What I've Been Up To

-Taking melatonin (as recommended by my doctor) for my insomnia issues.

-Been awakened three nights in a row with uncomfortable stomach issues that last for two hours, then go away without any results.

-Googled "melatonin side effects" to see if it's causing my tummy troubles.

-Stopped taking melatonin.  

-Convinced myself (at 2:30 a.m.) that I am pregnant (HIGHLY unlikely) or have a rare form of intestinal cancer (Note to self:  Stop Googling things at 2:30 a.m.).

-Dragging both the girls (but mostly Jemma) all around town in the jogging stroller:  preschool, grocery store, playdates, park, library.

-Listening to Adele radio on Pandora.com.

-Making homemade granola and, with the family, eating the whole batch in less than 12 hours.

-Reading It's All Too Much:  An Easy Guide for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff by Peter Walsh of TLC's Clean Sweep fame.

-Loving the book, having good intentions, but not doing a single, solitary thing to de-clutter my home (surely making Peter Walsh, Expert Organizer oh-so-proud).

-Writing here and here and here.  (That last one is my mom's much-loved chicken lasagna recipe, which gets the most recipe requests out of anything I make.)

-Agonizing (still, still) about whether to send Annie to Kindergarten or Young 5's next fall.  (This deserves its own entire post, which I might get around to doing if I can begin to think rationally about the decision.)

-Oohing and Aahing over spring flowers everywhere we go, and stopping to smell them once in a while, too.

She Has a Few Opinions

She'd like an ice cube in her water.  She wants to go down the stairs by herself.  Do not stand at the bottom to watch; go in the bedroom.  She wants to walk to get Annie from school, not take the car, and she will emphasize this by general screaming and back-arching when you put her in the carseat.  She does not want to hold your hand in a parking lot, nor does she want to be carried.  She does not want to wear a bib.  She wants one, specific story before bedtime and no other story will do.  She wants to use Mommy's toothpaste.  She wants to wear a dress today.  She wants her purple crocs.  She does not want apricots for a snack.  She does not want to share her scooter with Jonathan, nor does she particularly want him to hold the bubbles or use the slide.  She does not want to wear socks.  She does not want you to talk on the phone while you are playing dollhouse with her, but if you are, then she does want to talk to Grandpa.  She does not want help getting in the tub.  She is "fimming;" she does not want to get out of the tub.  If Annie is having a Band-Aid, she wants one, too.  She wants the blue pajamas.  She does not want to go to bed.  She "can do it myself."  She "did it!"

The Best "Finale" Yet

After a few days in a row where we got to trick ourselves into thinking it was actually SUMMER instead of SPRING (Sunscreen!  Water toys!  Eating outside!), we woke up to cold rain this morning.  By 3:30 this afternoon, we were all in a funk, already tired of being holed up inside, bored by all our games and activities.  (How did we make it through the winter, I ask!  One day!  One rainy day, and we're climbing the walls!)

So we went to the pool, somewhere we haven't been all together for I-don't-know-how-long.  I bring the girls there approximately once a week, and Annie's going to start swimming lessons there in May, but it's been a while since we all went together.

When Annie and I got out to the pool from our locker room, Jason and Jemma were already in the pool, and Jemma was jumping in to Jason repeatedly, going under every time and loving it.  She's always been brave in the water, but never this brave.  Annie strapped on her life jacket and started jumping in, too, not minding going under and popping right back up every time.  We swam for half an hour or so, trading kids back and forth, encouraging Jemma in her enthusiastic kicking, watching Annie paddle around.  Then, on a whim, I unstrapped Annie's life jacket and started towing her around the pool, just hanging on to her hands.  She was OK with this.  So I put my hand under her tummy and made her kick and paddle, which she did only while making me promise every three seconds that I WOULD NOT LET HER GO.  I promised, but I was tempted, because I knew - I knew! - that she could stay afloat by herself.  

We'd been doing this for five or ten minutes when I took her a few yards away from the edge and said, "I bet you can swim to that edge all by yourself."  In response, she wrapped herself around the front of me like some sort of frog.  "Noooooooo!" she wailed, as I tried to tell her that I'd never make her do it but that I knew she could.  

"What if you try, and then you can have a prize just for trying?" I asked when she stopped wailing.  She froze.  

"How about . . . " she hardly dared breathe the word, "GUM."  And I had hardly had time to agree when she promptly let go of my neck, flopped down in the water on her stomach, and swam straight to the side of the pool, not going under at all.  She reached the edge, stood up, and turned around with a look on her face that was both ecstatic and scared.

