i got nothin but pictures

I've been thinking lots about writing on the blog but can't find the emotional space. It's rather crowded here in this beach house, a thing that is good and fun but doesn't allow much time for reflection. Plus, there are so many little kids that every adult has to have their eyes on someone at nearly all times. Two years from now this trip will be much much easier, or at least less tiring.

I will say that being here with a 4-week-old (my cousin's 3rd baby) has reminded me how very sweet tiny babies are. It's also turned out to be great birth control--a reminder of why two is a good number for us. I don't have the patience plus I need intellectual stimulation that just doesn't come with parenting little kids. (I note that as F gets older it's becoming more and more interesting to me...) I told M that he should go ahead and get a vasectomy--quick!--before I change my mind.

Anyway, we leave here day after tomorrow and then I think it's going to be a 2-day drive home. It will probably be next week before I'm able to post in full. For now, enjoy the pictures!

traveling

I know I just fell off the virtual earth without any heads up... I plain forgot that my mom's house not only is without wireless, but without a computer all together. We did 1500 miles in 5 days and stayed in 3 different abodes and the bugs alone are reason enough not to come back to the southland, welts the size of a half dollar on both my kids' legs. In any case, having fun, seeing friends, lots to tell, off to the beach on Saturday for a week where there will be 1) wireless, 2) sun and water and sand 3) six adults and 5 kids age 4,3,2,1, and 4 weeks (!), but two of those adults will be 4) grandparents to help jolly the kids out of tantrums. I'm hoping to find space to type out some of my recent parenting thoughts, of which there are many.

Cheers until then!

more of that happy stuff

It's 2:00 and everyone's asleep but me (and I plan to be when I finish this post). Just before naptime we were outside playing in the water table. Frances kept dumping water on Clark's head and I kept telling her to stop that but she didn't and eventually I made her come inside. I was surprised that she didn't throw a fit about coming in but merrily went along and let me strip the wet clothes off her before she sat on her little potty. Then I cajoled Clark to come inside so I could herd everyone in a napperly direction. Frances was still naked as I got Clark's bottle ready and pulled off his clothes and changed his diaper, and the next thing I knew Frances was crouched over a big picture book saying, "Mommy, I pooped." What? But sure enough, there was a tiny poop on the wild animal page.

But the real excitement is that I was feeding Clark his bottle and she was being pesty and squeezing his hand and arm and leg and would not stop bothering him and my patience was starting to wear thin, and just then she asked if it would be all right if she went upstairs to lie down on her bed. Really, she did! She requested that I bring up her snack after I was done with Clark. Oh my. When I went up her eyes were squeezed tight and she was smiling behind her paci.

It's better--see?

And it's 88 wonderful warm degrees here today, a real summer day finally in mid July, and Clark is still in the most adorable baby stage. Mitch tells me Clark's not a baby anymore but I disagree--he still sleeps on his chest with his butt in the air, he still feels soft and pudgy and baby wonderful, he still lies back in my arms and drinks his bottle. He's in the pointing and having you name things stage, not talking yet. Today when I came to get them from the gym kid room, I picked him up and he hugged me and patted my back with his little hand. My baby. I wonder how I'll feel when it is clear he is not a baby anymore.

This too shall pass. But oh it's lovely now.

happy

Frances is upstairs in her big girl bed. It's naptime and she's been asking lately to sleep in the big girl bed rather than the crib but we've been resisting because of the Last Time disaster. I thought I'd try it today since naptime has been going so well in general: I give her a little bowl of pretzels or cereal or something, plus a small cup of water (okay, watered down juice), plus a couple of books, plus her baby, and blanket, and paci, and 2 Little People (if you don't know what Little People are just play along). And she's perfectly content. I know she's content because I finally got a second monitor so now I can hear her sing Old MacDonald (as she is doing this minute) and tell her baby all about gymnastics before she goes to sleep. She likes getting in her bed for nap now and asks me to cover her and her baby up, tuck them in. So I thought it might be a good time. Before I heaved the crib mattress from the crib to the toddler bed I talked to her about how she would have to stay in her bed and put her head on the pillow and close her little eyes and go to sleep, and she said she would. It will be a major victory if that is indeed what happens. So far I'm very hopeful.

