"It" is the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It's been quite a while since mommy has had consecutive days that strike fear and panic into her heart.
Mommy feels completely helpless to stop the onslaught of escapes, pilfered food and malicious woundings among siblings. Every one of them has scars from sibling inflicted wounds. Bite marks, bruises from pushes and shoves, cuts on their feet from being run over by a Big Wheel, half peeled off fingernails from door injuries. If pulled hair left marks, Girlface would be sporting wounds. Mommy feels as though she's toting a band of wounded criminals with her
everywhere she goes. Mommy senses that her oldest's impending first day
of school and the ridiculous July heat is affecting everyone's psyche.
Mommy's day starts at 2 a.m. when she hears The Baby "reading" books in the hallway. Reading, good. 2 a.m., not so good. By 4 a.m., she had shooed him back to his room three more times. Girlface even joined him once.
But by 6:30 a.m., the really scary part began. Her husband bolts back into the bedroom and says, "Girlface's not in her bed and she's not downstairs." Mommy frantically gets dressed. She peers out the windows in her bedroom trying to spot the child. As scary as it sounds, mommy knows in the back of her head that Foudini (one of many nicknames for Girlface) probably didn't get far. Still, that doesn't stop her from imagining the worst.
Mommy can see the 6:00 news now. Preschooler catches school bus to local high school, mother charged with child endangerment.
As it turns out, she had climbed the baby gate, pulled an ottoman to the door, unlatched the chain and let herself out. When asked how long she had been outside, she gave a wicked look and said, "Five minutes." What's so frightening is all the obstacles she overcame to get herself outside. Mommy wonders how many more obstacles she'll have to build into the Foudini containment system just so she can close her eyes at night.
Next disaster involves The Baby who is like a drunken billy goat on a suicide mission. He literally hurls himself into walls. It's like he has no sense of how his body works in space. He was pulling these stunts on the stairs and he fell. Backwards. Mommy is standing right behind him, watching as he falls on his head and neck.
Okay. That's over. Next up, mommy needs a shower. The kids know the drill. They stay upstairs and play while mommy takes a quick shower. Five minutes tops. How much trouble can they cause in five minutes?
Post shower, mommy finds Girlface in the hallway leading the 2 year old around with a belt around his neck. And it's not loosely around his neck, either. Mommy starts to shake inside. This is beyond horrifying.
Next mommy finds that Girlface has climbed up on the chest freezer to pilfer granola bars from the top shelf. Later that same day, her and The Baby got into a container of brownies that Nana thought she had put far out of reach. There apparently is no such thing as out of reach for Girlface.
Oh, and it gets worse. At the park, Girlface follows a group of girls walking to the bathroom. At least there is an adult with them and it happens to be a friend of mine. I spotted her across the parking lot and thought, "Okay. At least she's with an adult I know." Is it bad that mommy is equally concerned about what her acquaintances at the park must think of a woman who can't keep tabs on her own kids?
Mommy is exhausted. She locks Girlface in her room for quiet time. Don't judge. Mommy is out of options. She hopes that once the first day of school comes and goes, things will start to calm down here. She suspects that the anticipation of it has been hovering above the kids and making them crazy.
Stay tuned for photos and stories from Big Brother's first day of school which is tomorrow. I'll write. I promise.
Showing posts with label diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diary. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Monday, December 12, 2011
Diary of an Omniturnal Mom
The Great Toy Purge and Near Nervous Breakdown of 2011
Sunday afternoon
It's cold, the adults are pre-occupied with Christmas projects and the kids are climbing the walls. Mommy is in the kitchen when she hears a ruckus in the TV room. She figures that the kids are just blowing off steam.
Then she hears her husband say to the kids, "You tore them off the walls?"
And mommy's heart sinks, six feet underground. The only thing he could possibly be talking about is the 5 year old's brand new birthday present: Hot Wheels Wall Tracks. She and her husband rarely buy new, expensive toys for the kids, but this was different. Tracks mounted on the wall with 3M Command Strips that theoretically should peel off the wall clean. Cars propelled with the help of gravity! No tracks cluttering the floor! What could be better? The tracks have been here for a little over a week and have already provided hours of entertainment -- for kids and adults alike.
She surveys the scene from the door. Wall tracks on the floor, ripped off the wall, leaving large holes in the paint on the blackboard wall. Mommy wants to cry tears of discouragement and frustration born of weeks, months, years of toys scattered about and broken from misuse and carelessness and exuberance.
The boy is unfazed by mommy's expression and subsequent tirade.
"The wall tracks are going away," she explains in a shaky voice as she gathers the pieces from the floor. She further explains her disappointment that he has chosen to abuse his toys.
He mutters, "Okay" and continues to watch the football game on the TV.
She is gathering up the tracks when she realizes that she is so angry that she's shaking.
"Not another thing," she yells in her husband's direction. "Don't you buy them another thing for Christmas."
Big Brother jerks up at this statement. "But Santa will bring it."
"Oh no, dear. Santa doesn't bring toys to children who won't take care of them."
He says nothing and returns to watching football.
Mommy just snaps and begins emptying packing boxes of Christmas toys from Kohl's. It's the only way to avoid a nervous breakdown at this point. She removes the packing bubbles and the bags filled with air and throws them down in the TV room.
Mommy is just on auto-mutter as she drags boxes into the play room and unceremoniously dumps entire baskets of toys into the boxes. She's flinging phrases such as "I've had it with these children" and "They don't even play with these things, they just throw them on the floor and walk away" and "All they do is break things and walk away."
The older two wander up curiously, still uncomprehending the serious mental state they just hurled their mother into, and ask about the boxes. She gives it to them straight, "I'm giving these away to children who will take care of their toys."
She fields a minimum of grousing before the two of them return to their former activity: Jumping of the sofa to pop the bags of air and bubble wrap. Most kids pop bubbles with their fingers; hers prefer jumping.
That's right; while mommy was throwing away their toys, they were jumping on bags of air. They obviously don't need toys. Mommy takes it as a sign that she's doing the right thing. No guilt, no fear.
While the kids napped, mommy grinch slunk off to the thrift shop to donate their toys.
Monday morning
"Here mom, you forgot to put this track with the wall tracks," he says.
And later ...
"Mom, where are the toy boxes?"
"What toy boxes?"
"The ones that were in the play room yestertime. "
"They went away."
"Oh."
And, 24 hours post-purge, that is all mommy has heard about the missing toys. They spent the morning playing with what was left and after a trip to Sam's Club, they set up a picnic lunch on the carpet. Mommy happily provided the lunch and, when they were done, called in the dog for cleanup.
Sunday afternoon
It's cold, the adults are pre-occupied with Christmas projects and the kids are climbing the walls. Mommy is in the kitchen when she hears a ruckus in the TV room. She figures that the kids are just blowing off steam.
Then she hears her husband say to the kids, "You tore them off the walls?"
And mommy's heart sinks, six feet underground. The only thing he could possibly be talking about is the 5 year old's brand new birthday present: Hot Wheels Wall Tracks. She and her husband rarely buy new, expensive toys for the kids, but this was different. Tracks mounted on the wall with 3M Command Strips that theoretically should peel off the wall clean. Cars propelled with the help of gravity! No tracks cluttering the floor! What could be better? The tracks have been here for a little over a week and have already provided hours of entertainment -- for kids and adults alike.
She surveys the scene from the door. Wall tracks on the floor, ripped off the wall, leaving large holes in the paint on the blackboard wall. Mommy wants to cry tears of discouragement and frustration born of weeks, months, years of toys scattered about and broken from misuse and carelessness and exuberance.
The boy is unfazed by mommy's expression and subsequent tirade.
"The wall tracks are going away," she explains in a shaky voice as she gathers the pieces from the floor. She further explains her disappointment that he has chosen to abuse his toys.
He mutters, "Okay" and continues to watch the football game on the TV.
She is gathering up the tracks when she realizes that she is so angry that she's shaking.
"Not another thing," she yells in her husband's direction. "Don't you buy them another thing for Christmas."
Big Brother jerks up at this statement. "But Santa will bring it."
"Oh no, dear. Santa doesn't bring toys to children who won't take care of them."
He says nothing and returns to watching football.
Mommy just snaps and begins emptying packing boxes of Christmas toys from Kohl's. It's the only way to avoid a nervous breakdown at this point. She removes the packing bubbles and the bags filled with air and throws them down in the TV room.
Mommy is just on auto-mutter as she drags boxes into the play room and unceremoniously dumps entire baskets of toys into the boxes. She's flinging phrases such as "I've had it with these children" and "They don't even play with these things, they just throw them on the floor and walk away" and "All they do is break things and walk away."
The older two wander up curiously, still uncomprehending the serious mental state they just hurled their mother into, and ask about the boxes. She gives it to them straight, "I'm giving these away to children who will take care of their toys."
She fields a minimum of grousing before the two of them return to their former activity: Jumping of the sofa to pop the bags of air and bubble wrap. Most kids pop bubbles with their fingers; hers prefer jumping.
That's right; while mommy was throwing away their toys, they were jumping on bags of air. They obviously don't need toys. Mommy takes it as a sign that she's doing the right thing. No guilt, no fear.
While the kids napped, mommy grinch slunk off to the thrift shop to donate their toys.
Monday morning
"Here mom, you forgot to put this track with the wall tracks," he says.
And later ...
"Mom, where are the toy boxes?"
"What toy boxes?"
"The ones that were in the play room yestertime. "
"They went away."
"Oh."
And, 24 hours post-purge, that is all mommy has heard about the missing toys. They spent the morning playing with what was left and after a trip to Sam's Club, they set up a picnic lunch on the carpet. Mommy happily provided the lunch and, when they were done, called in the dog for cleanup.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Diary of an Omniturnal Mom
Omniturnal mom has taken a little break since baby number three started sleeping through the night. Of course, every once in a while, her day starts literally when the new day starts. And those are always the days where there is some etched-in-stone appointment first thing in the morning. They know. They just know. Even when mommy doesn't say anything. It's like the little buggers are clairvoyant.
Monday, 12 a.m.
Mommy has been asleep for at least an hour when she hears wailing that seems to be coming from the older son's room. It's hard to tell, though, since the past few nights she's also been woken by an owl hooting in the backyard. (Asshole.)
It's Big Brother. He's just yelling in his sleep for no apparent reason.
2 a.m.
Big Brother wails again. Mommy goes in to find him bolt upright in bed, wide awake, saying, "I'm hungry." Seriously? A bowl of chili, corn chips, two glasses of milk, an apple scone and an apple were not enough for this 40 pound pipsqueak? Mommy does a quick calculation and determines that giving the malcontent a cheese stick would be quickest route back to bed. She can't believe this is and always has been her best idea, from infancy and booby juice right up on up to shoving a cheese stick in the 4 year old's face at 2 a.m.
2:20 a.m.
Mommy is snuggled back in bed. She hears wailing again. It's the girlchild. Mommy prays that girlchild didn't hear or sense that her brother is munching on a cheese stick in his bedroom. She does not want to have to go downstairs again. Mommy goes to check on her and finds her in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, crying, "I've got to go pee pee."
Well, hallelujah. At least one child gets up to pee in the middle of the night. But there's no need to wake the hole house, okay cupcake?
6:30 a.m.
The baby, who is actually a toddler now, is up for his morning feeding. He squawks a bit when she puts him back down, but mommy manages to get in another hour of sleep, which is better than sex and chocolate combined at this point.
7:30 a.m.
All the kids are up. Mommy is dissatisfied with the state of her hair that she just washed the night before. She looks kind of like Phil Specter on what he thinks is a good day. She considers taking another shower. Two showers in 12 hours? She can't remember the last time that happened.
But she is quickly sidetracked by the act in ring number two, a k a the kids' bathroom.
"Mommy, The Baby is splashing in the toilet," Girlface says. Mommy remembers that Big Brother just went to the bathroom and thinks, "Well, might as well clean him up and take that shower."
She cleans up the mess and the baby and puts more clothes on him and flushes the toilet. Then she hops in the shower. Her last words were a reminder to her daughter to flush the toilet and put the seat down and close the bathroom door.
Perhaps that was too many instructions in a row for a 2 year old.
Perhaps mommy was being overly optimistic.
