Brief Notes from the Road

• I just took an Ambien to help me sleep, I hope, in a hotel bed which is always a difficult venture.
• By the time I left both kids knew that I was going on an airplane today, that Buddy would be coming tomorrow, that the Twin Whisperer would be coming to visit the day after that, and then I would come back home. They seem to have grokked it. I left after their nap and Jake reported that they were okay for the rest of the day.
• It's amazing how much closer I am to the east coast than the west coast, even though I somehow think of my location as in the middle of the country. It's really not in the middle.
• The club room level of the hotel is not all that impressive to me at this point, but then again I have yet to visit the special access lounge. Maybe it'll be full of hookers and cocaine, but I doubt it.
• I ate my last sugar for a month tonight as I'm trying to go on the wagon for February. No refined sugar but natural sugars in fruits are still okay. We'll see how I feel about this. I am a very reasonable eater with one exception, and that exception always involves sweets.
• I just found a pacifier in the bottom of my suitcase. That small orange object is making me sad.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Milo today at lunch: "I've got a funky blueberry in my mouth!"

Nora tonight after dinner: "I'm going to go screw around now!"

Today

Today was my day home with the kids. After a breakfast of peanut butter and jelly bagel (Milo likes jelly, Nora likes peanut butter) and applesauce with yogurt I took the kids to story hour at a local university book store. Milo stood and stared wide-eyed at all of the other kids, and when it was time for stories he walked right up in front of the lady reading to get a better look at the pictures. Nora, meanwhile, clung to me and periodically announced in her loud, piercing voice "I need to get in my car right now." (Her way of saying, let's get in the car and go back home, instead of being here with all of these people.) Her lip quivered and her eyes brimmed, but tears did not fall. By the end of story hour Nora had progressed to asking "Where did the ice rink go?" when the lady read a story about ice skating.

As we dispersed several moms asked me how old they were and commented on their great vocabularies and how much they talk. They sure are talkers, these two.

In the car Milo became agitated because, in his words, he doesn't like the sun. And the sun was out in full force today. The kids are still at the age where they think I can control things like the sun, the wind, an airplane, etc. They think I can make these things go away or make them come again. Sadly, I cannot, so Milo had to endure the foreign harshness of the sun today.

As soon as we got home Milo melted down because he wanted me to hold him the whole time. (Which I cannot do while making lunch). All through lunch, Milo would only say "Mommy hold you. Mommy hold you. Mommy hold you. Mommy hold you." I'm pretty sure I heard that phrase about 2 or 3 hundred times today. He has developed this weird thing where he wants me to hold him all the time, and he cries if I don't hold him.

This used to be Nora's territory. The very strange thing is that now that Milo is doing this, Nora has backed way off and she's not clamoring to be held nearly as much anymore. She'll mostly sit back and let Milo do it, and she'll let me hold Milo. Do they decide to take turns or something?

A 2.5 hour nap (or at least 2.5 hours being quiet) enabled me to get some work done this afternoon, and once the kids were up I made them a smoothie for their snack, which they ate with banana bread. Later we had a bath, which suddenly Milo doesn't like any more. Baths used to be his favorite. Today in the bath it was just more "Mommy hold you." Nora still enjoys her bath. We did not go outside this afternoon because it was 5 degrees, and I have my limits.

I chopped some sweet bell peppers for dinner tonight and as I cooked them Milo ate pepper after pepper. He loves the things, raw and cooked. At least one of my children will eat vegetables! It brings it home how little I can control these things, and how much of it is just who they are. Nora did try edamame the other day, which impressed me. She spit it out, but at least she tried it. At dinner Milo did something particularly heinous, I can't remember what, but it caused Jake to say "Are you nuts?". Milo thought this was the funniest word ever and he kept telling Nora "Say nuts!" Nora would then say, "Nuts!" and Milo would crack up. Eventually this had all of us cracking up.

After dinner I read a new book to the kids called "Mama Always Comes Home." Then I talked to them for the first time about how I'm going to go on a trip in a few days, not now, but later, and I'm going to get on a plane and will be gone for a couple of nights, and then I'll come back home. Then we read "Mama Always Comes Home" a couple more times. Milo seemed totally uninterested in this trip business, but Nora was listening carefully and thinking it over. All she said was "Mommy's not going to go right now." My plan is to talk about it again tomorrow and Saturday so that it won't be a surprise when I leave on Sunday, and to keep emphasizing how I will come back after a couple of days.

In what seems to be the new equilibrium, the kids talked and sang for a good 45 minutes tonight before finally falling asleep. I heard them singing "Ba ba black sheep", "Ring around the rosie", "Down by the station", and "Frosty the snowman." (Which reminds me. This morning I pulled on a shirt that said "Ho ho ho" and Nora looked at it and started singing Jingle Bells, telling me that I had jingle bells on my shirt. What?) But I figure once the kids are in bed it's no sweat off my back, as long as they're not upset or crying. I can't force them to sleep. What I do do is let them stay in their cribs for 12 hours (7:30 to 7:30), and if they don't sleep all 12 hours, well, I can't force it. In the morning they're usually awake for about half an hour before we go in there, but they're never anxious to get up. They like just hanging out in there.

Worked again from 7:30 - 10:30, and now it's 11:15 so I should probably go to bed. It's hard, of course, because this is the time when my brain starts to actually wake up. I feel more awake now than I have all day.

I have a friend in the throes of "up at all hours of the night" with a new baby right now, and she was reminding me of what that's like. Like how quiet it is at 3 a.m., and how you feel like you're the only one in the world who is awake, you and your baby, and how dark it is, and how everything looks and feels different at that time of night. How you feel this sudden burst of resentment and exhaustion as soon as you hear that first piercing cry, but once you pick up your baby it has disappeared and is replaced with affection. How the next morning you drink caffeine to make it through the day and you have that sick to your stomach feeling of too much caffeine and not enough food on no sleep. How you feel like you're close to keeling over every time you stand up. How you just have to put one foot in front of the other over and over and over again, and know that this is all temporary.

