Summer and Swim Lessons

Summer is half way over, and it is just now getting hot. Weather-wise it has been a cool, wet summer. This means the grass is very green and the mosquitos are feasting. 

It’s our first summer in the new house and we are enjoying it. The first 4^th of July party was a success. The big back yard proved the perfect setting for all that is expected; yard games, eating, drinking, playing and general debauchery. Jonathan even surprised me by renting an “inflatable babysitter” or bounce house. 

Right now the girls are currently taking mid summer swim lessons. This was not a well planned or thought out event. It was all brought on because Caroline freaked me out. Each and every night, right before she’d close her eyes to go to sleep, she look up at me worried and say “Momma, I don’t want Maggie to go under the water.” Well neither do I! The first night I thought it was a fluke, but it became as regular as nighttime prayers. Seriously kid, what are you doing to me? Each night I have to reassure her that Maggie is safe in her own bed and no where near water.

She got into my head man. I had to DO SOMETHING. 

So here we are, in the only lessons that had availability for both of them at the same time. They are every night Monday – Thursday for two weeks. Here I am, week two, telling all of you working mothers, THIS WAS A BAD IDEA. I’m going to skip through the normal every day routine and just focus on what we now have crammed into the short two hours after work but before bed time.

The bell rings at and I’m off – bolting from my desk to fight 12,000 employees all of whom are also trying to get somewhere equally important. I’m cursing traffic the entire way to the sitters house, weighing the idea of racing home for a bite or giving in and getting fast food. I ensure I have a bag packed with their swimsuits, swim diaps for Mags, towels, my swimsuit and appropriate pool attire (flip flops, not the heels I wore to work). Once I wrangled the children from the sitter into their car seats, we are back in the car, cursing more traffic and settling on fast food. At every red light I’m slinging french fries and nuggets in the vicinity of the back seat. We arrive at the pool and I try to gather ALL THE THINGS before I unload the two children. They continue to fight with me as I insist they eat the APPLE SLICES TOO. Backpack on, still in heels I sling the little one on my hip and hold tight to the other one’s hand as we weave through the parking log and toward the pool bathroom. Once inside we all change clothes. One child undoubtedly escapes to run around the pool bathroom naked with NO SHOES ON, busting in on a poor soul trying to use the curtained room to change. My naked children do not understand your sense of modesty lady, can’t you tell? Finally everyone is changed. Then Caroline has to pee. wah wah

Finally we are dressed and ready to swim. We go find a bench and wait. For them, this is the hardest part. I mean, the pool is right there. But guess what? The class hasn’t started yet so we wait. I’ll get the timing right by the last day of class…  

Once class does start, I make solid eye contact with Caroline’s teacher. You see this one? I’m leaving her with you now. You see her right? I have to walk away and you are now responsible for my BABY.

I then proceed to the mommy and me class, strap the unwilling youngest into the floatation device and reluctantly get into the pool. I make happy faces and noises to try and encourage her despite the “no, no, no, no, no” coming from her mouth. Listen kid, you’d better get used to this cause your sister is having crazy premonitions about you and water! After she gathers that the barrage of emphatic no’s are being ignored the hitting and scratching ensues. Here’s the thing with Maggie. It isn’t the water she’s objecting to, it’s that this swim lesson is not what she wants to be doing at this exact moment in time.  

Finally – after what seems like an eternity, but has only been two minutes – Dada arrives.  Maggie cries with joy and relief. I echo her sentiments.  I tag out and wrap a towel around my translucent skin. Then I take my perch where I can see both classes keep my maternal watch.

By the end of swim lessons, we are all worn out which results in a usually a tantrum or two (only one has been mine so far). The children and bundled up like sausages in their towels. We carry them to the car and get home. Once they go to bed, I fire up the washing machine, repack the bag and prepare to do it all again the next day. 

OMG, don’t do it this way!

I will admit that Caroline is doing great and she is being stretched outside of her comfort zone, sometimes crying the whole time, but hopefully feeling brave and accomplished when it’s over.  UPDATE Last night Caroline was pushed way beyond her comfort zone. She was hysterical the majority of the class. I practically had to restrain myself so as not to intervene! But I totally trust the instructor. When we got home she said “Momma, I don’t do swim lessons anymore”. Then we had to have a talk. We’ll see how tonight goes…

Maggie on the other hand is missing the point. Don’t forget that her well being is the whole reason I forced us all into this hectic schedule. Ce la vie

But look at all the happy pictures that disguise the anxiety and stress…..

 

My girls

Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve only been a mom for less than four years. I can’t imagine these little girls not being a part of our lives. I have a hard time even remembering when it was just Caroline. What a great balance these two souls are for each other.

