New Year's Night 2010

After a very fun New Year's Eve spent at our house with friends, we had a tough time getting Berit to calm down for sleep. True, it was 11 p.m., and was entirely our own fault. She had one of those meltdowns as our friends left, because she had had such a super fun time, and because she didn't want it to end, and because she was completely exhausted and might be ailing from a mysterious stomachache/sore throat illness that we deemed Not Real But Maybe?

Anyway, she made herself throw up (not uncommon, and unrelated to mystery illness) so we were dealing with that around 11:30 p.m. and of course, it woke Marta up. You'd think she'd be entirely immune to dramatic screeching from her sister in the middle of the night, but after a half-hour of it, I suppose it would get to anyone.

I went to Marta around 11:45 p.m. and rocked with her in the chair, while she told me all about how she wanted to go sledding the next day, and that the last time she did, Daddy pulled her up the hill and Berit "Cried per her Mama."

Suddenly I heard popping sounds coming from outside the window, and my half-asleep, half-romanticized-by-baby's-adorable-story self (OK, a tiny bit tipsy as well), immediately assumed there was a crazed shooter taking out his relatives on New Year's Eve next door. It dawned on me that no, those were actually fireworks, and since Marta was already awake we crept into my room, which has a wall of windows facing the lake. A party across from us was shooting off real fireworks, and they were the first ones Marta had ever seen. Trevor heard the fireworks from Berit's room (where she had just fallen asleep) and crept out, too, and we stood together while Marta and I pressed our cheeks together watching them. Marta kept exclaiming, "Sparkles, Mama!" and was completely excited by them. It was so special, and I kept thanking God for that perfect moment of middle-of-the-night haziness combined with Marta's first fireworks reactions.

When they were over she told us all about her jammies and how she was "Just so cozy and snuggly," and we wholeheartedly agreed. I took her back to her room and rocked her a little more, and she told me about the fireworks, about the "pink sparkles! And red sparkles! And green sparkles!" and was so filled with joy that I lingered longer than I usually do. When I put her into her crib, she said, "Thanks Mama. I love you."

And that might have been my favorite night of 2010.

Need. Coffee.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Marta has started throwing tantrums, and I don't mean those occasional fits she used to throw that I called "tantrums" because I believed she was so sweet that those were the extent of her anger.

These tantrums tend to come about when she's gotten a poor night of sleep, and begin at roughly 5:41 a.m. They are increased when she watches too much TV. They are so intense with the screaming that they wake Berit up, which we can't even do with the vacuum right outside her room.

*** (This space reserved for those of you who may have secretly disliked my bragging about her 18-month check-up to comment out-loud, snicker or raise your eyebrows, then pat your non-tantrum-throwing child on the head.) ***

They Win

Today was... huh. Every time I start to bemoan a certain day, I think about all the women in the world who would love to be in my shoes, with a roof over their kids' heads and food in the fridge and then I feel guilty.

And yet.

We started off pleasantly enough, with a playdate with some friends we haven't seen in awhile due to the arrival of a new baby, so it was doubly great (triply great, since the friends are twins) to see the friends and the newest addition to our little group.

I planned to take the girls to Charlevoix after Marta's nap to visit their new children's fountain (new to us; it's been up for a year now). It was remarkably warm in these parts, with our thermometer reaching 83 degrees (in the sun, but still). So I thought the girls would revel in the newness of the fountain and the chance to be outdoors without coats on.

Charlevoix is about 40 minutes from our house, but I thought the fountain was worth the drive. I packed tons of snacks, since Marta is eating everything, all the time, and by 10 minutes into the ride she'd eaten a banana, twisted fruit stick and crackers. She then began chewing her cheese and raisins and spitting them out onto her chest, and she dropped her water (NOT a no-spill cup) upside-down into a corner of the car that I couldn't reach. I stopped the car, got out, got the water. Fine.

Berit is in this magical phase where all she does is make noise. She is very literally constantly talking, and not just to herself, but needing answers and when said answers are given, she's clearly thinking of something else and asks me to repeat everything. Therefore:

B: "... Mom look at this FRECKLE on my leg! Look Mom! Hey Mom, look at this freckle!"