And here I am, (I hope) on the other side of it, with toddlers who more or less sleep. 3 a.m. feedings are a thing of the past. I don't miss it. I do miss, however, that tiny little bundle in my arms, nuzzled up to me.

Bullets

Sometimes I just can't be coherent and stick to a theme.

• The kids are adjusting to the new nanny, Buddy, and today there was no crying whatsoever when she came, and no crying when I left! Hooray, we are turning a corner.
• Buddy took the kids to a child-friendly cafe, which has story times, child-friendly healthy food (with hidden pureed vegetables in half the dishes), and apparently some sort of play kitchen or something. Milo had a blast with all of the other kids and Nora was not amused and insisted in sitting in Buddy's lap the whole time. Because Buddy is friends with a lot of other nannies, the kids are getting some nice socialization with other kids these days. I didn't even know this cafe existed.
• Today one of my former students (from when I taught high school in the mid-90s) emailed me. He described how today he used something in his job that he had learned from a trig class he took with me, and ended the email by thanking me. Awwwwwww.
• My reward for being timely with doing my NSF grant reviews over the past couple of weeks is getting slammed with yet another proposal to review at the last minute, because one of the other panel members has a conflict of interest. Blech. I really like being on review panels for NSF. I like to see the research that others are proposing, and I like having a voice in the type of research that our government is going to fund. But at this point I am tired of working every night to review grant after grant. It takes a lot of work.

Speaking of which, I'd better get back to work now.

Time to Crack Down

Dinner has always been a difficult time. Lately, Milo has developed an aversion to it:

I cut it off after 5 seconds to spare the reader's eardrums. Imagine, if you will, trying to eat dinner through that noise. Imagine it going on for 10, 15, 20 minutes. Imagine a toddler who cannot really reason yet, who responds to everything with "Mommy pick you up", saying it over and over and over again, crying his heart out because it is dinner time and we all must sit in our seats at dinner time.

I am not going to hold Milo through dinner. There are rules. When it is dinner time, we sit in our seats. We eat food like civilized human beings. We do not throw it, we do not get to eat dinner in Mommy's lap, we do not get to eat while running through the house. You have to sit in your seat for dinner, end of story.

The underweight thing that has plagued us since Nora was 6 months old has really set up some bad habits in this house. And by bad habits, I mean my own. I mean doing things like searching high and low to find foods they'll eat, cajoling the kids to eat their food, tolerating behaviors I wouldn't have otherwise tolerated because my bottom line has always been, we need to get calories in them. Nothing else matters as much as that. They have to grow properly. I can still picture us sitting in the GI doctor's office listening to him tell me that if Nora doesn't get enough calories and grow properly, it could harm her brain development.

So faced with that, and the resulting nightmares I started having, how we got them to eat was less important than just getting them to eat, period.

But, you know what? Now they're 2. And Nora's brain seems to be just fine, as far as I can tell. And I do not want to raise a couple of picky eaters. And here we are: Nora will eat bread products and fruit, but she will not eat any meat, pasta, rice, or vegetables. I mean nothing. No mac and cheese. No chicken. No potatoes, for crying out loud. The kid won't even eat french toast anymore, a previous favorite. No waffles, no pancakes, no eggs. So I keep giving her jars of pureed meats and vegetables because otherwise she would not be getting any meat or vegetables.

But I know that I am breaking all sorts of rules and I am teaching Nora how to be a picky eater. And the cajoling to eat stuff has rubbed off on how we treat Milo, too, and the next thing you know dinner is a stressful hellish affair and clearly Milo has picked up on that stress.

I know that what I should be doing is giving the kids what we eat for dinner. Give them 2 or 3 things on their plates, one that I know they'll eat, and then that's it. Nothing else. No negotiating. I can't control whether they'll eat it, or how much. That's not my job. That's their job. But I can control what I offer, and when and where they eat. Taking this route requires being okay with a kid going hungry if she doesn't want to eat what's for dinner. The kid will learn, after a while. The kid will learn that she doesn't get special meals made to her specifications, and she'll learn to not be so picky. (That's the theory). This is the tactic I should be using. I haven't used it yet because I am afraid. I am afraid of them going hungry, I am afraid of them not growing enough, I am afraid of getting in trouble with the doctor, I am afraid of them ending up freakishly short adults or something.

Over the past few months I have mostly lightened up on trying to force them to eat stuff. If they don't, I let it go. That was step 1. And yes, sometimes that means one kid ended up not really eating at a given meal. But it doesn't seem to have really hurt them. Step 2 is to stop pre-arranging about 6 or 7 different items on the menu every single mealtime (in chronological order from least desirable to most desirable in their eyes) to more or less ensure that they'll at least eat pretty well even if I don't actively try to make it so. I need to stop doing that, because it's contributing to the pickyness. And step 3 is to go whole hog. Stop with the baby foods, start with just offering what we eat, with one item I know they'll like each time, and if they don't like the meal, then tough. You can eat at the next meal.

I'm not ready for step 3 yet, but my goal is to get there by this summer. At 2.5 I have to take Nora in for another weigh-in, and at that time if her weight is okay I'll talk to her doctor and get the okay to move ahead with that plan. We need to make mealtime much less dramatic and less of a power struggle. Because a person can only listen to crazy stressed out nonstop crying through dinner for so many nights in a row. It ruins the gustatory experience.

Pictured here is Nora eating, you guessed it, bread.

Crimes

The town I live in regularly makes it into the top ten places to raise a family, top cities for women's health, etc. It's supposed to be this healthy, friendly, safe, interesting, fun town. I guess technically it's a city but it's the smallest place I've ever lived in my adult life, by far, and it feels like a town to me.

