Have Yourself a Merry Little Argument

I saw an article recently that said moms and toddlers argue on average 20-25 times / hour.  I believe it!  Emily's new favorite thing to do is argue with me.  Over everything.  Yesterday we listened to the radio as Nat King Cole crooned O Holy Night.

"This is Santa Claus."
"Actually it's Nat King Cole."

"No, It's Santa."
"His name is Nat King Cole.  It says his name right here....  Nat....  King.... Cole."

"This is Santa!  It says Santa.... Claus."
"I'm not lying to you, Babe."

This argument was repeated with EVERY song on the radio.  Emily is convinced that Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Frank Sinatra are all Santa.  The back-up singers are sugar plum fairies.  White Christmas was no exception.

"This one is Santa, too."
"Raise your hand if you've seen White Christmas."

(Em and I both raise our hands)

"Emily, You have not!  Put your hand down!"
(Laughing) "Yes, I have.  This is Santa. You're a coo-coo!"

Is it any wonder?!

"Kids, This is my MS... MS, Meet my Kids."

Emily and I walked to the mailbox every day over the Summer. I made her put shoes on and I braved the hot sidewalk because a) I'm too lazy to get my own shoes and (b) I don't really see the point since I can't feel temperature in my feet. As it turned out, this provided my first opportunity to talk about Multiple Sclerosis with Emily. She wanted to know why I wasn't wearing shoes and I told her that Mommy's legs and feet are sick. Sometimes I can't feel things the same way everyone else does. She has asked a few times why we're moving and I explained that stairs are becoming a little tricky.  Our new house doesn't have stairs.  This is as far as these conversations go at this point. It's not like I'm going to start talking about myelin and lesions with a toddler!

I figure there are two ways that a parent can let their kids in on the presence of a chronic health condition... Either we have a dramatic family meeting at some point (think Lifetime Original movie) where everyone sits down with serious faces and tries NOT to scare the kids (ultimately terrifying them, of course) or it can just be a part of our everyday lives from the beginning.  I'd prefer that.  I'm happy I was diagnosed when Emily was just a baby -- This will never be new to her or to Jacob.

My neurologist is urging me to go back on my disease-modifying therapy (Rebif) sooner rather than later. He's pushing for me to stop breastfeeding at 6 months so I can return to giving myself injections 3x / week. For obvious reasons, I'm not super motivated to do that! Thankfully I'm a dairy cow and have a full freezer of breast milk already (Moo). My symptoms have returned with a vengeance since Jacob was born and I doubt I'll be able to hide my Tin Man walk when I see the doctor this month.  I still plan on arguing for at least another month or two, though.

Once I go back on Rebif I've decided I want to do my
HAMSTER DANCE in front of Emily on occasion.  My only worry is that this will be yet another thing she shares with teachers that just sounds bad. They're already going to hear "My Mommy and Daddy finished a WHOLE bottle of wine last night!" Now she may say, "My Mommy has a whole big box of used needles!" That should make parent-teacher conferences interesting!  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Cry Me a River...

I was up five times last night between midnight and 5 a.m. Granted, a few of those times were with Emily (bathroom break and a nightmare that had to do with not having her arm in the right hole?!) This morning Jason and I knew it was time to start sleep training with Jacob.

We were waiting until he was over the croup he had last week. We were waiting for a stretch of days when I would be home with him, so we wouldn't have to worry about inconsistency. Apparently we were also waiting for the worst night of sleep yet because this was the one that told me without a doubt that IT IS TIME.

This time around I'm using the advice of a friend's sister who has had amazing results with her own two kids. We let Em cry it out one night back in the day and she was a fantastic sleeper from then on. It was the hardest 30 minutes of my life, but I learned two things...

1. Babies don't die after crying for 30 minutes.
2. I can finish an entire bottle of wine in a half hour on my own.

We're starting with days instead of nights. Jacob began getting cranky at 8:30 and had droopy eyes while I carried him to his crib. I set him down and he began wailing. I went in after 10 minutes to soothe him then set him down again once he was calm. I've repeated this several times and each time I keep thinking he will pass out. HE CAN'T STAY AWAKE FOREVER, RIGHT?!?

