I say it often, a bit tongue in cheek, but there's a hint of truth to #SorrySecondChild, especially this Christmas. I looked at Calvin's tidy pile of gifts and at Genevieve's much smaller pile, and felt guilty. It's not that I favor the older child over the younger, it's that all of the things that we bought for Calvin's second Christmas, developmental toys to delight an almost-2-year-old, are still here and it doesn't really make sense to purchase a pink version of a learning table or an easel just to have a new and shiny version, not when Genevieve would be just as delighted by a banana. This leaves us with very little that we could reasonably purchase for her, so we found ourselves scrambling.
It doesn't help that Calvin has real and defined interests and goals at 4 years old, which make it easy to find something to gift him. The new DogMan book. A small locked-down digital device so he can finally stop begging us to pull out our phones for music. A pair of fingerless mitts ("mittens with no fingers and thumbs, please, Mom"). A big fuzzy blanket "just like a kitty" that he fell in love with at the clearance shelf in the store. He likes things. Genevieve delights in the world with equal wild abandon for everything, and also abandons things wildly in her wake, leaving behind a trail of stuffed animals that she passionately adored in the store for 20 minutes before dropping it and walking off as soon as we got it home. Miss G wants everything and nothing (unless her brother has it, and then she wants it desperately). Her interests are transient and tenuous at best, and really she'd really rather that you play with her, to get down on the floor with her or to pull her into your lap while you read her a book. Eleven months out of the year this thrills me, that I have a child that likes experiences and people more than Things. On that twelfth month I feel a whole lot of Mom-Guilt as I looked at the disproportionate piles of gifts. The Middle Child in me screamed that things must be fair.
This extended to Christmas stockings; not something that my family did in my childhood so I find myself asking co-workers what kind of things one is supposed to put into stockings (so far the consensus seems to be "cluttering junk that you don't actually want and will probably be thrown into a landfill within two months" which seems horrifically wasteful, "hygiene supplies" and "school supplies," candy, and "small presents that you would otherwise put under the tree" and honestly the whole thing still seems very strange to me). Calvin's stocking bulked out quickly while Genevieve's lagged behind.
I will say that Liam put in a lot of effort to help me navigate my first stocking Christmas, and I started to get it when he sent me a "just bought the first stuffer for your stocking" and it occurred to me that I would be getting trinkets and doodads as well. In a way, it appeals to my particular love language in that everything in a stocking was picked out because someone saw something small and said "you know, that reminds me of Elisabeth" and that means that I mean enough to someone that they remembered.)
So I put a banana into a shoe box and wrapped it, and Genevieve was
just as delighted to open that package as Calvin was to open a tablet
with pre-downloaded Spotify playlists. She liked dramatically ripping open wrapping
paper and shouting "oooo!" though, so she had a good time, and really
that's all that matters.
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Friday, August 31, 2018
Ten Years
Ten years ago, I fired up my laptop, waited while Windows Vista loaded, and opened Facebook up in a tab while I checked my email to see if I had heard back from the grad school I had applied to. I had a new Facebook message! It was a slightly cryptic message from another Facebook user, someone with an obviously fake name pulled from literature, whose profile was not yet connected to my own, asking if I was the Elisabeth Sokol they thought I was, peppering their paragraph with enough clues for me to deduce that they did in fact know the real me (or at least the real High School Me from six years previous).
That was the beginning. There were fun chats and phone calls back and forth as we reconnected as friends, reminiscing and catching each other up on our lives. We had grown up dramatically since high school, and were eager to be friends as adults. With promises of mini-golf in the future, I met up for a friendly friend-group meetup of dinner (they had never had Indian food before!) and watching a cheesy movie. I didn't dress up like it was for a date, because that would be silly, but I did wear my cute new lace blouse and style my hair nicely.
After all, Liam was my ex, and one must look their best when meeting up with exes, so they can see what got away.
The chemistry was immediate, and we promptly spent almost a whole month trying to ignore it, because neither of us was in a particularly great headspace for relationships.
But sometimes something can be incredibly easy, and when you know, you know. We moved in together less than a year later. We were engaged a year after that, and married four months later. Two apartments, two houses, four moves, three cats, and two children later, here we are. It seems like the last decade has flown by (how can it have been ten years? Ten full years, with at least 365 days in each year?), but at the same time I cannot remember a time when we were not two halves of a matched set.
I'm glad we didn't work out the first time, in our teens; we were terrible in our young relationship. It was only with several serious (and terrible) relationships under our respective belts that we could recognize what it took to make a good one. So here's to you, darling. Here's to mini golf, and making cookies at 11 pm, by the romantic light of a preheating oven. Here's to hiking Mount Major, and knowing when I'm willing to share desserts.* Here's to buying a WHOLE BOX OF SPOONS from the gas station to eat a WHOLE CARTON OF ICE CREAM on the swings near our home until twilight fell and we had to go home. Here's to remembering each other's favorite flavors, and hiding love notes and presents, and knowing how to argue without fighting. Here's to the rest of our lives.
*never. I never share dessert. Get your own. Your "one bite" is negative one bite for me.
