Rest is Best

henry keeps reminding me that 'rest is best' when i've been coughing and snotting all over myself this week.

he learned that 'rest is best' from the show 'daniel tiger,' which is a PBS animated mr. rogers knock-off. the show annoys the living piss out of me for some reason, but henry really likes it. and, in addition to keeping that phrase in his brain box, he also remembered 'grown-ups come back' when he was missing robb and me one day at daycare and repeating it to himself gave him some comfort. so we'll keep watching the stupid show.

anyway, i've been thinking a lot about rest lately.

i'm not great at it. when i came down with this cold, i got all pissy. i mean, i eat well, i take vitamins, i exercise-ish, and yet i've had something like 2,000 sinus infections this past year. i sent robb an annoyed text, "why am i always sick??!" and he responded without missing a beat, 'because you don't sleep.'

oh. huh. there is that.

it's true. i pack a lot in. i kind of think naps are for the weak and anything more than 6 hrs of sleep/night is a waste of perfectly good get-'er-done time. moving at a breakneck pace is how i accomplish things, how i feel valuable and worthwhile. i think it's also a bit of a spinning plates gag, to keep me from sitting quietly with myself and getting lost inside my head. i worry what idle time might do to me.

but over the last 3 months at home, snowed in inside our little nest, i've grown to really love not doing anything. just being quiet and relaxed with my wee ones. scratching away at projects around the house, but having no major chores that need my attention immediately. talking to God, meditating on things. having long, relaxing conversations. watching movies in the middle of the day.  it's been very peaceful and rejuvenating.

i feel calm and collected and happy. clear-headed. i've been able to do things i enjoy like cook and read and write and reach out to friends i've been neglecting for ages. it's been very satisfying.

my plan is to continue this zen attitude as i return to work full-time on monday. and to try to squeeze in as many moments or peace and activities of solitude as possible.

we shall see.

Patient Zero Wears Batman Shoes

the other day, i took anna into henry's classroom at daycare to go pick him up. i set her carrier down on the floor to gather him and his mountains of stuff and, from out of absolutely nowhere, this tiny mob of toddler boys came fast-zombie moving toward her. it was cute, kind of, at first, as they chanted BABY, BABY and got right up in her face with curious glee.

cute right up until the one little floppy-blond haired ghoul who'd made it the furthest into the carrier with her, pulled his head back out and i saw rivers of green snot flowing chin-bound from both nostrils.

i don't remember exactly what i did, but i think i grabbed henry like a football and tossed both him and anna's carrier toward the door, shouting that they should RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! which was unpossible, seeing that she was strapped in and he got distracted in the hallway by a spiderman umbrella hanging on a hook 3' from where he started.

anyway.

now? cough. sneeze. snot. sore throat.

little blond bastard. i'll be quicker next time.

It Turns Out Bananas Just Get Sweeter at 2 Months Old (Not Rotten at All Yet)

anna banana turned 2 months last week! she is super strong and hearty and easy-going. we just couldn't be more blessed. and she is getting more fun and engaging every day. pretty quick to smile and, with some coaxing, laugh. and her laugh is great. it's this awesome resonant belly laugh, because she has, well, quite a bit of belly. 

her 2 month well-visit went great. she didn't love the vaccine shots, and was pretty out of it and unhappy for the remainder of the day, but she was happy right up to that point, showing off her mad head-holding skills for the MD. 

her measurements confirmed what we already knew- she's a juicy tomato. 

weight: 13 lbs 3.5oz (81st%)
length: 23 3/4" (92nd%)
head: 15" (40th%)

(if you're curious- henry, at that age was 12lbs 11oz/23 1/2"/15 1/2")

things are going well. i'm returning to work in less than 2 weeks and have mixed feelings on that. i feel like i've just sort of gotten the hang of it here.

for example....here is a small slice of the ridiculousness that is my day.  yesterday morning, around 11am. we're hanging out and anna makes some horrible baby explosion noises, so i go change her and she has sploded through all of everything she's wearing. so i'm going to change her costume, but instead decide a bath is probably a better bet since there seems to be some...material...in her mullet.

she is bathed and smells like honey (for a few minutes until she, inevitably, goes back to smelling like cheese baby).  then i feed her and then pump, because i'm more full lately than she is hungry and i do NOT want mastitis, but i DO want a big freezer supply of milk before returning to work- anyway, i'm pumping. so halfway through henry says, "i need to go poop in the potty" and races back into the bathroom.

i pause pumping, cover up and follow him back and find a nightmarish vision. because it turns out he had already unloaded in his diaper- the same diaper he has dragged his hands through while dropping it to his ankles.....so i clean him up, again considering merely a costume change, but settling on a bath since "mommy, eww. poop on my knee. poop on my elbow!" so i dump him and about 300 toys in the bathtub to work things out and i go find anna, who is screaming by now, because she thinks poop elbow is gross, too.

so i quick finish pumping, keeping a loud conversation with henry going from across the house the whole time to make sure his face is properly above the water as it should be.

and just as I'm about to clean all my breast pump supplies, change anna again, wash and then get henry out of the tub and get him dressed again, robb calls with a conference call with our architect and contractor. so i still did all that stuff, and started a load of laundry, but all while talking about load bearing walls and whether or not we need to sound-proof the guest bathroom so we can't hear people tinkle while we eat.

i'm thankful that this sort of moment doesn't stress me out as much as it used to. i'm laughing through much of it, gagging through some of it, and trying hard to be thankful for the opportunity for the chaos.

