childbearing hipster

Loose Ends

Dug had the holiday off so we spent yesterday at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Molly really wanted to touch a bat ray until she had a chance to, at which point she freaked out. Then when I suggested we get out of the way for people who aren't scared to touch a fish, she got mad. She was also furious that the sea turtles are currently off exhibit. We steered clear of the children's exhibits for fear we'd have to spend an hour sitting in front of a tank of clown fish trying to figure out which one is Nemo, which one's Marlin (every. Single. Trip).

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Dug's usually got a late night at work several nights a month, where he isn't home for dinner. I usually indulge the kids with some stereotypically kid-friendly grub and give myself the night off from cooking. But he's got a big project at work that's going to keep him a way quite a few nights in the near future and I don't want to play all my cards at once, so tonight I made risotto, chicken, and steamed broccoli for the girls and I. True to form: Molly just wanted risotto, tolerated the chicken, agonized over the broccoli. Maggie mowed down the broccoli and threw a fit when I asked her to eat the chicken and rice first. I had seconds of all three.

(For what it's worth, risotto's a really good trick to have in your arsenal if you have a picky eater who really likes rice. You can get really creative with addins and liquids, and even if your kids don't like "stuff in their food", like Molly, you can blend the "stuff" enough so that it's not even noticeable. I've done risotto with diced carrots and carrot juice and Molly's sucked it down without batting an eyelash; an actual carrot causes her paroxysms of fear. And even though risotto's labor intensive, it requires no brain power.)

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In an effort to both encourage good behavior and help remind myself of things that the girls should be doing every day, I made little charts for them. Each has a list of things they should do and ways they should behave, and they get to put a star on the chart when they do something without too much hassle (Molly won't be getting a star for her broccoli-eating performance tonight, but nor will Maggie who was even worse about her rice). I hope it helps things get done without fits, fuss, and tears.

Of course when I showed them the charts and then wouldn't let them play with them, they threw fits.

Curses, Cute-isms, and How Naptime Is Like An Oyster

I haven't been writing much because nobody pays me to write here and every time I have a spare moment I feel like I should use it to make money. Then I remembered that as a stay at home parent I am supposed to be honored to be paid in hugs and kisses (snort), and therefore I need to buckle down and chronicle these children.

Who, it must be said, I don't like very much right now.

Miss Margaret is on the downward slope of two, and you know what that means? It means whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiining. She can suddenly talk very clearly, which is nice, that's the part that makes two and a half much easier than two. But she's adopted her sister's teenagerly mutterings and inflection. I want to pop her on the mouth every time she does it, but even if I were a mouth-popping kind of mother, I'm afraid she'd look like Jake LaMotta by the end of one day of it. Seriously, the preschool years are so evocative of my own teenage years, it's kind of shocking. The curse came true, I really got children just like me. I make a mental note not to wish the same on them--I haven't wished it yet, may I never stoop to it.

On the sweet and tender side of things, I'm starting to worry that her command of speech is going to extend to some of my favorite cute-isms, as it eventually has for Molly. At this point my favorite is that the only first person plural pronoun Maggie uses is we, as in "Are we going to we car? And we go to we house and eat we lunch?" One day very soon she's going to bust out us or our, and an era will be over.

Speaking of such eras, last night I referred to the movie we were watching as the "moozie" and Molly turned around and said politely, "Mama, it's movie". Just recently I had a sitdown with Molly's teacher where we discussed her speech and how there just might be a problem that needs addressing, and we went into "wait and see" mode. Then Dug and I made more of an effort to help her pronounce certain words correctly and it is clicking like crazy. Not that we were ignoring the problem, we just didn't really realize there was one--she has always sounded just like her friends to me, but obviously I was just so used to her speech that I wasn't noticing where she was behind. Now she's less behind.

Incidentally, quiet time has been very successful this week. I've been separating the girls--Maggie in their room, Molly in ours. Molly gets to bring two books, one doll, her blanket and a cup of water. I turn on music in both rooms and close the doors. Maggie has napped every day this week, and Molly has napped at least twice, and possibly catnapped a few other days. It has made the evenings a lot easier to get through for everyone. Oh, I have to navigate through some pissing and moaning at the beginning, but you know, anything wonderful is usually preceeded by some sort of test of your worthiness--champagne bottles are a bitch to open, Paris smells like poop and wet dog, oysters need shucking and plus they look like loogies. But once you're past the hard part, it's fabulous, and thus with quiet time.

Quiet Time: It All Goes To Hell On Day Four

Quiet time day one was bad, bad. Quiet time day two was better. Day three pretty good.