Perhaps mommy just desperately wanted to leave the house for a doctor's appointment that morning without feeling as though she just returned from a wilderness camping trip.
She returned from her shower to find a bathroom massacre involving baby wipes and more toilet bowl splashing. And, no, Girlface hadn't flushed the toilet. Or put the seat down. Or closed the door.
Pee-pee water all over the floor, the step stool, the toilet, the baby and his clothes, the girl and her clothes and now mommy's freshly showered feet. Baby wipes in the toilet. The baby squeezing a wad of baby wipes sopping wet from pee pee toilet water.
It seems the past 8 hours have been a perfect reminder of why mommy does not want any more children. (And, yes, the shower was totally worth it.)
Monday, 12 a.m.
Mommy has been asleep for at least an hour when she hears wailing that seems to be coming from the older son's room. It's hard to tell, though, since the past few nights she's also been woken by an owl hooting in the backyard. (Asshole.)
It's Big Brother. He's just yelling in his sleep for no apparent reason.
2 a.m.
Big Brother wails again. Mommy goes in to find him bolt upright in bed, wide awake, saying, "I'm hungry." Seriously? A bowl of chili, corn chips, two glasses of milk, an apple scone and an apple were not enough for this 40 pound pipsqueak? Mommy does a quick calculation and determines that giving the malcontent a cheese stick would be quickest route back to bed. She can't believe this is and always has been her best idea, from infancy and booby juice right up on up to shoving a cheese stick in the 4 year old's face at 2 a.m.
2:20 a.m.
Mommy is snuggled back in bed. She hears wailing again. It's the girlchild. Mommy prays that girlchild didn't hear or sense that her brother is munching on a cheese stick in his bedroom. She does not want to have to go downstairs again. Mommy goes to check on her and finds her in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, crying, "I've got to go pee pee."
Well, hallelujah. At least one child gets up to pee in the middle of the night. But there's no need to wake the hole house, okay cupcake?
6:30 a.m.
The baby, who is actually a toddler now, is up for his morning feeding. He squawks a bit when she puts him back down, but mommy manages to get in another hour of sleep, which is better than sex and chocolate combined at this point.
7:30 a.m.
All the kids are up. Mommy is dissatisfied with the state of her hair that she just washed the night before. She looks kind of like Phil Specter on what he thinks is a good day. She considers taking another shower. Two showers in 12 hours? She can't remember the last time that happened.
But she is quickly sidetracked by the act in ring number two, a k a the kids' bathroom.
"Mommy, The Baby is splashing in the toilet," Girlface says. Mommy remembers that Big Brother just went to the bathroom and thinks, "Well, might as well clean him up and take that shower."
She cleans up the mess and the baby and puts more clothes on him and flushes the toilet. Then she hops in the shower. Her last words were a reminder to her daughter to flush the toilet and put the seat down and close the bathroom door.
Perhaps that was too many instructions in a row for a 2 year old.
Perhaps mommy was being overly optimistic.
Perhaps mommy just desperately wanted to leave the house for a doctor's appointment that morning without feeling as though she just returned from a wilderness camping trip.
She returned from her shower to find a bathroom massacre involving baby wipes and more toilet bowl splashing. And, no, Girlface hadn't flushed the toilet. Or put the seat down. Or closed the door.
Pee-pee water all over the floor, the step stool, the toilet, the baby and his clothes, the girl and her clothes and now mommy's freshly showered feet. Baby wipes in the toilet. The baby squeezing a wad of baby wipes sopping wet from pee pee toilet water.
It seems the past 8 hours have been a perfect reminder of why mommy does not want any more children. (And, yes, the shower was totally worth it.)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Diary of an Omniturnal Mom
Please just stay the F#$% asleep!
Apparently, the baby enjoys being around Omniturnal Mom. He hasn't slept consistently well in quite some time. The following has, unfortunately, been a typical day around here lately.
Midnight Sunday
The baby is up for the second time in an hour. She nurses him and puts him back down, sighing heavily and cursing internally. She rolls up a towel and shoves it up against the door so she can't hear him hem and haw in his crib.
Mommy drifts back off to sleep.
1 a.m.
Mommy is jarred awake by the sounds of muffled crying. She feels a bit guilty for a split second that she shoved a towel under the door. It's not like she's ever been comfortable completely ignoring a crying child in the middle of the night. Why the heck does she even go through this charade, pretending that this will be the night she lets him scream his little head off? She knows deep down that she won't. And she kind of hates herself for that.
She's now doing something she hasn't done in about two months. She's cursing. Out loud and trying to pretend she's not cursing at the baby. You know, just cursing. At the ceiling, where God lives. Yeah, that's it.
On the inside, she's thinking: Why won't this mother fuck stay asleep? What a little asshole. Did I inadvertently give him Diet Coke or something? Seems possible given how exhausted mommy is these days.
She changes his diaper. Tells him that he must MUST go back to sleep. Dear God in heaven, just stay the fuck asleep, she whimpers. Mommy doesn't seem to have trouble putting babies to bed, just getting them to stay that way is a major problem. She doesn't really need the "Go the Fuck to Sleep" book. She needs to write the "Stay the Fuck Asleep" book.
A dose of, um, medication at 1 a.m. and he's back in his crib.
3:45 a.m. Girlface cries. "My bed is wet."
She is refusing to wear pull ups but has wet the bed two nights in a row. Mommy is out of fresh sheets for her bed, so she just sets up the child's sleeping bag on the floor.
5:45 a.m. The baby is wide awake. After sleeping almost five hours. WTF? Mommy thinks. Apparently, Benadryl isn't working these days. She tries to soothe him back to sleep. He goes down for another hour.
6:45 a.m. Mommy is in the kitchen. She hates being in the kitchen before 7 a.m. It just feels cold and weird.
8:00 a.m. The older two have trickled downstairs, dressed, ready to play, eat and fight. They have a new toy to fight over today, too. A new-to-us train table picked up for free from a neighbor. Big Brother is already squawking at the younger two.
8:15 a.m. Mommy is ready to get them out of the house. She's plotting a Sam's Club run.
10:30 a.m. Home from Sam's Club. Now what? Play dough, fighting over trains, sweeping the floors incessantly. Too hot to go outside.
Hm? she thinks. Is it too early to start lunch?
Apparently, the baby enjoys being around Omniturnal Mom. He hasn't slept consistently well in quite some time. The following has, unfortunately, been a typical day around here lately.
Midnight Sunday
The baby is up for the second time in an hour. She nurses him and puts him back down, sighing heavily and cursing internally. She rolls up a towel and shoves it up against the door so she can't hear him hem and haw in his crib.
Mommy drifts back off to sleep.
1 a.m.
Mommy is jarred awake by the sounds of muffled crying. She feels a bit guilty for a split second that she shoved a towel under the door. It's not like she's ever been comfortable completely ignoring a crying child in the middle of the night. Why the heck does she even go through this charade, pretending that this will be the night she lets him scream his little head off? She knows deep down that she won't. And she kind of hates herself for that.
She's now doing something she hasn't done in about two months. She's cursing. Out loud and trying to pretend she's not cursing at the baby. You know, just cursing. At the ceiling, where God lives. Yeah, that's it.
On the inside, she's thinking: Why won't this mother fuck stay asleep? What a little asshole. Did I inadvertently give him Diet Coke or something? Seems possible given how exhausted mommy is these days.
She changes his diaper. Tells him that he must MUST go back to sleep. Dear God in heaven, just stay the fuck asleep, she whimpers. Mommy doesn't seem to have trouble putting babies to bed, just getting them to stay that way is a major problem. She doesn't really need the "Go the Fuck to Sleep" book. She needs to write the "Stay the Fuck Asleep" book.
A dose of, um, medication at 1 a.m. and he's back in his crib.
3:45 a.m. Girlface cries. "My bed is wet."
She is refusing to wear pull ups but has wet the bed two nights in a row. Mommy is out of fresh sheets for her bed, so she just sets up the child's sleeping bag on the floor.
5:45 a.m. The baby is wide awake. After sleeping almost five hours. WTF? Mommy thinks. Apparently, Benadryl isn't working these days. She tries to soothe him back to sleep. He goes down for another hour.
6:45 a.m. Mommy is in the kitchen. She hates being in the kitchen before 7 a.m. It just feels cold and weird.
8:00 a.m. The older two have trickled downstairs, dressed, ready to play, eat and fight. They have a new toy to fight over today, too. A new-to-us train table picked up for free from a neighbor. Big Brother is already squawking at the younger two.
8:15 a.m. Mommy is ready to get them out of the house. She's plotting a Sam's Club run.
10:30 a.m. Home from Sam's Club. Now what? Play dough, fighting over trains, sweeping the floors incessantly. Too hot to go outside.
Hm? she thinks. Is it too early to start lunch?
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Diary of an Omniturnal Mom
Dispatch from 100 degree hell
Disclaimer: This was last Thursday. Things are better this week. Slightly. But it's still a million degrees outside.
Omniturnal mom took a long break. The baby started sleeping through the night. It happened one magical June night. He just slept 10 hours in a row. Mommy could hardly believe it happened without nights of crying. We moved his "room" permanently to the closet and took down the crib which he hadn't been sleeping in anyway. It works. If he can't see me, he doesn't squawk, or, if he does, we're better able to ignore him since he's not looking right at us.
Now he's back to getting up around 10:30 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., which, of course, is much better than getting up at midnight, 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. But it's not as good as 8 to 6, now is it?
Couple his recent nightwaking habit with weeks on end of 100 degree temperatures and kids who are bouncing off the walls and, well, mom is once again up. All the effing time.
The first few weeks of 100 degree hell were okay since we had access to a pool that hadn't reached bathwater temperatures and the distraction of grandparents in town. Grandparents and suitable pool water gone, and there's only so much mom can do to entertain the kids for days on end.
Last Thursday started at 4 a.m. and went downhill from there.
4:00 a.m. Baby squawks. Mommy goes to nurse him. She's on autopilot.
5:30 a.m. Mommy hears Daddy talking to Girlface before he leaves for work. She hopes it's a dream.
6 a.m. Mommy hears voices. And dresser drawers closing. It apparently is no dream. Big Brother and Girlface are up and dressing themselves, which mommy would love so much more if it were 8 a.m. She prays that the baby doesn't wake up. At least with the older two she can count on maybe 20 minutes of amicable playing before a skirmish breaks out that sounds like a pteradactyl and a rabid gorilla fighting.
6:30 a.m. The baby wakes up. He's too happy and alert to render him semi-unconscious with booby juice. She brings him to bed with her to give herself a few more horizontal minutes before releasing him into the wild.
7:00 a.m. The standard breakfast is served. Eggs, scrambled for the older two, hard boiled for mommy and the baby. Heat and serve sausage. Mini muffins.
The baby's eating habits are beginning to disgust mommy. He smashes his muffin with his palm, crumbles his egg yolk all over the table and bench, eats most of his sausage and only spits out one half this morning. He's in the cud-chewing phase. The only thing getting mommy through this stage is the knowledge that this WILL be in the last time she goes through this stage with a child.
Mommy tells the kids that they are going to leave her alone while she chats with her sister online. She gets away with it for a whole 20 minutes. The gods are apparently smiling on her this morning.
7:40 a.m. Big Brother and Girlface are now fighting like cats and dogs. She decides to let the kids work out their differences. Big Brother starts tattling. Mommy says ...
"I'm not the one who hurt you. you need to talk to the person who hurt you."
He walks away.
7:45 a.m. "We worked it out," Big Brother says. Girlface is screaming in the next room. Um, yeah, sure sounds like it, kid.
8:30 a.m. Strapped in the van. On the way to get money and go to the blueberry path. Oh, and to get a Diet Coke.
"Don't forget the Diet Coke, mom," Big Brother says. Not likely, kid.
The blueberry patch is closed. Really. They apparently ran out of blueberries. Big Brother's idea?
"I'm going to get in my NASCAR and dump blueberries on those bushes."
Right.
9:00 a.m. Piney Woods Park for an hour. Then home when The Baby starts to look tired. Maybe he'll nap. Or maybe mommy should keep him up until after lunch. There's a real risk that he'll think his morning nap is his nap for the day.
