How to eat yogurt when you lack the manual dexterity needed to use a spoon, by Jack age 13.5 months

Merry Medical Thursday

From the time he could roll over, Jack was a bad co-sleeper, preferring to burrow his way through a row of suffocate-y pillows, nearly flinging his little body off the side of the bed not wedged up against the pack and play, and deciding that 3 am was the perfect time to play a rousing game of "got your nose."

Last night was no exception.

In the 6 or so months since Jack and I last slept together, he has just about doubled in size, making him an even more obtrusive bedfellow. He has also developed a penchant for sleeping horizontally, on his tummy, with his butt in the air and his arms stretched backwards-- which, now that I think about it, is perfect child's pose. Hmmmm. Maybe the yogis are onto somethin'.

As an added bonus, last night, he was oozing virus from all of his sweaty little pores and orifices, so lucky freaking me on that score, as well. That's why we slept together-- because he had a 102 degree fever all day that would not come down despite Motrin and Tylenol in 3-hour intervals.

(We went to urgent care to be talked down to by a busy doctor who said maybe fifth's disease, definitely a virus, but what the hell, let's swab him for strep and make you all hang out in our germ covered waiting room for like 30 extra minutes playing with sick kids and terrorizing the fish in the aquarium until a busy nurse can finally come out and tell you to go home-- it's just a virus. Then the harried nurse started to launch into a speech about how a virus means that antibiotics won't help, and the doctor won't be writing a prescription-- I smiled at this through my hatred of the urgent care waiting room and the 22 pounds of limp, rashy, hot baby on my shoulder because I think people who demand antibiotics for colds/flus are freaking morons, and I appreciated the nurse's preemptive efforts. )

Anywho, it's always a bummer when kids are sick, but I think it's even more of a bummer when an eternally happy kid like Jack is under the weather (and also, he's my wittle bitty Mr. Preshus). He so obviously felt terrible with his peeling, rashy, scarlet cheeks, and his chills, and his glassy, feverish eyes, but he was trying to be his jolly old self-- only his smiles looked like they might actually hurt. He slept most of the day, but by bedtime, his temp rose back to 102 (from the 100.5 it had been hovering around), and he wanted to do nothing but drink a bottle of cherry Pedialyte, be wrapped up in a fleece blanket on my chest, and moan.

We had a tossy, turny night, but Ben let us sleep until 8:30 (would have let us sleep longer, but I saw the clock and bolted out of bed because Ben usually goes to work at 7:20-ish), and now Jack is fever free but down again for a morning nap, the poor little guy.

I didn't know Jack was sick yesterday until I called Ben on my way home from taking Harry to the dentist for the first time, and Ben said Jack fell asleep on the bathroom floor while Ben was showering-- so pathetic, huh? (and my first thought was like oh crap-- the babysitter can't come today, and I really needed a pedicure and some new shampoo because I SUCK AS A PERSON)

But Harry and the dentist? Amazing!
He was so good while I got my teeth cleaned. He let his action figures invade the dentist's office Fisher Price farm set and didn't even notice when the hygienist stuck her pointy rake thing into a sensitive spot on my gum and I squealed a little. When it was his turn, he was happy to wear some cool sunglasses to protect his eyes from the bright lights.

He listened with rapt attention while the hygienist showed him all her tools and instruments, and he was very happy to hear the result of his tooth count (20-- just like his Teeth Are Not Biting book told him there'd be). The ride up and down in the cool chair was just an extra awesome bonus.

Look at him-- just like a twee adult (he loved the water squirter and teeny mouth vacuum-- his words -- the most, of course.

Then she told him he got a toothbrush and something from the treasure chest in the waiting room, and his head exploded from delight.

No Sleep for the Weary

I have insomnia again.

I had it when Harry was 4 months old-- it lasted months and was horrible. A living nightmare I couldn't escape because I couldn't find refuge in my bed anymore. It was awful-- can't even express how awful it was. My doctor wrote me a prescription for sleeping pills, but I never took them because I was afraid if I did and they didn't work, I would have no relief ever again. I got off the mini pill, and that helped. Eventually, I started to sleep again, and I read stack after stack of crappy thrillers between the hours of 11 pm and 4 am while I waited for sleep to come and regarded my sleeping baby as a ticking time bomb of need.