Day four my throat hurts. Quiet time turned into yelling time, and laughing at me time, and now it's just play time with the door closed.

I am drinking tea with honey and trying to just be happy that I'm getting what I'm getting.

Here's the thing: it turns out that Maggie is a rotten whiny little shit in the evening even if she does take a nap consistently three days in a row. Taking a nap doesn't make her any less two and a half than not taking one. Molly's not napping anyway, so who cares what she does in there?

Still, I feel powerless and lame for having gone in there and hollered and threatened and waved my arms and ranted and raved and been all "Quiet means QUIET, you guys!" like a big angry jackass while they just looked at me like "whatever, crazy" and then carried on about the business of whatever it is they're doing in there the second I turned my back. I might as well have wrapped the upper hand in shiny paper and curly ribbon and presented it to them with great ceremony, because I sure as hell gave it to them.

Day five of quiet time? Hopefully, just close the door and walk away. Whatever will be, etc. etc.

Quiet Time. Emphasis on "Quiet". And on "Time".

Maggie more or less dropped her naps this fall, once we phased out the crib. And that was going okay--she'd take the odd catnap here and there in the car--but within the last few months it's become brutally clear that she is not ready to go napless. And frankly, Molly could use a nap herself once in a while. And I could use the space. Lord, how I need the space.

So I am officially doing what I should have already been doing, and implementing quiet time.

Today was half of a success: Maggie fell asleep, and Molly cried and hollered at me and whined about "Is it time to not be quiet anymore?" Kid, you have yet to BE quiet, so shut it.

We'll have to try again tomorrow. Even still, this very minute, she's telling me how she's not going to do quiet time tomorrow. Oh, really? Are we going to find out who's in charge here, finally? Excellent. I cannot wait.

I Don't Like Mondays

The silicon chip inside my head is switched to overload.

The girls are just out of control. Molly won't go to bed anymore--just cries, and cries. Last night she got Dug to sleep with her, in her rickety-ass Ikea twin sized loft bed. She says her bed isn't comfortable. I bet Dug agrees. I'm sure he had a terrible night's sleep.

We had, or have, or whatever, this arrangement where Dug got up with the kids, got them started on their morning, because I am not a morning person and I don't do well without a lot of sleep. I don't think that arrangement works anymore. And even though I said, so, get me up or send them in to wake me or whatever, I'd rather not have someone seethe with resentment when the arrangement can just change...I guess I just need to take the initiative and set my alarm and do what needs doing.

This morning nobody woke me up until nine, and we were supposed to be at a playdate by ten. Molly wanted to shower with me. Everybody needed to be dressed.  I bled all over my new shorts and had to change. Nobody'd eaten breakfast, because nobody likes cereal anymore, and nobody told me that this is why nobody's eating breakfast, so when I brought it up, pissed that nobody's being given breakfast, I was told "Then you should get up earlier". Yeah, I guess I fucking well should.

Something is wrong with our communication.

It cost me I don't even want to talk about how much to park in the city, and I should have known better, but it was worth every penny just to be in a room with grownups, or anyone who doesn't hate me, really.  It was the first time in like a week that I felt like a human being among other human beings, instead of some kind of fucking freak surrounded by assholes.

Molly was a fucking wreck the whole time and threw a full-on tantrum when it was time to go. It took a lot of strength not to spank her right in front of the whole playgroup and I cannot swear that I would have refrained if there were no audience. Then Maggie wouldn't walk back to the car and wouldn't be carried and wouldn't hold hands and wouldn't do anything else but kick and writhe and scream at me. I bought them candy at the corner store so they'd shut up and just follow me to the parking garage. And you know? The fucking candy did the trick. And then I cried all the way home, because that's just how I roll on Mondays.

I think that hormone-free is not for me, and I need to go talk to a doctor about that. Or maybe it's even more than that, because this is not just some cranky discomfort around the time of my period, this is rage. I don't want to deal, I don't want to be anyone's mother or wife, I don't want to cook and I don't want to wipe bottoms and I don't really want to fucking talk about it, either. I don't have the presence of mind right now to handle it when I am mad about something and it gets turned back around on me, even if the turnabout is actually fair play. I don't have the capability to let it go when someone gets pissy with me for some reason I can't control, and I don't have the compassion to give a shit about anything that's happening to anyone else.

I want to shoot the whole day down.

Fight Like A Girl

Like my mother before me, I've always warned Molly that some day, her little sister is going to take umbrage to being pushed around, and fight back.

