News On My End

I had a little email exchange this week with one of my best college girlfriends, someone who I wish I got to talk to more, and, in it, she asked if there was any news on my end. Considering that I write this from my bed at 11:45 a.m. on a snowy Thursday, no. But further considering that I think my avoidance of this space lately is because there's not much cheerfulness to share, I'll share the questionable, the hopefully relatable, the downright depressing news anyway. You know, so as to better wallow in my mild self-pity.

1. I'm training for the Riverbank 25K, a race I've done a few times before. It's a great local race, one that I enjoy, and I'm further glad to be doing it as a part of a group from the girls' school that's raising money to support our principal, a brave woman who's been fighting cancer this school year. But it's a little frustrating that last year, my running partner Sarah and I opted out of training for the race, and that spring was a string of sunny, 70-degree days. THIS YEAR? I keep having to run nine miles in the snow when it's 23 degrees, and I'm over it.

2. Jason, who first of all falls asleep on the couch at 8:30 p.m. every night that Michigan does not play basketball, has been snoring more as of late. Last night I eventually moved out to the couch because he wouldn't stop, and I fell into a fitful, uncomfortable sleep there until one of the cats woke me up at 6:30 a.m. by bad-assing across my face with its hind feet. I now have a lovely red scratch down the right side of my face just in time to meet a bunch of new neighbors on Saturday.

3. Have I mentioned the snow? I took a stand the other day by washing my giant down coat, hanging it firmly in the back of the closet, and declaring that I was going to stop wearing it for the season, as if perhaps by donning my jean jacket or a lightweight trench I could hasten spring along. Then I got stuck standing outside a building for about fifteen minutes on Tuesday night, waiting to be let into my meeting while the wind whipped snow into my insufficiently dressed self. My mom would have strongly disapproved. (I have still not brought the down coat back out, though.)

4. I had this conversation one day with Jemma when the girls were playing detective and wanting to dress in all black:

J: Where is a black hat, so I can wear it?
Me: We don't have a black hat.
J: Yes, we do.
Me: No, we don't.
J: Yes, we do.
Me: Tell me what it looks like. Whose is it?
J:  . . . .
Me: See? We don't have a black hat.
J: But what if we DO have a black hat?
Me: . . . .

5. After hearing people rave for years about how perfect and comfortable and life-changing Lululemon studio pants are, I bought some. Which is a good thing. But the amount of days I wear them? Is not a good thing.

Bad Things, January 2013

Every month or so, I try to use this space to record the myriad, little, everyday "good things" happening in my life right now: Instagram photos of favorite school projects, delicious food, happy snippets of conversation, moments I want to remember. One of the reasons I started blogging (back in 2006!) was because I found that the days all blended together, and I found myself not feeling grateful enough for the things that were right in front of me. I wanted to remember the stories of these days, and I wanted to remind myself of the good in the midst of life with young children.

However.

It is January. (Still.) It has been gray and foggy and raining a cold, disgusting drizzle for two days non-stop. I've felt borderline sick all day. So how about I bring you "good things" tomorrow and vent my "bad things" today? First-world problems, all; nevertheless, I like to keep things real.

So:

-I've eaten at least one piece of Jet's Pizza three out of the last four days. My stomach does not thank me.

-A super-strong wind blew the hot tub cover completely open last weekend, and in the process it literally bent the bar that helps open the cover. Now, when we open the hot tub up, the cover dangles dangerously close to the ground, and the bar threatens to snap right off due to the increased pressure. Jason is taking a wait-and-see approach about this.

-I am luckily wrapping up my annual self-imposed January detox (clearly I use the term loosely; see the first item in this list). I did a very good job of keeping the alcohol to a minimum (a glass of wine here and there when out for dinner with friends, but otherwise essentially no drinking at all), but I failed miserably at the "no treats" part of my plan.

-This text message exchange from today at 10:36 a.m., copied verbatim from my phone:

friend: What are you doing?
me: Get ready. Eating cold pizza in bed still in my pajamas and reading. Call in Zoloft prescription ASAP.
friend: OMG you are my idol!!!
me: No, really: I can't cope with this weather and fact that it's still January . . .  What are YOU doing?
friend: Haha . . . well, about to enter stupid Target. Then nothing. I'll probably get a coffee and sit in the Target eating area and stare out the window . . . Cymbalta . . .
me: Let's drive to airport and get a flight to Miami. Our families would figure things out.
friend: Totally. No really . . .  I am sitting at Target like a moron.
me: What are we even doing with our lives? . . . all is hopeless . . .
friend: Claaaaasic moms . . .
*2 hours later*
me: Spiraling . . . Eating chocolate chips out of pkg.
friend: Hahaha - you are killing me today . . .
me: I couldn't be more pathetic if I tried. Trying to rally, clean out cupboards so as to still be productive without having to leave house.
friend: You're holding on to nothing.

-30 Rock is ending this week. There's nothing else to say about that.

-At the girls' well-child checks yesterday, all was well except Jemma's right eye, which apparently has 20/40 vision. This is either 1. something developmental that she'll grow out of or 2. an indication that she needs glasses. Considering the percentage of the time that she drops fragile things (50) and/or loses things (50), I'm not enthusiastic about helping her care for and keep track of glasses. We shall see.

-Have I mentioned that it's STILL JANUARY???

Apres

The morning hasn't been a great one, so far.

Jemma woke me up at 6:00 needing help with something potty-related; later, she refused to get dressed because she was "too tired to go to school" and "wanted Daddy to walk her to school" and "doesn't like gym, art and music," which she has today. Annie lost her mind because she ran out of time to finish dressing her doll before it was time to leave the house. (This is a child who, when I was explaining about my new DSLR camera and why I was taking a ton of pictures of the same object but just changing one setting on the camera to see what would happen, replied, "You mean like a variable?"; a child who is able to tell you Newton's law of gravity and theory of motion; yet is apparently also a child who believes that a doll is ALIVE and WILL BE COLD if someone doesn't put clothes on it ASAP.) Nobody could sit their butt down and eat breakfast. Somebody forgot her planner and lost her hat (AGAIN), and both children were in tears at some point.