10:00 a.m. Back home. Mommy gets the pool set up. The kids go get their bathing suits on. The only rule is don't touch the hose while Mommy is filling the pool. One rule. ONE RULE. Can they follow it? Of course not. Big Brother puts his hand on the hose the second mommy says not to. Girlface follows suit. Time out until the pool is full.
She really hopes the neighbors didn't hear her yelling, "What part of NO and STOP don't you understand??"
The baby? He's happily playing in the pool as it fills and mostly ignoring the hose.
10:45 a.m. It's been a reasonably fun half hour of pool time. By this time, though, the kids have started hassling her for a bit of her Luna Bar (despite having been given fruit snacks) and her water (despite each of them having their own water bottles). They truly believe that mommy gets her water from some superior source.
11:00 a.m. Big Brother splashes her right after she tells him to stop. Time out. It starts when he's quiet. Except that it doesn't start because he never is. He just won't stop talking and hooting and snickering and asking questions. Mommy has completely run out of options. She hauls them all in for an early lunch.
12:00 The baby is poopy and just can't stay awake any longer. She puts him down to sleep and then gathers the trash from upstairs. She goes out back to put it in the trash can with the stern admonition to NOT lock the door. So what do they do?
You got it.
The little snots locked the door.
Crazy mommy is standing on the porch telling the kids to unlock the door. Big Brother's response? I didn't do it, mom. Girlface's response? Wide eyes. It's 100 degrees outside. And mommy's blood is boiling.
At least her neighbors are gone by now and she can yell at the kids without fear of embarrassment.
1:00 p.m. Older kids are calm and in their rooms. Mommy settles in to do some editing work. She falls asleep by 2.
3:30 p.m. She hears the familiar sound of a dresser drawer shutting. The baby's up. And she smells dinner in the crockpot.
Come to find out, dinner is actually burned. She burned dinner. In the crockpot. There would be no going out to eat tonight. They've already had one dinner out this week when mommy forgot that she had no tacos and not enough tortillas for taco night.
After a quick recovery, putting a bunch of leftovers together in a casserole (quinoa, shredded chicken, sauteed chard and tomatoes topped with feta and mozzarella balls) and getting it in the oven, she gets the kids in the pool.
And waits.
If their father doesn't get home soon, he's going to find his wife passed out on the deck chairs.
Disclaimer: This was last Thursday. Things are better this week. Slightly. But it's still a million degrees outside.
Omniturnal mom took a long break. The baby started sleeping through the night. It happened one magical June night. He just slept 10 hours in a row. Mommy could hardly believe it happened without nights of crying. We moved his "room" permanently to the closet and took down the crib which he hadn't been sleeping in anyway. It works. If he can't see me, he doesn't squawk, or, if he does, we're better able to ignore him since he's not looking right at us.
Now he's back to getting up around 10:30 p.m. and 4:00 a.m., which, of course, is much better than getting up at midnight, 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. But it's not as good as 8 to 6, now is it?
Couple his recent nightwaking habit with weeks on end of 100 degree temperatures and kids who are bouncing off the walls and, well, mom is once again up. All the effing time.
The first few weeks of 100 degree hell were okay since we had access to a pool that hadn't reached bathwater temperatures and the distraction of grandparents in town. Grandparents and suitable pool water gone, and there's only so much mom can do to entertain the kids for days on end.
Last Thursday started at 4 a.m. and went downhill from there.
4:00 a.m. Baby squawks. Mommy goes to nurse him. She's on autopilot.
5:30 a.m. Mommy hears Daddy talking to Girlface before he leaves for work. She hopes it's a dream.
6 a.m. Mommy hears voices. And dresser drawers closing. It apparently is no dream. Big Brother and Girlface are up and dressing themselves, which mommy would love so much more if it were 8 a.m. She prays that the baby doesn't wake up. At least with the older two she can count on maybe 20 minutes of amicable playing before a skirmish breaks out that sounds like a pteradactyl and a rabid gorilla fighting.
6:30 a.m. The baby wakes up. He's too happy and alert to render him semi-unconscious with booby juice. She brings him to bed with her to give herself a few more horizontal minutes before releasing him into the wild.
7:00 a.m. The standard breakfast is served. Eggs, scrambled for the older two, hard boiled for mommy and the baby. Heat and serve sausage. Mini muffins.
The baby's eating habits are beginning to disgust mommy. He smashes his muffin with his palm, crumbles his egg yolk all over the table and bench, eats most of his sausage and only spits out one half this morning. He's in the cud-chewing phase. The only thing getting mommy through this stage is the knowledge that this WILL be in the last time she goes through this stage with a child.
Mommy tells the kids that they are going to leave her alone while she chats with her sister online. She gets away with it for a whole 20 minutes. The gods are apparently smiling on her this morning.
7:40 a.m. Big Brother and Girlface are now fighting like cats and dogs. She decides to let the kids work out their differences. Big Brother starts tattling. Mommy says ...
"I'm not the one who hurt you. you need to talk to the person who hurt you."
He walks away.
7:45 a.m. "We worked it out," Big Brother says. Girlface is screaming in the next room. Um, yeah, sure sounds like it, kid.
8:30 a.m. Strapped in the van. On the way to get money and go to the blueberry path. Oh, and to get a Diet Coke.
"Don't forget the Diet Coke, mom," Big Brother says. Not likely, kid.
The blueberry patch is closed. Really. They apparently ran out of blueberries. Big Brother's idea?
"I'm going to get in my NASCAR and dump blueberries on those bushes."
Right.
9:00 a.m. Piney Woods Park for an hour. Then home when The Baby starts to look tired. Maybe he'll nap. Or maybe mommy should keep him up until after lunch. There's a real risk that he'll think his morning nap is his nap for the day.
10:00 a.m. Back home. Mommy gets the pool set up. The kids go get their bathing suits on. The only rule is don't touch the hose while Mommy is filling the pool. One rule. ONE RULE. Can they follow it? Of course not. Big Brother puts his hand on the hose the second mommy says not to. Girlface follows suit. Time out until the pool is full.
She really hopes the neighbors didn't hear her yelling, "What part of NO and STOP don't you understand??"
The baby? He's happily playing in the pool as it fills and mostly ignoring the hose.
10:45 a.m. It's been a reasonably fun half hour of pool time. By this time, though, the kids have started hassling her for a bit of her Luna Bar (despite having been given fruit snacks) and her water (despite each of them having their own water bottles). They truly believe that mommy gets her water from some superior source.
11:00 a.m. Big Brother splashes her right after she tells him to stop. Time out. It starts when he's quiet. Except that it doesn't start because he never is. He just won't stop talking and hooting and snickering and asking questions. Mommy has completely run out of options. She hauls them all in for an early lunch.
12:00 The baby is poopy and just can't stay awake any longer. She puts him down to sleep and then gathers the trash from upstairs. She goes out back to put it in the trash can with the stern admonition to NOT lock the door. So what do they do?
You got it.
The little snots locked the door.
Crazy mommy is standing on the porch telling the kids to unlock the door. Big Brother's response? I didn't do it, mom. Girlface's response? Wide eyes. It's 100 degrees outside. And mommy's blood is boiling.
At least her neighbors are gone by now and she can yell at the kids without fear of embarrassment.
1:00 p.m. Older kids are calm and in their rooms. Mommy settles in to do some editing work. She falls asleep by 2.
3:30 p.m. She hears the familiar sound of a dresser drawer shutting. The baby's up. And she smells dinner in the crockpot.
Come to find out, dinner is actually burned. She burned dinner. In the crockpot. There would be no going out to eat tonight. They've already had one dinner out this week when mommy forgot that she had no tacos and not enough tortillas for taco night.
After a quick recovery, putting a bunch of leftovers together in a casserole (quinoa, shredded chicken, sauteed chard and tomatoes topped with feta and mozzarella balls) and getting it in the oven, she gets the kids in the pool.
And waits.
If their father doesn't get home soon, he's going to find his wife passed out on the deck chairs.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
Foudini the Magician
Monday night
The kids are in bed. The adults have kicked back. Mommy in front of the computer for a little editing and writing, Daddy catching up on DVR'd shows.
Her husband warns her that the 2 year old might soon reappear. He says Girlface somehow opened the locked door of her room while he was up there.
Sure enough, Foudini bounds triumphantly into the TV room and chirps, "I came downstairs." And she throws herself onto the sofa, giggling.
"I got out," she says gleefully and laughs maniacally. She knows she's outwitted her parents.
Mommy and daddy look at each other. They really had no backup plan for this one. Their plan was just to keep her locked up at night until she was old enough to understand and obey the command "Stay in your bed." When she's not locked down, she climbs into her brother's crib. This is really the safest arrangement for everyone.
And mommy really has been too sleep deprived to do the Super Nanny procedure -- returning the scofflaw to bed repeatedly and without emotion until she stays. The baby is now sleeping through the night so it might be time for some actual consistent discipline.
Their only other option is to keep her up all day long so that the child passes out from exhaustion before they leave her room. Some days the poor kid hasn't made it to bedtime and falls asleep at the dinner table.
Mommy and daddy escort her back upstairs and ask her to show them how she got out.
"I got a key," she says, clearly delighted with all the attention. She presented them with a plastic fork and Mr. Potato Head's arm, neither of which fit in the keyhole.
They tucked and locked Foudini in and didn't hear from her for the rest of the night.
Tuesday morning
Within two minutes of Girlface's arrival in the kitchen, she pulled the marshmallows out along with the basket of rices and beans. Mommy was in the kitchen when this happened, yet she has no idea when or how this happened. In fact, she's so convinced that it didn't just happen while she was standing right there that she called her husband at work to ask if he had noticed anything on the floor that morning.
He hadn't.
Foudini strikes again.
Tuesday night
Girlface tells mommy, "Leave my door open."
Mommy decides to give it a shot. She tells Girlface to stay in her bedroom.
Five minutes later, the girl is screaming in her bedroom. She had left her room and was escorted back and locked in by her big brother, Deputy Dan.
Mommy tucks a teary Girlface back in bed, says good night and leaves with the admonishment to stay in bed.
Five minutes later, the girl skips into the living room. "I came downstairs," she chirps.
Mommy decides to employ the Super Nanny trick. What the heck? A few extra trips up the stairs would be good for a little butt and leg toning.
One trip. That's all it took that night. That was too easy, mommy thinks.
"I think she just wants us to trust her a little more," mommy tells her husband.
Wednesday morning
Girlface waltzes into mommy's bedroom at 7 a.m. Mommy naively assumes that she was Girlface's first stop that morning.
On her way down the stairs, she spots an open bag of marshmallows. She'd climbed over the baby gate to get downstairs to her beloved marshmallows in the childproofed cabinet.
Foudini strikes again.
Wednesday night
Six trips up and down the stairs returning a gangly 26 pound scofflaw back to her bed.
Ah. This is the workout mommy was looking for.
Monday night
The kids are in bed. The adults have kicked back. Mommy in front of the computer for a little editing and writing, Daddy catching up on DVR'd shows.
Her husband warns her that the 2 year old might soon reappear. He says Girlface somehow opened the locked door of her room while he was up there.
Sure enough, Foudini bounds triumphantly into the TV room and chirps, "I came downstairs." And she throws herself onto the sofa, giggling.
"I got out," she says gleefully and laughs maniacally. She knows she's outwitted her parents.
Mommy and daddy look at each other. They really had no backup plan for this one. Their plan was just to keep her locked up at night until she was old enough to understand and obey the command "Stay in your bed." When she's not locked down, she climbs into her brother's crib. This is really the safest arrangement for everyone.
And mommy really has been too sleep deprived to do the Super Nanny procedure -- returning the scofflaw to bed repeatedly and without emotion until she stays. The baby is now sleeping through the night so it might be time for some actual consistent discipline.
Their only other option is to keep her up all day long so that the child passes out from exhaustion before they leave her room. Some days the poor kid hasn't made it to bedtime and falls asleep at the dinner table.
Mommy and daddy escort her back upstairs and ask her to show them how she got out.
"I got a key," she says, clearly delighted with all the attention. She presented them with a plastic fork and Mr. Potato Head's arm, neither of which fit in the keyhole.
They tucked and locked Foudini in and didn't hear from her for the rest of the night.
Tuesday morning
Within two minutes of Girlface's arrival in the kitchen, she pulled the marshmallows out along with the basket of rices and beans. Mommy was in the kitchen when this happened, yet she has no idea when or how this happened. In fact, she's so convinced that it didn't just happen while she was standing right there that she called her husband at work to ask if he had noticed anything on the floor that morning.