My internal dialogue isn't helping...

Heart: How could you do this to your baby!?
Head: I'm teaching him how to put himself to sleep.

Heart: CPS is going to knock on your door any moment now.
Head: I'm doing this because I love him. He needs this skill.

Heart: Do you feel that nagging urge to help your crying baby? That's a natural instinct. It's there for a reason.
Head: We'll all be happier. He'll be a happier baby if he's more rested. I'll be a better mommy.

Heart: You're a terrible mommy. Attachment parents across the globe are weeping for your child right now. He'll have abandonment issues his entire life.
Head: Bullshit. One morning of crying does not equal lifetime trauma... Wait... Does it?

Right about then I poured a shot of Pendleton Whiskey in my coffee. I'm not a huge whiskey fan, but we were out of Bailey's. So, now I'm a 9 a.m. drinker. Awesome.

He's still crying. We're going on almost TWO HOURS of this. I pick him up and he immediately calms and begins to fall asleep. I set him back down and he starts screaming before he hits the mattress. I set the timer for 10 minutes and try to distract myself while he loses his mind in there. I reset the clock if he calms even for a minute. I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the right thing.

Emily wants to know why I won't help him. I explained how this works and why it's so important as if this is a developmentally appropriate conversation to have with a 3 year old. "Do you understand, Honey? Do you think this is a good idea?"

"Yes... And I think we need to get a cat." Right. I'm finding absurd things to do to fill 10-minute crying sessions. I polished my toe nails blue. I bleached the bathroom sinks. I'm blogging. Next I plan on looking at cats on the Humane Society website. We'll name him Ferber. Or Pendleton. He'll be fantastic and all he will do all day long is SLEEP. Good kitty.

I'm on a roll...

We move in 4 weeks and somehow I keep breaking things! Last week I broke a kitchen drawer. I managed to break a toe in the process and later the same evening spilled red wine in the nursery. Admittedly, I'm a little sidetracked lately by everything going on. Packing our things, going back to work, preparing to move... It's a bit much. I think everyone in this house is getting a little anxious about all of the changes taking place. The kids are more emotional than usual, I'm freakishly accident-prone, and even our Weimaraner is a whole new level of neurotic. Last night, for example...

Emily refuses to eat her chicken.
Jason and I promise M&M's and a bath for little girls who eat chicken.
No chicken. She'd rather scream and throw food.
Early bedtime.
Hungry baby.
Tired baby.
Wine, please.
Blue wants outside.
Blue wants inside.
Blue wants water.
Emily has rubbed her tears and runny nose all over her face.
Now we have to put a dirty, snotty kid to bed without a bath. Yuck.
Crying baby.
Blue is pacing, whining. Attention hungry?
"Take a number, Blue!"
More wine, please.

Blue takes a backseat to kid chaos most nights. This morning he found his revenge by peeing while walking ALL OVER upstairs. He left a squiggly trail around furniture and into every room upstairs as if he was trying to write something (swear words?) I was worried about whether my hands smelled like Resolve while driving to a psych meeting today. Then I saw the dried spit-up on my day planner. Things seemed to go downhill from there... I cleaned off my day planner and called Jason on the way to my meeting.

"So... Hypothetically speaking... If one were to clog a toilet this morning and could NOT get it unclogged.... What then?"

Go ahead and snicker AS IF YOU'VE NEVER CLOGGED A TOILET IN YOUR LIFE! I had to run to the store after my meeting anyway, so I picked up a new plunger while I was there (ours was about a decade old and getting a little funky). I came home to find that the toilet was brimming with water and had OVERFLOWED! I bagged the rugs and 8 dripping bath towels, plunged the Hell out of the toilet (success!) then laughed at how ridiculous my day had become. Em asked what I was doing. "Mommy just showed that toilet who's in charge!" Looking back, it's possible my aggressive plunging caused the next problem. There's water dripping from the ceiling downstairs as I type. A slow, steady puddle is seeping from the base of the toilet.

Maybe I should just not... touch... anything for a while.

Inquiring Toddler Mind Wants to Know

How long does the "Why?" phase last???