Me: "Wow, I love that freckle."

B: "What?"

Me: "I love that freckle."

B: "Mom, what did you say? Did you -"

Me: "I said-"

B: "What?"

Me: "Nothing."

B: "What?

Me: "I. LOVE. THAT. FRECKLE."

B: "Oh. Mom, did you SEE that truck? When I grow up can I ride in that truck with that man? MOM, that truck was LOUD! I don't like LOUD things! MOM! There are people walking on that sidewalk. I like sidewalks. Remember when we walked on the sidewalk and Marta fell down and hit her head? MOM, do you remember when..."

OH MY GOSH IT DOES NOT END.

So anyway, we do this all the way to the fountain park, we run up to what seems to be an amazingly fun fountain and realize that the jets in the ground, the ones that shoot water up into the air, are set on "power wash the paint off a house" or possibly "shoot holes into houses" because they are intense and my toddler, who loves water and anything really that she might get into, walks right up onto one that's currently dormant (because helpfully they're also set on "random," so you can't figure out which ones might be safe to play over) and sticks her face over it, studying the dribble of water popping out of the hole in the middle. Of course, what you're thinking happens happens, and this sets the tone for the entire visit. Berit is terrified and never so much as ventures three feet into the fountain, and Marta desperately wants to play in the fountain but keeps getting shot in the face, head and hands with the vicious spray.

It may have been helpful if another child were playing in the fountain that my kids could watch and mimic, however the only other kid there was a baby with his mom and her friends who just yelled at him the entire time for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ("Don't you walk with that towel!" "NO you can't go over there." and my favorite, "Mommy can't hold you because I'm SMOKING. You know Mommy doesn't hold you when I'm smoking, and can't you see I'm smoking?"). The poor child was also completely and painfully developing a serious sunburn, and I tried in vain to offer them sunscreen and they laughed at me when I put even more on my girls' parts in their hair.

I ended up carrying both girls in a "dance" through the fountain, trying to convey to Berit that water spraying up at random can be fun and to Marta that if she does it this way, she could enjoy herself without needing to be taken to the ER afterward. Berit freaked out and tried to climb up my now-soaking wet self and Marta cracked up. Half a point for mom.

Also: Berit threw my camera onto the cement (by accident); Berit threw a full-on screaming tantrum because she wanted me to put her pants on for her but then wanted to put them on by herself but then wanted me to do it for her; Marta found a bag of Annie's Bunny Crackers and shoved honestly 10 in her mouth at once, wobbled around with her mouth completely open for a minute or so trying to figure out how she was going to make it work, then launched into her own screaming tantrum when I scooped them out of her mouth; and I found a bag of very old peaches in the front pocket of my diaper bag that had melted into peach vodka and covered everything in the pocket, which happened to be where I put my keys and now my "fob" is all sticky in the buttons with rotted peach juice.

And: Trevor is working until 9 p.m., so I took them on our nightly family walk by myself during which they both scream-fought the entire time, even while our neighbor tried talking to us about his newly three-legged dog who needs chemo WHILE THE DOG HOBBLED IN FRONT OF US. Oh, and I tried to give the girls a bath but Berit threw a tantrum while she was on the potty before the bath, refused to get off, I removed her, she informed me she was so mad because she just wanted to dance, immediately realized she needed to go #2 and spent the next HOUR working on this while Marta ceremoniously begged for bites of oatmeal and spit them out onto the floor while I wasn't looking, but have now discovered.

Now I'm off to clean the oatmeal and the peach-soaked diaper bag, IN PEACE AND QUIET, thank you very much. Sorry, didn't mean to yell at you. Force of habit today, I think.

SAY CHEESE

Last week we had scheduled our girls' "summer" pictures (summer being a relative term in these parts), but Marta ran into the bookshelves and bruised her face so I rescheduled for this week. When it happened I thought it was a good thing I changed the date, because they were antsy and wild all day, and wouldn't have been very good company to the photographer.

Turns out it may just be Wednesdays in general that they're naughty, because we made quite a show of "Auditions for Supernanny" today.

