a lot of convincing).

Is this

a precursor to this?

In her own words

2010-08-03T21:52:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I think I left the radio on. Then I wonder how the radio can be following me from room to room. And why the only words it plays are: "Come pay [play] wif me, Mommy! Mommy, where my banket? No, you go find it. Come pay wif my kitchen, Mommy!"

Yep, she's a talker. If she didn't mix in some humor with all the whining, we'd all be insane. Here are some of our latest good moments:

In the car on the way to the Farmers' Market last week, I was prepping Hannah that her friend Liam might be sleeping in his stroller instead of playing with her because his mom had reported that he hadn't napped all day and was really tired and grouchy. I'm never really sure if she's listening to me while we drive or not. Then I heard this:

"Ike Osh-cah? Osh-cah? Osh-cah?"
Hmmm. "Oh, like Oscar? Yep, he's grouchy like Oscar."
"Ike Mommy?"
Ha ha ha. "When is Mommy grouchy?"
"When you no have you coffee. Dink coffee. Feeh bettah."

Then this morning, Nick and Hannah were hanging out on the couch. He tried to put his head on her to rest.
"No, Daddy. This me [points at herself]. This piddow [points to throw pillow]. I not piddow. Put you head on piddow, not on me."
(This is a new variation of what happens when Nick pretends like he's hungry and is going to take a bite out of Hannah's arm: "No, Daddy, no eat my ahm. Eat food. In the kitchen.")

Shortly after that, she was just rattling on and on, basically just saying whatever words passed through her head. Some set to a tune, some delivered lecture-style to us and her stuffed animals. Finally, I asked:
"Hey Hannah, can you say logorrhea?" [Websters definition- excessive and often incoherent talkativeness]
"No, I no say dat. I too busy tahkin' 'ight now."

Eight o'clock this morning, just before the logorrhea moment. Yes, she is wearing jammies and sunglasses. And yes, Norah looks like a boy. I wasn't paying enough attention to details when I ordered her swaddle blanket. . . whoops, I mean we're making an intentional wardrobe statement against gender stereotyping.

Three months...

2010-07-31T20:00:00.001-06:00

...ish. Sorry, Norah. I meant to post about you when you turned two months... and now we're a week past the three-month mark. It's not a second child thing, it's a too-busy mom thing. I think Hannah only got one or two "this is how you are now" posts in the first six months. If we ever have a baby without also having a move, maybe they'll get a little more regular attention.

Anyway, back to you. You are still pretty darn cute. And even better, you sleep great. Like I'm-not-allowed-to-talk-about-it-because-other-moms-will-hate-me great. Thank you for that. I am still mysteriously exhausted, but I am very thankful not to be up every two hours all night or starting my day at 4 a.m. I promise not to spend my time comparing you to your sister, but I am glad we had you two in this order, otherwise the second baby's sleeping habits would have been a rude awakening instead of a very pleasant surprise.

What else? Well, you aren't doing any long division yet (and if you listen to the way your sister counts, "1! 9! 11! 6! 2! 8!" you may never learn math), but you love to use your adorable smile. When I come get you in the morning, I'm greeted by a giant toothless grin and frantically pumping arms and legs. There is no better way to start the day.

You're talking a lot too- you'll sit in your bouncy seat and talk (to yourself? to your sister? to the animals that hang off the bar?) for half an hour, easily. In addition to cute little babbles, you've started making this crazy half-sneeze, half-shriek sound that gets my attention every time...I have to stop reacting or I have a feeling that's the only sound you'll make.

You're trying really hard to move, but I have a feeling that it's going to take a while. Your preferred method is to lift your head and shoulders and strain with all your might like you're trying to do a situp. There are easier ways, trust me. Although I admire your dedication to ~~maintaining~~ achieving rock-hard abs.

The most puzzling part of your little personality is that you're either completely mellow or totally enraged, with almost no transition time between the two. Maybe you should work on your signals a little. Help us help you.