Now I'm here, alone, with a yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach.

*****

Last weekend, we went skiing. It was the first time we'd attempted it as a family of four. A day before we left, I posted this as my Facebook status update:

Our status as we gear up for our first full-family ski trip: Annie, lost hat Tuesday; Jemma, lost mitten yesterday; weather forecast, 40s and rain; me, last seen on skis in 2002. So.

On Saturday morning, while Jason was in a continuing education class, the girls each had a ski lesson. I watched from my perch as they navigated the magic carpet on the bunny hill with their instructors, and then I picked them up and heard that they were "good to go" on the chair lift and the real hills. 

We joined up with Jason, ate a quick lunch, and spent one million hours putting our ski gear back on. (SO. MUCH. GEAR.) (My gear, as you would expect, is also from 2002.) Then we hopped on the chairlift, all four of us in a row. It was sunny. We all had hats and mittens. We were ready to ski!

We got off at the top without incident, and Jason led us to the left. I was scanning the signs for a green run while trying to keep my eyes on the girls and while trying not to fall, so it's no surprise that I found myself just following Jason to a blue. We all did. And then we stared down what was a steeper hill than we had really meant to begin on.

"It'll be FINE," said my husband, ever the optimist. We started down. Jemma fell within the first ten yards and started to cry, while Annie zoomed ahead, going straight down the hill at top speed. I froze in the middle, not knowing what to do, then left Jason to help Jemma while I followed Annie. I tried to remember how to turn - turned right, turned left, zig-zagged my way down until somehow I was backwards for a split second before I fell spectacularly and lost my right ski. From my sitting position, I looked down the hill and spotted Annie, who had fallen and lost both her skis. I looked up at Jemma, who had fallen again and was refusing to get back up.

Thus began our first family ski trip.

*****

For some reason, this occurs to me this morning, as I'm standing in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher with a yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach and replaying the scenes from our chaotic morning. It's not possible, I know, to rewind our day and begin again, just as it wasn't possible to un-fall on that blue run last Saturday. I can't stop the falls, I can't stop the difficult moments. What I can control is what happens after - whether or not to get up, ski down to Annie, help her get her skis back on, and ski the rest of the way down laughing at ourselves. Whether or not to get Jemma back on the chair lift (after Jason skis down with her on his back) and find a nice green run that she handles just fine. Whether or not to make sure that an inauspicious start doesn't keep us from spending the three hours after enjoying the sunshine and snow with no falls and lots of smiles. Whether or not to let a not-great morning ruin the rest of the day, or to put yoga clothes on, move forward with the day, and plan to start again with the children when they get home from school. It's about what happens after.

(Apres skiing, by the way, we snuck away for a lovely grown-up dinner at a fancy French restaurant with good friends and plenty of red wine, so I think there might sometimes be a reward for getting through the hard stuff.)

On Teaching and Parenting

I had a conversation this morning with a friend about teaching (our school district is trying to come up with the funds to continue having paraprofessionals in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms, which I think is essential) and then I went to yoga at noon, where two different teachers shared teaching the class. So while I was lying on my back at the end of class, I was thinking about the way that good teaching is both an art and a science, and about how I continue to be surprised that I am not a better parent, because I was a very good teacher. And isn't parenting just teaching on a much smaller, much more continuous scale?

Don't get me wrong, I had a few extra-specially difficult kids in classrooms over the years, but even then I never became completely unwound by the difficulties. I put in my very best effort and knew, somehow, that my very best effort would have to be enough, that there was nothing more I could do. Maybe in parenting, we're too close to the source, too constantly surrounded by the "pupils," and too attached to the outcome to be as level-headed. In any case, I never yelled. I never lost my temper. I never went into another room to cry or lay awake at night going over where it had all gone so wrong.

This is not to say that parenting the girls lately has been completely joyless. In every day there are moments of satisfaction and goodness, and I try to focus on those. I try to take the long view, to have some perspective that things will not always be this way. (Swistle, again, putting my thoughts into words.)
When that fails, there is always commiserating with girlfriends, running, drinking, getting out of the house, or going to sleep and pinning my hopes on the fact that the morning will bring a clean slate and a fresh start. But it hasn't really been a party for me lately, and I'm wishing I could channel a bit of Wise Teacher Stephanie to tell Frazzled Parent Stephanie what to do.

Back to lying on my back after yoga: I'm thinking about teaching. I'm thinking that I used to love teaching the same units and skills and information to new students every year, the way I did at Cranbrook, because the fresh crop of students every year ensures that the experience is different. I'm thinking, too, that there's probably satisfaction in teaching new skills and information to the same students, the way my instructor does at the yoga studio, because the continuity of learners lets you see people progress in their practice.

So:

same information + new students = fun, satisfying teaching experience

and

new information + same students = fun, satisfying teaching experience

but you know what sucks?

same information + same students = unsatisfying, frustrating teaching experience

And what situation most closely mirrors that?

Parenting. Especially the kind of parenting I'm largely doing these days, the kind where you keep saying the words, modeling the behavior, providing the information, encouraging the skills, and yet it's a Groundhog's Day situation of the same frustrations happening again and again.

Maybe I need to switch up my material. It's either that or switch up the kids, I guess.

You Know It's Been a Bad Day When . . .

• You have to wear a hat and mittens to walk your kid to school. In April.
• You spend much of your morning waiting around for a guy to come pick up the mattress you're donating.
• One of the first things your husband says to you when he gets home from work is, "Hey. I have a zit there right now, too."
• When he arrives home from work, you are lying face-down across the bed and you say, "I want to run away from home." AND YOU MEAN IT.
• You beg your husband to take the children to piano lessons and while they're gone you get into the tub with a glass of wine, five snack-size Twizzlers from your kids' Easter basket, and the phone. You are still there when they return.
• You slam a door so hard that the framed black and white photo you took in college falls off the wall and into the toilet.
• Your daughter outright refuses to get in the car after playing on the playground after school, and later runs away from you while you're talking to her for the eleven thousandth time in the last week, so you calmly tell her that it's a problem that you're going to solve together. The first solution you offer is that you will buy her a leash and put it on her every day when she comes out of school until you feel comfortable trusting her to listen. AND YOU'RE NOT REALLY KIDDING.
• You go to the library after the kids go to bed, trying to re-stock the kid's books for the next week, and they make the "The library is now closing announcement." You hurry to the check-out counter, where your card is denied because you have fines totaling more than $10.00.
• Things on the agenda for tomorrow include: Write large check to contractor; stay out of house for entire day because of lead dust; take child to therapist; re-wash load of laundry you forgot about which now smells terrible; wait in vain for exploratory freelance emails to be returned.

