The bath.

I'm coming to you today from the bathroom. The bathroom? Yes, indeed.

Dude, don't be hatin' on my sweet slippers.

We're in a state of flux with the big boy. His transition to a big boy bed has wreaked havoc with his nap. If he sleeps, he wakes up horribly weepy and grouchy. If he doesn't nap, then mama doesn't get a break - and I end up weepy and grouchy.

For today, we have compromised with a tub at nap time. He's quietly entertaining himself, blissfully happy and smiling, and I am sitting here typing away and feeling (I have to admit) just as relaxed as if he were tucked away in bed. The room is warm and the sound of the water is soothing, his sweet face is there for me to peek at whenever I pause.

For me, this has been one of the tricks of parenthood. Just when I think our daily routine is grooving - with things moving predictably - a monkey wrench arrives and throws everyone out of whack. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, I have learned to let go of the old routine, improvise during these times, and wait for the new routine to emerge. It has not been an easy lesson for me to grasp.

I remember when he gave up his morning nap - I couldn't handle it, I tried everything to keep our routine unchanged - which resulted in misery and frustration for both of us.

But this time, I acknowledged the change was coming, and have tried to be open minded about it. What do we all really need? The wee one needs to be in bed between 12 and 2. I need some quiet time to clean, cook, and fart around on the computer. The big boy needs some down-time. In truth, there are lots of ways for us to get our needs met, if I can loosen my death grip on the way I think the afternoon should go.

No, I do not have forty-seven bottles of baby
soap - the empties are toys, ya ninny.

I am not a type-A personality (remember the open almonds bag?) but I do like my routines when it comes to the kids, and it is hard for me to tolerate changes. I am slowly learning that when I find myself digging my heels in, thinking this is going to be awful, I am usually wrong. It's going to be different and the transition may be challenging for a short while - but if I am open minded and a little creative, we all survive.

And the craziest thing of all? The way I feel right now, hanging in the bathroom with him - it's the best I've felt in days. Sure, life is still kind of funk-y right now, but I've got this wee tiny warm fuzzy feeling right this moment - and that's something. Once again my son, my beautiful brown-eyed boy, is teaching me that changes don't have to be bad. Roll with it, Mama.

He's a good teacher, even when I am slow-witted.

Plowing through.

Well guys, I'm not gonna lie - I'm still feeling pretty funky over here. And I don't mean in the getting-your-groove-on kind of way. I mean in the grouchy, exhausted, irritable, restless, listless kind of way.

I wish I had some uplifting experience to report, where the kids and I played merrily with the train set and suddenly I felt happy and whole again, but that just ain't the truth. And that's okay. This is my experience of motherhood. Sometimes I feel down, and I just soldier-on until I'm feeling better. I'm hoping that by talking about it here, I'll feel less guilty about it. Because certainly, adding guilt on top of feeling down already won't help anything.

Not to suggest that I'm taking this lying down. I'm still exercising, knitting, and working the cookies and tea, but today I added a few more weapons to the feel-better-arsenal.

You know I went to the kitchen and put something good in the soup pot.

Soup beans, brown rice, and cheddar corn bread muffins.

Then I dressed the big boy in his Superman footie pajamas. Seriously, if this doesn't make me laugh, nothing will.

To the rescue!

Next, I ignored the mess and tried to celebrate the developmental milestone of successful-solo-spoon-usage.

Hooray, now let's change your clothes and clean up
 the floor, the table, and the wall.

And then in a moment of supreme motivation, I began to tackle this mess in the basement, in preparation for our remodel-the-basement project.

Anyone need a gift box, or two? Or seven?

Organizing and getting rid of unused stuff always makes me happy. Although I am a bit ashamed to admit there were no less than twenty-five empty gift boxes in this pile. Twenty-five? Yep. I told you, you better watch me or I'll end up on that show, Hoarders.

Thank you for all the kind, understanding, and commiserating comments. You guys rock.

Again?

Hey Gang.