He hadn't.
Foudini strikes again.
Tuesday night
Girlface tells mommy, "Leave my door open."
Mommy decides to give it a shot. She tells Girlface to stay in her bedroom.
Five minutes later, the girl is screaming in her bedroom. She had left her room and was escorted back and locked in by her big brother, Deputy Dan.
Mommy tucks a teary Girlface back in bed, says good night and leaves with the admonishment to stay in bed.
Five minutes later, the girl skips into the living room. "I came downstairs," she chirps.
Mommy decides to employ the Super Nanny trick. What the heck? A few extra trips up the stairs would be good for a little butt and leg toning.
One trip. That's all it took that night. That was too easy, mommy thinks.
"I think she just wants us to trust her a little more," mommy tells her husband.
Wednesday morning
Girlface waltzes into mommy's bedroom at 7 a.m. Mommy naively assumes that she was Girlface's first stop that morning.
On her way down the stairs, she spots an open bag of marshmallows. She'd climbed over the baby gate to get downstairs to her beloved marshmallows in the childproofed cabinet.
Foudini strikes again.
Wednesday night
Six trips up and down the stairs returning a gangly 26 pound scofflaw back to her bed.
Ah. This is the workout mommy was looking for.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
Why mommy can never get anything done 'round here (or why mommy's laundry NEVER gets folded)
Wednesday morning
It's raining. And the van's battery is dead.
So far, mommy has said nothing to the kids about this dead battery. She's positive, however, that they sense there is no escape for mommy this morning. She can tell already and she's still in bed with the baby. The older two are making noise in the hallway and mommy can't tell if it's squeals of delight or irritation.
Usually, on a rainy morning, she'll get them out of the house just for the temporary relief of physically restraining them in their car seats while she drinks a cold Diet Coke and eats a Luna bar. Hell, this is a good plan for most mornings, don't you think?
Mommy considers just strapping them all in the van and sitting in the driveway after breakfast.
Nah. Too weird.
After donning wrinkled clothes from a clean basket of her laundry, she dresses the baby and changes Girlface's diaper. The older two dress themselves, which is why Girlface is wearing a red and white I Love NY shirt inside out and backwards with light pink pants. Mommy is trying hard not to twitch.
Mommy fixes the kids' breakfast and sits down with her own breakfast.
"Mom, I want more apple juice," says the boy child. She swears that the children time their requests for when mommy's butt hits a seat.
And the snotty-nosed baby is crawling up her leg. And the girl child is rummaging through the fridge again.
And the requests keep pouring in.
"I want sausage." (Nevermind that boychild NEVER eats his sausage. And then gets upset when I offer it to Girlface who can't get enough sausage.)
"I want cereal with milk." (Nevermind that they rarely ever finish their cereal with milk and dribbles of milk wind up on the table.)
"I want more apple juice." Again. Seriously?? (And EVERY morning, the answer is the same. "Just one glass. Now it's time for water.")
Mean mommy rarely gets up from eating her breakfast to fill any requests. She makes sure the kids have enough food before sitting down. She's hoping that one glorious day something will click and they will realize, "Hey, mommy sits and doesn't get up until she's done eating. Maybe I should try this, too."
Is this really being too optimistic?
Mommy finally finishes her breakfast. Cold coffee, lukewarm eggs, peanut butter toast that the baby has stuck his fingers in. She started allowing him peanut butter at about 11 months old after he put his fingers in her toast and didn't die.
Time to tackle the dishwasher. She really should just wait until the baby takes a nap, but where's the challenge in that? Besides, the morning nap is no longer guaranteed. Baby stands on the dishwasher door, tries to climb in, runs off with and licks all the utensils, throws bowls on the floor. This is why mommy winds up sweeping forks and spoons off the kitchen floor by noon.
Baby goes up for a nap. Laundry comes downstairs for folding.
Two children saunter over, not to help, but to yank clothes out of the basket and declare ownership, presumably so they can fight over the items of clothing now mingling with dog hair on the carpet.
"Who wants to match socks?"
"Me," Big Brother says. He matches two sets and then wanders off. Meanwhile, Girlface is yanking clothes out and wiping her nose on them. She knocks over a pile of freshly folded clothes.
Mommy wonders why the kids never do this to their father. He can fold laundry, mop floors and collect trash from the whole house while they play quietly in the playroom.
Now she's mad at her husband and he's not even there. And he didn't even do anything wrong. On the contrary, he's way more productive than she is when it comes to housework.
The kids have dumped their dirty clothes in the clean laundry basket and are now running around in their underwear. And wrestling on the rug. And yelping and yodeling. And jumping on the sofa cushions strewn on the floor (despite the fact that there is a perfectly good trampoline in the TV room).
Thankfully, the baby sleeps through all this. By the time he wakes up at 11:30, mommy decides to go ahead and serve lunch. Lunch is the first step in the afternoon nap launching sequence.
Wednesday afternoon
Finally, some relief. The rain lets up. Her dad comes over to test and charge the battery while the kids run around outside in the mud. She manages to get the kids down for naps and she and her dad spend some time sweeping and mopping and cleaning.
Basically wiping the slate clean for the next round.
Deep breath ...
Wednesday morning
It's raining. And the van's battery is dead.
So far, mommy has said nothing to the kids about this dead battery. She's positive, however, that they sense there is no escape for mommy this morning. She can tell already and she's still in bed with the baby. The older two are making noise in the hallway and mommy can't tell if it's squeals of delight or irritation.
Usually, on a rainy morning, she'll get them out of the house just for the temporary relief of physically restraining them in their car seats while she drinks a cold Diet Coke and eats a Luna bar. Hell, this is a good plan for most mornings, don't you think?
Mommy considers just strapping them all in the van and sitting in the driveway after breakfast.
Nah. Too weird.
After donning wrinkled clothes from a clean basket of her laundry, she dresses the baby and changes Girlface's diaper. The older two dress themselves, which is why Girlface is wearing a red and white I Love NY shirt inside out and backwards with light pink pants. Mommy is trying hard not to twitch.
Mommy fixes the kids' breakfast and sits down with her own breakfast.
"Mom, I want more apple juice," says the boy child. She swears that the children time their requests for when mommy's butt hits a seat.
And the snotty-nosed baby is crawling up her leg. And the girl child is rummaging through the fridge again.
And the requests keep pouring in.
"I want sausage." (Nevermind that boychild NEVER eats his sausage. And then gets upset when I offer it to Girlface who can't get enough sausage.)
"I want cereal with milk." (Nevermind that they rarely ever finish their cereal with milk and dribbles of milk wind up on the table.)
"I want more apple juice." Again. Seriously?? (And EVERY morning, the answer is the same. "Just one glass. Now it's time for water.")
Mean mommy rarely gets up from eating her breakfast to fill any requests. She makes sure the kids have enough food before sitting down. She's hoping that one glorious day something will click and they will realize, "Hey, mommy sits and doesn't get up until she's done eating. Maybe I should try this, too."
Is this really being too optimistic?
Mommy finally finishes her breakfast. Cold coffee, lukewarm eggs, peanut butter toast that the baby has stuck his fingers in. She started allowing him peanut butter at about 11 months old after he put his fingers in her toast and didn't die.
Time to tackle the dishwasher. She really should just wait until the baby takes a nap, but where's the challenge in that? Besides, the morning nap is no longer guaranteed. Baby stands on the dishwasher door, tries to climb in, runs off with and licks all the utensils, throws bowls on the floor. This is why mommy winds up sweeping forks and spoons off the kitchen floor by noon.
Baby goes up for a nap. Laundry comes downstairs for folding.
Two children saunter over, not to help, but to yank clothes out of the basket and declare ownership, presumably so they can fight over the items of clothing now mingling with dog hair on the carpet.
"Who wants to match socks?"
"Me," Big Brother says. He matches two sets and then wanders off. Meanwhile, Girlface is yanking clothes out and wiping her nose on them. She knocks over a pile of freshly folded clothes.
Mommy wonders why the kids never do this to their father. He can fold laundry, mop floors and collect trash from the whole house while they play quietly in the playroom.
Now she's mad at her husband and he's not even there. And he didn't even do anything wrong. On the contrary, he's way more productive than she is when it comes to housework.
The kids have dumped their dirty clothes in the clean laundry basket and are now running around in their underwear. And wrestling on the rug. And yelping and yodeling. And jumping on the sofa cushions strewn on the floor (despite the fact that there is a perfectly good trampoline in the TV room).
Thankfully, the baby sleeps through all this. By the time he wakes up at 11:30, mommy decides to go ahead and serve lunch. Lunch is the first step in the afternoon nap launching sequence.
Wednesday afternoon
Finally, some relief. The rain lets up. Her dad comes over to test and charge the battery while the kids run around outside in the mud. She manages to get the kids down for naps and she and her dad spend some time sweeping and mopping and cleaning.
Basically wiping the slate clean for the next round.
Deep breath ...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
Year of the Ear, part 2 or When Will This End? (Seriously. Mommy has had enough, 'kay?)
Thursday, a week ago
Mommy has officially added a new title to her list: Ear infection detector. After four days of the baby having a mild fever late in the afternoon, mommy finally calls the doctor. She suspects the ear infection has returned.
The kid just isn't himself. Usually, he's a happy little snuggle-up-agus. But the past few days, he'd been snotty, crying, sleepless (well, more than usual) and not eating very much.
Mommy calls at 3, the receptionist says, "Can you be here by 4?" and mommy agrees, even though it means she may be hauling three children into the office, two of whom are still sleeping. Luckily, her husband can get home in time. The two of them are like ships passing in the night these days and today is no different. No sooner is he home than she's out the door with her miserable little snuggle-up-agus.
How miserable is he?
He wouldn't even waggle his head on command for the receptionist. Usually he waggles away for just about anybody.
Upon seeing the doctor, mommy admits that she didn't give the baby all of his last round of antibiotics because, well, she just forgot. And it was too hard. Like giving a cat a bath and a pill at the same time, actually.
The doctor confirms mommy's suspicions. Ear infection. Double, in fact.
So the doctor prescribed the antibiotic for delinquent, inept parents. Half a teaspoon, once a day for 10 days with a little extra for the inevitable spillage.
Dosing is officially daddy's job now. Mommy took that title off her list when she got medicine in the screaming baby's freshly shampooed hair and then growled at him that he'd have an ear infection for life. Then she gave up. And her prediction came true.
Thursday, a week ago
Mommy has officially added a new title to her list: Ear infection detector. After four days of the baby having a mild fever late in the afternoon, mommy finally calls the doctor. She suspects the ear infection has returned.
The kid just isn't himself. Usually, he's a happy little snuggle-up-agus. But the past few days, he'd been snotty, crying, sleepless (well, more than usual) and not eating very much.
Mommy calls at 3, the receptionist says, "Can you be here by 4?" and mommy agrees, even though it means she may be hauling three children into the office, two of whom are still sleeping. Luckily, her husband can get home in time. The two of them are like ships passing in the night these days and today is no different. No sooner is he home than she's out the door with her miserable little snuggle-up-agus.
How miserable is he?
He wouldn't even waggle his head on command for the receptionist. Usually he waggles away for just about anybody.
Upon seeing the doctor, mommy admits that she didn't give the baby all of his last round of antibiotics because, well, she just forgot. And it was too hard. Like giving a cat a bath and a pill at the same time, actually.
The doctor confirms mommy's suspicions. Ear infection. Double, in fact.
So the doctor prescribed the antibiotic for delinquent, inept parents. Half a teaspoon, once a day for 10 days with a little extra for the inevitable spillage.
Dosing is officially daddy's job now. Mommy took that title off her list when she got medicine in the screaming baby's freshly shampooed hair and then growled at him that he'd have an ear infection for life. Then she gave up. And her prediction came true.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
The year of the ear
Mommy hasn't slept more than two hours in a row in two weeks. She was about to get a break from Baby O over the weekend. He was all set to spend the night with Nana on Friday night.
Thursday afternoon, he had a fever. Mommy wasn't too worried about it. His sister had a fever earlier in the week with no other symptoms. It'll pass, she thought.
