rambling

When F hits C and he starts in surprise and then scrunches up his face in panting little sobs, I just lose my mind. This morning I was nursing him on the couch and she was lounging beside me, all smiles and talking, when she suddenly kicked him (very on purpose) in the head. Inside I went ballistic. My internal reaction was so intense that I couldn't even respond to her--I just got up off the couch and walked away with the crying baby. I stayed mad at her a long time, which isn't helpful. She had, I'm sure, forgotten what she'd done, and wouldn't know why I was being short with her. I know it's not nearly the only time she'll be rough with him, and someday he'll be big enough to turn around and whop her back...

We're leaving for NC on Thursday, driving down with everyone in the car--Mitch, me, both babes, and the dog. 11 or more hours says mapquest, and that's obviously not including stopping to nurse the baby. It could take us days. I'm optimistic about it all; not about how quickly we'll get there, but about enjoying ourselves on the way, even if we don't arrive until Sunday. Today I tried to organize the house and pack; tomorrow I have to get the car completely loaded up so we can leave early early Thurs morning. All this and Mitch at school the whole time. I seriously don't know how single parents do this. Even with my two babysitters I'm completely exhausted, emotionally drained. I can't even wash a dish before both kids are in bed. By that time the kitchen is a war zone and I'm all out of juice.

F has started to bargain. When I say "only one song before bed," she says "two songs." And if I say, "okay, two songs and then it's time for bed," she says, "three songs." I keep my wits about me and stick to two. Her favorite phrase right now is "Cece play little bit," which means, "I want to play some more instead of do whatever it is you want me to." Night before last she woke at 3am crying hard, a bad dream, and when I went in she said, "Cece play little bit." Cece is what she calls herself. Used to be that's the best she could do with the name Frances, but now she can say it fine and chooses to still call herself Cece. If you say, "Is your name Cece?" she says, "no. Frances." Her other favorite phrase is "more talking mommy?" which means she wants me to tell her things--about the upcoming trip, about what we're going to do tomorrow, about things that have already happened. She loves to hear these stories. "More!" she says. "More talking mommy?" (which sounds like "ma-taki-mommy")

Oh my goodness I'm tired. It's 10pm and M just called to say he's on his way home. Poor guy is so stressed trying to finish his dissertation. Sometimes I think, "I'm not cut out for this," then I remember that I'm doing it alone and it won't be like this after this push to the end. It won't be like this after August. It won't be like this forever. It's my current mantra. Eye on the ball.

losing my mind

Here are the things I've lost:

My teeny tiny digital camera (expensive)
My fabulous baby sling that I used literally every day (expensive)
The new Clinique makeup my mom bought for me (never used)
My mouth/bite guard (quite expensive)
My o-so-stylish sunglasses (not expensive but very useful)
Much sleep (greatly missed)

alone with frances

We went to the zoo and the attraction F liked most was the water fountain.

C is now the age F was when, during my drive to work, I would fantasize about not stopping the car, driving on through the mountains and into Tennessee, staying at some motel where I would sleep all night long. I would wonder how long it would take my family to find me, but until then I would be free. I would see a movie, eat in a restaurant, soak in the bathtub. I don't have those fantasies this time, but I understand where they came from.

Today I had the sitter stay with C while I took F with me to the farmer's market. I strapped her on my back and we stood in the rain together, sharing an umbrella, and listened to a couple play bluegrass under a large white tent. She sleepily leaned into me and I could feel her breathing. It was quite possibly the first time we had been together, just us, without the baby since he was born. We're alone sometimes when he's sleeping, but I always have to listen for him--my attention is never fully with her. Besides, we can't leave the house then; we can't go out into the world together. Today was so sweet. I got choked up there in the rain listening to a girl with a guitar sing "Amarillo". I thought that it may be one of those moments I'll remember in stills, as if it were a photograph. I wonder if I will?