I know I've written about burnout before. I know I've written about the ebb and flow, the good days and bad, the ups and downs that are my life right now. I even bored you by drumming up some gratitude during one of my downish periods.

Unfortunately, I'm here again. I'm pooped. The sickness. The snow. The tantrums. The whining. It's not just "getting to me" it has gotten to me.

I've tried everything to perk it up inside my grouchy little mind.

I've tried to exercise it out.

Go ahead, do some crunches with this
kid on your belly. I dare ya.

Tried to knit it out.

In a moment I will remove the potentially dangerous
item from his wee hand, but first, the camera

Tried to smother it in cookies.

Mmm.

Tried to drown it in cups of tea.

Okay, fine. So this isn't so much tea, as mugs of hot chocolate. With Bailey's.

Nothin' doing. I'm still here. Exhausted and foul tempered. I live for naptime, and then as soon as those ninety minutes are up, I live for bedtime. This is no way to live. I look around and can only see piles of laundry, a dirty house, a bad haircut (seriously, a mullet). I just can't find the beauty right now.

I know I have nothing to complain about. Pema Chodron would say this is "bourgeois suffering". I.e: there's really nothing "wrong", and in fact, if you had asked me to describe a "perfect life" about four years ago, my current life is what I would have described. Hey, Alanis - that's ironic.

It's all about perspective. Four years ago, when I wondered whether I would ever carry a pregnancy to term, a day home with two beautiful children would have seemed like paradise. I know twelve years from now, when I've got two sullen tween boys - a day of peek-a-boo and little golden books will be a memory I turn to and savor. Unfortunately, I just don't feel that way right now. And I can't seem to do anything about it.

So, I'm in a funk. The good news is, I know it won't last. But, for now, that's where I'm at. Stuck good and solid in this funk-i-tude.

Guess I better go clean something.

Reading: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Oh, I have been reading some good stuff lately. I am happiest when I've got a good audiobook in the car, another on my MP3 player, and two or three hands-on books stashed around the house. With all the snow and sickness - I've been doing some major brain-vacations, starting with The Thirteenth Tale. I absolutely devoured this book, I mean nose-buried-in-book, staying-up-too-late, annoyingly-ignoring-poor-Hubs. It was awesome.
The Thirteenth Tale an an absolutely riveting mystery. This is the gloriously gothic tale of Vida Winter, a wildly popular yet utterly mysterious British author who hires young Margaret Lea to write her final story - the unbelievable truth about who she is, and where she comes from.
Oh, it's full of spooky-ness, long sentences, and multi-syllabic words. It's a book you want to rush though - you just gotta know what happens, but the language and style force you to take it slow, lest you miss something. The good news is, it's a good thing that the reading is slow - because if you're anything like me - you'll be sad when it's over.
This is a good one, a really, really good one. A new favorite. So, go get yourself a cup of tea and grab this one - you won't regret it.

Friday moments

Friday moments again with Soule Mama. Breaking the rules as usual, here are a few moments from our week. If you have a moment (or several) to share, please leave a comment with a link.

Oh dear, this week has been a tough one for this mama. Trips to the doctor's office, coughing, sneezing, runny noses, gooey eyes, scary medicine, fevers, a foot of snow, lack of sleep, lack of patience, and no lack of tantrums and demands. Whew.

Very, and I do mean very, often as I stand at the kitchen sink doing dishes, my eye lands upon a very special talisman that a dear friend gave to me.




"Breathe" it reminds me, and I do.

For one brief moment, I come back to center, reset myself and try to move outside my mantle of frustration and exhaustion.  Patience, mama. Patience.

Even with his as-yet-unidentified-rash, the wee one is back to his old hijinks - goofing around at the dinner table, trying to coerce his brother to join him in a game of peek-a-boo around the laptop screen.



I know he looks fine, but that rash? It could totally be fatal. Seriously,
it could.  Better check his respiratory rate. Again.


The big brother, always up for a good game of peek-a-boo, at the other end of the table, adds his own twist to the classic game with monster-faces, and spoon waggling.