In my case, I was eight or ten and my sister was four or six, and I was hassling her, and she hauled off and punched me. A straight-from-the-shoulder jab directly to my solar plexus, which taught me the meaning of "knock the wind out" and has given Mom something to laugh about for nearly twenty-five years now.

And that's what I expected Maggie would come up with. A right hook to the jaw, a sweep of the leg, a good solid pummel. The girls get really rowdy together, they wrestle and they roll and Molly doesn't hesitate to take advantage of her mental superiority and almost always initiates it, and unless it looks like it's really going to result in injury, I've been letting them work it out, knowing that any day now, Maggie's going to step up and show Molly's who's boss, and then Molly's going to learn a valuable lesson about getting physical with her sister. And it happened, finally, yesterday. But how?

Hairpulling. Big shiny clumps of golden tresses. 

It happened again today. And pinching, too. I expect scratching to happen tomorrow.

I expected Million Dollar Baby, I got Bring It On.

Anyway, letting them solve their own fighting problem isn't working out so hot. Or is it? I'm open to suggestions.

And this is just the beginning.

Maggie's had a rough time getting down at night, lately. Hysterical crying. Last night she catapulted herself out of the crib (the first time she's even tried, if you can believe it), went bonk onto the hardwood, came out for snuggles and comfort, and then when I put her back down, she tearfully told me "Ears hurt!"

Oh, poor baby. I dosed her with Motrin and some of the pain relief drops left over from her last ear infection, and called the doctor to make an appointment first thing this morning.

And then I took her to see him, and he looked into her ears, and he said "Well, it's not an ear infection". I said "Are you sure?" He's sure. No inflammation, no fluid whatsoever. He did allow as how it could possibly be her molars, of which there's no visible sign, but still, maybe they're starting to come in and cause some pressure.

She liiiiiiiiiiiied to us.

When Good Babies Go Bad

The terrible twos are upon us, and valuable lessons are being learned.

When Molly started down this road, I arrived at the understanding that my dear mother's curse had been manifested: the kid just like me that she always hoped I'd get, I'd gotten.

Molly's twoness happened early, so I thought maybe Maggie was just a little reward--a kid who'd stay goodnatured and adaptable, a little gift we'd been granted. Then she started turning toward the dark side of the force, and I had to rethink it. And now she's barrelling straight down the highway to hell, and the truth is very clear: if Molly's the child I deserve, perhaps Maggie is the child that Dug deserves. That I'm the one who has to wrangle her all day long is just dramatic irony.

This is just a theory, though. Hellions do run in my family.

Molly is harder at three than she ever was at two (of course, I didn't know that this would be the case when Molly was two, but hindsight is clear). I decided that whoever coined the phrase "terrible twos" simply didn't have any children who lived to be three. What Molly's in now is the Theatrical Threes, and it's loud, and it involves a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands on her part and a great deal of conscious ignoring on my part. But I've got Molly's number, and it's manageable. Frustrating and sometimes overwhelming, but manageable.

Freakin' Maggie, man. She's fully loaded with all the options. She's got the mind of her own, she's got the selective hearing, she's got The Screech, she's got the physicality of a roller derby star. And then, as if that weren't enough, she's got the smile of an angel, the curls that bounce just right when she runs (and do not think she doesn't do that on purpose).

When Molly's mad at you for asserting your authority, she "HAAAAATES" you. Or she dramatically throws herself down and moans that you "HAAAAAAATE" her. When you try to thwart Maggie, tears roll slowly down her cheeks and she tries to snuggle with you.

I don't even know what to do with that.

At two, Molly was already suseptible to disciplinary tactics. Time outs worked. Saying "We don't do that" worked. Counting to three worked. Praising her when she did something right worked. It all still works.

Maggie is incapable of hearing the word no. She thinks counting to three is some kind of call-and-response game. Time outs do not faze her at this point. And yogurt is a finger food to her, so you see what I'm up against.

It makes me wonder if this is one of those things where, if I get rotten twos, the threes will be more mellow--or if, like with Molly, the rough twos will give way to even rougher threes?

It also makes me wonder if there wasn't a point with Molly at the beginning of her toddlerhood where nothing worked, and then she caught up and it all started being effective, and I just don't remember.

Sometimes The Going Gets Tough

It has been a really rough week or two or six.

I got sick. The girls got sick. Then my teeth got sick. Then Dug pulled a muscle in his back. Then he went skiing anyway. Then he had to lie in bed and sleep for a few days. Then I had to keep the girls from reverting to their natural state of shrieking at high decibel and pitch and jumping on him, because if I didn't do it, he'd never get better.