In fact, I'm hopeful in general these past few days. After that last post I've been feeling pretty good and even before that post I'd noticed that although Frances and I were sometimes going head to head, we are also upping the frequency of good harmonious times between us. I'm getting in the rhythm of being home with them both and am almost feeling like maybe I don't want to send her to preschool this next year. Which I'm pretty sure is an insane thought. My friend Melissa reminded me that right now we can play outside and go places and do things with them and yes, it's fun, but that the winter here is very very different. A good point.

I won't make any drastic changes or new decisions. I finally did sign her up for the new preschool... something that I obsessed and obsessed over but don't think I wrote much about on the blog. For some reason I got completely stuck in the decision and just couldn't see my way out. I think it's because both choices (where she was last year and where I was considering moving her) were both fine options... neither was bad, and so how to go about making the decision? It didn't really matter which I chose--neither would radically affect the person she becomes, neither would be a failure. But it seemed so HUGE when I was trying to decide, as if ultimately it DID matter, as if one school would lead her down one life path and the other a different path, and how was I to choose when I could not yet see either? Anyway, made the decision now. Feel fine about it.

Just so you know: she's asleep. Didn't get out of the bed once. Yippee!

no maternal dean's list for me

I get a C-. Today and yesterday, though today we still have after-nap-before-dinner to go and perhaps I can do some last minute cramming and pull my grade up. Again I think of my friend who works in labor & delivery who always looks perplexed when I chastise myself for my parenting skills in her presence. Yes, I know she regularly witnesses truly bad parenting, births of unwanted children, neglect I wish she hadn't told me about. There are moments when I realize that simply providing my children with basic things makes me a good parent: food, clothing, nap schedules, stability, lack of screaming in the house, attention, and love. Those last two are crucial--there are many many children who don't get any attention. At all. From anyone.

Generally, however, I'm not grading on a curve. Or maybe I am, and the student body only includes the moms who are, in fact, providing all the basics. But now you want to know what I've done, don't you? Sigh.

Sometimes I just cannot keep my cool. Sometimes White Trash Mama (as my friend Alison calls her) comes out and does stupid things like this morning when Frances swung to hit me at the kitchen table and I jerked her breakfast away. (If you're gonna hit mama then you don't get to eat. So there.) Or yesterday when she hit Clark with a plastic block and I yanked her paci out of her mouth and stormed off with it. Writing this, these things seem pretty minor but when it's happening they come from a place of internal rage, something out of my control--not the way I want to parent. These responses are not helpful. They are in no way effective. If anything, they teach her just the opposite of what I want--they teach her to react physically in negative ways. It's VERY hard right now for me to keep in mind that many of the things she does she simply cannot help. She has so little impulse control... we're not born with it. She has to learn it, and she needs my help. Yesterday I wanted so badly to spank her and nearly called Mitch to come home and relieve me, but instead I turned on the television which turned out to be a very very good idea. (It's not infrequently that I think of the TV as a great tool for things like calming tempers, getting dishes done, eating dinner with my husband in peace. Yes yes it can quickly become a liability and there's a fine line to walk, but still.)

I beat myself up a lot about it all. Don't know how to stop doing that either.

One thing that interests me endlessly about this dynamic with Frances is that I never never never have felt this kind of impatience and frustration with Clark. Why is that? Is it because he's a second child and I've gotten more relaxed about things? Do I just have more patience now? I don't think that's it. I think he simply doesn't do the things that push my buttons. But, I mean, they're both children; they've both gone through the same developmental stages. You'd think he'd do the same irritating things she did. Or you might think it's just her age and I only have to wait and he'll drive me nuts too. But my frustrations with Frances didn't start with the terrible twos--no no. She's been able to push my buttons since she was about 6 months old. I have no idea what on earth she could have been doing then to irritate me, but it's the truth.