Fortunately, Unfortunately

We checked out an old, classic version of Fortunately, Unfortunately from the library a few weeks ago, and the girls were immediately taken by the literary device. They were so intrigued that they both wrote their own Fortunately, Unfortunately books and wrapped them up to give to Jason as Christmas presents, so part of our Christmas morning involved the two of us reading said books aloud, simultaneously praising the "creativity" and dying inside of laughter (hint: the books involve pirates, monsters, witches, grandmothers, ice-skating, and frogs). After a day like today, here's my version.

Fortunately, we all woke up in our warm house this morning with plenty of food, clothes, and all the basic necessities plus some.

Unfortunately, Annie started crying at breakfast and didn't want to go to school for the second day in a row.

Fortunately, one of the 29475736 things I said must have helped, because after thirty minutes of crying she did indeed get dressed, pulled herself together, and happily went off to school.

Unfortunately, I don't know which of the things I said was the magical thing.

Fortunately, Jemma went to school as happily as she always does.

Unfortunately, Jason and I had to meet with a lawyer to update our will and estate plan right after we dropped her off at school, which led to us spending an hour or so pondering those scenarios you really never want to ponder.

Fortunately, it was quick and painless and we are on the same page with these horrible decisions.

Unfortunately, it is winter.

Fortunately, it was sunny and I pulled Jemma in the sled to pick Annie up from school.

Unfortunately, we were all pretty cold by the time we walked home.

Fortunately, the girls were full of love for me and one another and we had a cozy night of piano-playing, braiding hair, bath bombs, and stories in my bed.

Unfortunately, Annie felt yucky and sad again right before bedtime, leading me to Google yucky and sad things after she finally was soothed to sleep.

Fortunately, there was a new Modern Family on tonight, and Jason got home just in time to watch it with me.

Unfortunately, I feel the beginnings of a sore throat and a sense of dread about tomorrow morning and one child's predicted emotional state.

Fortunately, I know we'll figure it out.

Not Seamless

The transition, that is, from two-plus weeks of lounging and gift-giving, oversleeping and overeating, traveling and togetherness back to the first, real, down-to-business day of January 2012. There was an hour (plus) of crying last night before bed and another hour (plus) of crying this morning before school.

It was a new experience for us, a child who was expressing this very high level of anxiety about something she'd previously never blinked at, and Jason and I reacted differently.

"Stop it," said Jason, because he, truly, is a person who doesn't really worry, who - aside from one specific work-related event this past year - doesn't have anxiety about things. If his brain starts to worry, he stops. Simple as that. But his advice, given more kindly than I've illustrated here, doesn't work for this particular blonde seven-year-old.

My tack: Walk the fine line between sympathetic comfort and firm instruction. Say, "It's normal to feel like this," and, "Everybody feels like this sometimes," and "I know you're brave and strong and you're going to have a great day!" and "Well, you're not sick and you're not staying home." When those things didn't work and the anxiety ramped up to a level that made me think, Psych consult in aisle four, please, I pulled out a few other things, like this gem of a conversation:

A: "I'm just feeling so terrible!"
Me: "Well, that's weird, because you just had a great day sledding, playing outside, having hot cocoa, practicing your piano, and playing with your sister, so it seems like you're feeling fine."
A: "I'm going to tell Mrs. F. that I'm sick and I need to come home."
Me: "If you call me from school, I'm going to ask to talk to Mrs. F. and I'm going to tell her that you're fine."
A: "But what if I'm sick and I need to come home?"
Me: "You throw up, I'll come get you."

and also the much-avoided, for-emergencies-only "I'll lie in bed with you until you can calm down and fall asleep."

As much as I put a brave face on it and focused on getting her to school this morning, 99% sure that all she needed was one day back in her usual routine, of course I worried about her all day long:  talked about her on the treadmill this morning, kept my phone close to me all day, and gave her the biggest hug when she came out of school smiling and reported that she'd had a good day. Pshew.

Don't Do It

This morning started out fairly well: coffee with peppermint creamer; the girls playing checkers on the iPad and then creating some sort of secret project in Jemma's bedroom; Annie helping me make homemade cranberry sauce and giggling about every pop! the berries made; sunshine and playdates and bread-making ahead.  Jason had headed off to an early meeting, and I felt like a pretty great mom, if I do say so myself.

Then I pushed my luck and dared to leave the house.  Why not, I thought, go to the library and exchange books and movies so we'd have brand-new, fresh ones for this weekend's road trips?  And, because it's sunny and because we're eco-friendly and fit, why not walk there?

Big mistake.  HUGE.  The girls fought the whole way there about who should be carrying the books and about how many movies we could check out and who would pick them.  They fought while we were there over who got to check the items out, then fought about who got to push the automatic door-opening button on the way out, and I abandoned thoughts of running into the grocery store for the single thing I needed.

Worse, Jemma began to cry the minute we stepped out of the library's doors on our way home.  "I don't want to waaaaaaaaaaaalk!" she wailed.  I tried optimism:  "It's so short! We'll be home in five minutes!"  I tried cajoling:  "How about you race Annie to that pole?"  I tried mirroring:  "You're tired.  You don't want to walk.  I hear you saying you wish we had driven."  Still she wailed, and I tried tough love:  "Jemma, I don't like to listen to you cry.  I'm going to walk ahead and I'll wait for you when you calm down."  She wailed some more, Annie and I walked ahead, and then she started calling for us.