That was the beginning. There were fun chats and phone calls back and forth as we reconnected as friends, reminiscing and catching each other up on our lives. We had grown up dramatically since high school, and were eager to be friends as adults. With promises of mini-golf in the future, I met up for a friendly friend-group meetup of dinner (they had never had Indian food before!) and watching a cheesy movie. I didn't dress up like it was for a date, because that would be silly, but I did wear my cute new lace blouse and style my hair nicely.
After all, Liam was my ex, and one must look their best when meeting up with exes, so they can see what got away.
The chemistry was immediate, and we promptly spent almost a whole month trying to ignore it, because neither of us was in a particularly great headspace for relationships.
But sometimes something can be incredibly easy, and when you know, you know. We moved in together less than a year later. We were engaged a year after that, and married four months later. Two apartments, two houses, four moves, three cats, and two children later, here we are. It seems like the last decade has flown by (how can it have been ten years? Ten full years, with at least 365 days in each year?), but at the same time I cannot remember a time when we were not two halves of a matched set.
I'm glad we didn't work out the first time, in our teens; we were terrible in our young relationship. It was only with several serious (and terrible) relationships under our respective belts that we could recognize what it took to make a good one. So here's to you, darling. Here's to mini golf, and making cookies at 11 pm, by the romantic light of a preheating oven. Here's to hiking Mount Major, and knowing when I'm willing to share desserts.* Here's to buying a WHOLE BOX OF SPOONS from the gas station to eat a WHOLE CARTON OF ICE CREAM on the swings near our home until twilight fell and we had to go home. Here's to remembering each other's favorite flavors, and hiding love notes and presents, and knowing how to argue without fighting. Here's to the rest of our lives.
*never. I never share dessert. Get your own. Your "one bite" is negative one bite for me.
Monday, June 25, 2018
What the fork?
I've mentioned before that our household objects have a peculiar habit of disappearing at random (you may remember me mentioning that our power drill vanished after a move, and our seeming inability across the years to keep our pie pans from escaping), but this new instance is more peculiar than others.
Our silverware is disappearing.
Over the last year, I've noticed that our silverware drawer is dwindling. We came to this house with a multitude of flatware, but as of this moment there are only four proper forks in my entire kitchen. I got up and counted just now.
"That's weird. Maybe you can use the salad forks instead?"
I am. That count of four included the salad forks. There are two dinner forks and two salad forks. (Some friends at this point might ask me if I really have actual real salad forks, and the answer is 'yes' because my flatware was gifted to me by my mother when I moved into my first apartment, because she had something like 37 full complete table settings of this fancy silverware, because she purchased one full table setting each month from Oneida when she was footloose and fancy free, building up her household over time in a frugal and reasonable manner. In the end she turned out not to need 37 full table settings for her household.)
"That's... really weird. Did you check to see if little hands stashed them somewhere?"
We've checked under all the furniture and all the cushions. We've checked all of our late-night-snacking crash points. We've checked under the refrigerator and under the stove. We've even surreptitiously checked the silverware drawer in the in-law apartment to see if Calvin has been bringing and abandoning forks at my parents' home (they use the other 20 table settings, so an extra fork wouldn't be noticed) and they have fewer forks too. It's very peculiar.
"So... how do you ... eat.... food?"
The full table settings happened to include seafood forks, which I call dessert forks, because I like to eat desserts with them with a tiny fork, partly because it makes the dessert last longer so I can savor it, and partly (okay, mostly) because it makes me feel very fancy. I don't particularly mind using shrimp forks to eat the occasional meal. It's getting really old, though, to eat every meal with them in order to give Calvin and Liam a full sized fork to eat with.
"So.... buy more forks?"
But then they won't match all my current flatware (which I really like, it's heavy but not too heavy, and it's so nice looking and it's really nice quality), and I can't just go buy new forks from the manufacturer because Oneida discontinued this pattern and I'm not willing to spend $10/fork on eBay*, and now it's turning into buying a whole new flatware set which is really not a justifiable expense right now.
Although now that I think about it, I notice that we have significantly fewer dessert spoons, and an extra soup spoon with a different handle pattern.
And our plates and cups have all broken enough pieces that we've got a weird mismatched set of everything, so we would not be amiss to purchase a new set of dishes.
And honestly our dining set is getting a bit creaky, because it was purchased when we were young and couldn't afford something that would last for decades.
Do they make "you've been together 10 years and need to upgrade all your stuff to Grown Up Stuff" registries?
~*~*~
*one day let's talk about how I got banned from eBay
Our silverware is disappearing.
Over the last year, I've noticed that our silverware drawer is dwindling. We came to this house with a multitude of flatware, but as of this moment there are only four proper forks in my entire kitchen. I got up and counted just now.
"That's weird. Maybe you can use the salad forks instead?"
I am. That count of four included the salad forks. There are two dinner forks and two salad forks. (Some friends at this point might ask me if I really have actual real salad forks, and the answer is 'yes' because my flatware was gifted to me by my mother when I moved into my first apartment, because she had something like 37 full complete table settings of this fancy silverware, because she purchased one full table setting each month from Oneida when she was footloose and fancy free, building up her household over time in a frugal and reasonable manner. In the end she turned out not to need 37 full table settings for her household.)