"You did it!" I yelled.  "Annie!  I knew you could do it!"  She smiled then, a huge grin, and she realized that she had been swimming all by herself.  We called Jason and Jemma over so she could show them.  She swam to Jason.  She swam to me.  She swam four or five more times, each time becoming more jubilant and confident.  When she was finally tired, we did one more "for a finale" before bundling up into our towels and heading to the sauna.  She was practically skipping down the hallway to the locker room, so jubilant she was at the thought of her accomplishment (and, of course, her reward, which she had already specified had to be "the blue-green kind that doesn't lose its flavor, like the kind Grandma gave me in Florida, the long flat rectangle in a shiny silver wrapper").  I followed behind, so glad we had decided to break out of our house on a dreary Sunday afternoon, so proud of my brave girl in her striped swimming suit, so sure that these moments are exactly what make the hard work of parenting so worthwhile.

We went home and ate dinner, then curled up on the couch to watch Planet Earth while I painted toenails (red for Annie, purple for Jemma) and Annie chomped away on her much-loved, hard-earned gum.  Rainy day = not so bad, after all.

Just Like That

 . . . Jemma gets her hair cut into a sweet little bob, and she looks like such a big girl as she rides Annie's old scooter down the sidewalk, kicking her right leg up for effect as she glides along.

 . . . the winter coats, boots, and snowpants are banished to the basement.

 . . . the neighbors gather to grill out, kill a case of Sierra Nevada, and let the kids tire each other out on a Friday night.

 . . . the girls' cheeks are a little pink after a day playing outside in tank tops and shorts.

 . . . we sit in our living room at 7:45 p.m. with the windows wide open, the sun streaming in, feeling tired-in-a-good-way after a full, happy day.

By Unanimous Agreement of My Bookclub:

It is far, far better to go around looking like a complete train wreck while secretly having the most important things in life going well than to be that perfectly-coiffed, always-together, seemingly-perfect mom whose life is actually falling apart from the inside out.

Phew.  I'll carry on showing up to preschool pickup looking like hell.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I was still feeling half-asleep yesterday morning when it was almost time to pick Annie up from school, so I decided that walking there - in the brisk cold - would be the perfect thing to wake me up.  I bundled Jemma up, grabbed her a snack, and put her in the jogging stroller.  It was sort of freezing, but the longer I walked, the more likely I thought it was that I'd have enough energy to get some work done during rest time instead of taking a nap myself.  

When we got to Annie's school and extricated her from her classroom (always a fun adventure), I put her next to Jemma in the stroller and gave her a snack, too.  She devoured the whole package of Annie's Bunnies in about two minutes, finishing (and immediately elbowing and fighting with Jemma) just as I turned off the busy road onto one with a sidewalk.

"Mom, I want to get out and run," she said.  Fine.  I was happy to let her out so the fighting could stop; I figured she'd run for a block or two, then get back in, too tired to fight with Jemma.  Instead, she ran the whole way home.   That's over a mile.  And when she trotted up the driveway, all she said was, "Whew!  That was a good workout!  Now I need some Gatorade."  I gave her some.  It was purple, her favorite and mine.

Easter 2009

We had a fairly happy Easter, considering that we make much less fuss about this holiday than most others, kid-wise.  I guess it's just hard to convey that whole "Jesus who is also God died but then rose again a couple days later so you don't have to go to hell" concept to young children; instead of even involving them in the more-meaningful rites of Easter, we're still in that phase where we talk about it broadly and vaguely, then focus instead on the sugar-fueled, bunny-themed fun parts.  Last night, we had a great time setting out a carrot and lettuce for the bunny before the girls went to bed.  After they were tucked in, I made little bunny "tracks" through our living room while Jason stuffed plastic eggs with jelly beans and hid chocolate eggs all over the house.  

The first twenty minutes of this morning were hysterical; the girls could not believe their great good fortune.  They hardly knew where to turn first: baskets full of little toys and Peeps?  Bunny footprints?  Candy strewn around home?  Jemma kept cramming fistfuls of jelly beans into her mouth, looking sideways at us, disbelieving that we were OK with this as a pre-breakfast snack.  We got them all dressed up in their (matching) Easter dresses and spent the morning at my grandparents for brunch, where it was nice to see everyone with the exception of the small, yappy dog who virtually paralyzed Annie with fear.

This afternoon, after naps, we took advantage of the sunny spring day and headed to the park.  The Chandler family happily had the same idea, so all four girls ran and laughed together.  Last time we were at the park was the first time Jemma's been brave enough to beg for underdogs on the swing.  I praised her that time, saying, "You're so big!" and she disagreed, responding, "I Tiny!"  Today, however, Amelia kept bringing Jemma little gifts and referring to her as "the baby."  Jemma's response?  To look indignant, march away, and say, "I Not A Baby!"  Just now, in her crib, I hear her repeating, "I not a baby.  No.  I not a baby."  

And now, for an Easter treat of my own, I am going to finish a piece of chocolate silk pie that I bartered for some blueberry muffins, and then, let's be honest, probably sneak a chocolate egg or two from the girls' Easter baskets.