I realize that one of the things that's changed most since the baby is that I don't have the patience to let F dally as I did before. When we're trying to get in the car and she's crawling around on the floor and not getting in her seat I lose some patience, but it's b/c the baby is loaded up and strapped in, and until the car is moving he's going to get more and more agitated. Or I don't let her take her time w/ her lunch because the baby will in a few minutes need to nurse. I don't know if this is something I can change or not, this thinking that we need to always stay on task. I've realized recently that the baby is now old enough (can hold his head up well enough) for me to put him on my back which leaves my hands more free to play with her. I've been carrying him on my front but that means I can't bend over well to help her, or I can't pull her close. I'm also starting to use the stroller more. He's so content hanging out wherever... and it frees me up to be with her if he's in the stroller rather than on my front.

I miss her still. Sometimes I wish she were my only child. I'm a bit envious of my other friends who only have one, but I just keep repeating to myself the things other women w/ kids close together tell me: later I'll be glad; it will be hard for the first 2 years, then much easier; they'll have a great relationship. I try to believe them.

american clutter

There are days when I want to get rid of 80% of the stuff I own. I go through this purging process, weeding out--trash, goodwill, yardsale, ebay--but I feel like I only actually rid myself of about 5%. It's especially bad recently and has brought on a new level of anxiety. I don't know if that's because of the opening of boxes and the realization of how much we actually have, or if it's b/c I haven't gotten everything organized so there's not yet a place for everything. It makes straightening up difficult, and I find when I'm done there are all these little piles of things that don't have a place to go. I wonder, if I just swept them up and dumped them in the trash, if I would miss any of it.

Then sometimes I accept that this issue w/ stuff is an ailment particular to my station in life: I am american, I am middle class, I have kids. The last has certainly changed my relationship w/ clutter. Before kids there was less, certainly, and I also had more time to manage it. I haven't yet figured out how to quell the onslaught of toys that enters this house. Sometimes I want to give away half of them and suspect my daughter wouldn't notice, and the rest of the time I just contend with it and wait for the day when the kids have outgrown them and I can pass them on. This goes for kids clothes too, but they seem to be more manageable as they fold and pack away. My clothes are another issue that I do not know how to address. I have pre-pregnancy clothes, maternity clothes, transition clothes. It makes me tired.

Will I one day have the strength to get rid of the vast vast majority of it and live a simpler life? I hope so. But, honestly, it's doubtful. I'm trying to lean into the reality of my life, give in to the tide and relax. Maybe the answer is to not let it get me so anxious.

I own a mini van

I've joined the ranks! And I'm pretty excited about it all, though this morning after the sitter and I loaded the car with both kids and the dog (he had a hair appt) we discovered that the battery was dead. I have 14 miles on this car and the battery was dead. AAA came and fixed us up of course. I don't think it diminished my overall joy about the purchase.

F has decided she likes her sitter. They play Ring Around the Rosy together and since that began F now is excited for J to come. They include her dolly, holding the doll's hands, and when "we all fall down," Frances flings the baby to the floor and says, "Uh oh baby." She also carries around 4 or 5 of Clark's pacis and tries to force them into his mouth. She doesn't understand how anyone could not want a paci, but her brother does not. To demonstrate this for her I put them in his mouth one by one and he spits them out. Generally we only have to do this once a day, then we move on.

I still haven't found my camera which is making me nuts, but I do have a few pictures my cousin D took at the beach. I'm going to include them here. And then, when I'm done with this post, I'm going to go look again in the few unemptied boxes.

Things here in NY are not nearly as hard or dire as I had feared they'd be with the move. (Though having to deal w/ DMV a couple of days ago made me think I would slit my wrists). I got F enrolled in the very last spot in preschool starting in the fall--2 half days/week. I want to sign up for a "music together" class for us on another morning. Clark is the sweetest baby ever on earth which is not only wonderful in of itself, but also because I can't spend that much direct attention on him with F charging around shouting "Elmo World! Elmo World!" (my dad calls her the blond tornado). I'm so so fortunate that I'm able to use sitters a good bit while trying to organize this huge house. I miss our little one. Seriously. M is really stressed trying to finish his dissertation so we've scheduled sitters 4 eves/week to be here 4:30-7:30 to help me get F fed and in bed. Mitch comes home around 9, so he doesn't see her much right now, but it's got to be done. Will only be for 4 or 6 weeks. I like the company of the sitters and having the help in the arsenic hour keeps me sane.