"That's... really weird. Did you check to see if little hands stashed them somewhere?"
We've checked under all the furniture and all the cushions. We've checked all of our late-night-snacking crash points. We've checked under the refrigerator and under the stove. We've even surreptitiously checked the silverware drawer in the in-law apartment to see if Calvin has been bringing and abandoning forks at my parents' home (they use the other 20 table settings, so an extra fork wouldn't be noticed) and they have fewer forks too. It's very peculiar.
"So... how do you ... eat.... food?"
The full table settings happened to include seafood forks, which I call dessert forks, because I like to eat desserts with them with a tiny fork, partly because it makes the dessert last longer so I can savor it, and partly (okay, mostly) because it makes me feel very fancy. I don't particularly mind using shrimp forks to eat the occasional meal. It's getting really old, though, to eat every meal with them in order to give Calvin and Liam a full sized fork to eat with.
"So.... buy more forks?"
But then they won't match all my current flatware (which I really like, it's heavy but not too heavy, and it's so nice looking and it's really nice quality), and I can't just go buy new forks from the manufacturer because Oneida discontinued this pattern and I'm not willing to spend $10/fork on eBay*, and now it's turning into buying a whole new flatware set which is really not a justifiable expense right now.
Although now that I think about it, I notice that we have significantly fewer dessert spoons, and an extra soup spoon with a different handle pattern.
And our plates and cups have all broken enough pieces that we've got a weird mismatched set of everything, so we would not be amiss to purchase a new set of dishes.
And honestly our dining set is getting a bit creaky, because it was purchased when we were young and couldn't afford something that would last for decades.
Do they make "you've been together 10 years and need to upgrade all your stuff to Grown Up Stuff" registries?
~*~*~
*one day let's talk about how I got banned from eBay
Monday, May 7, 2018
Hobbies as a parent
It has been an eventfully uneventful (and sickly) 2018 for us so far, with several visits to Urgent Care/E.R. (Liam got turned into a newt*, Calvin spiked a dangerously high fever, etc), as we all adjust to our first year with Calvin bringing home the pathogens from the public school germ season. There's an extra petri dish in the household too to percolate the microbes this year, too, as Genevieve adds her immune system to the mix. Recently she has decided that she has learned how to kiss, which is more of an open mouth slobber with extra saliva and boogers and light suction. It's... charming. And full of love.
It has been the sort of winter and spring where we are astonished to realize that it is nearly summer, and nearly 8 months since my last blog post, and yet we have no news to report. Liam's job continues well. My job continues well. Calvin is almost done with his first school year. Genevieve is hitting all of her milestones and continues to blow the growth charts away.
Liam and I are trying to figure out who we are as thirty-somethings. Aren't we supposed to be wearing fashionable clothing and hosting dinner parties effortlessly by now? We've so much less energy and time for hobbies, but we both refuse to be subsumed entirely by the societal expectation of disappearing into the mantles of Parenthood and instead cling stubbornly to old hobbies and interests. I've had not time for my art lately without little fingers pulling all the pieces around to stain the furnishings or tangle the expensive silk fiber, and Liam's old physical hobbies must obviously be curtailed after all of the doctor visits the last few years.
I've gotten back into reading books, by which I mean that I move a book around the house every day but if you look closely you'll observe that I never actually get a chance to read the book. I'm also actively trying to say "yes" to invitations and that's how I made two new friends in the last few months, and also how I naively ended up in a year-long commitment on the board of a local non-profit.
Liam tried several varieties of meditation/tai-chi but none of them seem to be sticking. Tabletop gaming stuck around the longest, but getting a good group to show up on the same day, or, honestly to show up at the same time twice, is a Sisyphean task.
Calvin has taken up writing letters, which mostly means me convincing him to scribble a drawing in a card and tell me a sentence or two about his day, but it was in fact his idea; he saw a packet of unicorn greeting cards in the store and asked me to buy them so he could send letters to people. His enthusiasm lasted for three letters, so now I suppose it's now MY hobby to force him to send letters. He did get a letter back from on of his June2014 peers, though, so perhaps he'll stick with it now.
Genevieve has taken up couch climbing and is trying to take up base jumping but we keep catching her before she tips over the back of the couch. Also she enjoys putting small objects into cups and boxes and then taking them back out, and pulling tissue after tissue out of the tissue boxes.
Maybe she'll sign Calvin's letters for him. "hugs and light-suction-saliva-booger-kiss, Genevieve."
--------
*he got better
It has been the sort of winter and spring where we are astonished to realize that it is nearly summer, and nearly 8 months since my last blog post, and yet we have no news to report. Liam's job continues well. My job continues well. Calvin is almost done with his first school year. Genevieve is hitting all of her milestones and continues to blow the growth charts away.