I lost some sleep when Jack was a few months old, too, and I saw a nice therapist who forced me to take my panicky what-ifs to their logical conclusions and suggested I try yoga. I did, and by the time Jack's colic went away, so did my stress, and sleep came again. We've all been sleeping wonderfully for months now, so imagine my surprise, shock, dismay, horror, etc when that douche bag insomnia popped in for a visit a little over a week ago. And the good for nothing asshole has been here ever since. And I have no idea WHY-- the other times I could easily blame post partum hormones, but what about now? This is the least stressed and most well rested I have been in YEARS.

I always sleep eventually, but the time between hitting the pillow and cosing my eyes gets longer and more horrible every night. (I am not a drama queen? Why would you go and say a thing like that?)

I am just a ray of sunshine today, huh? Be lucky you don't live with me.

So, I have been completely worthless these days. I am not working per se, but I still have a babysitter. While she's with the boys, I stroll the mall alone. Or go to the library. Get my nails done. Sit in my office and check the tiniest, most insignificant items off my to-do list. Complain about how hard it is to be me to my husband who is actually at work doing work things and getting paid for them and who might think that I am sort of a pain in the ass-- can you ever imagine why?

Jack and Harry looking stony in their wagon

Who doesn't like frozen pizza and ice cream for dinner?

On Sunday, we purged all of our closets, and Jack and I had fun playing in the refuse. I kept both of these hats because I am a bad purger.

Harry was playing happily in my room while Jack napped and I lolled around on the internet (my life is haaaaaaard), and I looked up to find this odd assortment of guys.

Including this one, whom I love so much but could probably love even more if I could just close my eyes and go to sleep.

Cupcakes for the cupcake

Sometime in the past couple of weeks, Jack has become an actual person who walks upright, can express his desires and preferences, and understands us when we talk to him. I am not sure exactly when that happened-- I could have told you the precise second Harry did all these things.

But Jack-- I just sort of rubbed my eyes and there he was-- a teeny chunk of humanity,with the fattest toes and the widest little foot slabs, who raises his little head from the Ugly Doll on which it lays and says "Night night" when we leave his room after reading his bedtime stories.

Jack, the wobbly zombie who runs away when we say we're going to get him, can retrieve Harry's pants from the next room when asked, makes the silliest little noise when we tell him to blow his nose, and thinks all animals say "Roar."

In the morning, if we ask him how he slept, he will lay his head on the floor and pretend to snore (he is very literal, that kid). When asked how HE slept, Harry always shakes his head sadly and says"I didn't sleep good, guys." Jack's optimism, though, is unbridled. He loves when Harry kisses him; when the garage door opens at the end of the day signaling Ben's return, he claps his fat hands and screams "DADA" while toddling as fast as he can to the top-of-stairs gate. He also gives the wettest open mouthed kisses when we request them complete with little lip smacking noises.

Everyday he gathers new words and figures out how to use them. He's happiest when we're reading to him, and at night, he still likes to be cradled in our arms while we hold his bottle for him, and he sticks his fingers in our mouths.

Trust me when I tell you he is sweeter than chocolate cake and stickier, too.

Zoo-- it was so fun we could be like official spokespeople

Except we only took 2 pictures of animals:

the sleepy tiger

and the free-range peacock. There were peafowl everywhere. By the time we got to the playground and one hopped through the fence, Harry was all annoyed and said, "That peacock is in my way."

This animal only got in the picture because Harry was riding it, and Ben was standing next to it. Jack did not get a pony ride because I did not want to walk in a slow circle dodging pygmy horse crap. Been there; done that.

The rest of the time, we just took pictures of ourselves because we are conceited like that.

We were not shocked to learn that Jack loves chicken strips-- that kid is processed food's biggest fan

Harry was cool with his Sponge Bob popsicle.

We waited in a massive line for the train


and were glad we did because the train ride was awesome


Moments after this happy shot,

disaster almost came to the carousel:

Panic makes the merry go round from sarah on Vimeo.

(ben almost fell off the carousel because he was unfamiliar, apparently, with the up and down motion of the ostrich. tricky merry-go-round. that's harry in the background urging his horse to ride like the wind).

The boys slept the whole way home, and we grilled a ton of pork product upon our arrival. Then we threw Harry and Jack in the tub, where they had a playful scuffle.


and now they are sleeping, and I hope we will be soon.

Deja Vu

Remember this guy?

Little barely 2 year old Harry on his first day of preschool.

His backpack (decidedly unacademic containing only an extra Pull-up, some wipes, and a spare pair of jeans-- in size 18 months) was so heavy, he couldn't walk while wearing it because he toppled right over (to reveal a pretty freaky looking baby who crapped through that little hedgehog outfit on the way to school, something I didn't notice until I took him out of his infant seat and carried him into class in my quest to be the perfect mother whose baby will never have a flat head but instead was the frazzled lady holding the dirty kid).