I commute to and from work on a bike path that is separate from streets and sidewalks. I only have to think about traffic once on my commute, when the path intersects with a major road. I also run on that bike path on the weekends. I also regularly took the kids on it in their stroller, back when they would consent to stay still in a stroller, and we would go to a playground just off the path. My point is that I use this bike path constantly to go anywhere.

But this weekend we had two crimes on the bike path. The first one happened a block from my office, on a part where I travel every time I go to work. A college student, a woman, was robbed at gunpoint on the path. It happened at about 7:30 p.m. There have been many, many times when I've left work later than that to walk home on the path.

Then on Sunday morning a woman jogger was accosted on the bike path a mere block from my house. A man hissed at her, showed his teeth, and then tackled her on the path. She fought him off and ran away.

I've always thought of the bike path as safe, even though it does feel a little creepy sometimes late at night if I'm walking alone. Sometimes I have taken a street route if it's particularly late, just because the path isn't lit and it gets very, very dark. But for the most part, I walk on the path without thinking about it. It's usually well populated but there have been times when I've, say, walked to work early on a Saturday morning and the path has been deserted. Now should I think twice about this? I don't want to give up my bike path runs or my walking commute to work. I don't want to live my life in fear of something that's statistically improbable. Maybe I should get some pepper spray or something? The jogger who was accosted is scarier to me than the woman who was robbed at gunpoint, for some reason. Just because the story seemed so strange and creepy. Neither man has been caught.

Maybe I should take a self defense course!

P.S.

The cat just puked.

Rain

We're having a veritable heat wave here. It warmed up above freezing this weekend and rained off an on the whole time. This was so awesome (I thought...) because we have giant piles of snow everywhere, and the rain is getting rid of some of it. Our roof had some ice dams and the rain finally got rid of them; this morning I stepped outside to enormous chunks of ice on our door step, and by enormous I mean one cubic foot chunks. Ridiculously huge! If anybody had been standing on the door step when the ice fell, that person would be deader than a doornail.

It was so nice to have some warmth in the deepest recesses of January. It could easily be 15 below right now, but instead it got up to 40 degrees and there were, of course, people running on the bike path in shorts. Yesterday morning I employed my latest toddler-control tactic, which is divide and conquer. The kids are fighting constantly now and it is driving me nuts. Recently I wrote about how Nora doesn't physically attack Milo, and she must have gotten onto the blog and read that and resolved to do something about it. Because now, when Milo tears a toy out of her hand (about every 5 seconds if I'm not right there to physically stop him), Nora will a) bite him, b) push him, c) box him about the ears, or d) all of the above. It's like a multiple choice test from hell. Then Milo screams and cries in pain and anger, and Nora is already screaming and crying in anger from the toy snatching, and I continue to die a little inside.

So...where was I? Oh right, divide and conquer. The kids do best when they can get out and do various activities, keeping too busy to fight. So in the morning I took Milo grocery shopping and then we went to the shoe store so that he could get his foot measured (5.5). There was a train table at the shoe store, and a giant stuffed tiger, and Milo was in heaven. There was also a tv playing a cartoon. Milo saw it and said "music on the computer!". This is because his experience with videos comes from the times when I will load up a you tube Sesame Street clip on my laptop. These pretty much always involve songs, so Milo calls it music. Anyway, he had a great time, and so did I.

That afternoon after their naps I took Nora to one of the local libraries. All of the libraries around here have kid areas, so we played with the toys and did some coloring and read some books. Then it was time for Nora's snack so we went to the coffee shop next door and Nora sat at the table with me and ate her snack and drank her milk like such a grown-up little lady. It was truly lovely. As we walked back to the car through the fog and mist I commented to her how wonderful the weather was, what with it being so warm and moist and all.

The kids always melt down before dinner. I don't know how to fix that. Snack, no snack, late snack, early snack, dinner appetizers, no appetizers, it doesn't seem to matter. They melt down and then one of them is usually a mess at dinner, and there is pretty much always crying involved, and it sucks. Usually at least one kid refuses to eat stuff. Sometimes at least one kid refuses to eat, period. By the end of the meal I am always barely holding it together, one giant raw nerve.

This morning, Sunday, I woke up after a night of solid rain. I got on my running clothes and pried Milo off of me, him crying and demanding that I hold him and going into full-on tantrum mode at my attempt to leave the house (this is what I go through whenever I want to do any damn thing), and finally make it down to the basement to get my shoes on and...squish. Water. Under my feet. Everywhere. Our basement had flooded. I can't even get into how much this sucks, especially since the last time this happened we thought the water was coming in through the chimney and we fixed that problem. Run cancelled, morning shot to hell, spent simultaneously trying to take care of the kids and clean up the water in the basement. The kids were a wreck all day today. I mean, constant crying and yelling. Both wanted to be held all the time (it's like a competition) and when one parent is sopping up water, the other parent cannot physically hold both kids at once, and it's just a mess. By the end of today I had just about reached the end of my rope. And now we have to do something about the basement, right after we've tapped ourselves out what with building a bathroom and all. We can't even figure out where it's coming from.

Sometimes it seems like everything is just crumbling to pieces a little bit at a time. Anything I clean gets messy and destroyed in a day. Any step forward with the kids is followed by a couple of steps backwards. Any attempt to do something healthy and enjoyable for myself is foiled by emergency room visits or flooded basements. Tonight Jake remarked that we just have to hold on until...and I said, until what? Because when, exactly, are things supposed to get easier? He had no answer. Just hold on, he said.

(Of course I'm being melodramatic. It's not always terrible. There are cute times too.)

What Travel Means

It's spring (semester) and that means travel, to NSF review panels, PI meetings, and academic conferences. What do trips mean? Hopefully no trauma for the family in my absence, but in these terrible, horrible, no good, very bad twos, who knows! Trips also mean trying to eat healthily in airports and at conference buffets, checking out the hotel workout rooms, and then collapsing into bed and watching trashy tv at night after gorging on unhealthy meals with my colleagues and totally failing to get on the treadmill.