"Wait for meeeee!" she cried desperately.  "Mommy, wait!"

Aha! I thought.  "I'd be happy to wait for you if you're done crying," I said, pleased that my plan had worked.  We were almost halfway home; we'd just have to make it a block or two more.  Annie and I stopped and waited the few seconds it took for Jemma to catch up with us.  As soon as she did, she started having a fit again.

"I don't want to waaaaaaalk!  I'm tired of walllllllllking!!!" she trailed along behind us, then sat smack down on the sidewalk and screamed, much to the amusement of the college-aged neighbor and her mother out for a morning walk.  So again, Annie and I walked a little ahead, trying in vain to outrun the screaming, and again Jemma called for us to wait, and again she ceased crying right up until the second she finally caught up with us.  Don't do it, I thought, don't do it, don'tdoitpleasepleaseplease and "WAAAAAA!"

We finally made it home and I marveled that in less than an hour a place that had been the setting for such an idyllic morning had been populated with a four-year-old screaming about nothing, a mother with a tight-lipped mouth slamming peanut butter on the counter, and a seven-year-old who used the opportunity to sneak off with the iPad again.  It reminded me of a passage that made me laugh with recognition in When Did I Get Like This? by Amy Wilson:

Me: What kind of bagel would you like, Connor? We don't have any raisin, but we have plain and sesame.
Connor: Why didn't you get me raisin?
Me:  They didn't have any.
Connor: But I really wa-anteddd . . . rai-sinnnnn . . .
Me: THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY.
Connor: (breaking down) Why couldn't you - just get me - a - raisinnn - baa-aa-gell . . . I wanted - it - so - MUUUCHHH AHHHH . . . .

This is the point where I bodily carry/drag him to any part of the house in which I cannot hear him, or at least will hear him only faintly, banging his fists on the wall and crying out to the gods that this "always happens to" him. I am not sure if ostracization is the correct disciplinary technique here, but I am sure it is better than the Saying of Things Mommy Might Regret, or worse.

After a while, silence.  Connor reemerges, sniffling, clearly attempting to function rationally.  I, modeling coolheadedness, act as if nothing had happened.

Me:  Hi, bud.  Are you ready for breakfast now?
Connor:  (lip quivering) I am.  But, Mommy.  Really.  I just have to ask you one thing.
Me: Don't do it.
Connor: Why didn't you-
Me: I'm warning you.
Connor: - buy me a -
Me: I'm begging you.
Connor:  - raa-hay-hay-zinnnn BAAAAAA-GELLLLLL . . .

Later, I find the patience to build a Lego house with them, we bake rolls together for Thanksgiving, and we sort Annie's laundry in quiet peace.  But that moment on the sidewalk, when I was loaded down with library books and movies (for them) and Annie was furious at her coat (that I bought her) and Jemma, almost five, was determined to ruin what could have been a perfectly pleasant quarter-mile walk, I fantasized for a minute or two about being the mom of the college-aged daughter.  For the love, Jemma.  Just stop crying.  Don't do it.

Pessimist's Litany

Today began, as certain Wednesdays apparently must, with Annie having a meltdown at 7:00 a.m. sharp because Jason was refusing to let cheese bunnies be a breakfast option.  Just before he headed out the door for the day, he informed me that we'd overdrawn the checking account due to my hasty bill-paying without letting him know to transfer more money from account A to account B.  "Bye!" he yelled as he pulled the door behind him, and there I stood, my wet hair in a towel turban on my head, two children crying about breakfast and one lunch to pack.  My throat was sore for the seventh morning in a row and I clutched a snotty Kleenex in one hand.

I fed the girls and dressed the girls and brushed the girls' teeth.  Jemma and I walked Annie to school and then Jemma (who woke up at 5:30 a.m. for the day, claiming, "I didn't even sleep at all last night!") began to whine to be carried back home.  When I refused and tried to hold her hand instead, she stomped away and sat down defiantly on the sidewalk, trying to muster up the worst insult she could think of.  "You're dummy!" she yelled.  "You're . . . super, SUPER DUMMY!"  I had to turn my face away so she wouldn't see me laugh, though I wasn't laughing much ten minutes later when the grumpiness hadn't subsided.

After preschool drop-off, I forced myself to go to yoga for the first time in a week even though the NyQuil hadn't totally worn off and I very much wanted to take a nap.  The man two mats down from me was a grunter, and made loud grunty noises during every single exhale.  Zen moment, ruined.  Throat, still sore.

Jemma went to play at a friend's this afternoon.  My head was pounding so I made some tea and decided to lie down in lieu of showering (priorities!), but between the phone ringing and the shop-vac and the leaf-blowers going on all around our house, it wasn't very restful.

I spent over an hour making a dinner that nobody in our family especially liked, including me, and about which Jemma actually pounded her fists into the table, so fierce was her anger at homemade spaetzle with squash, and at the fact that Jason and I are not inclined to peel her apples for her anymore.

I am not saying there weren't bits of good today (new Modern Family! sunshine and sixty-two degrees! hugs and snuggles from Elsa! Annie proclaiming at the dinner table that the Star-Spangled Banner is her "favorite country song" (get it?), finally half an hour to talk with my husband for the first time this week), but my throat is still sore.

Fight Club

I haven't written much about our family trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes last weekend, and that's because it was sort of terrible.  The first time we took the girls to one of our very favorite places on earth, we were filled with trepidation:  Would they love it, too?  Could we still eat at our favorite restaurant, still hike in the dunes, still waste hours throwing rocks into the clearest lake water?  Would we all have a wonderful time, or would they ruin it for us?

This time around, we might have been a little too cocky.  We stayed at the same little condo we rented last fall, only this time it was warmer and sunnier.  We wanted to try some new things - new restaurants, new hikes, a new lake to explore, a new river to kayak - and we planned to meet up with a group of friends at their campground for a night of cooking over an open fire and traipsing through the woods.