All day Friday, he had a high fever. Sleep over with Nana is cancelled. Really, what kind of mommy would pawn her sick baby off on someone else? (I considered it for about 30 seconds, actually.) The baby did take his first few steps on Friday evening, though. Despite the fever and, just as mommy suspected, an ear infection.
(I swear that he did this on purpose. He knew that I was about to get a good night's sleep.)
Saturday morning, at the doctor's office, the fever registered 103.7.
Mommy's reaction?
OH MY GOD, she practically yelled at the nurse who quickly assured her that he'd be fine. After all, he was smiling and wiggling and wiping his snot on her neck, or, as mommy calls it, snuzzling.
After the doctor cleaned enormous balls of wax from his ears, she diagnosed an ear infection. Mommy is a little embarrassed by all this, but tells the doctor that she can barely get the kids pajamas on, let alone clean his ears.
And, as she later discovered, getting a dose of antibiotics in this child is even harder. Mommy would rather give a cat a pill, in fact. That would actually be easier. It's amoxicillin, for crying out loud. It's not as if the stuff tastes like dirt. Actually, maybe that's why he hates it. It doesn't taste enough like his favorite substance on earth right now.
After one particularly frustrating attempt, Mommy growled (yes, at the baby), "Fine, have an ear infection for the rest of your life."
Monday
A cranky baby who was up every two hours the night before goes down at 8:45 a.m. for a nap. While nursing him, she notices some red blotches on his cheek. She starts freaking out. Is he having an allergic reaction to the strawberries she's been giving him?
Oh, wait. That's just blood, she think as she starts breathing again.
HOLY CRAP. IT'S BLOOD. His nose was bleeding.
Mommy adds blood to the growing list of bodily fluids that she's come into contact with that morning alone.
He woke up two hours later somewhat happier and ready for the monthly trek to Sam's Club where mommy drops $200 on food and beverage that will just end up on the floor. This outing comes with the promise of pizza and/or a hot dog for good behavior. Of course, mommy gets her fountain Diet Coke for good behavior, too.
Back home, she sets Big Brother and Fi up in front of games on PBSKids.org. Big Brother quietly navigates the web site with his sister happily by his side for at least 20 minutes while mommy puts away groceries and keeps the baby happy by feeding him apple chips. It was too quiet.
Mommy peeks in, expecting to find Girlface standing on the desk jamming scissors into the stapler. (Hey, anything can happen with this one.)
Nope. Still quiet. Mommy is suspicious.
Upon closer inspection, it seems that they have found her secret stash of jelly beans. Which means someone stood on the desk to reach them.
Oh well, she thinks. At least there were no sharp objects involved here. She takes the jelly beans with her and finishes them off while putting away the groceries.
It's finally nap time. Synchronization without medication seems like it may be possible that day. A mommy can dream, can't she?
It seemed possible for about 40 minutes until the baby coughed himself wide awake and miserable. Big Brother was discovered arranging his menagerie on his sister's bedroom floor in preparation for "sleep." Ten minutes later, he woke Girlface up.
The silver lining? It was a gorgeous day and Girlface actually woke up in a good mood.
Tuesday
The baby is up bright and early after the usual up-every-two-hours rodeo. The other two are fast asleep (and stay that way until 8 a.m.). Mommy thanks the ceiling (because that's where God lives) for this unfortunate turn of events. And, no, she doesn't want to see this as quality time to spend with the baby. He gets all his quality time overnight, 'kay?
She spends most of the day wiping blood and snot off the baby's face. Her heart just sinks when she realizes that he is wheezing. No wonder he's so tired and miserable. Mommy resigns herself to even more baby wrestling and restraining in her future. Out comes the nebulizer or, as mommy likes to call it, the misting torture device.
That evening's antibiotic dosing attempt was an utter disaster. Mommy put the baby in front of the mirror, thinking maybe that would be a distraction. He wanted nothing to do with the syringe and put a used Q-tip in his mouth instead. (Seriously, that can't have tasted better than Amoxicillin.) The baby wound up with sticky, pink goop in his freshly washed hair. And Mommy just started yelling about why they don't make a skin patch to administer antibiotics.
Her worried 4 year old followed her around asking, "What's happening? What's happening?"
Mommy's losing her mind, sweetie. That's what. She turned the baby over to his father for torture, um, nebulizing.
This day's silver lining came in the form of a neighbor whose son is Big Brother's best friend. He spent the afternoon playing with his bestie while mommy and baby and Girlface slept. And, yes, there was a little, um, medication involved in ensuring a peaceful naptime.
When mommy is this exhausted, blood is better than allergic reactions and two kids with pilfered jelly beans glued to the computer is "enrichment." It seems the side effects of exhaustion--delayed reactions and lowered standards--are the only way mommy is making it through the day without collapsing. That, and wonderful neighbors. And Diet Coke.
Oh, and jelly beans. Don't forget the jelly beans.
Mommy hasn't slept more than two hours in a row in two weeks. She was about to get a break from Baby O over the weekend. He was all set to spend the night with Nana on Friday night.
Thursday afternoon, he had a fever. Mommy wasn't too worried about it. His sister had a fever earlier in the week with no other symptoms. It'll pass, she thought.
All day Friday, he had a high fever. Sleep over with Nana is cancelled. Really, what kind of mommy would pawn her sick baby off on someone else? (I considered it for about 30 seconds, actually.) The baby did take his first few steps on Friday evening, though. Despite the fever and, just as mommy suspected, an ear infection.
(I swear that he did this on purpose. He knew that I was about to get a good night's sleep.)
Saturday morning, at the doctor's office, the fever registered 103.7.
Mommy's reaction?
OH MY GOD, she practically yelled at the nurse who quickly assured her that he'd be fine. After all, he was smiling and wiggling and wiping his snot on her neck, or, as mommy calls it, snuzzling.
After the doctor cleaned enormous balls of wax from his ears, she diagnosed an ear infection. Mommy is a little embarrassed by all this, but tells the doctor that she can barely get the kids pajamas on, let alone clean his ears.
 | |
| He wallows in dirt. |
After one particularly frustrating attempt, Mommy growled (yes, at the baby), "Fine, have an ear infection for the rest of your life."
Monday
A cranky baby who was up every two hours the night before goes down at 8:45 a.m. for a nap. While nursing him, she notices some red blotches on his cheek. She starts freaking out. Is he having an allergic reaction to the strawberries she's been giving him?
Oh, wait. That's just blood, she think as she starts breathing again.
HOLY CRAP. IT'S BLOOD. His nose was bleeding.
Mommy adds blood to the growing list of bodily fluids that she's come into contact with that morning alone.
He woke up two hours later somewhat happier and ready for the monthly trek to Sam's Club where mommy drops $200 on food and beverage that will just end up on the floor. This outing comes with the promise of pizza and/or a hot dog for good behavior. Of course, mommy gets her fountain Diet Coke for good behavior, too.
Back home, she sets Big Brother and Fi up in front of games on PBSKids.org. Big Brother quietly navigates the web site with his sister happily by his side for at least 20 minutes while mommy puts away groceries and keeps the baby happy by feeding him apple chips. It was too quiet.
Mommy peeks in, expecting to find Girlface standing on the desk jamming scissors into the stapler. (Hey, anything can happen with this one.)
Nope. Still quiet. Mommy is suspicious.
Upon closer inspection, it seems that they have found her secret stash of jelly beans. Which means someone stood on the desk to reach them.
Oh well, she thinks. At least there were no sharp objects involved here. She takes the jelly beans with her and finishes them off while putting away the groceries.
It's finally nap time. Synchronization without medication seems like it may be possible that day. A mommy can dream, can't she?
It seemed possible for about 40 minutes until the baby coughed himself wide awake and miserable. Big Brother was discovered arranging his menagerie on his sister's bedroom floor in preparation for "sleep." Ten minutes later, he woke Girlface up.
The silver lining? It was a gorgeous day and Girlface actually woke up in a good mood.
Tuesday
The baby is up bright and early after the usual up-every-two-hours rodeo. The other two are fast asleep (and stay that way until 8 a.m.). Mommy thanks the ceiling (because that's where God lives) for this unfortunate turn of events. And, no, she doesn't want to see this as quality time to spend with the baby. He gets all his quality time overnight, 'kay?
She spends most of the day wiping blood and snot off the baby's face. Her heart just sinks when she realizes that he is wheezing. No wonder he's so tired and miserable. Mommy resigns herself to even more baby wrestling and restraining in her future. Out comes the nebulizer or, as mommy likes to call it, the misting torture device.
That evening's antibiotic dosing attempt was an utter disaster. Mommy put the baby in front of the mirror, thinking maybe that would be a distraction. He wanted nothing to do with the syringe and put a used Q-tip in his mouth instead. (Seriously, that can't have tasted better than Amoxicillin.) The baby wound up with sticky, pink goop in his freshly washed hair. And Mommy just started yelling about why they don't make a skin patch to administer antibiotics.
Her worried 4 year old followed her around asking, "What's happening? What's happening?"
Mommy's losing her mind, sweetie. That's what. She turned the baby over to his father for torture, um, nebulizing.
This day's silver lining came in the form of a neighbor whose son is Big Brother's best friend. He spent the afternoon playing with his bestie while mommy and baby and Girlface slept. And, yes, there was a little, um, medication involved in ensuring a peaceful naptime.
When mommy is this exhausted, blood is better than allergic reactions and two kids with pilfered jelly beans glued to the computer is "enrichment." It seems the side effects of exhaustion--delayed reactions and lowered standards--are the only way mommy is making it through the day without collapsing. That, and wonderful neighbors. And Diet Coke.
Oh, and jelly beans. Don't forget the jelly beans.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
Plan Z
Mommy woke up one recent morning and thought, "Gee, I feel somewhat well-rested for a change." The baby slept through his normal 2:00 a.m. feeding; she fed him at 4:30 and he slept again until 7:30.
Then she heard the voices again. And they were rather far away. And they seemed to be cooperating with each other. Hm.
Mommy jets down the stairs with a squishy diapered babe who's kicked off his pajama bottoms.
The scene this week?
Big Brother, dressed in red shorts and an orange shirt, is sitting on the floor with the bottle of children's vitamins. He's trying to open them. Girlface is kneeling next to him expectantly. She notices me and yells, "Vitamins."
Mommy is afraid to go into the kitchen, but knows she must since apparently she's in charge here. Or is she? It's hard to tell when a chair has been pushed up to the counter, the medicine basket is askew and first aid kit contents have been scattered about the kitchen floor. And there's a knife removed from the knife block. And veggie scraps from the compost pail on the floor.
Mess cleaned and breakfast made and actually eaten, Mommy decides to get the younger two and herself dressed. Big Brother decides that this is the perfect moment to ask for more apple juice. He has a special knack for that. I tell him to wait. He assures mommy that he can handle it.
Yeah, whatever.
Mommy is so sick of arguing with him and she knows that there's not much left in the bottle anyway. How bad could it get?
After dressing herself and two children, she returns to find water and juice all over the floor. Five minutes later, she sits down on something wet.
Mommy seems to have lost control of the older two children in the past few days.
Wait, that's not right. According to her last Diary entry, the children pulled a similar gate-crashing, self-helping escapade a few weeks ago. It apparently has been a gradual slide into chaos; so gradual that mommy has hardly noticed, alternating between pride and utter terror at their self-help skills.
She used to be able to trust them for short periods of time with little to no mischief resulting. Well, with the exception of the great pasta massacre a few months ago. Now, even going to the bathroom is risky. Putting the baby down for a nap may require her to put the other two in straight jackets.
That afternoon, her husband called, right after Time Warner Cable called and woke the baby up from his nap (assholes), and she gave him a 3 minute "there's gonne be a new sheriff in town" speech.
Top peeves right now? Helping themselves to, well, anything they want and transporting water in cups throughout the house, pouring water from cup to cup. Mommy has had enough of stepping in, slipping on and sitting in wet spots.
They discussed a new arrangement in the kitchen. They are both stunned that the children haven't touched the steak knives that have been in a drawer within their reach for years.
"One day we're going to come down and find Girlface standing against the cabinets and Big Brother with a knife, saying 'Hold still, Girlface.' And The Baby will be sitting there with a top hat on," her husband says.
Very funny. And very scary. And, mommy knows, very possible.