Most of these trips involve me getting up and giving talks about my work to big (or small) rooms of people, so a gal has to look good. I always get the itch to do some spring conference travel shopping in January and February. It's time for short jackets over cotton knits, long black slacks with a slight boot cut, silver earrings, trench coats in spring colors, and pencil skirts. I dress to look taller than I really am. I used to dress to look older than I was, but now I'm plenty old enough so I just dress my age.

Sadly, my tastes tend to be way out of line with my more modest professor lifestyle and salary, so no Fidji shoes this year. But some day...

On a less frivolous note, I am nervous about traveling right now because the kids are so whacked out. Nora cries when she has to sit in her chair at dinner time (1 foot away from me) rather than right on my lap, so who knows how she'll do when I'm in a whole other state. Milo has also recently begun to grow oddly clingy to both me and Jake. The kids are fighting like cats and dogs and my god, the crying. The yelling. The tantrums. It's unbelievable. I really hope that there is something about this age, and this is normal, rather than our two particular kids happening to be a couple of giant assholes. Nora tends to do fine without me once I'm gone, so I think the kids will be okay, but I'm worried about poor Jake having to deal with the tempest that is newly-turned 2 without a wingman. I'm pretty sure I'd lose my cool if I were doing this on my own for a few days.

I recently turned down an interesting trip in which I could have made some pretty good money but the task required 5 days of work, so I would have had to be gone for about 6 days or so. When I mentioned it to Jake his head turned around 360 degrees, so I wisely backed away from that idea. I can't blame him -- a week is just way, way too long to fly solo with the kids every night. After the kids were born I accepted almost none of the travel opportunities that came my way. At this point I accept maybe about half of them. Every time I fly I feel guilty about who I am leaving behind. This kind of travel is beneficial to a person's career, and every opportunity I turn down is -- well, it doesn't help my reputation, but that is the reality of being a mother. It's a compromise I'm totally happy to make, especially since in the end I'm kind of a home body anyway.

I also view travel differently now than I used to thanks to my home life. The things that were previously tedious, like being in airports or going from hotel to hotel, are now luxurious to me. I have a 2-hour layover? Sounds great, time to have a little snack and maybe actually look at a magazine! And if anybody screams or cries, it is not my problem and I can just walk away. In the hotel I can watch tv (we don't have tv at home), which is a guilty pleasure, and I can enjoy the exceptionally rare experience of solitude. When I get up in the morning, the only person I have to get dressed and fed is myself. Like I said...luxury. Everything feels a little decadent.

It's odd how you can simultaneously revel in those little joys and luxuries of being without your family while simultaneously missing them so much it is like a physical ache. The other side of airport travel is that I find my eye wandering to every baby and toddler I see. I want to pick them up. I suddenly miss the heft of a child cradled in my left arm. I do inane things like sift through pictures and videos on iPhoto, looking at every snapshot I've taken of the kids over the past year. It is a luxury to travel, and it is a joy to come home. Like drinking deep from a well after a long period of thirst.

Stressing Me Out

8:45 -- Bedtime was an hour and a half ago but the kids are still wide awake and wired. They are keeping each other up, throwing stuff, losing their pacifiers, looking out the window, and having weird conversations. For instance:

Nora: Uh oh, spettigos! Say 'uh oh, spettigos' Milo.

Milo: Okay. Uh oh, spettigos!

Or,

Milo: Noonah's looking out the window! (Repeat 50 times)

Nora: Talking like a zebra!

Milo: Say 'talking like a zebra' again, Noonah.

Nora: Talking like a zebra!

Milo: Say it again!

Nora: No, I already said it!

Or,

Milo: One, two, five, four, counting to four. (Singing Feist song) OoooooOOOOO, counting to four. OoooooOOOOO, let's count some more.

[Giant crash]

Milo: Oh, Noonah! Oh Noonah baby!

Or,

Nora: [coughing fit]

Nora: I coughed. Excuse me!

Meanwhile Jake just finished a movie on his laptop and had this commentary:

Jake: Oh for Christ's sakes you can't just play some groovy tunes over footage of crap nothing and call it a movie!

I have 10 grant proposals to review in the next couple of weeks and it is impossible for me to get this work done when the kids are going nuts instead of sleeping!

This stresses me out because they're going to be cranky and tired tomorrow, because I wonder if they'll still be up when we go to bed, thus keeping me up, and because I wonder if this is the start of something that will require us separating them. Which would mean losing our office, and I don't want to lose the office space yet.

-- As of 9:20 the kids were jumping up and down in their cribs like maniacs. I finally separated them and put Nora in a pack and play in our room. I can hear Milo over the monitor:

Milo: Noonah! Noonah! Noonah! Noonah! [Sounding upset]

Milo: Nora's not in the crib. [Sounding calmer]

Milo: [Singing] Noonah, Noonah, Noonah, Noonah...

It's finally starting to quiet down now. Sheesh. Oh wait, I was wrong. Milo is getting more and more upset. Calling out for Nora, me, and Daddy. Nora fell asleep quickly once I removed her from Milo's mania.

-- 10 p.m. Rocked Milo in the glider for 15 minutes. He calmed down and finally relaxed for the first time all night. Put him back in his crib and he is at least quiet now.

-- 10:30. Both kids finally asleep.

It's strange that it was Milo who was completely wired and unable to sleep, and keeping his sister up. Usually Milo is Mr. Sleep. I've never seen him try to climb out of his crib, but I've seen him try to climb into his crib several times. Historically all of the sleep drama has been with Nora, and things are so different now that Nora is on medicine for reflux. It has been a night-and-day difference. Even like tonight, when she was awake, she hasn't cried. Before, as soon as she woke Nora would cry, hard, and I think it must have been because she was in pain. Once we put her back on the reflux medicine, at I can't remember, 21 months or something, Nora started sleeping through the night for the first time ever. I am so, so glad that she isn't suffering any more. It's only now, many months later, that I don't go to bed in constant fear that tonight is going to be one of those nights where we're up for hours, Nora is inconsolable, and things end with me getting puked on. Any time either of them makes a peep or a cry in the middle of the night, though, I am instantly wide awake, heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, thrown right back into the bad old days of nighttime agony.

