new world, big kids

So I guess I need to address the very obvious fact that I've been away awhile. Looked like I jumped ship, didn't it? Not entirely true, because I've been writing half posts and never completing them, thinking about writing posts that I don't even begin. And then there's that other blog still percolating. I'm inclined to believe that intention should count for something, somewhere.

And then in that last post I didn't even acknowledge the oh-so-long break in posts. That's because I got moving with the writing and didn't want to stop for explanations.

Let's just pretend that you're already caught up, shall we? I hate coming back after a break because I feel I have to address the absence in a post that isn't really a post but some space filler of explanation that essentially always means the same thing: blah blah blah. Life takes a winding course and except for tragedy it's all mostly the same. I'll let you know if there are any tragedies.

I've moved into a new parenting time slot, did you know? Since I last hung out with you there have been major developmental changes. I heard this truth most loudly at an event for folks with babies and very young children recently. I happened to be there without kids so my attention was not diverted by my perpetual role as referee (oh the bickering drives me craaaazzzyyy). I looked around at the strollers and diaper bags and parents chasing escapee toddlers, and I thought "I don't live in this world anymore." It was a funny realization, especially since it should have been obvious. Those days were so tiring, a hundred hours each, and ran on one after the other without pause. Although intellectually I knew it wouldn't last forever, I never believed it. Suddenly I felt naked without my stroller: a kind of shield, a buttress, and let's face it - so helpful with the schlepping of stuff.

Things changed and I didn't even notice when it happened. I've moved from babiesandpreschoolers to schoolagedkids. The most obvious illustration of this new world is school, but the most important difference is developmental. It has to do with a mental progression, an ability to understand explanations, to not completely lose one's shit when asked to clean up the legos, to control reactions when frustrated hungry tired overwrought. Mostly.

The immediate down side is that the first of school also (evidently) means a soup of germs, which felled us straight away. Looking back on this blog, I want to acknowledge that I have spent a good amount of time enumerating our illnesses, which are many. I've spent a lot of time complaining about being ill, about fevers and stomach flus and many tv filled sick days in preschool. More weight in illness than a blog should carry. So none of that now except to say that because I've done nothing but lie on the couch or take care of sick kids for over 2 weeks now, my house is a DISASTER. Which makes me Crazy Lady. Just so you know the temperature of our spaceship.

So. Kindergarten and First Grade. A brave new world. I no longer have a child in the Waldorf school, which is sad, but it's also kind of exciting for the next thing, for us to be here.

And where is here? It is with a girl turning seven this minute, a girl who is sometimes overcome with so much love that she just has to say it, "I love you so much, Mama."It is here with a boy who is right on the very tip edge of losing the last of his babyness, and he's scared to see it go, scared not to be a baby and feel coddled, scared to have to learn and accomplish things.

It is here. Here where we all put on our shoes and our jackets at 8 am, leash the dog and trek to school 3 blocks away, watching for the trolls under the bridge. Here where Clark often pulls away from my kisses, where Frances is apart from me all day in a climate I know very very little about. It's odd to have her gone away from me so much, to feel so out of touch with her social life. I have to just trust that she will make good decisions, that she will choose the way that is warmed by the light. I know that often when I ask about their days they will not tell me, and I have to be open and present, so that when they do want to talk I am listening. I don't want to miss it.

the whale bus

I put both my kids on buses today. Separate buses, though they are going to the same school, because one kid is full day (her first full day experience!) and leaves at 8 am (FIRST GRADE!!) and the other has half day kindergarten (KINDERGARTEN!) in the afternoon so doesn't get on the bus til lunch.

While Clark and I waited in the front yard for his kindergarten bus, I took a good look at him. Sometimes when the light is right I can see the toddler I hold in my mind, the toddler that was him before he became. Sometimes, like today, I then look even harder and try to see the man he will become, or even the adolescent, but I can't, because that person doesn't exist yet. When I see pictures of his dimpled toddler self, I recognize the person he is now in that seed, but it's impossible to see it going forward. Right now he is only five. He is Potential for a full sized human, but he is not Blueprint. His five year old self does not guarantee any kind of future. Anything can happen between now and then that will shape who he will become, things that I do and decisions that I make as a parent, and things wholly out of my control, curves the world will throw at him that none of us will see coming.