Body Wars

i have a pretty amicable relationship with my body. there aren't any areas that i would say i "hate." and i'm pretty proud of that fact. it's not easy not to loath your parts. it's certainly not taught.

the things that i got teased for most as a kid were my height, which i've grown to appreciate, my nose, which i've decided to embrace as proof of my lineage (and as an extra tall slice of 'fuckem,' i pierced it years ago to show the middle school bullies that i'm SO not afraid of drawing attention to it i'll hang ornaments off the side!) and my large breasts....which, you know....kids are dumb.

(these days, incidentally, the thing i get teased for most is my flat, junk-less trunk. there's been talk that it might actually be inverted. it would require many squats to fix-and so, i'm at peace with it.).

i think that i am so down with my body, in all its high's and low's because i recognize that it was designed by God and i don't want to be a total prick and insult Him by insulting it. also, i almost died a few years ago, so having a healthy body, even if aesthetically imperfect, is pretty friggin great. and because it's just SO cliche and draining and sabotaging to women to fret over body flaws. i strive to get over it. find higher plane issues to focus on. get more fit, but if it can't be healthily improved on, i've got what i've got, embrace it. be confident. get sexy that way. you know?

but...as enlightened as i think i am about embracing all of my body's assets and flaws....i'm not loving how dumpy i feel right now.

it took my 9 months to lose all the weight i gained last pregnancy. and i keep trying to remind myself that. and it was really hard work. i was tracking every bite i took with myfitnesspal app and running several times/week, training for half marathons and such. all the assholes say "oh! you're breastfeeding! it should just fall right off then."

allegedly, i guess that's true. it burns some 500 calories/day. but i have no problem still exceeding my daily allotment. no problem at all. i'd tell those assholes just that, but little bits of donuts might fly out of my mouth while i'm yelling. and that would be rude.

so i still have this floppy, stretched out pannus (fat apron, for those in the 'biz') and still look about 6 months pregnant. and now it's been 8 weeks since bananner showed up.

so it's bumming me out. almost enough to actually start calorie counting and running regularly.

almost. but not quite. today alone has involved pancakes, french fries, donuts, cake and wine.

i can't type all that into myfitnesspal! it would obviously break the program.

but i figure if i publicly declare my intention to start actively trying to lose (and list my weight loss, in pounds, on the right side of this blog page- scroll down. down. down. there it is!), maybe i'll be more inclined to focus.

but meanwhile, i'm going to say and think nice things about my body. i am thanking it for what it did, in safely growing and delivering these two spectacular people into the world and feeding them straight breast pudding to help them grow huge and strong.

and i'm not going to talk shit about my body in front of my daughter. that's a promise. it's also a discussion for another time.

I Am Proud Of...

i've been watching henry have moments of pride lately in what he's doing right, and it's gotten me thinking about all that i'm proud of. there's a lot. please bear with me.

i love watching henry be proud of himself. my very favorite moments are when he's done something new or big that we've been working on and he gets it right and he is SO PROUD of himself and his accomplishment. he lights up from his toes up. practically quivering with happy feels. it just makes my heart sing.

especially because lately it's about him using the potty (he's doing awesome with peeing in the potty, notsamuch with pooping...which will be really nice once he finally masters because he eats a huge amount of vegetarian food everyday and so produces huge, disgusting man-sized deuces. i'd like it if he would deposit them directly into the flushable toilet). or about sleeping. we got him a light-up alarm clock that glows green when it's ok for him to get out of bed and it's helped a lot. so when he wakes up and he sees the little alien-looking alarm clock glowing, he calls for us to come happy dance with him about it and he's all beaming smiles. he gets so much satisfaction for a job well done. and a lollipop. he gets that, too.

another thing he's been doing awesome lately is "pretembering." this is how he says "pretending" and it's so friggin cute, i can't force myself to correct it. his imagination is taking off, and it's totally fun to watch. he's all kinds of animals all the time and we're usually chasing something/being chased by a dinosaur, monster, mermaid, whatever. or he's acting out scenes in his favorite movies. so awesome.

i'm also really proud that he knows how much we love him. we've chanted it to him his whole life and now it's just expected, one of those things, mom & dad think i'm great, whatever. nbd. when i say 'i love you,' he says, 'yeah. you do.' and if i silently give him a hug or squeeze his hand or something, he absentmindedly says, 'i love you, too.' :)

and i'm proud of our 2 month old in a 6 month old's body. anna is a little angel. she is just so sweet and quick to smile. i've been afraid to put it in writing because doing so will for surely curse us, but i want to give her credit publicly for being a miracle baby- she sleeps really well. and she eats REALLY well. she spits up all the time, but it's not stopping her from collecting the calories and gaining the lbs. at this rate, i expect her to be about 6' 4", 280 lbs by the time she's in middle school. so that'll be good. i want a girl who can kick some ass.