We've tried the pacifier and it was determined to be repulsive, but you do love to chew on fabric. I'm not sure what the flannel blanket/dress hem/monkey lovey do to earn your wrath and provoke you to full attack mode...I can only assume they're talking bad about yo' momma. Thanks for defending my honor.

Other than your awesomely explosive blowouts (how is there room in your little body for all that poop?), I'd say you're just about perfect. Thank you for coming to live with us.

Everything

2010-07-18T15:08:00.000-06:00

We had an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist for Norah on Friday. Back at her two-week check, the pediatrician heard a heart murmur that turned out to be a VSD, ventricular septal defect. Essentially, she has a small hole in the muscle between her ventricles (the bottom two chambers of her heart). It will almost certainly close on its own because of its location and tiny size, but we still have to monitor it. They would only really be concerned if it were affecting her growth- sometimes babies with VSDs can get too winded to eat well and have trouble gaining weight. At the appointment, Norah clocked in at 14 pounds, 11 ounces - yes, that means she's gained two pounds a month - so there's really not much cause for concern there.

What is interesting to me about all of this is that I've never really worried about it. Even when the pediatrician told me what he thought it was, I had a peace in my heart that this baby was fine. Which is unusual for me. One of my talents as a mother is imagining the various and terrible things that might happen to my children. When Hannah was a newborn, I felt a big lump in her chest (during a 2 a.m. feeding, not my most rational time) and convinced myself (to the point of tears) that she had a giant tumor that the worthless hospital staff clearly missed when she was born. When I woke up my medical professional husband to examine her (yes, he was thrilled), I was informed that it was her xyphoid process, the (very normal) bump at the end of her sternum. (In my defense, it can be disproportionately large in newborns.)

Lately, the quote "He who has health has everything," keeps running through my mind. (Turns out it's actually "He who has health has hope; and he who has hope, has everything," attributed to Thomas Carlyle. Thanks, Google.) Anyway, it's so true. We are so fortunate to have these two healthy little girls. That they are charming and cute and smart (ok, it's too soon to really say that about Norah, I'm just assuming on her behalf) is icing on the cake. My only "problem" during pregnancy was that the babies wanted it to go on forever. So many people I know have endured bed rest and medical procedures to keep their babies cooking. Right now, my heart is with a friend who had her little guy at 31 weeks and is now going through the stress and worry of ups and downs in the NICU.

Our children's health is a gift that we cannot earn and, aside from not letting them lick the floor at McDonald's, can do very little to control. I don't know why we've been fortunate so far and I pray that I never have to personally know the pain of a seriously ill child. It's hard to remember sometimes, when Hannah is on her twelfth meltdown of the day, that there are Big Things and there are Little Things and tantrums (even big ones) are most definitely in the Little Things category.

Baby Alex, we are praying for you to get through your Big Things so you can get to the business of putting your parents through the Little Things.

A moment in the life

2010-07-17T14:24:00.000-06:00

This morning:
Hannah comes running out of the downstairs bathroom.

Yes, that is a (clean) potty seat on her head.

"Happy Birthday to you! . . . I pooped!" [in her diaper, not on her potty seat hat.]

Poopy diaper number 4,672? Oh yes, happy birthday to me....

I got your back

2010-07-15T13:10:00.001-06:00

Consistency, consistency, consistency. All the parenting books talk about it. Your child shouldn't have different sets of rules depending on who's around.

Nick and I work together pretty well. Granted, Hannah isn't old enough yet to be much of a schemer- she thinks she's clever, but we can pretty much see all her tricks before they happen. Still, we try to enforce each other's rules whenever we need to. Sometimes this really works to Hannah's disadvantage.

Hannah hasn't been in a high chair for a few months now. When strapped down, she was freaking out and demanding to be done with dinner after about four bites, so we let her move to the table. It's a wiggly meal, but a lot more calories go down. The chair is only still in the house because it needs a really good cleaning before we store it away for Norah.