Parenting, it often seems to me, is a large portion helping and carrying and cooking and arguing and explaining and cajoling (which is different from what it used to be, which was more physical labor - holding, carrying, lifting, rocking, wiping, schlepping.), but the most important part is the releasing. Which is what I watched myself do today. As they each climbed those huge steps onto the bus, one at 8am and the other at noon, I felt they were being swallowed by a whale who was then going to turn in the water and swim away. Right? That's pretty much it. I had to just stand and watch, wave goodbye.

My husband asked me recently what I do when I get in really cold water. You can seize up, clinch your fists, tense all your muscles to try to block the cold from getting into the deeper parts, or you can relax into it. Force your muscles to go soft, your breath to release. It's not hard to do - the releasing - but it's hard to want to do.

I told Clark this morning that it was amazing that this big boy in front of me (KINDERGARTEN!!) is the same little tiny baby I held 5 years ago. I told him that five years doesn't seem like a long time to grown ups although it seems like forever to him. (for good reason: it is forever to him. It's all he's experienced of ever.) The only constant is change, right?

And now I get to leave this blog post to walk to pick them up. We are fortunate to live in the same neighborhood as the elementary school, and I love walking to get them in the afternoon. Last year Clark walked with me to pick up Frances, and now I am going to get them both. I'm excited for them to start this new adventure, to hear how the world comes to them, what they've learned about life since being carried away from me this morning. It's a big ocean. 

adjustment is hard

It is an understatement to say I have a hard time with change. Adjustment to just about anything is slow and painful. (Well, not anything. I do love to move the furniture around.) Especially when the changes come in multiples - not good.

This past weekend the new Swiss student arrived. Roxane is her name and she is very nice and pleasant to be around. This arrangement is ostensibly to lighten my load and provide me with company, but it is also change adjustment someone new in my house and in my family. AND the very same day she arrived... the snow melted. All at once. All of it.

For just about everyone I know here in Western NY, snowmelt is to be celebrated. It means spring is (sometime in the future, after we muck through the season of mud) on its way. We didn't have a ton of snow this year, and much more cold rain than I would have liked, but the snow was enough that the rain didn't wash it away; it just packed it down and turned it into a kind of snow cement, a white covering over all the ground.

Snow literally changes the structure of our yard. There are shoveled paths where there use to be open space. Garden beds are covered over and cease to exist. Small mountains spring up on either side of the bottom of the driveway, mountains that are good for sledding down and hiding behind and bouldering over. Snow forts and snow walls are built, then shrink and shift and are rebuilt.

Then the snow melts.

The snow melts and the old yard is revealed. Hello garden. Hello dog poop. (seriously a lot of dog poop hidden under the snow.)

There's not really a way for it to happen gradually. One day the snow is there, and the next it is gone. The piles at the end of the driveways stay for an extra day or two (and the gigantic mountains in the backs of the parking lots could possibly stay til July), but all the expanse of white, the crunch and spread of it, all that has been visually stable for the past several months - it all just vanishes.

It's too jarring for me. I was not ready to be done with the snow. I am never ready, turns out. Nonetheless, the snow is gone, and a new person is here, and adjustment is hard. I spent the last few days in a dramatic kind of space, weeping and lamenting the change, though I have faith it will be great for everyone eventually. It will come, the settling. And then you know what will happen?? She will leave, and it will be change adjustment someone gone from my house and family, and I will fall apart for a spell. 

conflict headaches harmony

I've been having near constant headaches for the past month (reason #1 for no recent blog posts) but they have let up a bit the last few days. Finally. Also, in the last few days my sanity has been less scarce. Interesting. Of course, it's much easier to be a sane parent when not in pain. No question there. But it seems to be more than just that.

I think it's the fighting. 

The kids, of late, have been fighting. A lot. Mostly, Frances wants desperately to love Clark, wants to kiss him and hug him and help him, and when she does any of these things he grumps and physically pushes her away. She gets mad and calls him a name, and he hits her. It goes on like this over and over, and whatever we do just doesn't seem to work. I've dived back into my shelf of child rearing books for some help, and Mitch and I have been talking about different strategies. Interestingly, the thing that (momentarily) turned things around was random. 