My introverted Caroline is so studious and fiercely independent. She is such a small little thing, overwhelmed by her waist-long poker-straight blond locks (I really should get her hair cut!) She may be quiet, but she is fierce. She reminds me daily that she “can do it myself, momma!”  She’ll scream at me to LEAVE when I attempt to open her closet and help her pick out a dress. And OHHHH the dresses. I can’t figure out why she loves certain ones more than others. Jonathan bought her a new pretty dress at Target, and it has become an ongoing negotiation to get her to put it on. The winning compromise was “just try it on and see if it fits. If it doesn’t fit, I’d take it back to the store.” Well, it fit (and was so pretty), but she didn’t stick to her side of the deal and is insisting I take it back.

Maggie is as social as they come. When we have people over, she will scream bloody murder when its time for bed. Many a guest have looked at me sideways when I say over her wailing, “she’ll be asleep in two minutes.” Sure enough, I rarely get down the stairs before she’s out. She just is experiencing FOMO at a very young age.  Her politician ways extend to the grocery store. As I push her in the cart, she waives at every shopper, ignoring their disinterest, saying “Hiiiii” in her own singsong way. She is also much more of a daredevil than her cautious big sister. She’ll plummet down the slide face first with big grins and giggles before I can catch my breath.  

She has the same golden blond locks as her sister with a mischievous curl haphazardly thrown in. It is just at the length where it looks wild all the time, or maybe that’s just her normal expression.  She is so tall in contrast to Caroline’s petite stature that I get asked if they are twins.
Its not to say that this isn’t a tough age – they are both very demanding.  Every other sentence out of Caroline’s mouth is “watch dis momma”. And I want to give her my undivided attention, but dishes, laundry, dinner, the dog, the cat and oh yeah, Maggie is off having an experiment somewhere with a waffle and the dogs water bowl.

Maggie is also at the age that she is always frustrated that I don’t know what she wants. She can’t communicate, but she understands. There is a lot of pointing, grunting and guesswork on my end. I usually guess wrong (sometimes intentionally because NO you can’t want that giant can of shaving cream…) which results in full on meltdown, head on floor and screaming. All the while, Caroline has mastered the task of ignoring her sister, and is all ‘watch dis momma’ as she spins around. As someone who works hard to give everyone undivided attention, I’ll admit, it’s a daily struggle.

But on the days when I can forget all the stuff and really not care....we dance! And we rock.

Easter

After this awful winter, we were so lucky to have a beautiful Easter Sunday. I got to host the big egg hunt in our new house.

But first we woke up to a visit from the Easter Bunny. The tradition continues with the Easter Bunny Clan leaving baskets on the porch, eggs hidden in the yard, and hilariously illustrated notes.








Caroline, the chocolate fiend, ate nothing nutritious all day, which of course resulted in a naptime meltdown that a blind man could have seen coming.

Maggie, not to be outdone, gnawed her way through plastic to get to some Reeses Pieces and ate a peanut butter cup, wrapper and all.



Later that day, we had a full house and a full yard. At least Casey's looking at the camera.

Happy Easter!

Spring = End of worst winter ever

Someone, cough..Anna…cough, recently called me out on my lack of blogging. Oh the irony… there once was a blog that she wrote, years ago...

Well here I am, blogging again. It was a really tough winter, too many funerals and not enough joy, too much snow, work and sickness, not enough sunshine and merriment. Lucky for me, Spring is coming to the rescue. It will take all the warmth, sun, bunnies and blooms to pull me out of the pit that was this past winter. 

So I’m going to help. I’m going to start running again (it’s been years people). If I can’t find the time to run at least 2 miles, I’ll do yoga. You read it here people, ON THE INTERNET, so it must happen, it WILL happen, right???

Yeah, right. Those are the things I'm going to TRY to do. I will not be mad at myself if either of those things don’t happen on a regular cadence.  I mean Maggie has GOT TO go back to sleeping through the night…Like NOW. The screaming at 2 AM is drilling holes in my brain, teeny tiny holes that don’t heal because I haven’t had an appropriate amount of sleep to rejuvenate. Teeny tiny holes that build on each other until I think there might be little bugs running around in those holes that turn me into a crazy woman in the middle of the night.

Oh yes, back to spring, happiness, positivity…. I will take better care of myself so that I can take better care of those around me. Here's to spring!

BTW, happiness is the slo-mo video function on my phone. Check it out…

Caroline is Three!

Caroline, what do you want for Christmas?”

“My birthday. And presents”

Caroline has been waiting patiently for her birthday to arrive. I keep telling her that it is after Christmas. So for a while, Christmas became just one more hurdle to get to her birthday.

It started back in September, when birthday season was in full swing. I told her after Maggie, her birthday is next. Oops forgot about the arrival of my new NEPHEW. You should have seen the look on her face when I said Arlo’s birthday was that day. Not happy.