We did all those things (and more), but the weekend left a sour taste in my mouth, and that's because of The Fighting.  If you have very young children (younger than mine) and are up to your ears in dirty diapers, bottles, midnight feedings, infant carseat-lugging, and piles of baby-food-stained laundry, you might want to avert your eyes and scroll down to the pictures at the bottom of the post.  Because here's the part where I'm going to do that super-annoying, a@@hole thing where I say, "If you think it's hard now, just wait.  Just wait until the entire tenor of a weekend can be determined by the fact that your children will find things to fight over that you would never in a million years think that two people could fight over.  They'll fight over who chooses the video for the car ride, over whether or not the other person is copying them, over who gets to sit next to Daddy at every single restaurant meal, over whose stone belongs to whom, over whose turn it is to use the camera, over where and how to build a fairy house, over sunglasses, over soap, over the flower petals they're using to make a suncatcher.  JUST.  WAIT."

The Fighting, to be clear, has been going on for months now, and usually I think it's a normal part of the sibling relationship.  Usually it comes and goes in fits and phases, balanced out by long days and weeks of very little fighting at all.  There is plenty of teamwork, plenty of giggling, plenty of sisterly love to balance the fighting when I look at it over the span of weeks or months.  But since approximately the minute that Annie walked out the doors of her school for the last time, The Fighting has been almost non-stop.  And here's where I berate myself for my foolish, foolish plan of scheduling NOTHING for the first full week of summer.  We'll sleep in! I thought.  We'll play games in our pajamas and walk to the coffee shop and go to the pool and the playground whenever we feel like it!  We'll bake something, or have a lemonade stand, or take a bike ride, and we'll be happy and freewheeling and old-fashioned and it will really feel like summer.  And then we'll go up north for a weekend family vacation!

But no.  Instead, we have fought - because their fighting leads to my reaction, which leads (so far) to more fighting.  I have tried a few different strategies to cope with The Fighting:

• Ignoring.  This is probably the one I should employ 99% of the time, but it is almost physically impossible for me to do it.  I can do it for a little while, sure, but at a certain point the noise of the bickering amplifies magically in my brain until it is all I can hear, and I can't take it anymore.  As I told my sister-in-law, it sucks out my soul.  Not to be dramatic or anything.
• Separating.  This is my usual go-to, and the one that works the best, but is the most time-consuming and annoying to have to follow through on.  I go all Love & Logic and say some version of "It sounds like the two of you aren't being kind to each other.  Please go to your rooms and come out when you can be kind."  At which point they go to their rooms for .2 seconds, come back out, and resume the behavior.  Repeat to infinity.  This strategy is also sometimes impossible to implement, like in the car, at a restaurant, or almost anywhere in public when I am by myself with the girls.
• Yelling.  This is the least effective choice and yet sometimes it cannot be helped.  I can only ignore and/or separate so many times until I lose my patience and my mind, and even then I try really hard to make repeated requests in firmer, calmer voices to show that I mean business.  But sometimes, driving down Lake Dr., having said, "Please keep your hands to yourself" seventeen times, a yell sneaks out.  At which point the children are SHOCKED and ALARMED and INNOCENTLY WOUNDED and they say, pathetically, "Mom!  Don't raise your voice at me like that!" and then go right back to The Fighting.

These are the things, then, that were happening last weekend in one of our favorite places on earth.  At one point, I side-mouth-whispered to Jason, "She's being willfully insolent!" and he looked at me, amused, and said, "Who are you, Dr. Evil?"  So at least we can still laugh at it, which is something, I guess.  And this week has been better.  The girls are in a theatre camp every morning this week, giving them something fun to do with other people and me some time to write and get things done around the house.  But when I look at the (mostly happy) pictures of last weekend - of spoiling our lunch with shakes at LakerShakes, of floating on the Platte River in the sunshine, of hiking Pyramid Pointe, of Grocer's Daughter's Chocolate, of roasting dinner over the fire, of discovering North Bar Lake at sunset, of eating outside at Art's Tavern - I am reminded of something I read on All & Sundry years ago that has stuck with me.  

"Somebody left me a comment once about how family photos are like looking at ducks in the water, how you only see part of what’s really there — all the furious paddling underneath is hidden. I love that, it’s so true, and it’s one of the reasons I love taking so many pictures. It helps me remember and focus on the good moments, and let the memories fade of the churn it took just to make it through the day."

Not-As-Good Things, June 2011

In spite of the weekend's pictures, it's not all sand and sunshine 'round these parts.  Last night, for example, after that glorious day at the beach full of swinging and playing in the sand, and after dinner at Butch's Beach Burrito and eating ice cream, and after watching unlimited Magic School Bus DVDs on the way home, Annie had an epic tantrum because I wanted her to . . . get out of the tub.  And she was cold (though initially the tub had been Too Hot), and I was standing there, telling her to get out of the tub, actually holding a towel two inches from her and waiting to wrap her in it - you know, to warm her - and instead she stood in the tub and cried about how cold she was.

I tried three separate times to get her to step out of the tub, but she was deeply committed to her naked crying, and my patience ran out.  I threw the towel on the floor and told her unkindly to go to her room and dry herself off and get her own pajamas on and OF COURSE SHE WAS COLD; SHE WAS STANDING UP WET AND NAKED IN THE TUB.  Ahem.  And THIS resulted not in Annie realizing abruptly how insane and irrational she was being, but in her resorting to her go-to response in these kinds of situations, which is to insist, "You don't love me!"  There were tears, there was stomping, and there was eventually a note of apology pushed from under her bedroom door.

Then today, Jemma got gum stuck in her hair because she was taking the gum out of her mouth and stretching it even though I have told her 24943204 times not to ever, ever do that.  When I catch her even touching the gum that is in her mouth, I make her spit it out and throw it away.  But today she somehow got it in her hair, on her forehead, on her right arm, on her cheek, and below her lower lip.  And even though the peanut-butter-gets-out-gum thing was floating around in the back of my brain (the way back, though), I cut it out.  I just couldn't bear the idea of googling peanut butter home remedies and making a huge mess and getting her into the shower and washing peanut butter out of her.  So I cut it, and I did a pretty good job, too.  (The damage was limited.)  Then I made her go to the drawer, get the brand-new-minus-one-piece package of gum, and throw it in the garbage.  Wasteful?  Yes.  But I was going for high-impact deterrent, so I think it was 99 cents well spent.