Frances fell down the stairs last week. Somersault kind of falling from the top, wooden stairs, terrible wails. She believed her leg was broken (which it isn't), and I'm sure it was terribly painful. The next day she had whiplash. I was in the garage getting something out of the car when it happened so I didn't hear the horrible sound of a body bumping down the stairs, but I could hear the wailing even before I got fully back inside. Clark was at the door with big eyes and said, "Mommy, Frances broke her leg!"

While Frances sat on my lap, then her dad's lap, then mine again (sometimes it would be best if a person could sit on two laps at once, that much comfort is needed), Clark stood around looking singularly uncomfortable. I asked him if he could bring a tissue for the tears and he quickly complied. He doesn't usually comply. In fact, he's incredibly difficult when asked to do just about anything. I'm hoping it's just a stage. 

The next day, when he was still being kind and helpful to her, it occurred to me that this may be the first time in the last, oh, two years or so, that he's seen Frances distraught when he was not the cause. He's always the cause.

A couple of days after the fall I mentioned to Frances how well they'd been getting along and I asked her what seemed different to her, why she thought it was. She said it was because when Clark says, "No I don't want to play that," she is no longer saying, "Fine. Then I won't play with you."

"What do you say instead?" I asked.

"I ask him: what else do you want to play?" she said.

     

Well. That would make a difference.

"Why did you decide to stop responding that you won't play with him?" I asked.

"Because it's more fun to play with him than alone," she said.

She is six and is amazing to me. I didn't teach her that. I think I was an adult before I learned it was more fun when I didn't hang onto much of my irritation. Some people never learn it.

In any case, in the past 5 or 6 days we have gone WHOLE DAYS with no bickering. Really. I mean, Holy Moly. It's like living in a different country. Oh that I knew which path we took to get here, and that we could find it again in the future! Because I know well this too will not last.

Change is the only constant, change is the only constant. I repeat it like a mantra. 

here is apple klepto

Frances came home from school one day last week and went directly to her crafts table where she immediately put together a book. 

Here is Apple happy

Here is Apple sad

Here is Apple sleepy

Here is Apple mad

Here is Apple cut in pieces small 

But baked in a pie is best of all. 

It was a book they'd used at school and she'd memorized it, come home and put it together with her own drawings. (Apple mad's face was particularly charming.) It wasn't until the next day when she read it to me again that I noticed the apples themselves; rather than draw them she had taped on apples cut from construction paper. And as I looked at it I realized they were die cut, that she did not cut them, and I wondered where she might have gotten them. 

When I asked, she sucked in her breath and ducked her head into my side.

I asked again.

"What will you DO to me?" she whined.

I promised her I would not be mad.

Turns out she took them from her kindergarten room, had snuck them in her underwear so no one would see. Ha!

"There were so many of them," she said. 

These are the kinds of parenting issues that make folks say it's harder as they get older, not easier. It's all in how you look at it, really. For sure it's not as exhausting now. For instance, I actually sleep. Plus I walk around with two free hands that I can use for things like dishes, or ordering shoes online, or taking a freaking shower rather than carrying babies. But these new issues matter, and that's what makes them so hard. Because the way we deal with them, or don't deal with them, matters. They determine who our kids will become, and how we see ourselves as parents.

I thought of letting it slide. I mean, it was five measly construction paper apples. BUT! It's the principal of the thing, right? So I called my aunt, who has been teaching kindergarten for 35 years, and asked her what to do. In the end I emailed Frances' teacher and asked if we could meet sometime soon. I told her Frances took something from the classroom. Her email in response said, "You can tell her that I am so glad she is going to talk to me about it, and I will not be mad at her." How great is she? 

treading, and fighting siblings

Hallooooo! Been a while since I've been here. I've missed you! Missed being here. Much afloat and little time to process in writing. Plus, I've been thinking I will switch over to the new blog about which I keep talking. It will come, it will come. For now we are here. Together.

I am so far behind with - um - everything. Emails I meant to answer ages ago, christmas decorations still to pack away, laundry that has filled up the shute literally from the basement past first floor so we have to go to the second floor to put anything into it. The rental office of the beach house we're renting this summer called about the money I hadn't sent. "We sent you a contract," they said. "It's probably here in this stack of mail I haven't opened," I said. "But we sent it in December...!" they said. "Yes, probably here in this stack," I repeated. They sounded incredulous. I have this tape running through my head, a kind of ticker tape with all the things I need to do. It's very annoying. Things have been a little nutty and I can't seem to get from in front of the plow and back around behind it where I can steer. I'm just moving moving, as fast a clip as I can manage.