Today was his last day of school, and he is all grown up at almost 3 and can carry his own bag (which still holds the same teeny jeans-- good thing his love for his teachers makes him too nervous to crap his pants at school because those dungarees would be worthless). He was super excited about his end-of-year picnic even though I stalled getting cookies and ended up swinging by Whole Foods and grabbing some pre-packaged ones instead of ordering the elaborate pirate cookies he requested from our favorite bakery. Arrrgh, I suck.

Good thing the baby got cuter

Harry loves juice in dixie cups. Thanks, school, for effing up our juice-free zone.

Between the Cheetos (again, great healthy snack influence), the melty cookies, and the sand on the playground, Harry and Jack were filthy, so I figured what the hell and took them to the park.

At home, they had a bath that left a ring around the tub and so much sand I could have panned for fool's gold. For a minute, I thought I was going to enjoy the phantom simul-nap, but Harry never slept.


While looking for old pictures for this post, I noticed that we celebrated Harry's first day of school with a trip to that same park. Trippy.

I've got the SAHM blues

Am I like the last person on the planet to figure out that being a stay-at-home mom freaking sucks?

And now that I said that, I have to disavow it, or apologize for it, or declare my love for my children because seriously-- who says that? Who does not wake up each day grateful for the 12-ish hours she gets to spend alone with her offspring before help arrives? Who does not treasure each nose and ass wipe? Who does not get down on her hands and knees and thank the powers that be for the opportunity to spend her day moving the sofa to dispose of the huge pile of snacks that fell behind it?

Back when I was a perfect mom-- you know, before I had kids-- I didn't think I would have any problem splitting the childcare and housework 50/50 with my perfect partner, dropping my lovely, non-snot-encrusted offspring at their super cool Montessori-based daycare center, and swinging through the drive-thru Starbucks on my way to work.

Did I forget about the woman I nannied for in college who worked her ass off to provide her girls with things like oh, I don't know HEALTH INSURANCE while her husband slept one off downstairs? How could I forget her and how beautiful she was, all held together with coffee and lip gloss and a weekly nail appointment that might have been the only 45 minutes she sat down or took a deep breath ever. How could I forget how fast she would come home if her baby had a fever? Or how late she was on the days she'd try to swing by baby gymnastics? Or how hard she worked to find the perfect show-and-tell object for her older daughter? The thing about this woman was, she didn't make it look easy-- she let me see how hard it was to be a juggling mom. But I was so self involved, so focused on squeezing in one last cigarette, a Frapuccino, and a pack of gas-station cinnamon rolls on my way to work that I didn't realize the juggling was hard for everyone. I didn't realize that when I called in hungover, this woman was SOL, had to answer to her younger, childless, male boss, had to work from her cluttered basement office with a toddler there to help. The cleaning lady used to leave pages and pages of handwritten notes detailing what she cleaned while the baby and I sat around and made new messes, and the mom would read these reports with a frown and some sighs and would sometimes re-clean something, muttering all the while. I thought she was nuts, and if my life were a movie, I would have been instantly transported from this uncharitable assessment to myself a couple months after jack was born stomping around my own house and calling Ben to yell at him so he could call and yell at the cleaning lady (who came to my house twice a week, not once every two). Because nothing was ever clean enough, because maybe I could control just this one tiny delegated task while everything else, my work, my body, my two-year-old's behavior spiraled out of my control-- but I even delegated the yelling.

The thing is-- I studied mothering ideologies and the work of mothering through history. I should have known what I was in for. I should have known that the work is never 50/50 because one person's job is worth more money, and one person has boobs that make milk. But the minute I first held tiny pink Harry, thoughts of tenure track jobs and daycare centers, and lugging my breast pump to campus flew out of my head. He was a baby-- my baby-- and how could I be away from him even for a minute? So I just wasn't-- not really. Same with Jack, even though I stupidly imagined myself teaching days after his birth.

The thing about these tiny pink people is that they grow up. Form opinions. Talk back to you. Make messes. Refuse to listen to what you say-- but actually store every single word, every syllable, every breath. They depend on us completely, and what if we let them down?


The part that pisses me off the most is that I am supposed to be grateful that I get to be there for them. Wait-- no, that's not it-- the part that pisses me off the most is that I AM grateful to be home with them. But I still think it sucks. No offense, guys, if you're reading this.