(Welcome Baby ARLO! We were wondering if the Y chromosome was ever going to make an appearance. Two generations of X’s winning out until Arlo’s triumph)

Luckily we are close enough to Christmas that the lights, holiday music and general merriment of the season have her distracted.

BUT NOW, we can officially turn our attention to the big day. We have already updated the chalkboard with the number 'free'.

"Number one is for Maggie and number free is for Caroline!" as she would tell me.

 

 

Shopping for Christmas presents with her was the best. She knew just what she wanted. When I questioned her choice I got a firm response "NO, DIS ONE MOMMA!  Keep going."

Then when we got home, I asked her to tell Da Da what we bought for Maggie.

She promptly responded, "Da Da, we got you a tie."

DOH

 

On Christmas morning, she was emptying her stocking and when she pulled out a package of gummy bears. she thought that was hilarious. "Gummies?? Momma Santa is silly" she laughed. Who knew gummies were a ridiculous gift?

 

She brings me so much joy that I can barely stand it.

 

Happy Birthday Boogs!

Sammy so so

Sammy has been my trouble child as of late.

First she was the escape artist – I mentioned that she wandered off the first week we moved in. Instead of finding her way home, she found a person. Someone getting ready to leave for work at 4:45 AM!! They called us and Hubs hightailed it to pick her up.

So we know better than to take our eyes off her. How about letting her get some outside time when we are inside? We decided to try a tie up in the back yard and had some success. So much success that I thought I’d leave her on the tie up for a couple hours while we had somewhere else to be.

Our escape artist of a dog freed herself of her collar- the one with any/all identifying information- and went exploring. We came home to find the collar secured to the tie, but no dog. This time we were more worried. We KNOW Sammy will find people. She is more likely to jump in someone’s car than be hit by it. But how will said people find US? Social media to the rescue. After calling the dog warden, the police non emergency line and any other group we could think of, I took to the computer. I posted on craigslist and facebook. It was about 1AM when I got a craigslist reply that linked me to our Neighbor who posted on facebook that she had found a dog. The craigslist reply connected the two of us and resulted in a happy reunion at an ungodly early hour.

Then there were the pooping incidents-

Those of you with dogs know, if they have an accident in the house, they always do it in the same spot/room, right? Our childhood dog, Max, always did it in the dining room. At the old house, Sammy always did it in the basement. Now that we are in the new house, I guess she had to find a new spot. Well she found her spot, Caroline’s room! The first time it was on her rug and it was so runny/messy/gross that the rug got tossed. Luckily for cleanups sake, I hadn't had time to replace the rug before the second infraction. It would have been easy enough to clean and disinfect the hardwood if I wasn’t carrying a sleeping Caroline when I discovered it.  Stepping over the land mines and through a fog of stale poop smell, I laid her down in her bed. She woke up to hear me cursing under my breath.

“Sammy poo pooed my room?”
"Yes, Sammy poo pooed in your room." I muttered
"Sammy bad dog”
“Yes, Sammy’s a bad dog. Caroline STAY in your bed, while I clean this up!”
“Momma I have milk?”
“Yes, when I’m done. STAY IN YOUR BED!”

Cue me running down and back up the stairs with the necessary cleaning items only to be greeting halfway by Caroline. Yes, she follows instructions well.

I maneuver past her, on a mission to try and finish scrubbing and disinfecting. Despite mopping the floor twice, the poop scent remains. We move our ionizing fan to her room without any other solution. I go to track down Caroline and begin the night night routine for a child that is no longer sleepy.

Lets hope we can get through the holidays without any more major Sammy events!

Happy Birthday Moo!

Man, time flies.

At one year old, you have 6 teeth, weight in over 21 lbs, are sleeping through the night (except last night, but we’ll blame teething), pull up on everything, love to chase and be chased around the house, adore your sister, and are HUNGRY all the time.

Right now it’s all about inclusion. You want to be wherever your sister is, doing whatever she is doing. If anyone else is eating, forgetaboutit, we’d better have something for you too.

You dad has even said that you’ve started to demand a snack in the car when he picks you up from the sitters. As soon as he gets settled in the drivers seat, your hand shoots up expectantly, while you grunt your demands, “eh, eh, eh”.

Your first word was dada, but it didn’t take me long to coerce a ‘mama’ from your lips.

You love to dance and sing in the car. I love that when music is playing in the car I can look back and see you and your sister bopping your heads or kicking your feet to the beat.

At home you love when I swing you around and hang you upside down. You are a thrill seeker. The more wildly I fling you around, the louder the laugh. Oh how I love your laugh! It does make Dada very nervous though.

You LOVE your dada. When you see him, you almost launch from my arms to bury your head in his chest, kicking your legs in excitement.

I can’t believe you are a year already. Can we slow things down a little? I love you so much and can’t wait to see what the future holds!