And the weather here is amazing.

this is my life

Sometimes I wonder if I can keep doing this, being a full-time mom. It can be so tiring, emotionally draining, without much space to reenergize. Sometimes I wonder if this is how I want to spend my life, wonder what kind of life I would want to have instead. But then I remember that this isn't my whole life--just this stretch of time. My role as a mom is going to change as the kids grow; the amount of time I have to myself is going to increase, as well as my personal space. Eventually.

Today I got both kids down for naps and my aunt said she'd stay in the house with them while they slept. So I put on my bathing suit and rode my bike to the beach and swam with M, no kids to watch. It was heavenly. Riding a bike feels like ultimate freedom right now because there's no space on it for anyone but myself. I went again later, initially to tell my cousins when dinner is, but then I rode on by myself for awhile.

On the beach folks sit in circles, their chairs all facing in, telling stories. The sun is dim, thin clouds a gauzy screen as I ride on the packed sand by the shore. A dad picks up a toddler and swings him overhead. I can't hear anything but ocean and wind; it's like watching those old home movies, everything more picturesque without the minutiae of sound. I think that this man's life will change too--his kids will get older at the same pace as mine. We will have adolescents, teenagers. I believe people when they tell me it happens all too quickly. But today there are four children under four in our beach house. Next year there may be five; the year after, six. It's loud, it's busy. It's tiring and charming and tonight my cousin Danny recorded a video of Frances and Henry playing ring around the rosy together, Frances holding Henry's hands and gazing with awe up into his 3-year-old face as he chanted the rhyme. They were pure loveliness.

beach week

I'm at the beach which is wonderful in its beachy way, but also not so relaxing with little kids, it turns out. Of course, there are grandparents and cousins and aunts here which makes things much much much easier, but I still can't lie back in a chair on the beach, close my eyes, and listen to the waves. M said he feels very relaxed and like he's having a break, that he loves the time to play w/ F in the sand. But I play with her all the time. Playing with her is not a break from anything for me. I think the problem, however, is that I feel like I still should be primarily responsible for the kids. But perhaps I should just let go of that and realize that the other folks here who are helping with the kids (dad, grandma, aunt J,) want to be doing this, and I should just let them. I should indeed close my eyes on the beach once in a while and trust that (1) other folks will make sure the kids are safe, and (2) I'm not burdening others by letting go.

This is the essential problem with the "family vacation." My fantasies about a caribbean vacation with just M have amped up.

I still can't find my camera. Maybe the movers stole it. (I don't really believe that...) But I might have to buy an inexpensive one until mine turns up. I'm missing documenting the early months of Clark's life! He's already going to want to know why his baby book is much less attended to than F's.--and then to have no pictures! I now fully understand why there are many fewer mementos of the 2nd and 3rd kid, and it's not due to a lost camera.

When we were having so much trouble getting pregnant I would look at the toddlers on the beach and I would feel this ache, thinking how wonderful and sweet it would be to be at the beach with my husband and child. And it is, of course, but not in that warm glow of love kind of way that I imagined. Reality always has sharper edges than you expect, comes laden with the struggle and tantrums and leaky diapers as well as the joy. It's important to remember that it's the combination of the two that makes it so worthwhile.

obsessing

I'm obsessing. Right now I'm obsessing about the neighborhood we've moved into--wondering if we made the wrong choice. I don't actually think we did, but I'm not fully comfortable here yet and it's probably just my loneliness and feeling displaced. It's so white collar here! Every lawn is completely pristine and manicured and I've realized this is not just because everyone is concerned with appearances and spends enormous amounts of energy mowing; it's because everyone spends enormous amounts of money contracting somebody else to do their mowing. Since there's no traffic (our street is only one long block--doesn't go through to anywhere), the noise during the day is the riding mowers and weed wackers and blowers at one house or another. (At least there are no gun shots.) The only other noise comes from screeching kids in back yard pools. How did I end up here? The safety I feel is a great relief. I can leave my door open when I go to the neighbor's. I don't assess every person walking down the street. I leave kids toys in the front without worrying they will disappear. If I leave a sleeping child in the car while I lug in the groceries I don't worry she'll be stolen. The guard I can let down is a cool breeze.

This feeling of awkwardness about the white collarness has something to do with my idea of myself. I don't think I yet think of myself as grown up, and this neighborhood is certainly full of grownups. How do I make friends with them? Do I want to make friends with them? Who are they anyway?