The other night, I was bringing Hannah's dinner to the table while Nick was in the kitchen working on our dinner. She had climbed up into a chair that was on the end of the table still covered with moving detrius (like every other flat surface in our house), so I asked her to move to another seat.

I went back in the kitchen to get her milk just as Nick took her high chair out to the dining room. He strapped it to the chair (it's one of those chair topper space-saver models) and put her in. Surprisingly, she didn't question this at all; she let herself be buckled and then started eating. I thought it was a little odd...but whatever. Nick came back in the kitchen.

"Why is she in her high chair?" I asked.

"Didn't you tell her you were going to get her seat? I figured I'd just bring it out for you."

"No, she sat down at a place that was covered with stuff and I told her to get in another seat."

Apparently you can be a united front even when neither of you have any idea what's going on.

Because we're slow learners, that's why.

2010-07-11T21:58:00.000-06:00

This story is a couple weeks old, but everyone loves a terrible travel tale, right?

So after my semi-painful car trip with the kids a few weeks ago, we decided to get on an airplane with them and fly halfway across the country. Skipping a long and not-very-interesting story about logistics, I flew on Friday with Norah and Nick followed Saturday with Hannah.

Norah and I got on the plane in Spokane without incident and had a mostly pleasant flight (read: she slept and I read my book). We did not, however, have a lot of time between planes in Minneapolis and our flight was a tiny bit late arriving. So we land and I'm looking at my watch, thinking, "Ok, we're still ok. We can do this." We taxi around towards the gate...then we make a right turn away from the airport. And stop. And sit. And sit. We're informed that it's a last-minute gate change and now we're waiting for another plane to pull out of our new gate. So we turn toward the terminal and sit for a few more minutes, just for good measure.

I am fairly far up in the plane and thankfully on the aisle. I get off the plane with 30 minutes before my next flight is supposed to take off, praying that I'll walk out of the jetway and see the Madison flight at the next gate. No such luck- we're going from concourse C to G. I don't know at the time that the two gates are about five miles apart. Ignorance is bliss. Or at least ignorance is better than hopelessness.

I have Norah in a front pack but don't really want to snap her little not-yet-stable neck, so I can't run. I start walking as fast as I can, taking into consideration that I'm wearing a 13 1/2 pound baby and carring a 14 1/2 pound diaper bag. When you factor in the terrible shape I'm in, I probably wasn't moving all that fast, but I was sweating all over Norah and I'm pretty sure I tasted blood.

I checked the boards twice on my way, just to make sure I wasn't speed-walking miles in the wrong direction. Both of them said the flight was on time, leaving at 9:35 p.m. I doubted there would be any later flights into Madison so I just walked faster, powering up to the gate with 15 minutes until takeoff... and looking up to see "TAMPA" on the display screen. I just about swore. Oh #&%!!, they did change the gate.

Then a guy said, "You going to Madison? Yeah, this is the right gate. The plane isn't even here yet."

I would have been extremely irritated with the non-updated departure screens if I hadn't been so relieved to have made the flight. I got to stand back and watch other people do the race-and-relief arrival, including a family with three kids, I'd guess ages 6, 3 and 9 months. Their mom told me they had gotten up at three a.m. in Bozeman and gone to the airport to find their 6 o'clock flight cancelled. Sort of put my travels in perspective.

So we finally take off at 11 and have to make some kind of circuitous route around Green Bay, stretching a 35-minute flight into over an hour. By the time we land in Madison, the three-kid family has been traveling for at least 22 hours and the baby is now naked except for a diaper. I am impressed that they all aren't just sitting there sobbing. (Especially mom and dad, who are probably wondering why they spent the money to fly when driving would have been faster.)

Norah and I get to bed around 1:30, get up at 6:30 to meet friends for the farmers' market and pick Nick and Hannah up at 2:30. Their flight went well, but they were up at the crack of dawn and are pretty tired (Nick having driven to my parents' from Montana after work the night before). I take the kids to a waiting area and Nick goes off for the bags, coming back with everything...except Hannah's car seat. Insert silent swearing here. Not only is the car seat not on our plane, but Delta doesn't have anyone to deal with lost baggage issues other than the two overworked counter employees who are also trying to take care of everyone leaving Madison on Delta that day. Oh boy.