Weird stuff like this is why I have a sleeping problem.

Hate

There is nothing I hate more than dinnertime. HATE IT.

Slow Parenting

I was reading a blog in which some of the commenters were sharing their experiences in starting up various clubs for their elementary-school children. In one case, a mother started up a Lego club, and in another a mother started up a board-games club.

My reaction to this is, WTF? Now you need a club to play with legos and to play games? Can't you just, you know, play with legos? Or get together with your friends and play some games? We seriously have to make a club for this? And not only that, but the kids themselves aren't making the clubs, their moms are doing it for them?!?

This is so not me. And I don't think it has to do with the work/SAH divide either -- even if I weren't working, I highly doubt I'd be organizing clubs like that. I do think there's some benefit to leaving kids alone to play on their own every now and then. To make up their own games and roam around in giant feral packs in which they blow conch shells and steal Piggy's glasses.

I'll let you know how this plan plays out if my daughter ever consents to playing on her own, without Mama holding her or watching her. If it works out, I envision relaxing afternoons on the sofa, reading magazines and sipping iced tea whilst the children play happily at their own games.

So in theory, I espouse a more laid-back, hands-off approach to parenting in contrast to the hothouse environment in which many kids find themselves these days. But I have also realized lately that it's easier to philosophize about this than to put it into action. In particular, there is the issue of preschool. This fall, the kids will be 2 years and 9 months old. Too young for preschool right? I never went to preschool that young, nor did my peers. But in my neighborhood, all of the parents start sending their kids to preschool at age 2.

I don't believe there is much of a benefit to this -- or rather, I think there would be benefits, but they'd be outweighed by the costs in terms of the kids getting sick all the time, the hassle it would introduce into our lives to be up and out the door by a specified time each morning, and, mainly, the stress it would pose for Nora. My insticts tell me that Nora won't be ready. That she will cry and rend her garments, and I don't want her to end up the Piggy of the group. Also, the kids will only be TWO. Can't they go to preschool when they're 3 years and 9 months? Our city will have 4-year old half-day kindergarten by the time they're 4, and full-day kindergarten when they're 5, so it's not like there isn't a whole hell of a lot of school in their near future.

So, I don't think it makes sense to send them to preschool this fall, but it has turned out to be harder to stick by this than I thought it would be. The kids have friends in the neighborhood, and those parents are spending this month visiting the various preschools and getting on the various waiting lists. Open houses are in January and I'm not attending them. I am the lone resister. Come fall, the other parents will be posting pictures to FB of "Caleb's first day of school!" complete with backpack and lunch pail, and meanwhile Nora and Milo will be busy trying to shove a crayon up each other's noses.

They might also play with some Legos, but damn if I'm going to start a club.

Bullets of Bullets

• Milo has a fascination with my belly. I don't know if it has anything to do with my occasional remarks that he and Nora used to live in my belly when they were very tiny babies (sex ed starts early here, yo), but I doubt it, because he's been interested in my belly since way before he could talk. As a small baby he used to dig his hands into it and grab my loose folds of belly skin. (Sexy. I know.) Now that he's older he'll ask "Where's Mama's belly? Where's Mama's belly button?" and if I'm lying on the floor he'll ask "Want to hug it?" Then he'll gently place his soft, soft cheek against my belly. He's such a sweet boy.
• My throat hurts and I'm tired and achy, but mostly tired. Endlessly, endlessly tired. It is just the new normal, I guess. Always tired. Never any time to rest. Crawling through a giant pile of oatmeal. My doctor gave me some Ambien and I tried it one night, and seemed to sleep well, but the next day I still caught myself nodding off at my desk. So what's the point if I don't feel rested during the day?
• Nora has a cold (don't know if it's unrelated to the rash). Tonight over the monitor we could hear her coughing and sniffling and making these little grunty distress noises as she tried to fall asleep for over an hour. She never cried or asked for us, but was clearly tossing and turning for ages as she struggled to fall asleep. She's finally asleep now, poor thing.

Laura tagged me to make a list of 10 things that make me happy. That's a good thing to focus on! Here are 10 things that pop into my mind without a lot of thought put in to them:

1. Milo's belly hugs.
2. Nora and Milo's morning conversations between themselves before we all get up.
3. The last 5 minutes of a good workout, and that feeling when I walk in the door all loose and spent and energized.
4. Cuddling with our two cats, Sam & Caspian.
5. Evenings "off" (when I decide not to work) with Jake after the kids are in bed and we can cuddle up and watch a movie together.
6. A good, productive writing day at work, when I feel like I've really accomplished something.
7. Time spent with friends...meeting up for dinner, or having folks over for drinks, or stealing a couple of hours to meet up with a friend at a coffee shop. Yesterday I did this with a work friend and after 2 hours and a bottle of wine I walked out into the crisp evening air with a feeling of joy in my heart.
8. Great music.
9. Walking home on the bike path, and that moment when I go under our little ivy-covered stone bridge, and emerge on the other side on my street, with my house up ahead, and the park in the background, and seeing Jake in the kitchen window.
10. Going to bed at night with the knowledge that I can sleep in as late as I want the next day. (Last time that happened was, er...about 9 months ago or so).

Rash

Nora has a rash all over her back and a little bit on her chest. We called the doctor and based on the description of the rash, the nurse said to just watch it over the weekend. It's not hives and doesn't look like chicken pox. It actually looks like a bad heat rash but I'd be surprised if that were it given our weather. I tried to take Nora's temperature today (rectal thermometer) but she was having none of that. I didn't know a child could clench so tightly. Time to invest in a new thermometer for the kids.