I am the only person in the house who regularly flushes toilets or turns out lights.

Jason left at 7:30 for a work-related meeting with the understanding that he'd be back in time for me to run.  That was over two hours ago.

The girls were arguing with one another so ridiculously and continuously tonight throughout dinner and afterwards, during getting-ready-for-bedtime activities (at one point, I told them to "stop fighting" for the tenth time, and Annie responded sassily that they "weren't fighting, cause I'd be using a sword against a villain"), that I announced that I was leaving the house to go take a short walk.  This led, predictably, to Annie wailing, "She doesn't love me!" to Jason.

The big, old tree in our front yard is sick or possibly dying.  I have an arborist coming over tomorrow morning to tell us if it can be saved.  I may cry if he says no.

I burned a pot of brown rice for tonight's dinner, and Jason has left it in the sink "to soak."  We all know what that means.

There are only three and a half more days of school until I have to call Annie a second-grader.  Also, until both girls are together all day, every day for three solid months.  HOLD ME.

Muddling

I hear them in the playroom right now, accusing one another of wrecking the fairy house and arguing over whether or not someone apologized appropriately.  Someone has said, "Hey Mom . . . ?" approximately 847 times in the last five days.  There is a pile of clean laundry on the bed, waiting to be folded and put away (ugh).  Outside, it is still 40 and rainy and I actually cannot remember a time when the weather was anything different.  Jason has been working non-stop for the last three weeks (except when he was sequestered upstairs all weekend, throwing up), and tonight he's getting on a plane to someplace sunny and warm.  Without me.

It's Thursday of spring break.

I'm dreaming of tulips and sand toys, of impromptu neighborhood barbecues and runs around the lake wearing only shorts and a tee, of bike rides and flip flops, of windows open and coffee on the front stoop, of driving with the windows down, of sunscreen and swimming outside, of planting the third annual vegetable garden, of birds and crickets and leaves on trees.

Instead, it's long-sleeved fleece winter jammies, blowing my nose 7 times before breakfast every day for two weeks (and trying to get certain someones to stop picking their noses and eating it!), wearing gloves to ride bikes.  It's Jemma eliminating yet more foods from her already-sparse diet (after two years of eating it daily:  "Mom, I don't like peanut butter any more.  I just want bread with jam.").  It's Annie asking daily to get her hair dyed permanently pink.  (No.)  It's Jason flailing into the house forty minutes late, bolting his dinner, and heading upstairs to his office.  It's 40 and rainy.

Knocked Down

Apparently my body doesn't remember how to party like it's 1999:  I have been sick in bed since Monday afternoon, a pile of Kleenex on my nightstand, a bottle of NyQuil on the kitchen counter, the house falling to pieces around me.

I have dragged myself out of bed only to drive Annie and Jemma to school and back (sometimes even pawning that job off on a helpful neighbor) and to make little, pathetic "meals" for the kids:  a constant, embarrassing stream of peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, or cheese quesadillas with some fruit thrown in for good measure.  I've been taking clean silverware from the dishwasher since Tuesday and letting the dirty dishes pile up next to the sink until Jason got home to wash them in the evening.  I've been lying horizontally on the floor, doing puzzles with Jemma until my chills forced me back under the covers, at which point she resumed her spot in front of the television.  I've read two books and started on a third.  I've reduced my discipline techniques to yelling, "GIRLS! . . ." from my bedroom.  I've thanked my lucky stars that the girls are as old and as self-sufficient as they are; a year or two ago, this kind of "Momma's taking to her bed" would not have been possible.

This morning, I finally feel a little bit better, and I don't know what to do with the newfound energy.  Should I shower?  Take a walk outside in the sunshine?  Maybe . . . put away the clean laundry?  Actually make a real meal for dinner tonight?  Oh, the possibilities are endless.  Just now, the girls are at school for the last day before spring break begins, so eleven days stretch out in front of us.  We have a few little plans - gymnastics, ballet, a visit from the grandparents on their way home from Florida - but nothing major, and I'm hoping the sunshine and warmer temperatures continue so we can lounge around aimlessly much of the time, maybe taking the art easel outside, maybe scooting to the park, maybe deciding to go out for lunch after seeing the butterflies or head to the zoo with friends.  It'll be good, I think, not to have to be walking out the door at 8:01 a.m. - a good taste of what summer will be like with  four- and six-year-old girls.

Winter, Redux

I ran outside on bare pavement twice last week, had the windows open for a bit when the temperatures hit the 50's, splashed in puddles with Jemma on our way to the grocery store on Thursday, and celebrated almost all of the snow melting from our yard.  The ice-jam disappeared and the leak in the kitchen stopped dripping.  The sun shone Friday morning on my way to yoga, and all seemed right with the world.  Spring was here!  We had plans to spend the weekend up north with family!  Yay!

Then we found out that my niece was sick and had to cancel our weekend plans.  And, a couple hours after that, Jemma threw up her lunch and has spent the weekend alternately lying limply in her bed, being rocked in a chair, having a fever, coughing, complaining of a sore throat and earache, and throwing up into a napkin that I held under her chin.  (Least favorite parenting job, hands down.)

Annie, who has been notably cooperative and helpful these last few days - soothing Jemma when she's sad, quick to laugh or tell a funny story at the dinner table, proud to help when asked - woke up this morning in a decidedly different mood, one where she screamed about being "starving" and demanded breakfast "NOW!" and, later, when asked to choose one chore from her chart to do, spent the entire time she was cleaning her room yelling, "You make me do everything!"

Also?  It started snowing huge, quarter-sized flakes at 1:00 p.m., and now there are about five new inches where just this morning there was bare cement and matted-down grass.

Clearly, it wasn't the weekend we thought it would be.  And as I was shoveling the heavy snow around our cars just before dinner, I was thinking about how having kids, in this situation - snow storm, cancelled weekend plans, sickness - made everything about winter worse.  Instead of being able to lie on the couch while the snow fell and watch The Food Network, we had to figure out how to entertain two stir-crazy kids.  Instead of sleeping last night, I sat up with Jemma and tried to keep her fever down and stop her coughing.  It seems like, when you have small children around, February = Sick Kids = Cancelled Fun.