Her husband then reconfigured the kitchen, putting the medicine and knife block even higher up and twisting a pipe cleaner around the refrigerator door to add a little resistance (or buy Mommy a little time). The steak knives are in the top shelf of the china cabinet.
If this doesn't work, we're going to have to lock the kids in their bedrooms and pray they don't find a way to gnaw a hole in the door or through the wall.
Mommy woke up one recent morning and thought, "Gee, I feel somewhat well-rested for a change." The baby slept through his normal 2:00 a.m. feeding; she fed him at 4:30 and he slept again until 7:30.
Then she heard the voices again. And they were rather far away. And they seemed to be cooperating with each other. Hm.
Mommy jets down the stairs with a squishy diapered babe who's kicked off his pajama bottoms.
The scene this week?
Big Brother, dressed in red shorts and an orange shirt, is sitting on the floor with the bottle of children's vitamins. He's trying to open them. Girlface is kneeling next to him expectantly. She notices me and yells, "Vitamins."
Mommy is afraid to go into the kitchen, but knows she must since apparently she's in charge here. Or is she? It's hard to tell when a chair has been pushed up to the counter, the medicine basket is askew and first aid kit contents have been scattered about the kitchen floor. And there's a knife removed from the knife block. And veggie scraps from the compost pail on the floor.
Mess cleaned and breakfast made and actually eaten, Mommy decides to get the younger two and herself dressed. Big Brother decides that this is the perfect moment to ask for more apple juice. He has a special knack for that. I tell him to wait. He assures mommy that he can handle it.
Yeah, whatever.
Mommy is so sick of arguing with him and she knows that there's not much left in the bottle anyway. How bad could it get?
After dressing herself and two children, she returns to find water and juice all over the floor. Five minutes later, she sits down on something wet.
Mommy seems to have lost control of the older two children in the past few days.
Wait, that's not right. According to her last Diary entry, the children pulled a similar gate-crashing, self-helping escapade a few weeks ago. It apparently has been a gradual slide into chaos; so gradual that mommy has hardly noticed, alternating between pride and utter terror at their self-help skills.
She used to be able to trust them for short periods of time with little to no mischief resulting. Well, with the exception of the great pasta massacre a few months ago. Now, even going to the bathroom is risky. Putting the baby down for a nap may require her to put the other two in straight jackets.
That afternoon, her husband called, right after Time Warner Cable called and woke the baby up from his nap (assholes), and she gave him a 3 minute "there's gonne be a new sheriff in town" speech.
Top peeves right now? Helping themselves to, well, anything they want and transporting water in cups throughout the house, pouring water from cup to cup. Mommy has had enough of stepping in, slipping on and sitting in wet spots.
They discussed a new arrangement in the kitchen. They are both stunned that the children haven't touched the steak knives that have been in a drawer within their reach for years.
"One day we're going to come down and find Girlface standing against the cabinets and Big Brother with a knife, saying 'Hold still, Girlface.' And The Baby will be sitting there with a top hat on," her husband says.
Very funny. And very scary. And, mommy knows, very possible.
Her husband then reconfigured the kitchen, putting the medicine and knife block even higher up and twisting a pipe cleaner around the refrigerator door to add a little resistance (or buy Mommy a little time). The steak knives are in the top shelf of the china cabinet.
If this doesn't work, we're going to have to lock the kids in their bedrooms and pray they don't find a way to gnaw a hole in the door or through the wall.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
No-sleep-apolooza
It's been four all nighters in a row for Mommy. She hasn't partied this hard since college. The baby, who turned 10 months old this week, has been getting up every two hours between midnight and 6 a.m.
(I'm not even kidding.)
The nightly dance begins with the late night feeding before mommy "goes to bed." She wonders why she even bothers going to bed anymore. Maybe she should just drink Diet Coke and spend all night doing her online editing work. At least then she'd be making some money and enjoying her favorite beverage.
Mommy says to herself every night, "This is the night that I won't feed him every time he wakes up." For crying out loud, the kid is 21 pounds and is crawling so fast that if he was a cartoon character, he'd have smoke billowing behind him. He should be utterly exhausted.
She knows that if nothing changes, nothing will change.
But by 2 a.m. most nights this week, The Baby is up again. Mommy just gives in and nurses him because she believes its the quickest route back to her bed. When he refuses to go back to sleep, she banishes him to the the pack and play in the walk-in closet where, if he can't see her, he'll settle down better.
(In theory.)
By 4 a.m., The Baby is often wide awake again. Same routine ... Booby juice. Back to bed. Pray that no one else wakes. Four a.m. is a favorite wake time around here. Daddy gets up to go to work. Girlface sometimes tries to get up and Big Brother sometimes chooses 4 a.m. to freak out about not getting a glass of lemonade before bedtime the night before.
"You just forgot to give it to me," he wails. Then he drifts peacefully back to sleep as if nothing has happened.
(Jerk.)
By 6 a.m., baby is usually up for the day. Big Brother is now fast asleep, exhausted after his early morning freak out. And Girlface is usually flipping out because she just watched from her bedroom window as Daddy pulled out of the driveway. This is when Mommy starts plotting how to synchronize naps that afternoon. After a particularly rough night, Benadryl and ear plugs or boarding school come to mind.
Mommy can't really remember much from the first two nights, but the third and fourth night and morning stand out ...
Morning number 3
Mommy banishes the baby to the closet around 4 a.m. She and the dog pass each other as he leaves his "bedroom." He doesn't want to sleep near the kid either.
She woke up at 6 a.m. to the sound of a door knob turning.
Girlface? Nope. Fast asleep.
Big Brother? Fast asleep, too.
Only one kid left.
Mommy goes to the closet to find the baby wide awake, standing in his pack and play and jiggling the door handle.
(Crap. He's figuring out door knobs now.)
She gets the baby up and greets the dog who is curled up at the top of the stairs.
"Come on, Bob. Want to go outside?"
She could have sworn the dog shook his head as he got up and slunk to the closet to get some rest. After all, that is his bedroom.
Morning number 4
5 a.m. Baby hits the closet. Again. She hates that this is her only solution. She hears the jingle of the dog's tags and his soft fur brushes her leg as they, once again, pass each other.
The baby cries for about 40 minutes. Then nothing. It's 5:40 a.m.
Mommy wakes up at 7:00 a.m. to the sound of her older two kids playing together in their rooms. Miraculously, they are not fighting. They actually sound like they're having a good time. She should probably get up, but drifts off to sleep. When she wakes again, the voices are a little farther away.
"I've got the apple juice. It's heavy. I'm strong. I'm handling it," yells the 4 year old.
She leaps out of bed and throws on some clothes. Turns out, Big Brother is rolling a full bottle of apple juice from the hall pantry into the kitchen.
Big Brother comes up the stairs and hands her a children's dictionary over the closed gate that the two of them apparently climbed over. It occurs to her that nothing is safe now that the baby is trying to figure out door knobs, the other two can climb gates and the 4 year thinks he can "handle" a full bottle of apple juice.
"Here, mommy. You need your book to read the words and make me French toast."
She peers down the stairs and sees Girlface in her pajamas wandering around with a fork and a spoon in her hands.
(I just had to giggle at that one.)
The rest of the morning is a blur of burned French toast made with some hastily whipped up powdered milk, PBS Kids on the tele and half a bag of raisins and a pile of nuts strewn across the kitchen floor courtesy of the mistress of mayhem.
And the exhausted, red-eyed baby wouldn't take his morning nap. Not even on a trip to the library.
When the baby looks like he's been smoking pot and even the dog is exhausted, it's time. Commencing Operation Sleep Boot Camp post haste.
It's been four all nighters in a row for Mommy. She hasn't partied this hard since college. The baby, who turned 10 months old this week, has been getting up every two hours between midnight and 6 a.m.
(I'm not even kidding.)
The nightly dance begins with the late night feeding before mommy "goes to bed." She wonders why she even bothers going to bed anymore. Maybe she should just drink Diet Coke and spend all night doing her online editing work. At least then she'd be making some money and enjoying her favorite beverage.
Mommy says to herself every night, "This is the night that I won't feed him every time he wakes up." For crying out loud, the kid is 21 pounds and is crawling so fast that if he was a cartoon character, he'd have smoke billowing behind him. He should be utterly exhausted.
She knows that if nothing changes, nothing will change.
But by 2 a.m. most nights this week, The Baby is up again. Mommy just gives in and nurses him because she believes its the quickest route back to her bed. When he refuses to go back to sleep, she banishes him to the the pack and play in the walk-in closet where, if he can't see her, he'll settle down better.
(In theory.)
By 4 a.m., The Baby is often wide awake again. Same routine ... Booby juice. Back to bed. Pray that no one else wakes. Four a.m. is a favorite wake time around here. Daddy gets up to go to work. Girlface sometimes tries to get up and Big Brother sometimes chooses 4 a.m. to freak out about not getting a glass of lemonade before bedtime the night before.
"You just forgot to give it to me," he wails. Then he drifts peacefully back to sleep as if nothing has happened.
(Jerk.)
By 6 a.m., baby is usually up for the day. Big Brother is now fast asleep, exhausted after his early morning freak out. And Girlface is usually flipping out because she just watched from her bedroom window as Daddy pulled out of the driveway. This is when Mommy starts plotting how to synchronize naps that afternoon. After a particularly rough night, Benadryl and ear plugs or boarding school come to mind.
Mommy can't really remember much from the first two nights, but the third and fourth night and morning stand out ...
Morning number 3
Mommy banishes the baby to the closet around 4 a.m. She and the dog pass each other as he leaves his "bedroom." He doesn't want to sleep near the kid either.
She woke up at 6 a.m. to the sound of a door knob turning.
Girlface? Nope. Fast asleep.
Big Brother? Fast asleep, too.
Only one kid left.
Mommy goes to the closet to find the baby wide awake, standing in his pack and play and jiggling the door handle.
(Crap. He's figuring out door knobs now.)
She gets the baby up and greets the dog who is curled up at the top of the stairs.
"Come on, Bob. Want to go outside?"
She could have sworn the dog shook his head as he got up and slunk to the closet to get some rest. After all, that is his bedroom.
Morning number 4
5 a.m. Baby hits the closet. Again. She hates that this is her only solution. She hears the jingle of the dog's tags and his soft fur brushes her leg as they, once again, pass each other.
The baby cries for about 40 minutes. Then nothing. It's 5:40 a.m.
Mommy wakes up at 7:00 a.m. to the sound of her older two kids playing together in their rooms. Miraculously, they are not fighting. They actually sound like they're having a good time. She should probably get up, but drifts off to sleep. When she wakes again, the voices are a little farther away.
"I've got the apple juice. It's heavy. I'm strong. I'm handling it," yells the 4 year old.
She leaps out of bed and throws on some clothes. Turns out, Big Brother is rolling a full bottle of apple juice from the hall pantry into the kitchen.
Big Brother comes up the stairs and hands her a children's dictionary over the closed gate that the two of them apparently climbed over. It occurs to her that nothing is safe now that the baby is trying to figure out door knobs, the other two can climb gates and the 4 year thinks he can "handle" a full bottle of apple juice.
"Here, mommy. You need your book to read the words and make me French toast."
She peers down the stairs and sees Girlface in her pajamas wandering around with a fork and a spoon in her hands.
(I just had to giggle at that one.)
The rest of the morning is a blur of burned French toast made with some hastily whipped up powdered milk, PBS Kids on the tele and half a bag of raisins and a pile of nuts strewn across the kitchen floor courtesy of the mistress of mayhem.
And the exhausted, red-eyed baby wouldn't take his morning nap. Not even on a trip to the library.
When the baby looks like he's been smoking pot and even the dog is exhausted, it's time. Commencing Operation Sleep Boot Camp post haste.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
The fog
It's Day 13 of Poo-pocolypse 2011. We have a good 24 hours and then more, um, undesirable bodily fluids.
And the baby won't stay asleep for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time. And he's still teething. And mommy is pretty sure that she's been feeding him after last-call (midnight), though she doesn't actually remember feeding him.
A fog has settled on her brain. But she at least has the clarity of mind to call the advice nurse. Nurse Know-it-all very conveniently calls back just as mommy sits down to nurse the baby for his nap.