and after carefully reflecting on our marriage at and after this marriage conference, i feel really proud about where we are in our togetherness. we're more decent to each other when we fight than we used to be. we let things slide better than we have in the past. we share more. we laugh a lot. we still have a lot of sex. we crave time together to conversate about things that don't involve the minutia of our daily lives. and we like each other's quirks.

for example. for years, when robb asks for a piece of gum and i go to give it to him, i take it out of the package, lick it, and hand it to him. preferably wiping some of my spit on his hand when i hand it over. the whole thing grosses him out and makes me laugh. naturally. so at church, during this pretty serious lecture during the conference, i ask him for a piece of gum. when i look back over at him, he has neatly rolled it up and stuck it partway up his nose. then he gingerly removes it and tries to hand it to me. :) i circumvented his disgusting effort, but i was very flattered that he'd taken my www and amplified it to an even bigger eww. that's love. it's all about putting the little extra effort in, right? :)

ok. thanks for enduring. i feel better when i count my blessings and sing loudly about them. especially when i'm also critically aware of my current stresses and shortcomings (the previous post).

Just Don't Make Any Sudden Movements or Loud Noises

argh! it's been forever! not making time to write lately has been eating away at the integrity of my soul. there, you see? my writing is rusty and so i go all wordy and over-the-top prose on you. let's start again...

...without the creative outlet of writing in my daily life, it feels like a large prehistoric bird is pecking out the very heart of me, one ancient bloody mouthful at a time. i wake with a scream on my lips...

no. no better. move on. but, for reals, i am hoping blogging will help me work out some of my stress. i'll tell you all about it. (lucky!)

we've been really busy. the anna is going through a fairly clingy stage right now where she doesn't want to be put down and the henry is going through a defiant stage that's going to get him drop-kicked into a snowbank.

robb's busy working and working out and we're both trying to keep the house standing...for now. we're in the middle of designing a remodel that will gut most of our house and start all over again.

and i'm assistant directing a play with rehearsals three nights/week. and i go back to my full time job in just a few weeks.  whew!

oh! and all this without taking my usual shortcuts of restaurant food once in a while (come on! be honest with the people! ok, fine. 3 x/week) because we're trying to dollar and calorie count.

our new year's resolution/lenten fast/me not getting paid while on leave/preparations for being poor as dirt because of aforementioned home renovation- has us tightly budgeting and doing tragic things like cooking all of our own food. and i'm even cleaning my own house! (we usually have a cleaning lady once/month. i justify that because it costs less than a marriage counselor and is about as effective at keeping us together).

(on the topic of marital harmony, we went to a marriage conference this weekend through our church. we've been reflecting on it a lot and there will be posts to follow with our observations on it.)

so...in an effort to be totally honest about my experience as a mom of young monsters, i'm going to admit that it's been tough recently. henry fights me over everything. he's intermittently sassy, manipulative and violent....and then sweet, polite, and gentle. and i never really know what version i'm going to get in any given situation, dr. henry or mr. monster...so it's left me jumpy and shaky, on guard all the time, like someone suffering with PTSD.

we had a difficult trip to the zoo in the morning and then he only made it through 10 minutes of gymnastics in the afternoon before he had to be removed for being a derelict. he hit me in the face three times throughout the day when i was dragging him to time-out or away from whatever he wasn't supposed to be doing.

and i just don't feel like i know how to make him stop. i haven't wanted to spank or in anyway physically punish my kids. my goal has always been to teach him to resolve conflict through conversation. to control and contain himself verbally. especially when it's using mean hands that i'm correcting for- it's counterintuitive to correct violent hands with violent hands.

but, man, i feel like i need a larger consequence to reach for when he's being especially beasty-when positive reinforcements and negative reinforcements like time-outs and yelling aren't working anymore. and he's too young to really care about taking away TV time or a toy or whatever else.

so i popped him back gently when he slapped me the 2nd time yesterday. and i still feel bad about it. it certainly got his attention, but it was traumatic for both of us. but then he hit me again later, so obviously it didn't scare him into treating me decently, so won't be a tactic i employ again.

i just feel raw and wounded. today he was supposed to be in daycare and it was going to be a quiet, blissful anna day getting stuff done around here- but henry's daycare had a snow day. i cried a little when i got up to pee this morning. crying and peeing, peeing and crying.

i hate feeling that way about my beautiful boy. i don't want to feel like i have to get away from him for my own sanity. i think that's just a parenting reality, but i'm hating it. the other post i'm working on right now is all about how awesome he is. because, well, because most of the time he IS awesome, but also because i just feel bad thinking anything bad about him.

but that's crazy, right? i can both recognize my blessings AND have them make me crazy now and then, right?

thoughts? suggestions? i could use some help getting through this stage with sanity.