Nick, being the smart smart man that he is, employs a surefire assistance-getting technique. He summons a tired, wriggly, screechy two-year-old and holds her in his arms right next to the counter. Sorry airline employees, we know your job sucks, but we are not in a situation that permits waiting patiently until you get all of Madison checked in.

Nick and Hannah come back with a car seat. And the news that, although our car seat will be arriving that night, this one is now ours to keep; the airline can't take it back. We puzzle over that one: I figure that it must be a liability thing, since they would have no way to know if the seat is in an accident. Nick points out that rental car companies rent car seats. We're both stumped until I realize that rental car companies would probably know if the seat had been in a car accident. Yikes, we are tired.

Anyway, we have a sitter lined up so we can go to my friend's wedding party without Hannah. We take Norah, have a great time and come back to Hannah asleep, no problems. Sitter leaves...Hannah wakes up crying. And won't go back to sleep. Nick ends up sleeping with her (the first time she has ever spent the night in bed with either one of us) in a twin bed. Oh, and our room has skylights, so we're all up sometime around dawn. That makes the second sleepless night for both of us.

All of this is important because about seven hours later, I lock the rental car keys in the trunk of said vehicle. I was looking for an antibiotic prescription that I had already "lost" twice on this trip (both times finding it in places I swear I had looked a dozen times). It was not in the trunk (I forgot it at our hotel), but the keys now were. And the roadside assistance lady tells me that, since the trunk release was on the key chain, there is a chance the car (which contains both car seats and all our luggage) will have to be towed because there may not be a trunk lever in the car.

At this point, I am contemplating walking into Lake Wingra and ending it all. I feel like I am trying to think with my head in a giant bowl of jello and am terrified that this condition could last for years. We are both trying to figure out what convinced us that vacationing with a two-year-old and a two-month-old would be anything resembling fun.

Things do get better, however: the locksmith retrieves the keys without a tow truck, we move to a vacation rental where everyone has a bedroom, we both catch up on sleep (sort of), we visit with great friends, and we eat a lot of ice cream and cheese.

Enjoying the Concert on the Square downtown.

Hannah helping Grandma Sally (not a blood relative,
but still Hannah's Madison grandma) set the table.

Really, the outstanding selection of Wisconsin dairy products saved the trip. And if you want to find us on vacation for the next couple years, look in our backyard. We'll be in a really big tent, eating ice cream.

Slow moving

2010-07-04T20:44:00.000-06:00

Not much blogging lately and this is why:

Somehow it doesn't look as bad as it feels (probably because I didn't take any pictures of the disaster bathroom...). I thought, after moving from Texas to Wisconsin with a week-old baby, that moving seven blocks with a two-month-old and a two-year-old wouldn't really be all that bad. Hmmm. I guess it's not quite as overwhelming- I don't have to figure out where the grocery store is or find a new OB in time for my post-baby follow-up- but if we never moved again, it would be just fine with me. It's exhausting. Especially when you have completely opposite interior decorating tastes from the previous owners. Here's a sample of what our bedroom looked like before:

Yes, they did leave those lovely curtains, including the plastic flower garlands on top of each window frame. And the previous owner was filling me in on where I could find that exact shade of palest pink to touch up the paint job. (It took us about half a second to change the paint to blue.) And buh-bye rose valences, circa 1985. I don't think we'll be taking many ideas from the big stack of Victorian Home magazines, either. So I'll be spending the summer trying to make the place feel more like ours and less like my great-great-great-grandmother's.

It's always something

2010-06-20T19:50:00.000-06:00

I feel like I missed the mark with Hannah's birthday post. It's been a little crazy this week- we haven't had any hot water at our rental house since June 6. As best as we can figure, the broken part on the water heater is only made by lefthanded Peruvian goat herders and someone had to walk to South America to pick it up.