My only conclusion is that they have different temperaments and that Clark just isn't as impatient, as demanding, doesn't insist on control as much as Frances. Oh she's going to be a difficult teenager. No reason to worry about that now... Instead, I need to find an exorcist to rid me of this other woman who takes over my body. I wonder if I should give her a name?

boys and trucks

What is UP with the gender-specific desires for toys? Clark has out of the blue fallen in love with trucks. And construction vehicles. And tractors. When Frances was little we had some truck books and she never showed even a second of patience for or interest in them. These same books are still floating around our house and Clark has recently discovered them. HOW can his fascination be something simply ingrained? And what did cave boys obsess about? It all completely confounds me.

Recently the county did a bunch of construction on our sewer pipes and for weeks there were bulldozers and dump trucks and fellas in hardhats on our street: breaking up concrete, digging, moving loads of dirt, making lots of noise. Oh the joy. All I had to do was put small people in the wagon and take them out to the road. I'd pull the wagon into the shade under a tree and sit on the sidewalk beside them. We could pass all kinds of time this way.

Meanwhile, it's summer here; a different summer than I'm used to, but summer nonetheless. All Frances wants to do is wear her bathing suit because it shows her belly button, and all Clark wants to do it play in the sandbox. Both are problematic. For the former, it's often only 65 degrees, and for the latter, he gets sand in his hair and in his ears and in his mouth and down his diaper, and he's gritty and uncomfortable until he has a bath. Plus, his poop has been strange and grainy lately, and I only yesterday realized it's all the sand he's eating. You know how it's hard to wipe sand off your body when it's wet? Yeah, like that.

hard stuff

It's hard to know what's a stage and what's the perminant personality of the child, the result of my less-than-perfect parenting. I know that's a lot of pressure to put on myself, but seriously. Or maybe they're all stages and they will run right up against each other, one after another, until they finally give way to adulthood when the kid is long gone. Then he'll look back and think how grateful he is for all the things mom did for him although he didn't appreciate them at the time. (I use the masculine for that theoretical statement because I really only assume that might happen with my son, simply because daughters are eternally ungrateful. Aren't they?)

Sigh. Frances is difficult these days. We recently had a meeting with one of her preschool teachers to ask her how to get Frances to stop shoving Clark into furniture, and ended up talking a lot about this stage and independence and the changes that are going on in her life like Clark's asserting himself more. The things she said were really helpful and I felt very encouraged and prepared to go back to Frances with a new focus and approach. Then we got home and within 20 minutes I was hollering. Sigh.

One thing the teacher said that could possibly be really helpful if I can remember it at the appropriate moments is that I don't have to react RIGHT AWAY when she does something. I can take a breath and think about how I want to react. This is true: although Frances is doing things that hurt Clark or at least irritate him enough to make him scream (like dragging him by the arm over to where she wants him to play), she isn't putting his life in danger. I can probably afford to pause for a beat just to keep myself from leaping and reacting in ways that aren't helpful. But it's so hard to do! Some other creature takes over my body and I vault over furniture to separate them. I'll try, though.

busy busy

It's the baby boomers who did this to us. They are the ones who took on as their responsibility the fulfillment their children's every potential, who micromanaged them, who hustled them from violin to scouts to karate, who supervised homework and television watching and friends. I taught the first wave of these kids at Elon and it's not pretty. They have never made a decision in their lives, have never had time to be bored, have never found success on their own. They've always been supervised. What this means as far as college is that once away from their parents, they go C-R-A-Z-Y.

So now generation x is parenting and having all these activities is not our parenting style, but they've been implemented and it's difficult to fight. I mean, I could just keep my kids home rather than doing toddler preschool and music class and gymnastics, but it's not like Frances can just go out and play with the neighbors because none of them are home; they're all at soccer and piano and swimming lessons. Trying to schedule a playdate is just absurd. Everyone looks at the calendar and finally we find 2 hours two weeks from next Friday. And both our kids are under 3!