But then I made myself stop, re-frame, and notice all the ways that having kids makes winter better, too.  For example, I get outside almost every day of the winter just to walk Annie to and from school, and now that I have the appropriate winter gear (long down North Face coat, you are one of the best things I have ever bought, and I do not care if it looks like I am shamelessly wearing a down comforter around town), it's a chance to get some fresh air and exercise.  Now that the girls are old enough to ski and ice-skate, I've been doing those things more than I otherwise would have, too.  And, if it wasn't for having little kids around, there's no way Jason and I would regularly hit a sledding hill on a Saturday afternoon and experience the little joy that is coming inside to drink hot cocoa after you've laughed out in the cold with your kids.  We'd probably be holed up on the couch, under a blanket, and we'd go to bed at night feeling bloated and restless.

So even though the high point of my weekend was, er, the brownies Annie and I made before I headed to the gym to catch up with some friends on the treadmill this afternoon, I am trying to look at the new snow coming down the way Annie looked at it this afternoon.  "Mom!" she said, "Let's go outside and play in it!"  We did.  Then we came in and ate more brownies.

Memos

Memo to Jason:  When I'm running out of the house the minute dinner is over to take Annie to catechism and then meet my writing partner and I ask you to please finish cleaning up the kitchen and start the dishwasher (which I have already mostly loaded), leaving the really yucky dishes (the bowl in which Jemma and I made powerballs today, the cookie sheet on which I made the mango and goat cheese quesadillas) "to soak" in the sink and then never doing another thing with them does not exactly count.

Memo to Annie:  When I go outside in the morning to start the car and brush off the snow and I ask you to get your snow gear on, I expect that you will have made at least some progress when I come back in the house seven minutes later.

Memo to Jemma:  After four years of having little-to-no separation anxiety, now is not the time to decide that you will cling to my legs and cry when I try to leave you at preschool (which you love beyond measure) or with the babysitter who has put you to bed at least fifteen times.  The time for that was when you were around 18-24 months, and it has passed.

Memo to Annie:  When you and Jemma get in an argument about something and you run to tell me about it and I say that I don't want to hear about it, I actually, truly don't want to hear about it.  Not even your side of it.  Especially not your side of it.

Memo to Jemma:  I love you, but you spill something on yourself every. single. time. you eat.  Why?

Memo to the parents dropping off their children at elementary school in the morning:  The lane?  In front of the school?  Is for pulling over, letting your kid jump out of the car, yelling, "I love you!  Have a great day!" and then pulling away.  It is NOT for you to park your car and get out and walk to stand in line with your child for five minutes until the doors open, leaving the rest of us with no place to pull over.

Bleak House

Jemma is on day seven (SEVEN!) of the stomach virus, and Annie came down with it, too, so now I'm on day seven (SEVEN!) of wiping butts and washing hands and being trapped within a 50-foot radius of a toilet with my children. The zen-like acceptance of the tethering that I exhibited early this week has given way to bitterness that we are missing out on the last, good bit of summer sunshine and beach days. I feel so sorry for the girls and their sore little bellies, and I feel (less) sorry for myself as we've had to cancel plans and modify schedules to make sure one of us is always near.

Luckily, Jason and I have remained (so far) healthy, so I've been able to scoot out of the house around 6:00 every night (eleven hours a day of nursemaiding being plenty, thankyouverymuch) for various activities. I biked on Monday, swam on Tuesday, saw Brandi Carlile at Meijer Gardens on Wednesday (to cap off three weeks in a row of fantastic outdoor entertainment there), and then there was last night.

Last night, our training group biked and ran the actual triathlon course as a group. We gathered at Manhattan Park at 6:30, got a little pep talk from one of the coaches, and then we were off: 17 miles out and back on Fulton and around the lake, then around the lake again - this time on foot - for 4.9 miles. The air was perfectly cool and crisp - maybe 68 degrees? - and the sun was sinking lower as we passed the football field, where our home team was kicking off its season with a victory in a packed house. It felt pretty great, all in all, and I feel like I got a big mental boost, just knowing that I can put those two pieces together before the big day. We stood around in the parking lot afterwards, feeling victorious and surprised at what we could do, Connie and Katie and I quite pleased with ourselves, to be honest.

Today, it's back to trading shifts of nursemaiding with Jason (I went out for yoga, farmer's market, and an errand this morning; now Jason's off on a long bike ride for the afternoon) and settling into a weekend at home since we've had to cancel our plans to go up north. I'm not sure what we'll do, except to say that the seven days I've been mostly in the house already have caused me to go a little stir-crazy. I can tell this because at one point yesterday I started thinking I might as well wash windows (taking breaks every 20 minutes to assist someone in the bathroom) or plant my fall window boxes, or something that would at least make staying at home feel productive. And you KNOW I don't wash windows, ever. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow, in the 85-degree sunshine, I'll be inside again, wiping butts and cleaning a closet or two.

Just to Be Clear:

"All other mommies and daddies are nice, but YOU are MEAN! You are The Meanest!"

This is what Annie shouted at me from her time-out yesterday (technically, her third time-out in the span of about half an hour). The yelling was interspersed with a lot of banging on her door, random screams of "No!" and various moments of marching out of her room and venturing down the hallway long before the timer had gone off to end the time-out.

You can imagine this makes it easy to finish cooking dinner so it can be ready to eat in the twenty-minute interval between when Jason walks in the door from work and when I need to head out for my long bike ride.

You can imagine this makes a day of at-home parenting feel really fun, fulfilling, worthwhile, and rewarding.

You can imagine that, when time-outs aren't working - when they actually make the child more furious and defiant and not-sorry and uninterested in listening than before! - it's hard to figure out what type of consequence would make an impression, would inspire some type of remorse and determination to try harder to be decent.