So we've been schlepping between the rental house and our new house to shower...with both kids in tow. You can imagine how much fun THAT is, especially since our new house has a freestanding tub and a stall shower, so I can't just throw Hannah in the tub while I shower anymore. I have to put on a video and pray that she doesn't decide to explore Norah's eye sockets in the 2.2 minutes I allow myself to stand in the shower.

This turn of events drastically speeded up our move process; we should be sleeping in the new house tomorrow night. Since last Friday, we've painted three bedrooms, attempted to get the new house relatively clean- the old owners cleaned it, but in an "we're old and we don't see that well anymore" way- and packed and moved about 70 percent of our stuff. Oh, and I came down with mastitis right in the middle of all this.

As you can imagine, then, Hannah's birthday yesterday was almost more of an afterthought than a Major Event. We actually completely forgot to give her any presents (we bought a few little things; it just never crossed our minds to give them to her yesterday). Before you start hearing a sad violin playing for poor little Hannah, she did have a big party at my parents' a couple weeks ago - at which she ran around saying "Happy Birf-day Hannah! Mo' peh-sents!!" - and she raked in a pretty good haul.

Just like her mom, though, her favorite thing about birthdays seems to be the "happy birthday cake"...or more specifically, the frosting. Her favorite gift might be the wooden velcro-together Happy Birthday cake we got her- she has been serving everyone from her dolls to the high school boys we hired to help us move, and everyone gets a lecture on the wooden candles: "Fie-uh. Be cah-fuh. They hot!" [Fire! Be careful, they're hot!]

Our favorite birthday news was that Hannah's two-year checkup revealed that she's finally made it to a whopping 24 pounds, so she can now sit forward in her carseat! Wohoo! This means I can't snack without sharing anymore, because she can see me in the rearview mirror, but otherwise makes car trips a lot easier.

Oh, and Norah had her two-month check at the same time. Despite being 12 days shy of 2 months, she is already tipping the scales at 13 pounds, 6 ounces. When I figure out which box my camera is in, I'll put up some pictures.

Totally Two

2010-06-16T23:30:00.000-06:00

Two years ago today, June 16, this sweet, sleepy bundle of snuggles entered our lives.

Well, the sleepy, snuggly part didn't last very long, but the sweet part will hopefully stay forever (and we're banking on it becoming a bigger part of her personality again after the new baby/new house/"I'm two and I'm supposed to be terrible sometimes" wears off).

Here she is helping Daddy make her birthday cupcakes tonight:

Yes, he IS letting her crack an egg by herself. And yes, 90 percent of it did end up on the table instead of in the cup. But that's ok, you can do those kinds of things when it's your birthday.

Like getting to lick the spatula before you even pour the cupcakes into the tin. (At 350 degrees, we're pretty sure all the Hannah germs got cooked out anyway.)

I feel like Hannah maybe sometimes gets the short end of the stick on this blog because so many of the challenges we have with her make such good stories. So before she learns to read and gets the idea that she was a little hellion who was two steps away from the orphanage, I should probably make a point to say that she is an awesome daughter. She makes me laugh at least as often as she makes me want to cry or lock myself in a closet. For example:

We always talk to Hannah about the right way to go down the stairs, mostly because she is just a fast-moving head injury waiting to happen. She never really acknowledges anything we say, although she does occasionally deign to hold the handrail. Our new house has nicely carpeted front stairs...and narrow, steep, wooden back stairs. Last week we were going down the ER Stairs and she turned around to me (using the Pointy Finger to punctuate her lecture):

"Mommy, you hold the railing. Be safe. You fall, bump head, I sad."

I think sometimes we forget that she is only two and on top of that, there's a lot of change in her little life. She's had a few hard days this week and we're not quite sure what to attribute them to: having a new little sister? Moving into a new house? (We've been packing and shuttling boxes all week.) Just being two? Any one of those things could be upsetting...and we're putting three of them on her at once. (I guess when she looks back at this blog, she can pinpoint when her need for intensive psychotherapy began.)

