Core Dump

So for the first time, really, I was actually embarrassed today as a parent because my kids were being so horrible. 

To back up, Nora & Milo liked all of the excitement of going up to the lake at Grandma & Grandpa's, but it was also really hard for them. G & G have a big dog and Milo and Nora were scared of the dog the whole time. So any time the poor dog (who was actually quite well behaved) even so much as looked at them, the kids would cry. Nora freaked out any time she walked 3 feet away from me and lost track of where I was. Nobody wanted to eat all weekend long, although to Milo's credit he did discover a true love of nectarines and strawberries. 

On the second night, Nora woke up over and over again. We were all 4 in the same room and once she clued in that I was in there, Nora couldn't sleep. She wanted me to hold her, but of course when I held her, or took her into bed, she also couldn't sleep. So she was up and down, up and down, and up pretty much for good by 4 a.m. That disturbed Milo, so he got up too, and we tried to get them to sleep in bed with us, since nobody wanted to be left out from Mama and Daddy cuddle time. But of course that didn't work, because Milo and Nora just kept cracking each other up, and jumping around, and making tons of noise, and I think it was around 5 or 5:30 when Jake remarked that it felt like we were in bed with a sack of crazed weasels. They finally fell asleep at around 6:30 for about an hour and a half.

(If somebody is thinking "just let them cry", we've tried, and Milo will cry for 2 or 3 minutes and fall asleep. But Nora is the opposite. She doesn't release tension by crying, she builds tension. So she'll just cry harder and harder and harder for longer and longer, and it makes the situation worse instead of better.)

As a result of the sleepless night and all the stimulation Milo and Nora were extremely cranky today. They whined constantly. They cried, they didn't want to eat, they freaked out if the dog looked at them, they demanded to get out of their high chairs, it was horrible. We were there with some childless friends of ours and I can just imagine how I would have felt about that whole scene before I had kids. I felt like apologizing over and over again for making them eat lunch while listening to whining, crying children. At one point Nora wanted to sit on my chair with me, but then she wanted me to get off so she could have the chair to herself (to stand up in no doubt), and I had had it with her and told her tersely that no, she can't play on the chair, it's dangerous and I'm going to sit down and eat my lunch, damn it. Then Nora cried for like the 5 thousandth time and her Grandma was all "oh, poor Nora, you can come sit here with Grandma, I'll rock with you on the chair", like I'm evil, and I notice my friend seems kind of cold towards me, and I'm all, that's great, not only are our kids driving everybody nuts but now I can tell that my parenting is being judged too, and give me a break you would get terse too if you'd just listened to non-stop whining for the past 6 hours after a night of not sleeping!

Jake's parents -- well no, scratch that, Jake's mother -- keeps offering to take the kids on her own for a weekend or a week so that we can take a vacation or something. But I just think, am I crazy to think that's a crazy idea? Because Nora is not cool with her Grandma holding her when Mama goes to the bathroom. She still cries the whole time if I step out of the room. She wakes at night and says "Mama" over and over again, and whenever anything freaks her out in a new environment she demands to be held so that she can bury her face in my shoulder. It's not all that different with Milo -- just substitute Jake for me. Am I being overprotective in thinking that just dropping the kids off at the lake with the giant scary dog and the two Grandparents and not even daddy seems a little extreme during this separation anxiety phase of life? 

Jake and I haven't had a night to ourselves since the kids were born. I would of course love to have something like that, but the proposed scenario just doesn't seem feasible to me.  It seems...mean, like we'd be ignoring what the kids need at this time in their lives. But I know other parents do this, so maybe I am being overprotective. I don't know. When my mom is here or when the twin whisperer is here helping out Jake, the kids are okay with me taking trips. 

There were, of course, good things about our trip: the kids loved the lake and riding in a boat. They even tolerated their life jackets. They loved being outside. Milo discovered nectarines and cold chicken. Oh, and Nora did something I found quite clever. She wanted to tell me that she did not like whatever it was I was trying to get her to eat, so she said "No I like it". Also, in the car both kids enjoyed reading book after book and telling little stories to themselves as they looked through the books, which was adorable.