Liam and I are trying to figure out who we are as thirty-somethings. Aren't we supposed to be wearing fashionable clothing and hosting dinner parties effortlessly by now? We've so much less energy and time for hobbies, but we both refuse to be subsumed entirely by the societal expectation of disappearing into the mantles of Parenthood and instead cling stubbornly to old hobbies and interests. I've had not time for my art lately without little fingers pulling all the pieces around to stain the furnishings or tangle the expensive silk fiber, and Liam's old physical hobbies must obviously be curtailed after all of the doctor visits the last few years.
I've gotten back into reading books, by which I mean that I move a book around the house every day but if you look closely you'll observe that I never actually get a chance to read the book. I'm also actively trying to say "yes" to invitations and that's how I made two new friends in the last few months, and also how I naively ended up in a year-long commitment on the board of a local non-profit.
Liam tried several varieties of meditation/tai-chi but none of them seem to be sticking. Tabletop gaming stuck around the longest, but getting a good group to show up on the same day, or, honestly to show up at the same time twice, is a Sisyphean task.
Calvin has taken up writing letters, which mostly means me convincing him to scribble a drawing in a card and tell me a sentence or two about his day, but it was in fact his idea; he saw a packet of unicorn greeting cards in the store and asked me to buy them so he could send letters to people. His enthusiasm lasted for three letters, so now I suppose it's now MY hobby to force him to send letters. He did get a letter back from on of his June2014 peers, though, so perhaps he'll stick with it now.
Genevieve has taken up couch climbing and is trying to take up base jumping but we keep catching her before she tips over the back of the couch. Also she enjoys putting small objects into cups and boxes and then taking them back out, and pulling tissue after tissue out of the tissue boxes.
Maybe she'll sign Calvin's letters for him. "hugs and light-suction-saliva-booger-kiss, Genevieve."
--------
*he got better
Thursday, September 21, 2017
A philosophical post about cake, in which we bury the lede (in cake)
Back in June, as I furtively ate the remains of my oldest child's birthday cake, I realized that at some point we were going to have to address who owns a birthday cake. Is it the entire family and they can eat slices of cake until it is gone? Is it the person who made the cake, payment for their efforts (as I am the primary baker and primary cake eater in the household, you can guess my preference)? Is it the birthday boy himself? In the past this has never been an issue, but now we have passed out of the halcyon days of Calvin not remembering that he had leftover food. It used to be that he would wander off from the kitchen table, full, and I would dispose of (read: eat) the last of his (tasty) toddler lunch. Now, he comes back half an hour later and asks "hey, where's my girlchee [grilled cheese]?" and I explain that it is gone forever. Normally this inspires no feelings of guilt in me (eat it or lose it, buddy) but when he asked for pieces of his stop-sign birthday cake during the day I felt conflicted as to whether I should deny him from the cake. Pros: it's arguably HIS cake. Cons: I don't want to foster the expectation of cake during the day. Also, then I would have to share his leftover cake.
I think we all know Elisabeth well enough by this point to know what happened: I ate most of his cake. But what will we do in future years, once he starts to point out that it is, in fact, HIS birthday? (The solution I'm gravitating towards is that after the initial song and sharing of cake with celebrants, the cake belongs to the birthday person themselves to eat/dispose of/smash as they see fit. This may mean that Elisabeth needs to acquire her own secret cake to avoid sneaking off with the leftover main cake.)
This came up most recently when Liam declared that we would share his own cake until midnight, and then cake leftovers were off-limits to anyone except him. We ate half of the cake in his preferred method, which is to say that we attacked the cake as a whole like savages, eating forkfuls rather than cutting slices. In deference to my twitching eye at this act of cake barbarism he carved the cake bites off in a clockwork pattern, as if we had indeed cut off slices with a bizarre notched knife.
All of this is a roundabout way, of course, to bring up why we had leftover cake. See, Liam got a new job designing training materials for the fire service at the State of NH, and I had purchased a delicious 8" dairy-free chocolate cake in celebration. He'll definitely miss a lot of co-workers from Bellwhether, but is excited about the new opportunities to come! Our next task is to figure out a new professional wardrobe now that he won't be wearing business-casual logowear all week long.
If you read this far, here is the reward of a .gif of Calvin at a dance class open house, boogying to the music.
I think we all know Elisabeth well enough by this point to know what happened: I ate most of his cake. But what will we do in future years, once he starts to point out that it is, in fact, HIS birthday? (The solution I'm gravitating towards is that after the initial song and sharing of cake with celebrants, the cake belongs to the birthday person themselves to eat/dispose of/smash as they see fit. This may mean that Elisabeth needs to acquire her own secret cake to avoid sneaking off with the leftover main cake.)
This came up most recently when Liam declared that we would share his own cake until midnight, and then cake leftovers were off-limits to anyone except him. We ate half of the cake in his preferred method, which is to say that we attacked the cake as a whole like savages, eating forkfuls rather than cutting slices. In deference to my twitching eye at this act of cake barbarism he carved the cake bites off in a clockwork pattern, as if we had indeed cut off slices with a bizarre notched knife.