Molly is taking her Theatrical Threes to Academy-Award-winning levels. Maggie is officially in her Terrible Twos, Now With Biting! The two of them together are too much, I find myself screaming at them to stop whatever they're doing for just one goddamned minute while I page through the "mother's helper" ads on Craigslist in peace.

I want to farm everybody out. I want a nanny and a job, not necessarily in that order. Not necessarily for real, just in the moment, because when everybody is whining, I remember what it's like to be around a bunch of whiny babies who can't do anything without being handheld through the process but at least getting a paycheck for it. Raising two small children is a lot like working retail at Christmas in that respect--but without an employee discount. I can't believe I'm nostalgic for those days, for chasing shoplifters instead of toddlers.

The weather has been rainy and crappy. There are these weird bunnies who have taken up residence in our yard, and they stare at me funny. They're like the Bunnies of the Damned, and they creep me out.

Why everything at once? Why not spread out the bullshit a little, so it's manageable? Why can't the kids be rotten one at a time, why can't we all feel sorry for my teeth until they're fixed, and THEN Dug can have his pulled muscle for a while? Why can't the evil Bunnies of Doom wait until spring has well and truly sprung before coming around to stare at me balefully, instead of sitting out there in the rain and doing it?

An update, by request.

I tried to tell someone the other day that I haven't updated lately because I kind of hate the children, and I'm afraid that if I sit down and try and write about them it's going to turn into a situation where CPS comes knocking.

The excuse didn't fly. So here goes nothing.

--Maggie has been talking quite a bit lately. Lots of "no", lots and lots of that. Today when I put her down for a nap, one of the cats was in her bed. Usually she sees that as a bonus. Today she got really pissed off and shook her fist at poor snoozing Murph, yelling "NO! GO! GO! NO!". I removed the cat and left the room. About thirty seconds later, Maggie starts hollering again. "NO! GO! GO! GO!". Murph had hopped back into the crib. So I picked Maggie up, packed the girls in the car, and drove around the neighborhood until Maggie fell asleep. I just wasn't interested in dealing with the issue. When I strapped Maggie into her carseat, she naturally hollered "STUCK! STUCK!". This also happens when I make her wear the seatbelt in a shopping cart.

Other Maggieisms include: When she is done eating, she stands up on her booster seat and throws her arms in the air and shouts "TADA!". She will come to me with a ballet tutu and hold it up and beg "TUTU? TUTU?" until I put it on. Then she'll come back later, crying "STUCK! STUCK!" until I take the tutu off. When I'm on the phone she holds her hand up to her ear and says "TALK? TALK?" until I hand her the phone. Then she says "HEDDO DADA?", no matter who is actually on the other end. She normally really likes hanging out with the cats, and will follow them around saying "GAT? GAT? MAO! MAO! GAT?"

--Molly has had an enormous appetite lately. That's all well and good, but she actually eats fewer things than she did even a few months ago (for example, apples have become fruta non grata, having previously been acceptable whole, then sliced, then sliced and peeled). So she cries hungry, and I only have a few things to offer her. I totally get that a person can be sick of the string cheese/yogurt/cracker/Trader Joe's Cereal Bar rotation, but really, I am not the one who decided on this short list of foods. I am not interested in the fits she pitches when I suggest some non-canonical snack as an alternative. She can take a long walk off a short pier, as far as I'm concerned.

--The other day we were watching Pancake Mountain and Molly turned to me and said "I'm gonna have a band with Maddy and Hazel.

I said "You bet your ass you will."

--I got tagged by Alisyn to post ten weird and/or random facts about myself, and here they are:

I am the most nearsighted person I know (the equivalent of 20/1600 vision).
I am really good at rowing boats.
Both my junior and senior prom dates (different guys) are gay.
I've since fallen out of the habit, but in my childless days I was a rabid, avid hockey fan.
I love all movies about sports. Any sport. Even ice skating. Even cheerleading.
I'm a label whore. If I had unlimited funds, I'd wear Chanel suits to the playground. With sneakers.
When I was three, I staged my own wedding. To my Pooh bear. My mother has never let this drop.
I am freakishly strong for my size. Go on, ask me to lift something.
I grew up in a mobile home, and now I live in a transitional neighborhood. I get extremely worked up when people make snarky comments about "trailer trash" or "she's so ghetto", no matter who they're directing it at and even if they aren't really being mean-spirited.
I love to cook, but I have never baked a cake from scratch in my entire life.

--In case there was any doubt that growing up in the Bay Area is going to rub off on a kid, I submit a photo I could not resist taking, after Molly put her Barbies and Daddy Dolls to bed last night:

I hope that will hold you for a while.