But for now, I'll just say what she's been saying all day long, with a big smile on her face, when we ask her what today is:

"Happy Birthday Hannah!"

Road Tripping

2010-06-10T13:33:00.000-06:00

"Wow, you brought both girls in the car by yourself? That's pretty brave!"
I heard some version of this line a lot last weekend after I drove from our home to my parents' house for our small-town community days celebration. Yes, it was five-plus hours in the car (it would be closer to four without having to stop for breastfeeding, new diapers and changing Disney movies), but it didn't seem all that impressive to me.

Five hours in the car is a lot easier, in many ways, than five hours at home. Hannah is restrained by a five-point harness, which means she is not capable of jumping, falling, running or generally attempting to injure herself. She and Norah are both riding backwards (hopefully she'll hit that magic 23-pound turnaround weight soon...) so she can't even really see Norah, let alone poke out her eyes like she is constantly trying to do at home.

Norah cries when she's hungry...but she does that at home, too. Actually, at home, Norah generally cries when she's awake and not being held, so having her in the car both saves my aching back and lulls her to sleep (for the most part) with the engine noise and vibration.

Not to say the trip was all sunshine and roses. The first two-and-a-half hours went pretty well: Hannah watched a movie and Norah slept. We made a tactical error and ended up in an insane construction zone (why they feel the need to double the width of the road on the straightest, flattest, least-traveled stretch of the trip is beyond me), but they handled it like champs.

Then we had to stop to feed Norah and things quickly went south. The whole time I was feeding her, I was listening to a chorus of "I want to get out! I want to get OOOOOUUT!" from the backseat. No such luck, kiddo.

When we got ready to go, I made the rookie mistake of incorrectly starting the Sesame Street video podcast so that it would only play ONE episode instead of all 12 episodes back-to-back, which we all discovered approximately 6 1/2 minutes down the freeway when the episode ended, the screen went blank, and the "Mommy fix it!"/whimpering/crying began.

[Side story: We have a very nice neighbor who was talking to me recently about raising children. First gem: "It's all about expectations. If you expect your children to sit in a restaurant and have dinner for two hours, they will." Second piece of advice indicating that she has no idea how lucky she is: "Don't give them any of those electronic things in the car. We had a great time on car trips before the girls got a DVD player from their grandparents. It ruined them." Clearly she never had to listen to an hour and a half of "I want out. I want OUT. I want OOOOOUUUUTTTTTT!"]

Anyway, back to the story. So the DVD player is dead and all my attempts to get Hannah to sing a song/play with her baby/read a book are met with fits indicating that I am subjecting her to Guantanamo-style torture. But we have a scheduled stop to make at a car dealership, an hour down the road, so once again, tough luck Hannah. Finally I reach into the bag of car entertainment and pull out some stickers, which instantly quiets my poor, suffering, movie-less child. Score one for mom.

The crying starts again right before we get to the dealership. Both of them, actually. I'm not really sure what's going on with Hannah, but I'm pretty sure Norah's just hungry. So I pop out Norah's bucket seat and go around to get Hannah.

Uh-oh.

The stickers that I gave her were out of a box I've had forever. Hannah's favorite thing to do with stickers is to put them on her hands, arms and clothes. She has them all over both hands and forearms. Apparently some stickers get really sticky with age. She wants them off...and it's like pulling dozens of little tiny band-aids that have been baked on in a blast furnace. It's a good thing she's not very hairy because it would be a terrible, splotchy wax job. I ask her if she's sure she wants them off and she says, "uh-huh..." through sniffly tears. I lose my one Mom Point and take a 50-point penalty for inadvertently causing pain (and disgusing it as fun, no less).

I get Hannah out of her seat and realize I've broken another parenting commandment: Thou Shall Not Give Thy Child Two Sippys of Milk and Then Some Water On a Car Trip. She is soaked all the way through her diaper and overalls. So add a cold, rashy behind to the red, splotchy forearms and I may never get her back in the car seat again. I'm sure the car guys were SO happy to see our crew walk in the door...we managed to get our issue resolved in record time.