All of this is a roundabout way, of course, to bring up why we had leftover cake. See, Liam got a new job designing training materials for the fire service at the State of NH, and I had purchased a delicious 8" dairy-free chocolate cake in celebration. He'll definitely miss a lot of co-workers from Bellwhether, but is excited about the new opportunities to come! Our next task is to figure out a new professional wardrobe now that he won't be wearing business-casual logowear all week long.
If you read this far, here is the reward of a .gif of Calvin at a dance class open house, boogying to the music.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
The Morning Mom Meander
I call it the Morning Mom Meander, and it's why I get lots of projects at a very slow pace. For a visual representation, see here:
TL;DR:
Carry the sheets from the bottom of the stairs and dump them in the laundry room. The towels are still mid-wash-cycle. Separate blankets into a separate pile for washing, empty the dryer and start folding last night's clean dry laundry. When putting kitchen hand towels away, spot the kitchen garbage can still out and remember to take it out. It's only half full, but those onion skins from last night's dinner (spicy peanut noodles) are what is attracting the fruit flies. Bring kitchen garbage out to garbage can, bring out two boxes full of recycling as well. See the gallon jar of bubbles (we go through a lot of bubbles) from yesterday's playtime and pick them up and put them on the porch with the spare bubble wands. Inside, put a clean bag into the kitchen garbage can. Laundry wash cycle is done, swap over wet laundry to dryer and shove the sheets into the washer to wash. Bring the baby's bathtub from the laundry room to the kitchen counter because it's easier on your back than washing her low on the ground in the bathroom tub/shower. Vacuum the living room because you've tripped over the vacuum twice now. Bring the vacuum upstairs with an armful of clean folded laundry. Put the vacuum in the spare bedroom next to the carpet shampooer. Bring an armload of picture books downstairs and put those away. The dryer is buzzing, unload and dump the dry towels onto couch (there are no empty laundry baskets), refilling dryer with clean and wet sheets. Remind self to purchase a mattress protector for Calvin's bed, because we've been lucky that there have been no vomit-incidents so far. Actually, we should get two, to layer protector-sheet-protector-sheet, for easy middle-of-the-night-with-a-sick-kid cleanup. Kick loose ping pong balls towards the living room, there's a bucket there for them (theoretically, if it hasn't been repurposed as a helmet.) Find folder of preschool registration forms on the dining room table, make a note to call the school to see if they'll accept the internet bill as a major utility bill as proof of residency. (I called. They said yes.) The vitamins are still out on the counter, you haven't taken them, nor actually have you had breakfast. Suddenly remember the banana in your closet, and run upstairs to get it before you forget it. While you're up there, let one of the cats out of the Older Child's bedroom, where the Older Child has shut her in there.
Snap a clean dry cloth diaper insert into a diaper cover every time you walk past the drying rack. Stack each one on the bottom of the dry diaper stack. Baby is awake upstairs! By now mother-in-law has picked up Older Child for a day of summer fun (he didn't want to go because he wanted to to hide under the couch cushions. Finally agreed to go when we offered him a receiving blanket to hide under as he walked around. He looked like a Charlie Brown ghost walking down the driveway). Run upstairs and grab the fussing baby and bring her downstairs to nurse. As you walk through the room, load the DVD player so you can watch The Avengers while you're couch-bound (you're running through the series again since seeing the new Spiderman over the weekend). Half an hour of The Avengers later, pause the film and draw the baby a bath in the tub on the kitchen counter, look at you thinking ahead, good job, lady! While the bath is filling, run around gathering clean baby clothes for the day. Put baby in bath and watch as she soaks the floor with excited bathwater kicks. Make note to mop the floor later as it is already wet. As she happily kicks next to you, put away clean dishes from last night, left to dry overnight in the drainer. Come across new package of toilet paper (next to drainer, not in it), open and grab two rolls to toss upstairs, the roll upstairs is looking skimpy. The soon to be empty toilet paper tube will be useful to making Dragon Finding Binoculars later in the week. Shampoo baby's hair and rinse the soap off her. She likes the sprayer. She likes everything.
Spot wedding invitation on counter, grab phone to remind husband to take the day off for that wedding in September. (He already did so! Well done Love.) Get into a text conversation about the size of furniture in the Older Child's bedroom. Baby is angry that the bathtub is being drained, and decides to fart directly into the towel in revenge as you are drying her off. You're in luck, it wasn't poop. Drop damp (poo-free!) towel onto the water she kicked on the floor from the bathtub and swipe it around with your foot. The baby is signaling that she's tired or hungry (again?) so you drop her into the swing for a nap.
You chose poorly, she is now angry.
Settle onto the couch to nurse her again and start The Avengers up again while you are suddenly aware that you haven't eaten breakfast yet. Consider eating chocolate chips by the fistful.
While trapped under a hangry (hungry angry) baby on the couch, hear your mother in her attached apartment transfer her own load of laundry into their own dryer and start it. Realize suddenly that you did not start your own dryer. This is unfortunate because while there are two dryers in the extended house, they share a vent and therefore only one can be used at a time. This means that your sheets will not be dry for another two hours instead of one.
