Cat news: The very morning after my last post, Sam defeated my gate barrier and came upstairs waking us all, meowing for her breakfast. I believe I uttered many expletives and Sam, immediately detecting my tone, hightailed it under the bed and hid there, yowling. Now I have a giant cardboard box jammed above the gate to prevent Sam from jumping it, which should be good for a few days. Jake saw it and commented on how pathetic we're getting, with boxes and toys and crap strewn all about the house. It's not exactly classy. "These are the cardboard years," he said.
Kid news: Milo now likes to pick a book and carry it over to us and drop it in our laps, demanding that we read it for him. Or rather, that we hold it for him as he turns the pages back and forth. Meanwhile if Milo is sitting in my lap Nora will get very jealous. She basically can't stand it, and she cries whenever I hold Milo. In the mornings when it is Milo's turn to be changed, Nora will wander around the room angrily, crying because I dare to change her brother rather than hold and cuddle her!
More kid news: Milo likes to stand up in his crib in the mornings and perform a soliloquy. He gestures wildly with one hand, usually pointing, and he'll pontificate at length, saying nonsense stuff like "Shauble. Whazzat. Baby. Ball! Shauble Shabas. Whiz! WHIZ!" While he's doing this he usually points at the wall, at the ceiling, out the window.
I am dreading the kids coming down with a cold but so far it hasn't happened. I can't imagine how they'd escape it since they love to shove their hands in my mouth on a daily basis, but so far I'm crossing my fingers. I would rather be sick for 3 weeks than have them be sick for 3 days. And that is not for maternal, loving reasons. It's for totally selfish reasons. It's way more of a hassle for them to be sick than for me to be sick. Nobody sleeps when they are sick.
I am starting to be nervous about Jake's upcoming ski trip (me and kids alone for a weekend). It's silly to anticipate it like that, of course. But I was thinking about it on Tuesday, which is my day home with them. Nora skipped her afternoon nap again that day, for some weird reason, and when Milo woke up I put them both in the stroller for a walk, hoping that Nora would fall asleep. I was feeling too sick and run down to run, so instead I walked the same distance with ankle weights (in order to make the walk a little more challenging). But this meant the walk took a long time and I'd say for the last, oh, 45 minutes Nora basically complained the whole time. By the end it was out and out crying. And by the time Jake finally came through the door at 5:45 p.m. I was so glad to see him and felt convinced that I couldn't have stood even another 5 minutes of cranky, melting down kids on my own. And that was after just one day alone with them. I pretty much always feel that way when he walks through the door on Tuesday evenings. So what am I going to do for a whole weekend with no break? I'm sure it'll be fine. Other parents do this all the time, so I don't know why I'm so wimpy. I am probably so wimpy because I am used to being spoiled, to constantly sharing the burden with Jake and the twin whisperer and my mom when she is here. Man, I make this whole parenting gig sound like a real barrel of laughs, don't I. Of course there are many wonderful, fun times. I just enjoy them most easily when Jake is here too.
The funny thing is that I actively pushed Jake to do this ski weekend since I know how much he could use a break, some time off with his buddies to have fun. He hasn't had that in ages. So I think it's a good thing, and I'm sure we'll have a good weekend here at home.
5 comments:
I LOVE THIS VIDEO! Adorable.
How fun it must be for the two of them to have siblings the exact same age! I'm sure that there are plenty of challenges for them (along with the challenges for the parents!), but I imagine in the long run that the benefits far outweigh the challenges.
I think you sound like a fantastic mom who is doing her best to take care of so much -- professionally and personally. I admire what you're doing, and I love seeing your children online. Being a mom sounds really difficult, but it's probably the case that the best things are the hard things.
My favorite video is still the BUSTED! video from naptime, though.
Thanks B*! I think being a mom is either harder for me than it is for a lot of people, or else I just happen to be a lot whinier about it. :) Hopefully my kids will forgive me in the long run for being so clueless.
Every mom I know says that it's hard for them. I don't really know, but I think it's one of those things like we have these imaginary people in our heads who are naturally good at stuff and we compare ourselves to those ideal images and we're never quite as great.
I read your post of your own mom, so maybe your comparison is based on that image? She sounds like an amazing person!
I feel exactly the same.. that this must be harder for me than others. That I must have been born missing a gene.. a large part of the 'mom' gene. I think it's the two at a time.. two melting down at a time... I'm LIVING that right now ... daily. And it SUCKS! And it makes me feel like my head is going to explode and like I want to run screaming for the border - to mexico - where I will live out my days in peace and quiet w/ no one whining at me.....
Sorry... not a great day here at the Mount house. I think I create those days more than the kids do. They are pretty consistent in their current state of affairs.... it is my mood that changes.
B*, I think you might be right. I probably compare myself all the time to both my mom and also to my sister, who has 2 boys and seems way more patient than I could ever be. She also stays home with them and I know I couldn't do that, so I often think, when I am going crazy at the end of a weekend, about how she does it every single day and I don't know how she does it, and then I feel lame in comparison.
Laura, I hear you. I think the two at once has a lot to do with it. I also think sometimes it just gets to be too much, for whatever, reason, and we start thinking Mexico. Today was one of those days for me too.
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