I hope the rash is nothing...

Discipline

I've been reading about discipline and trying to figure out what is appropriate for a 2-year old and I realize, the one who I'm struggling with regarding discipline is Milo. Nora basically has one discipline issue, and that is whining (and the associated fake crying). I'm trying to talk about using a big girl voice, I pretend I can't understand her when she's whining, but none of these tactics are working all that well. She whines and fusses because she's stressing out or freaking out (basically when I don't hold her because I'm trying to cook or something), so I don't think she's very good yet at being able to tone it down.

Otherwise, though, Nora is a good listener. She doesn't throw stuff. She doesn't try to kill the cats. And she is not aggressive with other people, i.e., Milo. If some egregious act is perpetrated upon her, she's basically a verbal responder. She'll yell and cry about how Milo took this that or the other from her, and yell at him to give it back. But that's about as bad as it gets. Nora also responds well to suggestions like putting away her toys, and is eager to help. (However, I have to amend this to note that since writing this, Nora did kick Milo in the face, so things aren't all perfect for her!)

Milo, though...ah, Milo. The kids' strengths are so different. Milo is great with other people, not at all shy, and he is friendly and outgoing. This makes things like nanny transitions a piece of cake for Milo. But he is also the one who keeps doing things that have me diving into the books to figure out the "right" way to discipline him.

Milo is very aggressive with Nora. He constantly snatches things out of her hands. He just goes right after her and grabs whatever it is she is holding and tears it right out of her tight little grip, causing her to scream and yell. He does this all the time. Milo has also been known to do things like forcibly pull Nora off a stool, making her fall and hit her mouth. Milo also still throws his food during mealtime (an old standby) and throws his toys (rarely these days, at least). Most of the discipline stuff comes out of sibling rivalry with Nora.

Okay, so two-year olds aren't so great at logic yet. They need immediate consequences that are gentle and delivered with empathy, but get to the heart of the infraction. Every time I see Milo trying to wrench something out of Nora's hands (or hitting her hand to get at it), I obviously prevent him from doing it. But is it also time to maybe put him in time-out for a minute? The consequence for a 2-year old needs to be pretty clear cut. So lately I've been making him sit down wherever he is for a few seconds, to calm down. Usually at this point Milo is angry that I have foiled the success of his toy-snatching plan. So at this point my lame discipline attempt is a) prevent toy snatching, and b) gently sit him down for a few seconds until he calms down. Oh, and I'll have him apologize to Nora.

We also do talk about empathy a lot, or rather I'm trying to foster empathy and I talk about how angry and sad Nora gets when Milo takes his toy. I also talk about how happy Nora is when Milo gives her something or lets her keep what she is playing with. The empathy stuff seems to be working better than anything, and has spurred both of them to give things to one another and spontaneously share more than they used to. Usually after a few minutes with whatever toy Milo wanted, I'll then ask Nora if she's ready to give it to him, which she often is.

Well anyway, these reactions on my part haven't really extinguished the behavior so maybe I should be doing something more. I don't know. The toy throwing is easy -- if you throw a toy, you lose the toy. No lecturing or anything, just a sad "uh oh, toys aren't for throwing, we have to say bye to the toy". Then I'll encourage Milo to throw a ball if he wants to throw something. This strategy has worked pretty well and Milo doesn't throw toys much anymore.

Throwing food at dinner, however, is something that drives me nuts and he keeps doing it. I know that part of the problem is that I haven't yet resorted to the most logical thing to do: "Uh oh, you're throwing food, looks like dinner is all done for you" and immediately get him down and end the meal. My reluctance to do this is because he is still on the cusp of underweight and not a great eater, and also I think Milo would like to get down and end the meal. So I'm not sure if it would extinguish the behavior, or if it would just encourage it. But what else to do? One thing we do is as soon as he starts throwing something, we immediately take it away and he doesn't get that food any more. But usually he only throws because he's not interested in that food anyway.

One thing Milo responds to very well is having choices. I love this technique. If he doesn't want to go upstairs to get his diaper changed, and starts wailing and fussing and refusing to do it, I'll ask "Do you want to walk up the stairs yourself, or do you want me to carry you up the stairs?" He'll respond with a cheerful "Walk yourself!" and boom, problem fixed. I'm trying to remember to give the kids choices all the time, not just when I'm trying to fix a problem or make them do something they don't want to do.

The choice thing with Nora sort of works, but she definitely views it with suspicion. Sometimes she clues in to the fact that she is not a huge fan of either choice.

I think one reason I am trying to read about discipline is that I don't have a lot of confidence about what is fair and appropriate for a two-year old who has such limited concepts of time, cause and effect relationships, logic, consequences, etc. I feel pretty confident about how I'd deal with a 5-year old, or an 8-year old, and once we're in the pre-teen and teen years, I feel very comfortable with that since I have so much experience with older kids. But something that is reasonable to a 5-year old is obviously not going to be reasonable for a 2-year old who doesn't even really get the notion of "tomorrow" and "yesterday". So what is reasonable? It's tricky. I don't want to raise a couple of assholes who are undisciplined and think they can behave rudely to people. But I also don't want to spend a lot of energy doing discipline techniques that only confuse or upset them.

Any advice welcome from anybody, as long as you're not my mother in law.

To end on a sort of funny note, Nora has started to develop this behavior that's...I don't exactly know how to describe it. It's not exactly manipulative, per se, and it's not completely dishonest, but it does involve some thinking ahead. For instance, she loves to have medicine because it tastes good. Nora has also noticed that when I figure out that she has a tooth coming through and she is in pain, I'll give her some Tylenol. So now, even when she doesn't have a tooth coming in but gets a hankering for some of that sweet medicine, she'll say "My mouth hurts." Big pause. And then, like it's a totally new idea that she just came up with on the spot, "Want medicine?" Like oh, hey, uh, my mouth hurts. I wonder what we can do about that. Hey, maybe some medicine? How's that for an idea?