Thank goodness for digital calendar reminders, because a reminder pops up on your phone that you have a digital webinar on running large-scale author events to attend in one hour. You would have totally forgotten otherwise. Hopefully by then the baby will be asleep.
Settle the baby back into the swing. This time, with a full tummy, she prepares to fall asleep. Run upstairs to vacuum the upstairs carpets while she's drowsy, hopefully the white noise of the vacuum will help send her to sleep (it does). While vacuuming the Older Child's room, discover the pillow cases that you pulled out earlier and subsequently forgot to take into your own bedroom. While vacuuming your bedroom, realize that you forgot the pillowcases again. Turn off vacuum to run and pick up pillowcases and toss them onto your own bed, before you forget. Shoddily vacuum the rest of the upstairs because you're rushing now.
It is now 1:30, and forgotten breakfast is turning into forgotten lunch. You have 25 minutes before you have to sit down for the webinar, so scavenge for food in the kitchen. Eat last night's leftover spicy peanut noodles. Finally take those vitamins and put the bottles away up on their shelf out of the reach of little hands. Eat a handful of chocolate chips and grab a packet of brown sugar Pop-Tarts left over from that 90's-themed tv-watching party you threw a few weeks ago1, because you're an adult and you do what you want2. Suddenly remember that there's a library DVD due today, and the overdue fee is $1/day. Renew DVD loan online (for the 2nd time, you really should watch that and bring it back.)
Eat a second packet of Pop-Tarts as well, because you've lost control of your life.
1 - Legends of the Hidden Temple is still amazing, GUTS is not. AH! Real Monsters and Are you Afraid of the Dark? were tolerable but not particularly inspiring.
2 - This applies to both superfluous parties and to eating Pop-Tarts irresponsibly.
Feed baby and jump into the shower before the Older Child barrels into the bedroom. He finds you before you're finished and helps you shower by handing you, one by one, everything that was on the bathroom counter. Send him on the hunt
for a banana for breakfast (there are some on the counter near the refrigerator downstairs). Get dressed, stick empty Fitbit band in pocket (do steps taken without a fitness tracker exist?). It's
sheets day in the laundry rotation, strip half the bed and toss sheets
down the stairs. Before you can finish, the Older Child has found the bananas and brought two of
them to the bedroom so as to give you one to eat ("Two bananas, Mommy!
One for me, and one for you.") This is very sweet but you can't eat raw
bananas because they give you horrible stomach aches. He is insistent, though,
so you noisily pretend to eat it and put it on top of the shelf in your
closet as you're getting dressed, hiding it from him. Grab a handful of
business cards from the box in your bedside drawer, because three times
this week someone has asked for a way to contact you and your wallet has
no business cards left in it. Go downstairs and bring the bathroom laundry basket with you; throw towels into washer and start the load
cycle. Gather all of the abandoned child clothing from around the
downstairs and put in a laundry basket. Pop recharged Fitbit out of its charger and back into
the bracelet and put it on your wrist. Pull daily vitamins off the shelf in the kitchen and
put on counter so you remember to take it later.
There are fruit flies in the kitchen, your arms are full of more discarded kid's clothing but you pull the kitchen garbage can out from under the sink to take out later. Pull vacuum into the living room so you remember to vacuum when your hands are free. Cat was sick overnight, only once but apparently while running a race. Scrub cat spots out of carpet, Older Child is more than happy to point them all out for you. Go upstairs to put acquired detritus away, bringing carpet shampooer with you and it put into the spare bedroom, there are a few carpet stains that you've been meaning to get to. (Everytime you go upstairs, take two or three pieces of laundry from the drying rack in the dining room and toss on to bed to hang up later.) Strip the rest of the sheets from your bed and toss down the stairs. Strip the sheets from the older child's bedroom, oh, you've been thinking he's old enough for a PROPER pillow now. Go back into bedroom and pull a spare pillow out of the closet while you're thinking of it. Start to resheet child's bed. Find the household's extra pillow cases in with the child's clean sheets, Liam wanted to try layering the pillowcases this week so he could have a fresh one every day. Tell yourself to bring those into the big bedroom as you finish resheeting the child's bed. Toss child's sheets down the stairs, evaluate his blankets (seven of them, sometimes he decides he needs all of them) for needs of washing.
What time is it? Remember that I still have yet to hang the new wall clock in the bathroom.There are fruit flies in the kitchen, your arms are full of more discarded kid's clothing but you pull the kitchen garbage can out from under the sink to take out later. Pull vacuum into the living room so you remember to vacuum when your hands are free. Cat was sick overnight, only once but apparently while running a race. Scrub cat spots out of carpet, Older Child is more than happy to point them all out for you. Go upstairs to put acquired detritus away, bringing carpet shampooer with you and it put into the spare bedroom, there are a few carpet stains that you've been meaning to get to. (Everytime you go upstairs, take two or three pieces of laundry from the drying rack in the dining room and toss on to bed to hang up later.) Strip the rest of the sheets from your bed and toss down the stairs. Strip the sheets from the older child's bedroom, oh, you've been thinking he's old enough for a PROPER pillow now. Go back into bedroom and pull a spare pillow out of the closet while you're thinking of it. Start to resheet child's bed. Find the household's extra pillow cases in with the child's clean sheets, Liam wanted to try layering the pillowcases this week so he could have a fresh one every day. Tell yourself to bring those into the big bedroom as you finish resheeting the child's bed. Toss child's sheets down the stairs, evaluate his blankets (seven of them, sometimes he decides he needs all of them) for needs of washing.