What's on his face? Warm chocolate of course.


In other big-boy news (I know, it's been all about the wee one and his sickness this week). There have been a few forays into the realm of sleeping in a big boy bed.

Shocking, I know. I, too, thought he might take his crib to college. But here it is: visual proof.

Yes he actually sleeps in this position.

On day one he slept in the bed, as pictured here. On subsequent days, he's climbed into his crib and slept there. Interesting. I'll keep you posted.

Here's hoping this weekend will usher in a new era of health-full-ness in this household, and in yours, too. How was your week? What are you up to this weekend?

Happy Friday!

Up and down

The wee one and I thank you all for your well-wishes.  Last night, he was a pretty sad sight to behold.

For dinner: "pop-sah-coe"

This morning however, after 2 doses of antibiotics and a good night's sleep - he was back to his old self. Even his eye was gunk-free. Ah, the miracles of modern medicine.

In non-health related news - we've got a metric ton of snow.  Here's a picture of our back yard. Where's that little path we dug go? Why, to the generator of course. One can never be too careful.

The snow is so high the swings on the playset are buried.

The icicles just keep growing and growing. As does my fear that I will be pierced through the skull by one.

You didn't know an icicle could kill you?

Inside the house, the blankie-bandit is keeping us all entertained.

"Mama will wear one." he says.

We survived the storm, weathered another day snowed in together, and everyone's health seemed to be improving, it all seemed to be going swimmingly - until tubby time, when a rash was discovered on the wee one's legs.  Potentially life-threatening allergic reaction to the antibiotics? Could be. Guess I'll be doing Q15 minute checks on him until the sun rises. Who needs sleep anyway?

Round and round

This morning I arose, feeling mostly back-to-normal, eager to hit the gym and run a few errands before the big snow storm hit. Unfortunately, when the wee one got up, he was not very perky. One eye was swollen and crusted completely shut  (I'll spare you a more graphic description only because I love you, dear reader), his cough had deepened and sounded painful, and his only request? "Wah-dur".




The saddest baby.


Over the river and through he woods, to the doctor's office we go.

Any hopes I had for visiting the gym and the grocery store slipped through my fingers.  I dressed myself and the boys, packed the diaper/please-cooperate-at-the-doctor's-office bag while carrying and soothing my twenty-two pound patient.

We drove slowly through slippery roads - I cursed at a moronic driver and the big boy repeated me. Awesome.

I carried both boys into the office, through the slushy snow, because the big one has a tantrum when he gets snow on his spiderman shoes.

The appointment was miraculously on schedule and blessedly brief. The wee one too sick to protest the exam. An ear infection and conjunctivitis. Awesome. A curative slip of paper.

"Fifteen minutes" said the CVS employee through the drive-up window.
We fishtailed our way over to Wendy's to get horribly bad junk food nuggets, fries, and a frosty to bribe the boys while we wait in the parking lot.



"Fra-fry"


When we pulled up to the window, it was discovered they had filled the scrip under Hubs' name instead of the baby's. More waiting, only now with a crying baby.  As I contorted myself to supply the sick one with his binky, I dropped the insurance card in between my seat and the center console and had to climb out into the maelstrom to move the seat and rescue it. Don't even ask what else I saw down there.  Awesome.

Now here's a factoid you might not know about me: I am a hypochondriac, and giving my kids medicine terrifies me.

When we arrived home, I checked the expiration date on the big boy's epi pen, and briefly reviewed the instructions before I gave the baby his first dose of the antibiotics. He could have a catastrophic allergic reaction, you know. 

I steadfastly ignored the pamphlet that comes with the Amoxicillin, aside from the dosing instructions, the side effects and potential adverse reactions make my palms sweaty.

I held him for fifteen minutes after the dose, counting his breaths while he dozed in my arms. When I was fairly certain he wasn't about to stop breathing, I put him in bed, and wished I could hook him up to a heart monitor.

I hate this. 

Only nine more doses to go. Awesome.