This is what parenting is for many people, isn't it?

I'm trying not to think about how behind I am. I'm choosing to look at it as the stuff of the sitcom and just keep rolling.

Today Clark made it clear to me that he needed some normal time at home. What I badly needed was 40 minutes on a treadmill at the gym but I decided to forgo that so Clark could have some time to settle. I thought about the fact that the gym is one of the things I do for me, and that I was giving up something good for me in exchange for something good for him. But this is my job. Not the giving things up, but making sure that he is settled in himself, teaching him how to do it and giving him as much practice as possible so he knows the feeling he's trying to create. Sometimes my job does indeed mean I need to sacrifice things. The trick is finding the balance. As moms we're only doing our kids a disservice if we give it all up. And figuring out when one should hold fast to filling our own needs is a complex art.

I keep singing Bob Dylan's Buckets of Rain: "Life is sad, life is a bust. All you can do is do what you must. Do what you must do, and you do it well."

Frances needs a lot of physical affection. She gets it from us, of course, but she also wants it from her friends, and most importantly from her brother. She loves her brother. Loves him. Thinks he's charming and funny and fun to be around. He loves her too, but she has this habit of pulling the superiority card, to trying to help him with things he cannot yet do by himself. And this drives him crazy. Their 17 months of age difference is so little that often they are on par with each other, more or less. They started activities like karate and swimming at the same time and so are equally experienced. Frances doesn't mean to put him down when she does it, she just so desperately wants to be helpful (and perhaps a bit in control...), wants to show her love this way. And wants for him to be grateful. He's not. He's resentful.

Which means he does not want her to hug him. And since he's 4, he's still unable to clearly say what it is he indeed wants. Instead he pushes or grumps or hollers at her. And these actions, believe it or not, tend to destroy her feelings of affection and good will, at least for the moment.

I don't have any brothers or sisters. I didn't learn how to fight with someone I'm close to. (In fact, this is a skill I've found it necessary to learn as an adult, what with the marriage and all.) So I don't know what healthy conflict looks like between a 6 year old and an almost 5 year old. Do I ignore it? Redirect? Talk to them? Explain? Separate? Drink heavily? Tell them stories about little fox siblings who have a hard time getting along? Waldorf believes this last one is the way to go, but I have to say, it's really hard for me to get up the inner energy for story creation. Maybe I'll work on that. In the meantime, I keep tissues in my ears and hope for the best. 

sleepless complaining about gravy

It's 6:30 am and I've had two hours of sleep: 1:30-3:30. I'm too anxious about what I have left to do for christmas preparations/gifts/laundry/holiday-video/packing-for-the-trip so I'm up doing laundry and working on the video. It seemed more productive than just lying in the bed with my eyes open. Though the argument could be made that sleepless rest would be better than laundry for warding off the crippling disease the kids have contracted and I'm desperately trying to avoid. I can't avoid it; who am I kidding? I'm fairly resigned to the idea that I will be in the throws of a 103* fever on the flight down to North Carolina christmas eve. Yeah baby.

Last December I had all sorts of plans for activities to do with the kids and I ended up with both bronchitis and pneumonia at the same damn time and nothing at all happened except I lay on the couch, operated the remote, and periodically crawled to the kitchen to put pretzels into bowls for the kids. I had to simply give up my ideas of crafts and baking and holiday fun.

This year it's the kids who have gotten sick. First the stomach flu, followed 10 minutes later by what is apparently The Flu - super high fever for now 7 days running. Frances's fever has dropped to 100 and she says she feels great, thinks she is well. Her yardstick is temporarily broken. Which is as much of a pain in the ass as 103 frankly, because she's up hopping around and wrestling and is also more quick to be defiant and get offended and scream in her brother's face. And she's MUCH more sensitive to physical pain. Having her (very very long) hair accidentally pulled causes tremendous trauma and wailing. I had to remind myself today that this is not the child I usually live with. Thank the lawd.