Carry the sheets from the bottom of the stairs and dump them in the laundry room. The towels are still mid-wash-cycle. Separate blankets into a separate pile for washing, empty the dryer and start folding last night's clean dry laundry. When putting kitchen hand towels away, spot the kitchen garbage can still out and remember to take it out. It's only half full, but those onion skins from last night's dinner (spicy peanut noodles) are what is attracting the fruit flies. Bring kitchen garbage out to garbage can, bring out two boxes full of recycling as well. See the gallon jar of bubbles (we go through a lot of bubbles) from yesterday's playtime and pick them up and put them on the porch with the spare bubble wands. Inside, put a clean bag into the kitchen garbage can. Laundry wash cycle is done, swap over wet laundry to dryer and shove the sheets into the washer to wash. Bring the baby's bathtub from the laundry room to the kitchen counter because it's easier on your back than washing her low on the ground in the bathroom tub/shower. Vacuum the living room because you've tripped over the vacuum twice now. Bring the vacuum upstairs with an armful of clean folded laundry. Put the vacuum in the spare bedroom next to the carpet shampooer. Bring an armload of picture books downstairs and put those away. The dryer is buzzing, unload and dump the dry towels onto couch (there are no empty laundry baskets), refilling dryer with clean and wet sheets. Remind self to purchase a mattress protector for Calvin's bed, because we've been lucky that there have been no vomit-incidents so far. Actually, we should get two, to layer protector-sheet-protector-sheet, for easy middle-of-the-night-with-a-sick-kid cleanup. Kick loose ping pong balls towards the living room, there's a bucket there for them (theoretically, if it hasn't been repurposed as a helmet.) Find folder of preschool registration forms on the dining room table, make a note to call the school to see if they'll accept the internet bill as a major utility bill as proof of residency. (I called. They said yes.) The vitamins are still out on the counter, you haven't taken them, nor actually have you had breakfast. Suddenly remember the banana in your closet, and run upstairs to get it before you forget it. While you're up there, let one of the cats out of the Older Child's bedroom, where the Older Child has shut her in there.
Snap a clean dry cloth diaper insert into a diaper cover every time you walk past the drying rack. Stack each one on the bottom of the dry diaper stack. Baby is awake upstairs! By now mother-in-law has picked up Older Child for a day of summer fun (he didn't want to go because he wanted to to hide under the couch cushions. Finally agreed to go when we offered him a receiving blanket to hide under as he walked around. He looked like a Charlie Brown ghost walking down the driveway). Run upstairs and grab the fussing baby and bring her downstairs to nurse. As you walk through the room, load the DVD player so you can watch The Avengers while you're couch-bound (you're running through the series again since seeing the new Spiderman over the weekend). Half an hour of The Avengers later, pause the film and draw the baby a bath in the tub on the kitchen counter, look at you thinking ahead, good job, lady! While the bath is filling, run around gathering clean baby clothes for the day. Put baby in bath and watch as she soaks the floor with excited bathwater kicks. Make note to mop the floor later as it is already wet. As she happily kicks next to you, put away clean dishes from last night, left to dry overnight in the drainer. Come across new package of toilet paper (next to drainer, not in it), open and grab two rolls to toss upstairs, the roll upstairs is looking skimpy. The soon to be empty toilet paper tube will be useful to making Dragon Finding Binoculars later in the week. Shampoo baby's hair and rinse the soap off her. She likes the sprayer. She likes everything.
Spot wedding invitation on counter, grab phone to remind husband to take the day off for that wedding in September. (He already did so! Well done Love.) Get into a text conversation about the size of furniture in the Older Child's bedroom. Baby is angry that the bathtub is being drained, and decides to fart directly into the towel in revenge as you are drying her off. You're in luck, it wasn't poop. Drop damp (poo-free!) towel onto the water she kicked on the floor from the bathtub and swipe it around with your foot. The baby is signaling that she's tired or hungry (again?) so you drop her into the swing for a nap.
You chose poorly, she is now angry.
Settle onto the couch to nurse her again and start The Avengers up again while you are suddenly aware that you haven't eaten breakfast yet. Consider eating chocolate chips by the fistful.
While trapped under a hangry (hungry angry) baby on the couch, hear your mother in her attached apartment transfer her own load of laundry into their own dryer and start it. Realize suddenly that you did not start your own dryer. This is unfortunate because while there are two dryers in the extended house, they share a vent and therefore only one can be used at a time. This means that your sheets will not be dry for another two hours instead of one.
Thank goodness for digital calendar reminders, because a reminder pops up on your phone that you have a digital webinar on running large-scale author events to attend in one hour. You would have totally forgotten otherwise. Hopefully by then the baby will be asleep.