This morning the kids were downstairs with Jake and I went upstairs to take a shower, which Nora did not appreciate. She really wanted to be upstairs with me, and she was fussing about it and crying some. Then she went to Jake and said, "Want to sit on the potty? Want to pee in the potty?" Jake was all, okay, great, I'm glad you told me, let's go! Thus taking her upstairs, which is where she wanted to go all along. As Nora's climbing up the stairs I hear her chattering her little inner monologue, totally blowing the whole "potty" cover: "I'm going upstairs to see Mommy! Mommy Mommy Mommy! I'm going to see Mommy in the shower! [maniacal laughter] Mommy!"

More Updates

Today at the library Nora was using the children's computer. She picked up the mouse and said "This is my iPod." She then said "I'm using the computer, I'm at my office!" There were some moms there who were cracking up and asking the Twin Whisperer how old Nora is.

Tonight at dinner Milo took a dump in his diaper. His face got bright red, and he clearly exerted effort, and then when he was done he said, "Excuse me!" Jake and I cracked up. Just something about saying "excuse me" after crapping your pants at the dinner table is comedy gold.

On a somber note, today was the Twin Whisperer's last day, and starting on Wednesday we switch over to the new nanny, who I'll call Buddy, for lack of a better pseudonym. The Twin Whisperer initially only intended to stay with us until the kids were 1, because she specializes in babies (and can get a much better hourly rate doing night-nurse duty with newborns). But she loved the kids, and they loved her, and we love her, and she stayed. Each time a new semester would come, she'd commit to staying one more semester. Her plan was to leave in January after they turned 2. She has another gig lined up and at 60, I think it has been getting very tiring for her to chase after two toddlers. So we found another nanny, and liked her, and offered her the position. And then the Twin Whisperer said "well, maybe I could stay longer..." but we had already offered it to Buddy and I didn't feel that it was right to go back on our word. The Twin Whisperer understood that completely, and plus we really want somebody who can commit to them long-term until they go to school, so that we can minimize transitions. Buddy can do that and the Twin Whisperer isn't in a place where she knows what she'll be doing in a year or two...I think she is secretly hoping and praying that her daughter gets pregnant, so that she can jump into full-time Grandma mode!

So, anyway, the Twin Whisperer is moving on and we are all very sad about it. She was sad today, but hid it well from the kids. She is coming back next week to go with me to the toddler gym one morning, and she'll continue to visit and babysit regularly, because she loves the kids so much. And on my end, I just couldn't have asked for a better nanny. She has been so wonderful for our family. The kids adore her, she is so warm and energetic and smart and always has great ideas for things to do with them and how to handle them. She has taught them so much and I attribute most of their knowledge and incredible verbal skills to her. She has also been incredibly reliable, honest, trustworthy, and industrious. We really, really lucked out. Honestly if I had to rank who I think it would be best for the kids to be with during the day, I'd place her as #1 and me as #2. She's just so darn good at it.

Buddy is younger and Nora is going to need some time to warm up to her, but she seems perfectly lovely and I hope it'll work out fine. Her former family is actually the family that the Twin Whisperer worked for before she moved on to us, so Buddy is following in the Twin Whisperer's footsteps again. The Twin Whisperer takes kids when they're babies, and then Buddy takes over when they're toddlers and preschoolers. I know that Buddy will be great, but of course nobody is like the Twin Whisperer, so it's a sad day today.

Weekend Updates

I love it that I can actually have little conversations with the kids now about what they did during the day. Some of it might have happened, some of it might have happened weeks ago or not at all, but it's great to even get to this stage. Tonight at dinner:

Me: So, did you take a bath today? (This happened just half an hour ago with Jake while I cooked dinner)

Milo: I did!

Nora: Nora took a bath too!

Me: What did you do in the bath?

Nora: Played cups!

Milo: I blowed bubbles!

Earlier today while reading books, Nora sneezed. Milo said, "Excuse me!" (We're working on learning politeness phrases, but obviously still have some work to do!)

Before bath when I was in the kitchen, Nora walked up to me. "Mommy don't cook. Mommy come out of the kitchen. Go into the living room and read a book." She's getting bossy these days.

Whenever Jake and I start to laugh (this is especially at the dinner table) Milo will get visibly upset and say emphatically "No funnies! No funnies!" Sometimes he'll even cry. He likes to laugh himself but seems upset when we laugh...maybe he thinks we're laughing at him?

This morning I woke up and turned on the monitor to see if the kids were awake yet. I didn't hear anything for a while and then heard Milo say "Where's Noonah?" Nora said "I'm right here! I'm right here, Minetone!" (Her latest nickname for him is Minetone. Milo still likes to call Nora Noonah on occasion).

So Awesome

Yesterday Jake had a job interview. They told him that they would make a decision sometime in the next couple of weeks. But today, the very next day, they called him up and offered the job!

This is great news for Jake because he has been so worried that he would graduate and there would be no jobs. He is preparing for public service jobs, which typically mean state government jobs, and our state is just like most these days, with serious money problems, furloughs, and layoffs. The jobs are few and far between. To get this job offer is a huge deal for Jake, and for us. If he takes it we will become a two income family! Hooray!

It is not his dream job, but it is a good job that interests him. People typically grow in this position and sometimes use it to launch into other areas. Jake hasn't decided yet if he'll take it, but I suspect he will. The job will start sometime in June after he graduates. How wonderful for him to be able to relax and know that he will have a job waiting for him! The amount of energy Jake has devoted to worrying about the future job situation has not been trivial, so to get a job offer this early in the game is a wonderful thing. I don't even know where he'll devote his worrying energy now.

What a great day for Jake, and what a relief.