I love my daughter, but I could do without having to explain every little thing I say and do... repeatedly. Jason has figured out that he can stop the why train if he gives her a long, technical answer she's too young to understand. Tonight I overheard him explaining in great detail why it was raining outside. My problem is (a) I don't remember 6th grade science facts as accurately as he does and (b) I don't have that kind of patience.

I try to answer all of her questions, but there have been a few times when I've had to shut the whole thing down. She asked me the other day, "Why are bad guys bad?" I smugly thought to myself, I've got this...

"They don't have something called empathy. Empathy is understanding and caring about how other people feel. They don't have that."

"But why?"
"Um... Because God made them that way... I guess."

"Why did God make them that way?"
"I changed my mind... I don't think God made them that way. I think maybe life made them that way. Can we talk about something else now?"

"Why do you want to talk about something else?"
"Because you're 3 and this is getting a little weird."

"Why?"

At this point I went with a response designed to foster the development of her inquisitive nature. Wait... No, I didn't.

"Oh! I see an airplane! Where do you think that airplane is going?"

Confession: There was no airplane.

Red Means STOP

I have the world's youngest backseat driver. It's my own fault... Emily asked why I was stopping and I explained that the light was red. This rolled into a discussion about traffic lights, signs, and later pedestrian crosswalk signals. That part was a little awkward when she said, "The white man says, 'walk!'" while standing beside two African American women. Lovely.

We spent the day at the beach yesterday and enjoyed Emily's backseat driving throughout the trip. She was in awe of the bright lights and dark sky on our way home (something she rarely sees with her 7 p.m. bedtime) and feeling super chatty...

"Mommy, Go! Why are you slowing down?"
"It's really, REALLY dark... There's Chuck E Cheese! It's dark at Chuck E Cheese."
"The sun is sleeping and the moon and stars are awake."
"Those were big waves. The little waves are friendly and the big waves are scary. No, They're not scary. They're friendly."
"Red means 'Stop.' It's green! Go, Mommy! Green means 'Go.'"
"I see the moon! My, my, my, my, my... It is SOOOO dark outside!"

The wave bit is my fault, too. She was running toward the ocean and I yelled, "STOP!" I may have then said something about the big waves being so strong they could pull you under. I totally botched that one, right? The tiniest little ripple came toward us and I've never seen her run faster! She was hysterical when we caught up to her. Apparently I created a little ocean phobia with my little "waves will pull you under" comment. Oops. I tried to backpedal by telling her ALL waves are friendly and the big ones are only scary to Mommy when she goes too far out without us. Too little, too late. She was still talking about the big waves today. Nice work, Mommy. Where was my traffic signal on that one?? Red means "Stop before you traumatize your kid!"

Two Kids 101

It's been nearly a month since I've posted anything here... It's just one of the many things I wish I had time for that just doesn't seem to fit into the day. A friend of mine tried to prepare me for having two...

"You know that 10 minutes of the day that's just for you?? You don't get that anymore."

So true...

Both kids are sleeping at the moment and while I should be frantically getting ready for bed and lying down for 60 seconds before one of them wakes up (because that's just how Murphy's Law works) I'm choosing instead to write something. Quickly.

I'm still juggling away and actually finding a routine of sorts. I'm on a ridiculous allergy elimination diet for Jacob's sake. Pros: Jacob is a MUCH happier baby and I'm about 10 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. Cons: I can count the number of things I can eat / drink on two hands and wine is NOT one of them. Neither is coffee.

Which leads me to the lessons I've learned so far from having another baby...

1) I can justify a glass of wine at 10 a.m.
2) Pumping breast milk is FASCINATING to toddlers. Before I just felt like a dairy cow. Now I'm a dairy cow with an audience. Sweet.
3) Newborns and toddlers like to melt down at the exact same time. Then they get together and snicker about it. Or they would if Jacob could snicker.
4) Just because a trick worked for the first baby doesn't mean it will work for the second. Hair dryers and car rides were magical for getting Emily to sleep. Jacob acts like I'm torturing him when I put him in his car seat and the hair dryer is like a challenge and yes, he CAN scream louder.

Still learning. It's getting easier and I love my babies very much... Even when they're conspiring to send me over the edge. Do they make a low-allergen wine?? Just checking.