Settle the baby back into the swing. This time, with a full tummy, she prepares to fall asleep. Run upstairs to vacuum the upstairs carpets while she's drowsy, hopefully the white noise of the vacuum will help send her to sleep (it does). While vacuuming the Older Child's room, discover the pillow cases that you pulled out earlier and subsequently forgot to take into your own bedroom. While vacuuming your bedroom, realize that you forgot the pillowcases again. Turn off vacuum to run and pick up pillowcases and toss them onto your own bed, before you forget. Shoddily vacuum the rest of the upstairs because you're rushing now.
It is now 1:30, and forgotten breakfast is turning into forgotten lunch. You have 25 minutes before you have to sit down for the webinar, so scavenge for food in the kitchen. Eat last night's leftover spicy peanut noodles. Finally take those vitamins and put the bottles away up on their shelf out of the reach of little hands. Eat a handful of chocolate chips and grab a packet of brown sugar Pop-Tarts left over from that 90's-themed tv-watching party you threw a few weeks ago1, because you're an adult and you do what you want2. Suddenly remember that there's a library DVD due today, and the overdue fee is $1/day. Renew DVD loan online (for the 2nd time, you really should watch that and bring it back.)
Eat a second packet of Pop-Tarts as well, because you've lost control of your life.
The business cards are still not in your wallet.
2 - This applies to both superfluous parties and to eating Pop-Tarts irresponsibly.
Thursday, June 15, 2017
In which our toddler becomes a Child, and we get a second one, which probably is not a great idea
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| Calvin welcoming Ginny home from the hospital. |
In April we had our daughter, Genevieve, who came very late, and got very stuck, and forced Momma to get an very unexpected and slightly traumatic emergency c-section. She upended out lives (in a good way?) and we're relearning how to be a new family all over again. Calvin was initially excited to meet her (and to have Momma back as a playmate!) until he realized that she was splitting the attention that he formerly got all of, and Momma did not, in fact, have more time to play now that she was no longer heavily pregnant and unwieldy. He promptly started ignoring the baby, and declared Daddy his favorite by sullen glares at Momma and a refusal to spend any time with her. This has lasted until... well, until a few days ago when he snapped out of his funk and returned to his loving snuggly old self, launching himself at either parent for hugs and declarations of his affection. Just yesterday we had our first spontaneous positive sibling interaction, where Calvin crouched down near Genevieve's face and cooed back at her (she's always cooing at him). "She's trying to talk to me, Mommy! She's not very good at it."
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| "She's trying to talk to me!" |
Happy birthday, sweet boy.
Genevieve is a fat and happy baby herself, 10 weeks old today, hair surprisingly reddish and waving sky-high, fresh from her first round of vaccines. Downsides: that moment when their face crumples from happy to BETRAYED and they howl. Upsides: NO POLIO OR WHOOPING COUGH. My bathroom scale is massively off, though, as I thought I weighed her at 13.4 lbs last week (remember when I said she got stuck during birth? Yeah. She's big), but it turns out that the doctor's delicately calibrated baby-scale says she's only 12lbs 11oz. She's a better sleeper than even our mellow Calvin was, which is bizarre and seems like we've had an offspring "bank error" in our favor, since you're not supposed to get TWO excellent kids in a row**.
In other news, we've (I've) picked up baking again, as evident by my slowly regaining all of the baby weight that I've lost. The culprit this time is the Great British Baking Show, three seasons of which are on Netflix, which is exposing me to all sorts of pastries and breads and flavor combinations that I'd never heard of, and inspired me to Try New Things. The first New Thing was choux ("shoe") pastry, which is most recognizable to Americans as eclairs or cream puffs. The first batch was an abject disaster, as I'd added the eggs to the stovetop pan too quickly (you cook the pastry on the stove first, then bake it, interestingly) and ended up with bitter, dense, scrambled egg breadsticks instead of puffing flaky pastry. The second batch was slightly burnt, but at least puffed up like they were supposed to. Baking hasn't been something I've allowed myself to get back in to, I used to bake a LOT*** and I have a lot of great baking gear/cookware****, so it's fun to experiment now. My Facebook friends have become accustomed to seeing pictures of my latest baking adventure pop up in their newsfeed late at night, and I marvel at the mess my kitchen is each morning even though I could have sworn that I'd wiped the counters down the night before.
(And I'm not very good at decorating, either. Tastes good, looks a mess.)
I promise I'll start writing down my story ideas when they pop into my head. Maybe I need one of those dopey notepads on a string to wear around my neck. (This is a terrible idea, the baby gets herself tangled in EVERYTHING without even trying.)
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| Happy birthday, Calvin! (Ginny was sleeping.) |
*despite having only seen maybe five episodes. Paw Patrol is toddler crack.
**note to siblings: I'm not yet certain if this is a zinger directed at you, or if I've just zinged (zung?) myself
***but then I gained 20 lbs because of it and had to stop
****have managed to not lose our new pie pan for three whole months, an improvement over the half dozen or so that have disappeared over the last decade. But now my muffin pans and mini-muffin pans are missing.
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