So, again, not many activities done. We were moving right along with salt dough ornaments and had gone so far as to even make salt dough figures for a nativity scene (very comical and more on that later if you're lucky), but now many are languishing without paint or modge podge or glitter. Some are half done, some just need ribbon for hanging (the ornaments that is). We never got to the gingerbread houses at all (oh I really wanted to do those!). I have one more day before we leave for NC and still need to get presents plus pack: myself, the kids, presents for family members and from Santa too. Dear god I hate christmas.

I've got to get my brain around the idea that none of this is really truly important. Death is important; love; kindness. Having gifts ready is just gravy. Nothing to stress about. Okay, so I know that with my rational brain. Somebody needs to tell my limbic system so I can get some sleep.

grieving

Our cat died. He was the family cat, but really he was my baby; mine. I got him from a FreeKitten box in the Boise farmers market on my 30th birthday, brought him home to Mitch, to whom I was engaged, and Mitch frowned at me and shook his head. But Mitch came to love that baby, who wouldn't? even though he swore he was not a cat person. Bosley was his name, perhaps the most personable cat I've ever met.

He'd been perfectly normal that morning. He ate his breakfast and meowed at the door to go out, then later he sat on his scratch pad while I gave him some catnip. He wasn't sick; he was just fine.

It was after school, and the kids and I were sitting down with a new stack of library books. We had just opened the first one when we heard a strange sound. At first I didn't know even where it was coming from, but it was the dining room, Bosley lying in his regular spot on the heater. When we got to him I was so confused. Why wasn't he getting up? Why was he yowling? I thought maybe his collar was caught and he needed help. I picked him up and he was limp in my arms, paralyzed. But he stopped crying while I held him, seemed to calm down a bit. His breathing was odd and raspy and I held him close. Then I realized things were bad, really bad, and I panicked, said out loud, "I don't know what to do!"In a moment I was able to collect myself enough to quietly soothingly shush him. Then he just died. Just like that. The whole thing was probably less than one minute.

There was one odd thing at the end - after he went still I exclaimed, with more than a little shock, "Oh my god. He died," and I looked up at the children's blank wondering faces. The kids began to creep forward, and then Bosley took one loud final in breath that startled all of us. The kids actually screamed and leaped away. I paused to watch and see if he really was dead, then I bowed my head and began to sob, and Clark across the room began to wail too. Frances was just perplexed, and later she asked Clark, "why did you cry?" I knew why he had cried. It was all very odd and confusing and sudden. I don't think it was because he loved the cat, but because he had no freaking idea what was going on.

I've been grieving and grieving. I loved that cat so very very much. Frances is worried about my grieving, keeps giving me hugs and kisses and wanting me to be ok. I keep telling her I will be, that it's all right for me to be emotional about it. On one hand I wish I could hold off my most intense grieving until she is not around, and on the other I see nothing at all wrong with her witnessing it, that maybe it's even good for children to see. See the grieving and then see that we are all right afterward. Frances asked me, "Mommy, would you be more sad if Bosley died or if I died?" See? It provides opportunity for these kinds of questions.

Frances always wanted to carry Bosley around, all 18+ pounds of him, which was a feat. I taught her how to hold him on her shoulder and support him under the rump, and she had learned how to carry him like a baby without his being too upset. Almost every night she carried him from his spot on the couch up to her bed where he snuggled up next to her. That day he died, around bedtime, she got sad. She said, "Mommy, my eyes are watering but I'm not crying." Little tears were running down her cheeks. I wonder if it was the first time she had cried without sobbing or wailing, as children do. She drew a picture of him and put it on her bed where he used to sleep.

Earlier she had written a goodbye note to him to put in the box with his body, as well as a picture she drew. On everything she wrote or drew she added the date. So interesting - I don't know that she saw that somewhere - I think it was just her instinct to memorialize it.

We had a funeral the next day, complete with bell ringing and a candle and prayers and a goodbye note Frances wrote to Bosley. He was in a box, and the kids had put his toys in with him, and some string because he loved to chase string, and notes. I asked Clark this morning if he thinks about Bosley at all, and he said "all the time," which surprised me though I don't know why. He's much more internal than Frances, I'm coming to realize. I asked him what he thinks about when he thinks about him and he said the funeral. He said he doesn't think about when he died, but about putting the box in the ground. It is a strange thing - to lower someone into the earth. He said he feels sad. "I really liked Bosley. Sometimes I see the speaker under the coffee table (one of Bosley's sleeping spots) and think it's him."