Mommy has a conversation with the advice nurse that goes something like this:
Nurse: You need to put the kids on a diet of clear liquids. Jell-O, Gatorade, Popsicles.
Mommy: OK. (Do these items come un-colored? Or does she mean clear as in "not chunky?")
Nurse: You may want to stay away from sugar. That can make the diarrhea worse.
Mommy: OK (But Jell-O, Gatorade and Popsicles have sugar in them. And the sugar-free versions are full of aspartame and lack calories. Mommy is so confused.)
Nurse: Sometimes you parents put them back on cheeseburgers and cake as soon as they start feeling better.
(Because that's exactly what we did first thing Sunday morning after he puked the night before. Cheeseburgers and cake for breakfast.)
Mommy particularly appreciates being referred to as "you parents" but lacks the mental capacity to come back with any stinging remark. Still, hours later, she's got nothing. Instead she just says ...
Uh-huh.
Nurse: Then start them on the B.R.A.T diet after 24 hours of this.
Mom: Uh-huh. OK. (Won't my kids be starving and weaker that they already are after all this?)
It's naptime. She doesn't care that putting the older two down for naps will ensure that they stay up later. Mommy takes her sister's suggestion and locks the kids in their rooms for quiet time and takes a short nap. The telephone wakes her and it's the receptionist from her doctor's office.
"Honey, you just missed your kids' appointments."
Mommy's brain doesn't work anymore. She thought the appointments were for the next day. In fact, she was so sure of this that she didn't check the message or the e-mail reminder from her doctor's office.
Mommy doesn't even know what day it is anymore. She's convinced that it's actually Thursday and the next day is Parents Morning Out. This is the second time in a week that she has missed something in her schedule. And today, she forget to bring a shoebox for Big Brother to decorate at preschool. Luckily, his teacher had an extra one.
Her husband comes home and finds her sprawled on the coach in a stupor.
"I'm hanging on by a very thin thread here," she says. He later tells her to just keep the kids fed and from hurting themselves and ignore the rest. Sounds easy enough, she thinks. And, hey, he didn't say anything about keeping them from hurting each other, so she can just hang up the referee whistle, right?
Mommy then starts to cry when she tells her husband how the 4 year old no longer wants or needs her help in the bathroom. He told her to go away this afternoon when she asked if he needed any help wiping his bottom. That's right, mommy is actually sad that her son doesn't want her to wipe his bottom. She thinks, "I pick the strangest things to get verklempt over."
Clearly, the fog is quite thick.
She mindlessly goes to the store and buys Gatorade, Jell-O and Popsicles. And a candy bar for herself which she inhales on the way home despite it being almost dinner time.
The kids have two Popiscles and some Jell-O for dinner. Then some Gatorade. Then some more Jell-O before bed. They're thrilled. All mommy can think about is red dye and chemicals and the tantrums when they find out that Popsicles and Jell-O will not be a regular dinner. She realizes, though, that the potassium broth recipe in her health food cookbook would not go over quite so well.
And besides, with a mental fog this deep, handling anything sharp or hot would be a dangerous proposition indeed. Even making Jell-O with boiling water was risky.
It's Day 13 of Poo-pocolypse 2011. We have a good 24 hours and then more, um, undesirable bodily fluids.
And the baby won't stay asleep for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time. And he's still teething. And mommy is pretty sure that she's been feeding him after last-call (midnight), though she doesn't actually remember feeding him.
A fog has settled on her brain. But she at least has the clarity of mind to call the advice nurse. Nurse Know-it-all very conveniently calls back just as mommy sits down to nurse the baby for his nap.
Mommy has a conversation with the advice nurse that goes something like this:
Nurse: You need to put the kids on a diet of clear liquids. Jell-O, Gatorade, Popsicles.
Mommy: OK. (Do these items come un-colored? Or does she mean clear as in "not chunky?")
Nurse: You may want to stay away from sugar. That can make the diarrhea worse.
Mommy: OK (But Jell-O, Gatorade and Popsicles have sugar in them. And the sugar-free versions are full of aspartame and lack calories. Mommy is so confused.)
Nurse: Sometimes you parents put them back on cheeseburgers and cake as soon as they start feeling better.
(Because that's exactly what we did first thing Sunday morning after he puked the night before. Cheeseburgers and cake for breakfast.)
Mommy particularly appreciates being referred to as "you parents" but lacks the mental capacity to come back with any stinging remark. Still, hours later, she's got nothing. Instead she just says ...
Uh-huh.
Nurse: Then start them on the B.R.A.T diet after 24 hours of this.
Mom: Uh-huh. OK. (Won't my kids be starving and weaker that they already are after all this?)
It's naptime. She doesn't care that putting the older two down for naps will ensure that they stay up later. Mommy takes her sister's suggestion and locks the kids in their rooms for quiet time and takes a short nap. The telephone wakes her and it's the receptionist from her doctor's office.
"Honey, you just missed your kids' appointments."
Mommy's brain doesn't work anymore. She thought the appointments were for the next day. In fact, she was so sure of this that she didn't check the message or the e-mail reminder from her doctor's office.
Mommy doesn't even know what day it is anymore. She's convinced that it's actually Thursday and the next day is Parents Morning Out. This is the second time in a week that she has missed something in her schedule. And today, she forget to bring a shoebox for Big Brother to decorate at preschool. Luckily, his teacher had an extra one.
Her husband comes home and finds her sprawled on the coach in a stupor.
"I'm hanging on by a very thin thread here," she says. He later tells her to just keep the kids fed and from hurting themselves and ignore the rest. Sounds easy enough, she thinks. And, hey, he didn't say anything about keeping them from hurting each other, so she can just hang up the referee whistle, right?
Mommy then starts to cry when she tells her husband how the 4 year old no longer wants or needs her help in the bathroom. He told her to go away this afternoon when she asked if he needed any help wiping his bottom. That's right, mommy is actually sad that her son doesn't want her to wipe his bottom. She thinks, "I pick the strangest things to get verklempt over."
Clearly, the fog is quite thick.
She mindlessly goes to the store and buys Gatorade, Jell-O and Popsicles. And a candy bar for herself which she inhales on the way home despite it being almost dinner time.
The kids have two Popiscles and some Jell-O for dinner. Then some Gatorade. Then some more Jell-O before bed. They're thrilled. All mommy can think about is red dye and chemicals and the tantrums when they find out that Popsicles and Jell-O will not be a regular dinner. She realizes, though, that the potassium broth recipe in her health food cookbook would not go over quite so well.
And besides, with a mental fog this deep, handling anything sharp or hot would be a dangerous proposition indeed. Even making Jell-O with boiling water was risky.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
The perfect shit storm
I realized recently that my first "diary" posting, as I've decided to call these occasional entries, was written using third person pronouns. Which is not how a diary is normally written. I chalked it up to extreme sleep deprivation. But then it occurred to me that I do refer to myself in the third person quite often. Mommy is going potty. Mommy is fixing a snack. Mommy is driving; she can't reach your toy right now. Mommy will stop this van if you don't stop screaming. And on and on and on. I'm like Bob Dole, only a lot prettier. And younger.
And I also don't like to overuse first-person pronouns. Sometimes sentences will be awkwardly rewritten so as to avoid too many first-person pronouns in one paragraph. See how I did that? I never want to come off as narcissistic, which, of course, is why I have a blog and talk incessantly about my kids and my life. Anyhow, for now, a diary written in the third-person it is ... what can I say? I'm a trendsetter, who reserves the right to change back to a first-person diary at any time. The following is continued from the last entry because it really just kept getting better ... (I'm a little behind. Sue me. ... actually, don't, I have no money.)
Thursday evening
Mommy hears the familiar sound of the washing machine and the bathtub running. And it's after 9 p.m. That's never good. Curiosity gets the better of her and she heads upstairs. Girlface's bedroom light is on.
Her husband says, "I wouldn't go in there if I were you."
Girlface had pooped in her diaper and smeared it on the floor, her kitchen set, her chair and table, some of the plastic food from her kitchen.
Emergency bathtime, room sanitizing and laundromat at 9 p.m.
Friday evening
The Rug Doctor is in the house. A rather good-looking shirtless guy is shampooing all the carpets in the house, sucking probably a decade worth of dirt, dog hair, urine, poop, baby spit up and God knows what else out of the rugs.
Everything looks and smells clean. Mommy now feels much better about the baby crawling around in Girlface's room.
Saturday morning
Mommy finds a stray piece of poop in a laundry basket that the kids are playing in. It's as if poop just materializes out of thin air. She does a quick bottom check and determines that it's probably an older specimen. She imagines that she'll be finding petrified bits of poop around the house for the next 10 years.
As for Girlface, Mommy is on her like mosquitoes at dusk to be sure that all future deposits are made in the approved receptacle.
Saturday afternoon
Mommy puts on her poop coach hat and coaxes a poop out of Princess Poopy before nap time.
She then draws herself a bath since Girlface seems to be settled. Her sense of relief is short lived.
A few minutes of indignant screaming followed by silence deserves a peek. Mommy was too optimistic. Girlface, sans bottoms, looks up innocently as she smears poop on her little table.
"Poop," she says.
It's all over the floor, her shirt, the table, a chair, a plastic burger, a tea cup.
Mommy puts the chair, the toys and the girl in the tub. Meanwhile her bath is getting cold and the baby won't go down for his nap. So she decides to bathe him, too, after taking care of Princess Poopy. He poops in the tub.
(Really.)
Okay, nap time for baby. Time for a breather and a bath. She and her husband have a party to go for his company that evening. She's not really looking forward to it; she just wants to get out of the house and be clean for a while.
After the baby's nap, he's poopy again. Mommy wonders what the hell these kids have been eating to be pooping so much. Baby changed, diaper sprayed off, toilet flushed.
Toilet overflows.
(I'm not even kidding.)
She moves the baby to the hallway and shuts the door, which prompts hysterical screams either because he loves Mommy so much or he wants to crawl around in the poopy water that is now spreading across the floor.
Mommy yells at the ceiling, because that's where God lives, "Please, can you make this any worse? I don't think you've quite outdone yourself."
She's now padding around in bare feet in poopy water with large beach towels trying to stem the flow.
So, yes, indeed, God decided to make it worse.
She rinses off her feet in the shower and just starts yelling and mumbling randomly about poop and children and how tired she is shoveling poop. It's beginning to feel like a barnyard here. In fact, she no longer wants to live out in the country and raise chickens for eggs and have a cow for milk. Too much poop. She doesn't care if it is good fertilizer. Why can't kids' poop be good fertilizer, she thinks. At least it would be useful.
Her husband is called in for plunging because she apparently cannot plunge a toilet properly. Her best solution to toilet overflow is to turn the water off, clean the floor, lock the bathroom and wait till the calvary arrives. (I also do a variation of this when large, scary bugs are involved.)
Her mother and father arrive at the tail end of this shit storm. Her mother tries not to laugh.
Saturday evening
That party they were supposed to go to? Forget about it. Her husband walks into their closet, which doubles as a "bedroom" for the baby when he won't go back to sleep, and says "I have nothing to wear. I don't really want to go."
She says, "I don't want to go either. Let's go to a movie." They're not really party people. Back when they were, they usually couldn't remember how they got home.
Guess what? They're not movie people either. Nothing looked interesting, and, really, if they're going to spend two hours in the dark these days, they'd prefer to be sleeping. At least she would. He'd be on his deathbed and want to ... oh, nevermind.
They got some coffee, drove around for a while and tried to remember what they used to like doing. Driving in the van with a cup of hot coffee and no kids was good enough that night.
I realized recently that my first "diary" posting, as I've decided to call these occasional entries, was written using third person pronouns. Which is not how a diary is normally written. I chalked it up to extreme sleep deprivation. But then it occurred to me that I do refer to myself in the third person quite often. Mommy is going potty. Mommy is fixing a snack. Mommy is driving; she can't reach your toy right now. Mommy will stop this van if you don't stop screaming. And on and on and on. I'm like Bob Dole, only a lot prettier. And younger.
And I also don't like to overuse first-person pronouns. Sometimes sentences will be awkwardly rewritten so as to avoid too many first-person pronouns in one paragraph. See how I did that? I never want to come off as narcissistic, which, of course, is why I have a blog and talk incessantly about my kids and my life. Anyhow, for now, a diary written in the third-person it is ... what can I say? I'm a trendsetter, who reserves the right to change back to a first-person diary at any time. The following is continued from the last entry because it really just kept getting better ... (I'm a little behind. Sue me. ... actually, don't, I have no money.)