But then, I've met neighbors already, and I like them. Four (four!) of the houses just across the street from us have little kids which will be wonderful for my kids and for me too, won't it? I hope so. I believe so, but then my doubt creeps in and I'm obsessing again. When I told M that the neighborhood felt so white collar he said, "that's what you are." Which is true I suppose.

But this idea of grownupness is all wrong anyway. I am myself, not a grownup or a child, but just me. And my theories about the other folks in this neighborhood are just that--my theories. They are not their projections of themselves, as I don't know them yet. It's all my doing, these labels and judgments. (and what do I think it means to be a grownup anyway?)

Also, I think I've opened all the boxes and I still can't find my camera.

writing rather than napping

The heat finally broke, which is more wonderful than I can explain here. Yes, I'm a steely southern girl who should be used to such excesses but down there is not a building without air conditioning. And this house has none. Usually, I assume, that's not an issue here in NY. Most of the houses we looked at didn't have air, but this past week has been pretty miserable. Now we have a window unit on the first floor and it makes an amazing difference. Getting one on the 2nd floor might make my life complete.

Just a bit ago I put F down for her nap and as I was leaving her room, literally as I was closing the door, I heard Clark waking up. Sigh. He was up more than usual in the night last night so I'm rather jonesing for a nap today, but there it is. Right now he's beside me in his bouncy seat chewing on his hand as I write. He's very cute.

So the girl we hired to sit for us is working out okay. Better than I expected, actually. She's only a temporary fix anyway, as she goes back to school in August, but even for this short time I wasn't sure about her. What's surprising to me is how much anxiety there has been in trying to find someone. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me... I'm choosing someone to take care of my KIDS for crying out loud. When I was a kid sitters were meant only to be sure the kids didn't kill themselves or the house didn't catch fire. I'm not sure anyone expected a sitter to enrich the child's life. But now I want someone who will teach Frances things, help her navigate the world a bit better, blah blah. On one hand I feel this is ridiculous and that it's just the run off from the Baby Boomers and their full toddlers' schedules, the norm they set for parenting. I don't want to be this kind of parent.

Yesterday F and her sitter played outside in the rain. This is one benefit to having a younger person with her... I'm not likely to play in the rain and neither would be someone older. They also recently spent a large amount of time burying and then finding things in the sand box... That's a good life, I think.

word explosion

Frances is talking now--seriously talking. She's been saying words for ages but suddenly she says all the words, repeats everything everyone says, walks around practicing. It's like a word explosion. It's really cool. The words she's saying are more and more complicated, and she loves 3 syllables. Tonight at dinner she said "ap-pul-sas" over and over. On the way to the Target this afternoon from the back seat Frances would let out a little shriek and then say "outside" because it's an outside voice, as we say around here. And then she'd do it again. Shriek. "Outside." Mitch and I covered our mouths to keep her from hearing us laugh.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have had kids so close together. I do adore the boy, and that's a good thing, because if he were a difficult baby I would wonder this more often. But Frances is having a hard time adjusting... She asks for her sitter in NC every day and every day I have to say, "no, honey. She's far away. She's in North Carolina and we can't see her." And then she asks again. Today she woke up from her nap all a mess, crying in her bed asking for milk and juice. She wouldn't eat lunch which she hadn't had before the nap because she's been going down early these days, and she just couldn't get it together. Wanted to go outside, then wanted the TV, then wanted Dad, then her paci fell out of her mouth because she was crying so much, and she cried about that. I want to help her. I want to help her adjust, but I've got the baby on my boob and sometimes I just can't do anything. M says it helps her learn about what the world's really like, but it just breaks my heart. I get so dejected that I just sit and hold the baby and do nothing--let her carry on and get more and more wound up. Finally today M had to stop working upstairs and come down to jolly her out of her mood, which he did quite well.

She's all off her schedule. She wakes early and wants to take her nap early, but then she's a wreck in the middle of the afternoon. I've been trying to keep her up to push her nap back to its normal time. Yesterday she fell asleep on the living room floor at 10am and slept for an hour. Tomorrow the new sitter is coming and I don't know about her... I'll have to write about that next time. Finding a sitter/nanny for her is harder on me than I thought it would be. Will see how this goes.