I have this other issue, which is naps. The downside of having two kids under three is that eighteen hours out of 24 someone is asleep. (well, that's also an upside, but not what this post is about.) Clark still naps twice a day though he'll no longer do it on the go, and Frances has a long afternoon nap as well. What this means is that we don't have much time to leave the house, very little time for groceries or gym or playdates. Wanna guess what falls by the wayside? Playdates, which is my social time. It's a sad situation and today I nearly forfeited my zumba class at the gym (SO much fun as far as exercise goes) to go to a friend's to play (kids) and visit (grownups). Sometimes I feel like I'm making a mistake being so rigid with their schedules, but other times it's very clear to me why I do this. It does keep everything running smoothly. I keep reminding myself that soon Clark will outgrow the two naps and an entire morning will open up before us. BUT even when it does open up, am I going to be obligated to fill those mornings with activities??? I want to fight this deluge of busyness, but so far I don't know how.

a trip alone

The trip. A quick overview: we drove Wednesday from NY to Michigan, eight and a half hours in the car with a dog and 2 kids under 3; one stop to halt the screaming, one for dinner and running around, one for Frances to sit in the back of the open van on her potty. Clark refused to sleep in the car though it was hours past his bedtime, finally dropping off about 10 minutes before we arrived at Mitch's parents', and woke as soon as the car stopped. Thursday we left the kids with their grandparents and Mitch and I drove to Detroit where I got on an airplane for Boise and he drove to Ann Arbor for a conference. Boise was amazing, as wonderful and lovely and close to my heart as I remembered.

It was a true break for me, a time that was only mine, and kind of surreal because of that. I'd gotten rather used to having my life be someone else's. I cried often while I was there, sometimes out of nostalgia but sometimes for no reason at all. My friend Sylvia suggested it was the relaxing--it was probably the first time I'd truly relaxed in almost three years.

Being away from my kids--it was like I reverted to some former self, felt like a person I used to be and that I'd forgotten. My friend Tamara compared having little babies to war, and I don't mean to make light of war or say parenting is anything as tragic or life threatening, but it probably feels something akin to being in the trenches: constant anxiety, on constant alert for any sound, any movement; ready to jump and fight, snatch someone from danger, perform CPR or rush to the emergency room. Maybe it was the absence of all this tension that made me feel like someone I was before. I don't know how to parent without this tension. I just don't know how.

In the airport I felt contained--I didn't have to worry about anyone outside of myself. I didn't have to watch, to reach out and collect some little person; to cajole or entertain or chase; to worry about anyone's hunger or grumpiness or tiredness. (I also didn't have to respond to other folks when they commented on cuteness or asked how old...) I was relaxed. And something strange: I saw parents with babies, toddlers, and I no longer saw their tension. At home when I see these fellow parents I imagine what's happening internally, and it's the same thing that's happening to me. (Chatty conversation usually proves me right.) But while I was away and alone, these parents seemed calm. It makes me remember what I, at age 20 or 25 or maybe even 30, thought having kids would be like. I don't know if I can explain--but I thought I'd just be myself, with some extra company. I didn't realize I'd lose myself for a time, give myself over, become someone new for the sake of my children. I thought of taking care of babies as something I'd do rather than something I'd be.

I have a childless friend who has said to me over and over, ever since Frances was born, "You're an amazing mother--you're so relaxed!" She says she doesn't think she will be as relaxed with babies and I keep trying to tell her--even if I don't show it externally (and do I really not??) there is rumbling, there is constant anxiety.

I wondered how long I would be away from my kids before I longed for them, and I don't really want to admit it, but I didn't get there. All I felt was relief. Relief relief relief to be alone with myself, to relax, to not have to worry or do or be. It made me a little ashamed, as if there might not be a limit... as if maybe I wouldn't ever miss them. But that's probably not true. I was only away 4 days; maybe a full week would make me ache. I did respond differently to the crying babies I witnessed. I used to be one of the people who was particularly annoyed by a crying baby on a plane, but this time I only felt sympathy--mostly for the baby, but also for the parents doing the best they could. It seemed odd to me that anyone would feel annoyance about the crying.

Maybe my nostalgia for Boise is nostalgia for myself--it's hard to say. While I was there I kept trying to imagine having Frances and Clark in the back of the car, but it was hard to envision. And though being in Boise made me ache and want to stay there forever, I also missed Rochester--a surprise. I'm not sure I'll ever fall in love with Rochester the way I was and still am with Boise, but it's my home these days.

coming soon....

I've been AWAY all weekend, in Boise for a wedding ALL BY MYSELF. I have all kinds of new thoughts about parenting that the separation provided me and I want to write about them. But right now we're in Michigan, driving back to Rochester tomorrow. I'll post soon!