Thursday evening
Mommy hears the familiar sound of the washing machine and the bathtub running. And it's after 9 p.m. That's never good. Curiosity gets the better of her and she heads upstairs. Girlface's bedroom light is on.
Her husband says, "I wouldn't go in there if I were you."
Girlface had pooped in her diaper and smeared it on the floor, her kitchen set, her chair and table, some of the plastic food from her kitchen.
Emergency bathtime, room sanitizing and laundromat at 9 p.m.
Friday evening
The Rug Doctor is in the house. A rather good-looking shirtless guy is shampooing all the carpets in the house, sucking probably a decade worth of dirt, dog hair, urine, poop, baby spit up and God knows what else out of the rugs.
Everything looks and smells clean. Mommy now feels much better about the baby crawling around in Girlface's room.
Saturday morning
Mommy finds a stray piece of poop in a laundry basket that the kids are playing in. It's as if poop just materializes out of thin air. She does a quick bottom check and determines that it's probably an older specimen. She imagines that she'll be finding petrified bits of poop around the house for the next 10 years.
As for Girlface, Mommy is on her like mosquitoes at dusk to be sure that all future deposits are made in the approved receptacle.
Saturday afternoon
Mommy puts on her poop coach hat and coaxes a poop out of Princess Poopy before nap time.
She then draws herself a bath since Girlface seems to be settled. Her sense of relief is short lived.
A few minutes of indignant screaming followed by silence deserves a peek. Mommy was too optimistic. Girlface, sans bottoms, looks up innocently as she smears poop on her little table.
"Poop," she says.
It's all over the floor, her shirt, the table, a chair, a plastic burger, a tea cup.
Mommy puts the chair, the toys and the girl in the tub. Meanwhile her bath is getting cold and the baby won't go down for his nap. So she decides to bathe him, too, after taking care of Princess Poopy. He poops in the tub.
(Really.)
Okay, nap time for baby. Time for a breather and a bath. She and her husband have a party to go for his company that evening. She's not really looking forward to it; she just wants to get out of the house and be clean for a while.
After the baby's nap, he's poopy again. Mommy wonders what the hell these kids have been eating to be pooping so much. Baby changed, diaper sprayed off, toilet flushed.
Toilet overflows.
(I'm not even kidding.)
She moves the baby to the hallway and shuts the door, which prompts hysterical screams either because he loves Mommy so much or he wants to crawl around in the poopy water that is now spreading across the floor.
Mommy yells at the ceiling, because that's where God lives, "Please, can you make this any worse? I don't think you've quite outdone yourself."
She's now padding around in bare feet in poopy water with large beach towels trying to stem the flow.
So, yes, indeed, God decided to make it worse.
She rinses off her feet in the shower and just starts yelling and mumbling randomly about poop and children and how tired she is shoveling poop. It's beginning to feel like a barnyard here. In fact, she no longer wants to live out in the country and raise chickens for eggs and have a cow for milk. Too much poop. She doesn't care if it is good fertilizer. Why can't kids' poop be good fertilizer, she thinks. At least it would be useful.
Her husband is called in for plunging because she apparently cannot plunge a toilet properly. Her best solution to toilet overflow is to turn the water off, clean the floor, lock the bathroom and wait till the calvary arrives. (I also do a variation of this when large, scary bugs are involved.)
Her mother and father arrive at the tail end of this shit storm. Her mother tries not to laugh.
Saturday evening
That party they were supposed to go to? Forget about it. Her husband walks into their closet, which doubles as a "bedroom" for the baby when he won't go back to sleep, and says "I have nothing to wear. I don't really want to go."
She says, "I don't want to go either. Let's go to a movie." They're not really party people. Back when they were, they usually couldn't remember how they got home.
Guess what? They're not movie people either. Nothing looked interesting, and, really, if they're going to spend two hours in the dark these days, they'd prefer to be sleeping. At least she would. He'd be on his deathbed and want to ... oh, nevermind.
They got some coffee, drove around for a while and tried to remember what they used to like doing. Driving in the van with a cup of hot coffee and no kids was good enough that night.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Diary of an omniturnal mom
An occasional feature
I have a need to document things. I'm okay with it. Really. As the title suggest, I don't sleep. I'm not nocturnal, I'm not diurnal, I'm just up. All the time. Physically and mentally. I'm omniturnal. I'm not really okay with that, but it'll pass soon enough. And then I'll be giddy at the thought of four hours of sleep in a row.
Maybe one day, when my children are grown, they'll look back on my writings and laugh. Or maybe I'm providing a road map to my children's psyches for their future therapists. Or maybe I'll publish a book that Planned Parenthood can provide to its young clients along with birth control pills. I try to be helpful ...
11:30 p.m. Wednesday: Mommy goes to bed after spending one hour completely alone. It's the only time she's had to herself all day. Even the shower she got to take was shared with a hesitant but curious tot who wandered in and out of the shower.
Midnight: Big Brother, the oldest, starts squawking in his sleep. Mommy waits it out. He goes back to sleep.
12:30 a.m., Thursday: Mommy is finally tired enough to go to sleep. Her mind stops racing. The baby wakes up. She figures that she better feed him even though it's after last call--which is midnight. She decided about a week ago that it was time to cut him off between midnight and 7 a.m.
12:45 a.m.: Back to bed.
1:30 a.m.: Girlface, the middle child, begins crying from her room. Mommy goes to her, calms her down, lays down in bed with her for a few minutes.
1:40 a.m.: Back to bed.
2:30 a.m.: Girlface cries again. This time, Mommy goes in and rummages through a basket on Girlface's dresser to find the pacifier that she's trying to wean her off of. She pops it in her mouth and gives her a kiss.
2:32 a.m.: Back to bed.
3:00 a.m.: The baby wakes up. To feed or not to feed? A quick calculation: He didn't take his bedtime nursing and was asleep before I returned home last night. But he did eat his macaroni plus the remains of his siblings macaroni for dinner last night. Oh, what the hell ... he'll probably just go back to sleep.
3:30 a.m.: He doesn't. Instead, he sits bolt up in his crib after Mommy puts him down. So it's off to the closet to sleep the rest of the night in the Pack and Play. (It's a walk-in closet, with a window and plenty of room. But I'm sure the sight of women's clothing on hangers will haunt him for the rest of his life.)
I have a need to document things. I'm okay with it. Really. As the title suggest, I don't sleep. I'm not nocturnal, I'm not diurnal, I'm just up. All the time. Physically and mentally. I'm omniturnal. I'm not really okay with that, but it'll pass soon enough. And then I'll be giddy at the thought of four hours of sleep in a row.
Maybe one day, when my children are grown, they'll look back on my writings and laugh. Or maybe I'm providing a road map to my children's psyches for their future therapists. Or maybe I'll publish a book that Planned Parenthood can provide to its young clients along with birth control pills. I try to be helpful ...
11:30 p.m. Wednesday: Mommy goes to bed after spending one hour completely alone. It's the only time she's had to herself all day. Even the shower she got to take was shared with a hesitant but curious tot who wandered in and out of the shower.
Midnight: Big Brother, the oldest, starts squawking in his sleep. Mommy waits it out. He goes back to sleep.
12:30 a.m., Thursday: Mommy is finally tired enough to go to sleep. Her mind stops racing. The baby wakes up. She figures that she better feed him even though it's after last call--which is midnight. She decided about a week ago that it was time to cut him off between midnight and 7 a.m.
12:45 a.m.: Back to bed.
1:30 a.m.: Girlface, the middle child, begins crying from her room. Mommy goes to her, calms her down, lays down in bed with her for a few minutes.
1:40 a.m.: Back to bed.
2:30 a.m.: Girlface cries again. This time, Mommy goes in and rummages through a basket on Girlface's dresser to find the pacifier that she's trying to wean her off of. She pops it in her mouth and gives her a kiss.
2:32 a.m.: Back to bed.
3:00 a.m.: The baby wakes up. To feed or not to feed? A quick calculation: He didn't take his bedtime nursing and was asleep before I returned home last night. But he did eat his macaroni plus the remains of his siblings macaroni for dinner last night. Oh, what the hell ... he'll probably just go back to sleep.
3:30 a.m.: He doesn't. Instead, he sits bolt up in his crib after Mommy puts him down. So it's off to the closet to sleep the rest of the night in the Pack and Play. (It's a walk-in closet, with a window and plenty of room. But I'm sure the sight of women's clothing on hangers will haunt him for the rest of his life.)
4:00 a.m.: The baby is still complaining and crying and whining in the closet. Mommy comes back from trying to comfort and settle him down and shouts about the activity of the past few hours and how she's had about an hour of sleep so far. Her husband gets up for the day--a half hour earlier than normal--probably to get away from the crazy lady who's yelling in their bedroom.
4:10 a.m.: Mommy checks on the baby again, brings him to bed to nurse and detects a familiar aroma. Off to change a poopy, red bottom. She feels pretty guilty that she didn't think to check the diaper.
4:33 a.m.: The baby's crying is tapering off. He seems to be giving up. Mommy drifts off to sleep finally.
7:43 a.m.: Mommy wakes up in a slight panic. All is quiet. Too quiet. It's a preschool morning and all her kids are fast asleep an hour before they need to head out the door. She chuckles bitterly. They sleep in like this only when they need to be somewhere. What a bunch of assholes, she thinks.
Shall I continue? Yes, yes, I should.
9:30 a.m.: Mommy returns from preschool drop off with the baby and Girlface. Time for baby's nap? Yes, no, maybe ... who the hell knows? One day this week, the baby stayed up all day long, that is, 14 hours straight. One failed attempt and ...
9:43 a.m.: Girlface and The Baby are playing happily in her bedroom with the occasional skirmish. Mommy curls up on Girlface's bed, pulls the covers over her head and hopes the kids don't notice her for a few minutes. They don't. Then they do. So ...
10:00 a.m.: Time for a change of scenery. Downstairs we go.
11:45 a.m.: The baby, who has been up all morning alternately eating and crying, falls asleep while nursing.
What time does Mommy have to pick up Big Brother from preschool?
12:15 p.m.
Right now, they're all asleep upstairs. Mommy didn't even need Benadryl this time. And Big Brother and the banana-and-dirt-crusted baby are still in their pajamas. (Big Brother got to wear pajamas to preschool today. There goes that threat .... now he'll want to go to preschool in his pajamas every day. Thanks, Ms. Pam.)
To be continued ...
4:10 a.m.: Mommy checks on the baby again, brings him to bed to nurse and detects a familiar aroma. Off to change a poopy, red bottom. She feels pretty guilty that she didn't think to check the diaper.
4:33 a.m.: The baby's crying is tapering off. He seems to be giving up. Mommy drifts off to sleep finally.
7:43 a.m.: Mommy wakes up in a slight panic. All is quiet. Too quiet. It's a preschool morning and all her kids are fast asleep an hour before they need to head out the door. She chuckles bitterly. They sleep in like this only when they need to be somewhere. What a bunch of assholes, she thinks.
Shall I continue? Yes, yes, I should.
9:30 a.m.: Mommy returns from preschool drop off with the baby and Girlface. Time for baby's nap? Yes, no, maybe ... who the hell knows? One day this week, the baby stayed up all day long, that is, 14 hours straight. One failed attempt and ...
9:43 a.m.: Girlface and The Baby are playing happily in her bedroom with the occasional skirmish. Mommy curls up on Girlface's bed, pulls the covers over her head and hopes the kids don't notice her for a few minutes. They don't. Then they do. So ...
10:00 a.m.: Time for a change of scenery. Downstairs we go.
11:45 a.m.: The baby, who has been up all morning alternately eating and crying, falls asleep while nursing.
What time does Mommy have to pick up Big Brother from preschool?
12:15 p.m.
Right now, they're all asleep upstairs. Mommy didn't even need Benadryl this time. And Big Brother and the banana-and-dirt-crusted baby are still in their pajamas. (Big Brother got to wear pajamas to preschool today. There goes that threat .... now he'll want to go to preschool in his pajamas every day. Thanks, Ms. Pam.)
To be continued ...
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