Now With Profanity

Good old Milo. He's so open to any new person these days, always ready with a smile and willing to be goofy to show off in front of his new friend. I remember when the kids were babies it was Milo who was much more shy, and I worried about him far more than Nora. I could hand off Nora to anybody and she'd be fine, but Milo would cry in the arms of a new person.

But now, they've switched places and poor Nora is not having an easy time these days. The timing is bad. She's trying to adjust to a new nanny while also simultaneously having dealt with a solid week of in-laws in the house, who stress her out and frighten her. There's nothing wrong with them, they don't go around yelling or hitting or anything, they mostly just want to play with the kids and love them, but the problem is that they're new and Nora is just not down with new right now. So it has been a solid week of hell for me and Jake, a week of way more work than usual because any time we're home we need to be holding Nora. It made it hard to make dinner, go to the bathroom, eat a meal, exist, etc.

Nora's clingyness lingered today even after the in-laws left. As soon as Milo got up, she wanted to be held and threw a tantrum when I had to change Milo's diaper (since I cannot simultaneously hold Nora and change Milo). And frankly, I've had it. I've had it. My god, the whining, the sort of fake crying with no actual tears but plenty of heartache, the loud, grinding, never-ending noise of it, the fact that I have to choose at any given time between holding a 20-lb squirmy toddler in my tired arms or listening to that noise again. And those books that tell you to ignore the whining/crying, or tell the child that you can't understand when she uses that voice and can only understand a big-girl voice? Those books can go fuck themselves. I am doing that stuff and it is not working. It just results in more and more whining/crying, and Nora getting more and more upset, and did I mention that I have had it?

Not to mention, I miss being able to interact more with Milo! It's great to hold Nora and all, but when it's all the time that means I don't get to hold Milo, or play with him as much, and I'd like to have some time with Milo too. Nora, however, seems to believe I am her own personal bitch. Not to be shared.

I've had it. Thank god parents come in teams. I am so lucky to not be a single parent because I don't know how I would keep it together if Jake weren't there when I need to leave the room and calm down. Or in the case of tonight, leave the entire house and just get the hell out of there for an hour or two. Okay, I had to work too, but my god, I just can't take it anymore. I am at the end of my rope, and so is Nora, and I really hope she starts to chill out soon or we're all going to go up in a ball of flames or something. Seriously.

What the...

I have just read this sentence about 8 times. Still can't parse it:

"This analysis of data provided two overarching categories were distinguished for both academic and social behavioral components between students’ interactions, skills, knowledge and information needed to move to more advanced levels of mathematical thinking are identified."

Note to students: You cannot write a paper by randomly stringing together a bunch of high-falutin' sounding phrases!

New Year's

Things are exhausting right now because with the in-laws here, Nora is seriously clingy and not willing to play with them or let me or Jake out of her sight. Milo is doing well and loves all of the attention. Nora, however, is feeling very insecure and any time my MiL walks into the room or approaches Nora, she cries and demands that I hold her. This makes it really hard to cook dinner (which I have to do every day this week) or get anything else done. Last night we left the kids with the in-laws and went to a party. The party was awesome, but I think we might have pushed things too much in leaving the kids with the in-laws because Nora just freaked out and is probably more clingy today as a result. Poor kid. She just doesn't seem to feel safe in the world right now. So I'm holding her all the time. One day she won't want to be held all the time, and I'll probably miss it.

Meanwhile I've been thinking about last year's resolution...

2008 was basically a year of coping, trying to make it from one day to the next. 2009 was a year of recovery. I had gained weight in '08 (or, I guess, '07, with the pregnancy and all) and didn't feel ready to do anything about it until the babies were a year old. I was too busy just making it from day to day.

By 2009 I was ready to try to regain some control over my body, and I've been working on that all year. It's gone pretty well. I lost 12 pounds but my real goal was something more like 16, so maybe that goal wasn't realistic in this new post-baby body I have. But maybe it is, because I could have done more in '09. I did re-discover my love of running and exercise, and finding (making) the time for it has been a very positive thing. I changed how I eat. I could probably change some more. I put on a few pounds during the hectic time in the fall and over the holidays, but now the holidays are over so I am working on taking them off again. The way I see it, this is a journey that isn't going to end. I will always have to be somewhat deliberate about my choices if I want to stay fit.

So I see 2010 as a year to continue the changes I made in '09 and maybe even to shift from recovery to thriving. When New Year's 2008 arrived, I could barely even walk around the block, and was in constant pain. It was months before I was able to walk anywhere without serious back pain. So I have come a long way in 2 years. I have a complicated relationship with fitness now because my body is so messed up and simultaneously aging. It is clear that my belly is never going to recover or look "normal" again. In addition, I am getting old, so sometimes I feel like I am just way past my prime and ready to be put out to pasture, so why bother?

My reasons to bother are more about feeling strong and fit now, rather than looking good, I guess. Those reasons are more motivating now since the whole looks thing is just a losing battle. But it does feel good to feel strong. To be able to run. To be more in shape. To have more energy. And it feels good when I am at a lighter weight, it feels better in terms of how my body does running, how my clothes fit, etc. So, the work continues. I have been continuously working on this for a year now and feel motivated to keep going, which I think is a sign of the right attitude -- dietary/exercise changes can't be temporary, right? It has to be a lifelong thing.

I struggle with guilt and time, like every mother. I am either parenting or I am working. Taking the time to exercise means burdening Jake with extra childcare duties, and I feel guilty about that. I also feel guilty about taking the time away from the kids because I'm already away from them enough when I am at work. It feels indulgent, it feels a little wrong to take that time, but it is important for my health and well being, so I'm going to keep doing it. The solitary days of grad school, when I could work out every day and create whatever schedule I wanted for myself, those days are over. (Man, that was luxurious). The shape of it has changed now, the shape of my life is completely different now, but I can still focus on fitness, just in a different way. Fitness as an element of a balanced life is what I want to continue for 2010.