Last night I slept with Zen's pillow over my head. Could hardly hear the screams.
I love the Sleep of the Just.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The road to hell is paved with popsicle sticks
Last night we had a rare thing in our house: Quality Family Time. It was almost idyllic: Zen and Tempest went into the backyard and picked some lettuce and carrots and made a salad. We all sat down to dinner together, and Tempest told us about her day as we ate. I should have known that all this family bliss could come to no good in the end.
I came back from changing a diaper to find Tempest eating a popsicle at 7:20pm. A friggin' popsicle! Zen, in his eternal optimism, assumed that when the box said "Whole Fruit" that it meant it. Oh, sweet sweet Zen. So trusting. As I read him the label ("Water, fructose, fruit puree...") it dawned on him. We were doomed.
Anyhoo, long story short, instead of being asleep by her usual 9pm, Tempest finally fell asleep a little after 10pm, after 2 hours of concerted effort on my part to avoid poking my eye out with a sharp stick.
Now, Dear Reader, you might ask yourself, why did I need to attend to the monster child for those two hours? Well, Zen and I practice what is pithily called attachment parenting. It's sort of the opposite of Ferberizing, for which I have no stomach. But after nights like last night I'm ready to go out for milk and not come back for a couple of years.
After a bad dream and wanting nothing to do with Zen, I was back in Tempest's room at 1:30am. I foolishly offered a stuffed animal for comfort, which prompted a request for her favorite stuffed animal instead, which was (I thought) in the car. After a delightful 90 minutes of "I want Doggie NOW!! NOOOWWW MOMMA!!!" an exhausted Tempest finally passed out. Thirty minutes later I was nearly done processing my rage and self-loathing (why did I offer that damned dog, and where the hell was Doggie?) and just about to fall back to sleep in my own bed when Tempest woke up again, distressed to find that Mommy was no longer in her room. Another 30 minutes of failed attempts to substitute Zen's presence for my own, then I was back in bed with her, keeping myself sane by thinking about this very post. My time with Tempest didn't end until Sunny woke up and needed to nurse around 4am (bless you Sunny, you good sleeper you!). Then miraculously Daddy passed the bar of acceptability and we switched places. On occasion, Tempest can be cool and understanding. This occasion was particularly surprising, given that a mere twenty minutes earlier she was trying to kick and claw past Zen to get to me.
And that is the story of how I came to get only three or four crappy hours of sleep last night, impacting my ability to write a quality post here tonight. Can't wait until I have teenagers who want nothing to do with me and I can get some sleep. Is that soon?
I came back from changing a diaper to find Tempest eating a popsicle at 7:20pm. A friggin' popsicle! Zen, in his eternal optimism, assumed that when the box said "Whole Fruit" that it meant it. Oh, sweet sweet Zen. So trusting. As I read him the label ("Water, fructose, fruit puree...") it dawned on him. We were doomed.
Anyhoo, long story short, instead of being asleep by her usual 9pm, Tempest finally fell asleep a little after 10pm, after 2 hours of concerted effort on my part to avoid poking my eye out with a sharp stick.
Now, Dear Reader, you might ask yourself, why did I need to attend to the monster child for those two hours? Well, Zen and I practice what is pithily called attachment parenting. It's sort of the opposite of Ferberizing, for which I have no stomach. But after nights like last night I'm ready to go out for milk and not come back for a couple of years.
After a bad dream and wanting nothing to do with Zen, I was back in Tempest's room at 1:30am. I foolishly offered a stuffed animal for comfort, which prompted a request for her favorite stuffed animal instead, which was (I thought) in the car. After a delightful 90 minutes of "I want Doggie NOW!! NOOOWWW MOMMA!!!" an exhausted Tempest finally passed out. Thirty minutes later I was nearly done processing my rage and self-loathing (why did I offer that damned dog, and where the hell was Doggie?) and just about to fall back to sleep in my own bed when Tempest woke up again, distressed to find that Mommy was no longer in her room. Another 30 minutes of failed attempts to substitute Zen's presence for my own, then I was back in bed with her, keeping myself sane by thinking about this very post. My time with Tempest didn't end until Sunny woke up and needed to nurse around 4am (bless you Sunny, you good sleeper you!). Then miraculously Daddy passed the bar of acceptability and we switched places. On occasion, Tempest can be cool and understanding. This occasion was particularly surprising, given that a mere twenty minutes earlier she was trying to kick and claw past Zen to get to me.
And that is the story of how I came to get only three or four crappy hours of sleep last night, impacting my ability to write a quality post here tonight. Can't wait until I have teenagers who want nothing to do with me and I can get some sleep. Is that soon?
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Note to Self
Happy Mother's Day to me! And here begins what is perhaps a catalog of all my deepest, darkest thoughts on motherhood, read by no-one but myself. Thanks Blogspot!