Marta was well-rested and had had a snack and I did all the right things beforehand, like sing in the car on the ride over and praise their good manners and la-dee-da. We arrived and Berit hopped onto the platform posing and vogueing and kind of creeping me out, what with all of the leg-crossing and propping her chin on her fists without any sort of prompting. Where did she learn this? We don't practice "Going To The Photographer" at home.

Maybe it didn't bother me as much as relieve me of my motherly duties to her during the shoot, since Marta was running around the studio yelling like a banshee. When we tried to pull her in for a shot with B, she screamed and pushed Berit away. When we tried to get her to smile she yelled. When we tried to get her to SIT DOWN, she leapt off of the platform. The photographer took 200 pictures and we think we may have gotten one or two good ones of Marta. I spent the first five minutes swearing to him that my child is usually adorably clever and silly, then gave up and did acrobatics trying to make her smile.

Afterwards Trevor met up with us at the Bob-In Again for dinner, where we apparently became the parents who don't watch their children, bribe their children and let their children continually hurt themselves, because Berit accidentally (though it didn't exactly look that way) hit Marta in the face with her hula hoop, Marta tripped on her hula hoop while Trevor was ordering and I was wiping off the table and fell flat on her back, I took Marta outside to calm her down (in the 50-degree weather, with summer clothes on from the photo shoot), we let her eat chips and french fries with her dinner, she threw her food, she screamed at the table, then she had ice cream. All while they both wore their fancy, IRONED linen shirts and cute capris from the earlier debacle. I caught one grandmotherly looking women glaring at me as if to say, "Maybe if you spent a little more time with your children and a little less time buying them expensive clothes they'd behave for you." I very nearly announced to the whole restaurant that the shirts were on sale and that I usually shop for them at Target but we had just come from what I had hoped would be a priceless photo shoot and yes, I knew that feeding them fries, chips and ice cream was probably part of the problem but was at my wit's end and... well, you get the picture. 

At home, Marta yelped until I put her to bed, where she fussed and finally said, "Thank you Daddy, thank you Mommy," and fell promptly asleep. And she is forgiven. 

And The World's Children Turned On Their Parents, And Their Parents Drank Wine

Trevor left early this morning and as he kissed me goodbye, I had one of those moments of being half awake but still very half asleep, a little confused and yet needing to speak for no good reason. I said, "Wait -- you mean no one's up yet? Well that means I get to go back to sleep!" And that was all, I didn't even hear his answer, until the monitor blared and Berit sang out, "MAma, I'm AWAKE, come and GET me!" And at the very same time Marta started talking and laughing in her crib. 

I thought, not bad, they both woke up at 7 a.m., they're both happy, the sun is shining and it is already HOT in the house. Good day.

But by the time we put our two feet on the last step to head into our morning routine, Berit had started whining and crying and Marta was making it very clear that she had two new teeth coming in and she didn't like it a bit. 

No, this did not continue all day. It got worse. Berit spent most of her day crying, an emotional wreck, shouting, pushing, taking, not eating, etc. etc. Marta spent most of her day hanging on my legs, a crumpled mess, begging to be held and begging to be fed and begging to be not fed. 

Luckily, I had scheduled our sitter to come today, since I had a meeting with a friend regarding a freelance job I've taken (which will hopefully be fun and rewarding and not one more thing to do with no time in which to do it). (Friend, if you're reading, I'm doing it to work with you again. Let's have fun and reward ourselves.)

I escaped for a few hours to my favorite local eating establishment for the meeting and left uplifted. When I returned home, nothing had changed (much of this was due to Berit's discovery of an old blister she had on her toe, which she hadn't noticed before today but was clearly old and in recovery mode, but made her act as if she painfully had no foot on which to stand for the duration of the day). 

To make a long story short, there was more whining, a forced walk, sidewalk chalk that couldn't ever be just right, a rough buckling of the children into the car for a ride to anywhere, three McDonald's ice cream cones, two episodes of Max & Ruby, a screaming bath, and an uneaten dinner. 

And now, we drink.