I'm glad this is their first real experience with death, and that it's an animal and not a person. I'm glad that they actually witnessed it rather than our finding him dead. Death: it's just a thing, just like other things in our strange beautiful confusing brutal world. It's an intense thing, and it was particularly traumatic for me not only because I loved him so very much, but because I was holding him when he died. I'm glad that I was, grateful that we were home so that I could hold him and provide him comfort. Still, a lot for me to carry in my heart.

this crazy year

Here I am again, in the garage while the ever faithful sitter Liz bathes the kids and puts them to bed. It's cozy in here - I have my water and my phone and therefore music, and it's not too cold to type. (We're about done with garage-blogging weather up here in the snow belt, however. Where will I hide then? The basement? I wonder if I have any gloves I can type in? Hm....) The downside is that both lights bulbs have burned out so I can't see a thing except this glowing screen. But I did bring a flashlight! Any event is more enjoyable if you attend to the details.

So. I haven't been here on the blog in a while. I've been trying to get here, longing to come visit this page, but life is, you know, doing that thing it does. I mentioned before that I have one kid in school in the morning, the other in the afternoon. I have about 25 minutes from the time Frances gets on the bus until I leave to pick up Clark. Someone is with me always. In some ways it reminds me of when they were so little. Someone who always needs my attention, never being able to finish a task (laundry, dishes) to completion, these ideas of fun projects (gingerbread houses, paper snowflakes on bunting) swimming around my head and never any time to fit them in, though it's unclear to me where the time actually goes. The biggest difference, besides the amount of contact I have with fecal matter, is that I no longer schlep things. As we were all leaving the house the other evening for Irish Dance I was acutely aware of my lack of preparedness with snacks and drinks. Then I remembered the diapers and wipes and burp cloths and changes of clothes of yore. My body does feel much lighter than in those days.

(This is actually a big point. I think when I was physically more involved in parenting - holding, carrying, lifting, rocking, wiping, schlepping - I was desensitized to the contact. It's these days that I get touched out, when I feel the need for physical space. Interesting.)

(By the way, this blog was created out of that experience - diapers and wipes and burp cloths and changes of clothes. And I've finally realized it really is time to be done with this blog. That doesn't mean I will quit writing. It's time to move on, another blog awaits. It's brewing. It's not ready yet. But just to keep you updated about that issue...)

By the time the kids are (finally) in bed I just don't have the energy for creation (meaning: blogging, or sewing, or painting, or often even email). Or for returning things to the mall. I could this minute go to home depot for lightbulbs and a new toilet seat for instance, but I just don't want to. So I'm here with you instead. A place I'd much rather be.

Anyway, busy schedule. Plus kids in Karate 2x a week and all that. So it's hard for me to get to the page. It's hard for me to catch my breath. I'm trying to figure out ways to make it work, to get the support I need so I can fully enjoy what there is to enjoy about this nutty schedule. I have another au pair situation with a college girl I adore but it's only a month while she's off for break. (but she gets here this Friday yayayayayyaay!) During that month I intend to find something more long term. (Please contact me if you have any leads.)

Even amid all that is frantic, I am also very present and aware it's only one year. It's a unique year, different from all the rest to come. It's hard for me, this year. I'm trying to let go of the dishes and of dinner (thank goodness for the new Trader Joes), and instead do puzzles and play Uno and make Magi out of salt dough as I did today. Next year Frances will be in school full day but Clark will still be home half day. The year after that they will both be gone full day. Oh my.

But I also love these days. I love having time alone with each child. I love running errands with them, letting them color or play around me while I cook dinner (at 10am because when else is that going to happen?), I love waiting for the bus with Frances and the ritual the bus adds to our lives. I love packing her snack in her backpack, love the way when she gets home she bounds off the bus with a smile, turns and waves, then runs to me. I love hearing about her day that is so foreign and completely separate from me. On days when Mitch takes Clark to school, I love that Frances and I walk the dog. We have a route of our own that involves a high wooden swing, and then we come home for hot chocolate without marshmallows because it is 9 am after all.