I have two children (a fact I'm still getting used to), and they'll need some pseudonyms: let's call them Angel Baby and Devil Child. Hm, beautiful symmetry aside, those may become tiresome. Okay then, how about a weather metaphor? Try this out: Sunny (four months) and her sister Tempest (three years old). Yeah, that works.
Sunny is lying on my lap blowing raspberries and yakking away like a baby pterodactyl (I'm sure they were mouthy little raptors) as I type this. I imagine that people who only have babies like Sunny will find this blog horrifying. But if you have a Tempest at home (and I know who you are because you made meaningful eye contact with me during Screamfest 2009 on the sidewalk the other day), you may see your darkest thoughts put to print. God help us both.
It's no accident that it's Mother's Day and Tempest and her mother are not currently co-located. That's because, despite the fact that I love her with the fiery intensity of a thousand burning suns, the best treat I can think of (this one-day-a-year-where-theoretically-I-can-do-naught-but-my-heart's-desire) is to spend as much time away from Tempest as possible. Why weren't the other 50-odd hours this week that she spent with her nanny enough, you ask? Because, Dear Reader, Tempest is quite simply (to borrow a description from Louis CK) an asshole. And until she grows out of it (Dear God let her grow out of it), I mostly don't enjoy her company. At least this blog will give me someplace to put my guilt whilst I treasure these precious moments of (pterodactyl-y punctuated) silence.
Sunny is what Tempest has never been. But she's still a baby, and babies are tiresome. Last night I paid our nanny (let's call her Gloria) $140 so I could be an adult for an evening and see a show with my husband (who we'll call Zen, because, well, he is). That's just how desperate we've become, when we're willing to pay $140 on top of dinner and Shins tickets just to get out of the house on a Saturday night. Why didn't we call the grandparents, of which we have multiple sets within a 50-mile radius? Because even though they managed to raise me and Zen without much permanent damage, I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them with a baby for 6 hours. Especially not with a baby who's got an insanely self-centered, demanding, contrary (what is the word people use? high-spirited?) sister. When looked at in that light, I suppose $140 is a small price to pay for an evening without fear or excessive guilt.
So welcome to our happy little family, which isn't in reality extraordinarily happy or little. And now Dear Reader I must away, as the patience of little Sunny is worn thin. Even though I have more to say to introduce myself as a contender for Crappiest Mother of the Year, even I can't be completely immune to her cries for more than a couple minutes. Time to suckle my littlest piggy.
I have two children (a fact I'm still getting used to), and they'll need some pseudonyms: let's call them Angel Baby and Devil Child. Hm, beautiful symmetry aside, those may become tiresome. Okay then, how about a weather metaphor? Try this out: Sunny (four months) and her sister Tempest (three years old). Yeah, that works.
Sunny is lying on my lap blowing raspberries and yakking away like a baby pterodactyl (I'm sure they were mouthy little raptors) as I type this. I imagine that people who only have babies like Sunny will find this blog horrifying. But if you have a Tempest at home (and I know who you are because you made meaningful eye contact with me during Screamfest 2009 on the sidewalk the other day), you may see your darkest thoughts put to print. God help us both.
It's no accident that it's Mother's Day and Tempest and her mother are not currently co-located. That's because, despite the fact that I love her with the fiery intensity of a thousand burning suns, the best treat I can think of (this one-day-a-year-where-theoretically-I-can-do-naught-but-my-heart's-desire) is to spend as much time away from Tempest as possible. Why weren't the other 50-odd hours this week that she spent with her nanny enough, you ask? Because, Dear Reader, Tempest is quite simply (to borrow a description from Louis CK) an asshole. And until she grows out of it (Dear God let her grow out of it), I mostly don't enjoy her company. At least this blog will give me someplace to put my guilt whilst I treasure these precious moments of (pterodactyl-y punctuated) silence.
Sunny is what Tempest has never been. But she's still a baby, and babies are tiresome. Last night I paid our nanny (let's call her Gloria) $140 so I could be an adult for an evening and see a show with my husband (who we'll call Zen, because, well, he is). That's just how desperate we've become, when we're willing to pay $140 on top of dinner and Shins tickets just to get out of the house on a Saturday night. Why didn't we call the grandparents, of which we have multiple sets within a 50-mile radius? Because even though they managed to raise me and Zen without much permanent damage, I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them with a baby for 6 hours. Especially not with a baby who's got an insanely self-centered, demanding, contrary (what is the word people use? high-spirited?) sister. When looked at in that light, I suppose $140 is a small price to pay for an evening without fear or excessive guilt.
So welcome to our happy little family, which isn't in reality extraordinarily happy or little. And now Dear Reader I must away, as the patience of little Sunny is worn thin. Even though I have more to say to introduce myself as a contender for Crappiest Mother of the Year, even I can't be completely immune to her cries for more than a couple minutes. Time to suckle my littlest piggy.
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