You can imagine that you'd be quite tired of having to interrupt your fun art project with your other daughter and your dinner-making to be hit, kicked, and yelled at.

You can imagine that, in the midst of the third time-out fit, you might get a burst of inspiration, based loosely on a story your father-in-law once told about how he had pretended to call Santa and tell the big jolly fellow all about how terribly a certain child was acting (a story that moderately horrified you at the time, because The Lying! The Pretending to a Child! and why would you not just Reason With Them and Give Calm Rational Consequences so the child could Learn A Happy Lesson?? and you would Never resort to Such Trickery!). You can imagine that you're pretty sure the racket coming from the bedroom would preclude the phone actually having to ring for your trick to work. You can imagine going to stand in the hallway, phone pressed to ear, and loudly beginning this conversation:

"Hello? Oh, hi Sarah!"

"Oh, Annie probably WOULD love to play with Lucy this afternoon. You know, though, she's been having a really rough afternoon. She's having a hard time listening and being kind, so I think having a friend in the mix would be a bad idea right now."

"Um-hmmm. Yeah, that DOES sound like fun. We'll have to do it another time."

"OK, thanks for calling! I'll talk to you later!"

Aaaaaaaaaand you can imagine your five-year-old-turned-sassy-thirteen-year-old coming running out of her room, flinging herself at your body, weeping, "Sorry! Mommy, Sorry! I'm sorry!"

You can imagine it, I'm sure.

On Being the Not-Fun Parent

We are driving to the pool yesterday afternoon, just the girls and I because Jason's staying home to get some work done, and the two of them are bickering in the car as usual. Lately, unless they are eating something or watching something (only allowed on long car trips, like up north), they are fighting and arguing when we're in the car.

They fight and they argue and they go back and forth with "Annie looked at me mean!" and "You're not saying 'sunscreen' right; you're saying 'skunscreen' and that's not even a word" and "I want my window down!" and "I need a drink and she took my water bottle!" I ignore it as long as I can, and then I say as calmly as possible, "Girls, please stop using your energy to bother each other. Please just be kind." But it continues, the ridiculous bickering, and so I say, maybe a little less calmly, "No THANK you!" the next time somebody says something rude, and immediately Jemma says, "I wish DADDY was here."

***

This morning, I went in Jemma's room and tried to cuddle with her before I left for my run and she started kicking at my torso. Jason came in to see what was going on, and she looked right at him and said, "I don't LIKE Mommy!"

***

At the pool this afternoon, after we had gone down the water slide together, another little girl accidentally jumped into the pool and practically landed on Annie. She climbed from the water, unhurt but badly scared, and I scooped her up and sat down in a chair, cuddling her with a towel and soothing her. I felt bad for her at first. The crying, though. Ten minutes later - unhurt, remember? - she's still sobbing in my arms, and I can see that she's essentially trying to cry as loudly as possible and resisting any attempts to calm her down. "She didn't even say SORRY!" she yells, even though the little girl did, and so did her dad, and still I sit and I try to reason with her softly and dry her face off and salvage the afternoon but she doesn't stop. So we pack up and leave the pool, Annie trailing loudly behind us, and when I try to hold her hand and kiss her head as we cross the parking lot, she jerks her hand away and runs ahead to Jason.

***

We tumble into the house, damp and grumpy, and I ask the girls to take off their wet bathing suits and get in dry clothes for dinner. Annie drops her wet suit on the wood floor, then runs away when I ask her to pick it up. Runs away again when I ask her to get some clothes on and wash up for dinner. I follow her as she yells "Mommy's always mean!" and Jason shrugs at me and turns to plate the salmon.

Cocktail Hour

I call this "Thank Goodness My Kids Are Briefly at Other People's Houses So I Can Make Dinner Without Anyone Talking to Me."

It's been one of those days. Cheers!

On the Third Day

It is raining, and I have pushed back my chair from the dinner table and gotten into bed. The noise machine is on to block out the noise of the girls in the bathtub - splashing, giggling, talking, not-listening to Jason - and Nigella Lawson's Feast (borrowed from the library; checking out cookbooks is my new obsession) is lying next to me.

I am completely out of steam, and I know I am lucky that Jason walked in the door as I was just about to lose it. This is his third week in a row of working 8 to 5, which really means 7 to 6, which really means that I have to hit the ground running in the morning and be 100% on for eleven hours straight. I have taken for granted the many mornings when Jason is around, helping, until 9:00 a.m., and even though he often gets home much later on those days, things are easier, somehow, when he is here for those first bleary breakfast moments.

Annie is on spring break, and we have had fun. On Monday, we walked down to the track and ran laps together, blew bubbles outside, played with neighbors, and met kindergarten friends at the park for the afternoon. Yesterday, we had one of Annie's little friends over for the morning, then went to the pool in the afternoon. We baked my favorite banana bread. We took walks during breaks in the rain and stopped to smell every daffodil, hyacinth, and flowering bush along the path. We sat on the floor and read Olivia and Madeleine and Fancy Nancy. It was good.

Today, though. We had to be out the door early to get Jemma to gymnastics. I packed Annie lots of fun activities for her one-hour wait in the lobby with me, but she chose the moment I tried to call a source for an article I'm writing to start pestering me for a snack. (It was 9:15 a.m.) I planned to bring the girls to a fun kid-geared ballet afterwards, but drove downtown and talked it up to the girls only to discover a sign on the door saying all performances were sold out. We regrouped, headed home for an early lunch, then hit the cheap theater to see The Princess and the Frog. I thought it started at noon. It started at 12:35. So we sat in the theater for an extra 40 minutes, the girls growing more and more ancy, more and more tired. And by the time we got home, it was too late for any semblance of quiet time, so the afternoon devolved into grumping and bickering and rainy-day boredom in spite of the puzzles, board books, cardboard and glitter glue I pulled out in desperation.

I hear them again right now, reading bedtime stories on the couch, and even though I've been sitting here recharging for less than half an hour, I want to go to them, snuggle in to make the threesome a foursome and hear Jason read Stellaluna. It's the catch-22 of parenting: when they're good, you want to be with them, but when they're bad, they need you even more.