About Last Night

February 03 2010 · comment 6 Comments
Posted in: Daily · Tags: ,

Shortly after everyone went to bed last night, Ethan began to toss and turn constantly. He wouldn’t settle. At first, I thought maybe he couldn’t get comfortable. Then he started to whine, though, and that quickly turned to full-blown tears. For awhile, he was crying so hard I was afraid he would make himself sick.

During this, I also had to comfort Maddie since she had been woken up, too. I figured one kid asleep, at least, is better than both awake and screaming. This meant that I had to leave Ethan crying by himself, however, which I hated doing. Luckily, J came in about this time and took over while I resettled Maddie.

After what seemed like hours, but I think in reality was about 30 minutes, everyone calmed down. I told J to go back to bed. Maddie was sound asleep, so my attention could focus again on Ethan. He was still wide awake, tears clinging to his cherubic cheeks. Nestling in beside him, I pulled the bedspread up to his chin and held him close. His shaggy hair tickled my nose as I wrapped my arm around him as tight as I could, his foot sticking in my side. That’s how we fell asleep.

It was a horrible night. I have no idea what was wrong, aside from a bit of congested cough this morning. But sleeping like that next to my little boy, the one who is always on the go and so destructive and non-compliant during the day, the one who steals away every ounce of patience I’ve stored. I feel as if I’m screaming at him constantly. This, quiet and tender and sweet, was a nice change of pace.

Today, he’s back to himself again. I’m watching and waiting and hoping the cough doesn’t progress any further. While I don’t wish for a repeat of last night, I’m going to try to hold onto it’s finer moments. I hope it might help both of us slow down a little.

What it Means to Me

February 02 2010 · comment 6 Comments
Posted in: Daily · Tags: , ,

Parenting is:

  • running on 5 hours of sleep, if I’m lucky
  • a permanent imprint on the bottom of my foot of a car/block/the hell was that?
  • repetition, repetition, repetition
  • cleaning puddles of pee out of the carpet
  • kissing imaginary boo-boos
  • little hands everywhere, in everything
  • partaking in the hundredth game of peek-a-boo
  • a slimy coating of snot and spit
  • never eating in peace unless the kids are in bed
  • same with using the bathroom (see above)
  • a movie watched in 10 minute non-consecutive spurts
  • always being “on”
  • taking bizarre satisfaction from digging boogers out of a nose
  • dealing with more bodily fluids than I ever thought possible
  • keeping a supply of super glue on hand
  • fighting over/under/through/just eat your goddamn dinner
  • happy streaking
  • sneakily extracting batteries from the jam-pencils-in-my-ears toys
  • having at least one “I GIVE UP!” moment a day
  • a house decorated in cheap, colorful plastic
  • “Is that poop? Or chocolate? I hope it’s chocolate. Here, smell it.”
  • calculated by the number of uses you can find for baby wipes
  • a lot of potty humor
  • mostly guessing
  • fickled, questioning, frustrating
  • accepting, ridiculous, the best gig I’ve ever had

Toothless

February 01 2010 · comment 6 Comments
Posted in: The Kids · Tags: ,

Jayden finally lost his first tooth the other night. The Tooth Fairy was tired that night, though, and didn’t feel like stopping by the ATM, so we didn’t put it under his pillow until the night after. He ran out of his room that morning, exclaiming, “I got $5!”. A tooth’s rate has gone up since I was a kid, that’s for sure.

Too Bad I Can’t Use My Super Power to Win the Lottery

January 28 2010 · comment 1 Comment
Posted in: The Kids · Tags: ,

“Be careful, guys!”

This is one of the more common phrases I say in a day. Not that anyone pays attention. When Ethan is practicing his Evil Knievel moves off a chair or Maddie toddles onto the couch. I sigh and wince, urging them down once more.

I’m not a super hero, but my power is looking into the future. I can witness accidents before they happen. The boys run around in circles and I envision one of their little heads conking a table. Ethan takes off down the steps and I see skinned knees. They chase each other through the house and I think of Maddie getting trampled.

“For the love of… Guys!”

There are sharp corners on our furniture that I’m terrified of. Obviously, we weren’t thinking baby proof when we made the purchases. It’s great that the kids want to play together, however rough they are, but I’m a nervous wreck the entire time. Can’t they just sit nicely and read a book? I’ve always been a worrier, but motherhood has soared it to an all-time high.

I know I can’t keep them safe forever. There are going to be bruises and cuts and scrapes and even gashes that I can’t control. When I can, though, I’d like to keep the blood and broken bones to a minimum. My super power, much like Spiderman’s, is a gift and a burden.

“Guys! Didn’t I just tell you to be careful?”

It’s almost like they want to get hurt.

On the Internet

January 27 2010 · comment 5 Comments
Posted in: Me Myself · Tags:

I’ve been writing on the internet since the late 1990’s. I was fresh out of high school and my dad had just subscribed to AOL. After the novelty of chat rooms and instant messages wore off, I delved in to the world of webpages. I opened my first homepage using AOL’s web editor. It was horrible.

It was also around this time that I met J.

They weren’t called blogs back then, they were simply online journals hand coded in HTML. Blogger wasn’t even an idea, yet. I would get lost in a vast world of webrings and animated gifs for hours, if not days, on end. After awhile I made friends, I felt accepted. It didn’t matter that it was all in text.

At that time, I wrote about J and our relationship. I typed away my side of every argument. Exaggerations were created for the sake of drama. Mountains were formed out of tiny ant hills. I also composed angst-filled poetry and prose saturated in obtuse metaphors. I tried too hard to be deep and misunderstood, as is the story of many people at that age. It was before I was a mother, or had any real direction. To be a complete cliche, I was still in the process of finding myself.

I’ve shared a lot with the internet over the years.

And I’m still sharing. Except now, I have a better idea of who I am. Along with writing for myself, I share these snippets for my children. J and I have grown together. I don’t have time to rile up drama, or metaphors for that matter. There are those that do, and they do it well, but I’m more for the straight forward. There is little I still see of that girl I was back then, some 10 years ago. If I were to meet her today, about the only thing we’d have in common, aside from a mess of unruly hair, is that we both write on the internet.