We head back out the door with dry pants, full tummies, empty bladders and a DVD player properly cued up. Almost to Grandma's House! Feeling that she has not yet contributed to our general misery, Norah takes her last remaining opportunity and screams bloody murder for 30 of the remaining 45 minutes of the trip. Luckily Grandma, Uncle Andy and his girlfriend Summer are thrilled to see the girls because I am about ready to give them away to strangers.

Not that this is a lot different than how I often feel after five hours at home with both of them. At least in the car I can turn up the music and find a happy place without the Mom Guilt that my children are distressed and my (not-very-maternal) gut impulse is to sell them down the river.

Parents of the Year...again

2010-06-01T21:00:00.000-06:00

Hannah and I have had a D-A-Y. Meltdowns, trying to run away from me in a parking lot, hitting, you name it. We had a long day.

She was eating dinner when Nick got home and asked for some water. I grabbed her a sippy cup off the counter. She took a drink and made a face:

"No, Mommy, no fuzzy wat-uh! [fizzy water] I don't 'ike it!"

I don't think Hannah has ever had pop, but I've been drinking lemonade with club soda and I've let her taste the club soda, which she calls 'fizzy water.' I knew there wasn't anything carbonated in her water bottle, plus I was pretty much done with her for the day. I figured she was just trying to get attention.

"Hannah, it's not fizzy water. It's just water. Drink it."

Nick: "Um, where did that water bottle come from? I gave her apple juice in a bottle just like that...but that was sometime last week..."

Then I remembered that the sippy cup was discovered during a diaper bag clean-out session this afternoon. Uh-oh.

Sure enough, I took the cup and opened it - the contents looked a little juice-ish. Then I made the mistake of taking a sip. It was definitely one kind of 'fizzy water' - nasty, bubbly, fermented apple juice.

Once I got done gagging and Nick stopped laughing long enough to find a new cup, Hannah got both some clean water and more evidence that we are simply not to be trusted.

Big Talker

2010-05-30T20:48:00.003-06:00

I think I've mentioned that Hannah is a talking machine. She's pretty much talking in complex sentences now, like when Nick went to get her out of bed the other morning:
"Daddy, I want drink milk, sit the couch and watch Ses-ee Steet. I want wear my PJs and sit the couch."

She doesn't have the 'l' or 'r' sounds yet and sometimes 's' comes and goes, which makes figuring out what she's trying to say really difficult. Sometimes this provokes tears, sometimes just teenage-style "my parents are complete morons" resignation. I've noticed lately that she's gotten really good at alternate explanations:

"Mommy, I want [something unintelligible that sounds like rahwnin]"
"Raining? You're right, it's raining."
"No, mommy, rah-wing."
"Rolling?"
"No, mommy, I want reh-nin."
"I'm sorry, sweetie, but I have no idea what you're trying to tell me."
Hannah goes over to her playhouse.
"Baby fall down the stairs."
"Oh, you want the railing for your playhouse!" [The railing had gone to toy time-out Friday because it was causing WWIII between Hannah and CC.]
I thought that explanation was pretty clever, since we tell her to hold onto the railing every time we go down the stairs so she doesn't fall.

Her imagination is taking off, too. Today we were at a new playground and she started swinging on a metal bar, using her new favorite sentence: "Mommy, look at me! Look at me! Look at me!"[Not currently one of my favorite sentences, but better than just "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mom! Maaaaah-mee! Maaaaah-mee! Mama! Mama!"]

Then she started doing this contortion:

"Look at me mommy! I swfhs!"
"You're what?"
"I stfush!"
"You're swinging? [I know her word doesn't sound at all like swinging, and she's not swinging, but she was swinging a minute ago and I don't have any other guesses.]"
"No, mommy."
Then she points to the blue joint piece of the play equipment, which has five arms.
"I shah-fush."
"Oh, you're a starfish!"

Of course.