I love it. I love that Clark is learning to play by himself, entertained with his own sound effects, a lot of swooshing and blasting and kabooming as he zooms various cars or figures through the air. I love going to the library more often because I go with them one at a time rather than together. I am acutely aware that these days are but a moment in time, this year something that I will look back on.

Which is why I need support. Because I don't want this year to go by in a blur of dishes and laundry and rides to karate. I want to have enjoyed it, and to have paused and seen it. I want to feel it fully, and I want to be a good mom. In order to do that, given the set up, I need help help help. It's good to know what you need.

household help!

So. Ahem. Let's chat about headaches, shall we?

Frances had one a few months ago, did I tell you that? It was at bedtime. She said her forehead hurt, then she writhed on her bed for some time, and she sometimes liked the cold cloths I put on her head and sometimes pushed them away in pain and frustration. Suddenly she said, "I've gotta throw up" and we made it to the bathroom just in time. A full heaving episode, all her pasta dinner in case you wanted details, and then she felt much better, just exhausted, and fell into her bed and immediately passed out. She was fine in the morning.

But actually, since I go in for the navel gazing full on, I wanted to talk about my headaches.

If you're recently joining us, I have a chronic migraine disorder and have pretty much all my life. I was SO hoping my kids wouldn't get it, but it does run in families - my dad has it too, and my grandmother - but Frances's recent brush with the fabulousness that is migraine is seriously dampening my hope. When untreated I can have 3-4 massive migraines a week, but in the last few years by seriously limiting my diet, taking daily preventative, exercising like a crazy person, and (now!) having botox injections every 3 months, I average one every couple of weeks, and still have low grade headaches pretty frequently. The botox (for those of you who previously overlooked my sincere endorsement) is the only thing I've gotten real relief from but the effect wears off over time. The last few weeks of my treatment cycle the frequency is back up, sometimes daily low grade ones.

Anyhoo, Karen the au pair arrived here 4 weeks after the last round of injections. She was here 2 months, the last of which I should have been having full on headaches since my next treatment was on the very day she left. But in that 2 months she was here - are you ready?? - I only had three (3) headaches. In two months. It's unheard of.

When I told my neurologist, just as she was getting ready to stick my forehead with a needle, she said, "when does the next au pair come?" I told her it was just me again, just me. She paused, looked at me blankly, and she said, "It seems to me that if there's there's a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it, and you have the means, you should throw money at it." Hm.

I don't think it was just the extra pair of hands, though I'm not sure that help can be calculated. I think it was also the adult interaction, the waning of that lonesome feeling.

But now the headaches are back. Hello old companions.

Then! In my brainstorming about a solution to stay-at-home-mom fatigue, I decided what I needed was help with the house rather than the kids. So I gave up one sitter night and instead asked a sitter if she would be interested  in coming two or three evenings for just an hour, and for household help rather than kid entertainment. (When the kids were babies and I so needed a break, I wanted to sitters to entertain them so I could be not be touched for longer than 60 seconds. With Karen here I realized having house help freed me to roll on the floor with the kids or do puzzles or participate in tea parties without stressing that I should be emptying the dishwasher. It made me a better parent.)

Let me tell you, this solution is genius. I am SO pleased with myself for making this happen. Two extra hands for an hour seem like way more than two extra hands. She does the dishes, folds and puts away the laundry, drags the cooler or cat litter (or whatever) down to the basement, generally straightens, and - my favorite - turns down the beds. (hotel turn down service is one of my favorite things ever. It gives me large amounts of pleasure to walk into a room already appropriately lit and ready.)

WE NEED MORE SUPPORT AS PARENTS THAN WE GENERALLY GET!! There it is again, my refrain. Did you know in Europe nurses come visit the home several times after a baby is born, to see how the mom is doing, to check on the baby, to offer any advice or know-how or general encouragement? Here in America, once you leave the hospital, you are on your own. (I'm not going to be on my soap box long here...) The result of this for the US is a much higher maternal mortality rate, did you know?? Not to mention the ridiculous 6 weeks a mom gets for maternity leave here, compared with 12 months there. Really.

Okay, I'm done.

Will see how the household help (plus adult company!) affects the headaches. Right now I'm not seeing magical improvement, but we've just begun.