No, Dessert Before Dinner Is Totally Fine

My sister is visiting this weekend -- a highly anticipated gathering, and not just by me. She is for whom Berit's sun rises and sets, and Marta, though less familiar with Andrea, has quickly decided she's also her Best Person In The World. 

There's been a whole lot of rolling, spinning, running, pretend play, art projects, dress-up, tea parties and general pulling around the house for showing off of precious treasures.

Yesterday I spent three hours in Boyne City, shopping, lunching and visiting without my kids in tow. While I love spending time with my girls more than, truly, anything, there's nothing like saying, "Just pop into a coffee shop for a quick sandwich? Yes, I totally have time." (And listening to an audiobook the whole afternoon instead of Raffi and The Wiggles isn't so bad, either.)

Trevor went to Traverse City to look for my birthday present, and bought a new video camera (which is not my birthday present, but which is equally appreciated), and nearly brought home a thousand-dollar handgun, so elated was he by his afternoon to himself that he was clearly over-romaticizing major purchases.

While taking the girls for a walk yesterday afternoon, Berit, dressed in a unicorn costume, fell asleep in the stroller. She's never been one for naps, taking her last regular nap sometime around 18 months old. Every so often she falls asleep in the car and takes a long, restorative nap, but we rarely encourage it because she then stays up until 10 or 11 p.m. 

Anyway, she fell asleep somewhere around 4:30 or 5 p.m. and slept hard until nearly 8 p.m. -- after her normal bedtime, even. When she does this Trevor usually takes her somewhere active, like the pool, mini golfing or bowling, and out to dinner. Andrea jumped at the chance to spend some one-on-one time with Berit, and took her to mini golf and Big Boy for dinner. Berit loves Big Boy. For some reason I think she's going to get a kick out of this when she's older. 

So, Andrea being Aunt Andrea, she let Berit have a chocolate/strawberry milkshake before dinner (which was pancakes and french fries). Everything was fine when Berit came home at 11 p.m., except Trevor and I were falling asleep in our slippers waiting for them to come home. She played even more, took an extremely reluctant bath, and then absolutely refused to go to bed. She was obviously over-tired, but with Aunt Andrea and the fun of the evening, we had thought maybe we'd let her get a kick out of the circumstances and stay up. Clearly we had forgotten that SHE'S THREE and GOOD PARENTS DON'T THREE-YEAR-OLDS STAY UP UNTIL MIDNIGHT.

She began having those overly tired fits, needing milk but not THAT cup or THAT milk because it was first too cold then too hot, then not "just right." This led into a fit of rage that had me doing my most extreme discipline technique, which really isn't a technique and not technically discipline (to me; I'm sure her therapist will have something to say about it when she's 16 and brooding) but helps her calm down and quiets her screams for Marta's sleeping sake. I put her in the bathtub.

It's empty, it's waterproof (necessary because she occasionally makes herself throw up to be dramatic), and it's near a large mirror that lets her see herself as she cries, and it always distracts her as she watches the funny faces she makes in a tantrum. Also, the big jet tub in my bathroom is too deep for her to climb out of herself, which is helpful in the event (as in last night's case) that she gets violent and I have to walk away. After repeated efforts to calm her down with distraction, humor, sternness and threats of no books before bed, I left her in the tub and stepped out the door. She sobbed and yelled for a few minutes, tried to throw up, then noticed her reflection and began making different crying sounds to (I assume) see what she looked like. Then she calmed down, yelled one "MOM!", I went in and we hugged and kissed and it was finally over. My sister, eternally compassionate, scowled at my bathtub "technique" and took her up for books. I got into bed, thinking it was all finally over at 12:45 a.m. and that she'd never, ever repeat the sequence of events that had transpired since she woke from her nap again.

And then at 3:45 a.m. she awoke in another fit. I sent Trevor up and she went through the original drama about the milk, having Trevor bring her a second, "just right" milk that didn't pass muster (and Trevor wasn't about to go down for a third), and after that I turned down the monitor and went to sleep. Which is why I've been up for hours with Marta while everyone else sleeps in. 

And here I sit, wondering if 8 a.m. is too early for a glass of wine. Aunt Andrea's here. We all get to indulge a little.