I realized that all these years, I had been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore, waiting to suck me under and drag me out to sea.
I’m starting a new side project that will not be part of my regular blog. It is under the tab above titled “Health Journal.”
This is an effort to avoid posting overly-hormonal and potentially annoying posts in my regular feed. If you are interested, please take a look. If you look and are no longer interested, you never have to click it again.
Carry on.
In the last month or so, my almost eight month old son has slowly been transitioning away from a predominantly milk-filled diet, to a predominantly food-filled diet. Because he’s my third child, and because he does not go to daycare, I have not been paying much attention to exactly how much I feed him during the day. This is why up until about two weeks ago, I mistook his crying and screaming for personal mommy-hatred, when in truth, he was just starving.
It is far too easy to take things personally in stay-at-home mommy land.
This morning I was feeding him Cheerios one-by-one in the high chair while I ate pancakes. He had just finished a big bottle, yet I still underestimated his hunger. When I ran out of Cheerios, instead of getting up to get more from the pantry, I simply gave him a bite of my pancakes. And then another. And then we were sharing my pancakes. And then the pancakes were gone.
I told John today that for at least one week out of the month I should not be allowed behind a wheel. Two weeks, if I’m being honest.
Driving home from church today, I checked out of defensive driver mode and slipped into number crunching mom mode. It was not my grocery budget that had me mentally counting today, however, I was actually thinking about altering Isaiah’s nap schedule. At that moment, he had been awake for two and a half hours, and I was thinking through eating and sleeping and what I would need to do to maximize both when we got home. This lead me to planning for the beginning of the school year when three o’clock in the afternoon will necessitate us being in the car.
Alas.
I’m sharing a glimpse into the best part of my day.
I need watch this, to remind me that somewhere, deep deep inside the Tiny Monster, a sweet spirit exists.
An actual sweet spirit, not the one she turns on when she’s looking to get out of punishment, get back at Eliott, or seeking to fill all twenty-nine pounds of herself with a sense of power over all things bigger than she is.
Oh. My little crab.
Grace for the moment.
I can’t decide if my lack of blogging right now is a positive indication of blissful busy-ness, or a negative reflection of how much time I’ve wasted playing Candy Crush Saga.
At any rate, there is such a thing as downtime in my day. It comes in five to fifteen minute bursts. Understandably, Candy Crush is the preferable option for turning off my brain.
This does not mean my life is boring. It simply means I currently lack the mental fortitude to recreate daily stories in writing.
Bear with me for a moment, while I muse on some scientific studies for which I have no reference points and can only call to mind via hearsay and vague memory. I’ve read (somewhere) that hormones and memory are directly linked. I’m sure the details were part of a conversation about women who lose their minds after becoming mothers.
I’ve said before that The Terrible Two’s don’t exist in our house. My children suffer, or more appropriately–make me suffer–from The Terrible Three’s. And it seems that Carter is spending her last two weeks of Three-dom getting as much of it in as possible.
Piss and vinegar. Available only in Carter-sized containers.
Continue reading “A Typical Conversation With The Tiny Monster”
Today is the first official day of Summer Break. To speak the common language, I’m supposed to say Eliott graduated from Kindergarten yesterday. However, her K-12 school does not actually hold a “graduation” ceremony, for which I am not so silently thankful. As I look at so many cap-and-gown clad Kindergarteners plastering the proud parent pages of Facebook, I silently wonder, again, about the priorities in our country. Forgive me, all of my friends of recent six-year-old graduates. I realize you really had no choice in the matter. Also. I agree that your child looks very cute. Cute like dressing up in a wedding gown is cute. Yes. It is actually cute.
I sat down in the back of my Sunday school class, toting the boy, juggling coffee, purse, and breakfast. A visitor to the class (a young teenager) smiled at Isaiah and then said, very sweetly, “Is this your first Mother’s Day?”
I was flattered. I laughed and said, “No, this is actually my third child.” Before she had a chance to be embarrassed I added, “No seriously, thanks, I know. Don’t I look good?”
If it is possible to have pride without being arrogant, I’ll call it that.
If it is possible to be confident without being full of myself, I’d like to claim this one too.
January 29
John to Me: Does this shirt make me look like I’m trying to be 18?
Me: Why, because it says Abercrombie?
John: Yes, or because it’s so tight?
Me: No, you look good. It isn’t too tight. Seriously. Leave it, we have to go.
Carter: Daddy, you wearing you nipples today?
John: Nevermind, I’m changing.
February 3
“Well, we could choose apple juice, milk or water. And this girl in my class said, ‘Everyone who chooses apple juice only can be my friend.’ So I chose milk. But guess what, when we got to the Life Center, she was still my friend.”
Somebody get this girl a D.A.R.E. Bear, now.
Continue reading “Life With Eliott and Carter, 2012 Edition”
On Friday, an old friend from Washington state called me because he now lives in North Carolina. When my phone rang, I was parking my minivan to hold my place in the carline in order to expedite the process of picking up both children when one is released fifteen minutes earlier than the other on Fridays. I was parking my minivan in a long line of minivans, and tucking my four month old into a baby carrier so I could effectively use both hands to navigate my pre-school kid, her lunchbox, and all her art, back to the minivan before the elementary school carline started up.
The UnderToad 