testing 1-2-3

how does your garden grow

It seems I have used this blog more often than not to tell the worst of the worst - a sort of blooper list of life with kids. So, despite the fact that Thea is still trying to put herself to sleep as I type (read: screaming her beautiful little head off), I contest that today was an all-around good day.
It didn't start that way, mind you. Thea's been having a very bad sleep record lately - 3 or 4 wakes a night. I also have a cold - the kind that is worst at night. So this morning, I was in a foul mood, contemplating what it would take to just stay in bed all day, despite the pervasive sunshine shining through the window.
But up I got as Thea's grumbles escalated from downstairs. I sat in the living room scowling at the day for a while, but after Matt left and Thea went back to sleep for the morning, something catapulted me out the door. Perhaps it was the sunlight after a week of rain and dark, or maybe it was that Liam was launching into another morning sitting on the floor with his favorite Beverly Cleary CD.
Anyway, once outside, I set to working on the greenhouse, which got truly thwacked this winter. Several of the roof panels were off and I thought one was actually missing, but it turned out it was there. The whole greenhouse had listed as well so it looked as though it might topple any time. I wasn't sure I was even going to do any gardening this year, and could hardly imagine I could fix everything up while juggling everything else. But something came over me, and I dove in.
Liam found a hammer and after I explained the difference between a nail and a screw, set about happily nailing into everything in sight - wood, the ground, whatever. I found the screw gun, got the panels on the roof, and attached them in a somewhat straight manner. I got them up only just when the screw gun's battery died, of course, and then Thea woke, but I was not dissuaded. I brought her and a blanket out and set them both in the sunny garden.
Thea has started sitting up fairly well this week, and so she sat, pulling up handfuls of dead grass and drooling on a fresh stick of rhubarb, while I wrestled with the roll of plastic that makes up the walls of my greenhouse. I actually find both the stapler and staples that fit it (extraordinary) and up goes the plastic. By the time that's almost done, Thea is wilting, so I put her in the backpack for a while and try to right the list a bit with cross braces. The off she goes to her swing chair, and I get both hands to work.
Liam has moved on to the hose, his favorite fire fighting fantasy, and a granola bar. I get the rest of the plastic up just as I run out of staples. Then we move inside, and I turn over the soil in the beds. It feels marvelous to work the soil with my hands. So funny that all these years later I am still so connected to the earth.
Thea slept for three hours, long enough to get the greenhouse ready, eat a pb&j with Liam in the sun, and catch a cat nap on the couch. More valuable than gold.
Then the three of us went to the local garden stores and bought some flowers and veggies.
Matt called to say he was on a fire and wouldn't be home until late, so I made pasta and sausage (my favorite - not one of his) and garlic bread and Liam actually cleared his plate. Thea drank water from a bottle for the first time, and I even got both kids in the tub before the night ended. Only upset of the day was when I insisted on using the shower head on Liam's hair ("It feels weird and scary, mom.")
But it was forgotten by bedtime, and after a couple of stories, all was mended.
So today was a good, good day.

Camping chaos

Sooo, I know this blog isn't supposed to be about me - it is supposed to be about Thea, who is amazing, and deserving of much verbage. But, since most of this has already turned into my private pity party, I might as well go for it, right?

This week is kicking my butt and it's only Tuesday. Today, I felt like a pingpong ball zipping between one task and another and doing none of them well. This business of working from home while watching an infant is not for the weak of heart. And now that it's "summer" and Liam doesn't have Raspberry Lane, it is just a little bit harder.
I'm not sure what happened between last month, when I made list after list and managed somehow to perform all the tasks at hand, and this month, when the dust bunnies are collecting and conspiring to revolt from their crannies and take over the world. I think I am running out of steam.

And it is only June.

Last weekend, Matt ran into his 21-day line and had to take a day off, so he took two and a half and the family went camping. It was good fun - we went to the Anchor River and the first night, took over the campground. There were no less than 20 people there the first night - split between adults and kids - oodles of food, and sunshine. It was so fabulous. We sat around the campfire drinking cheap Canadian beer (is there any other kind) and eating smores and enjoying being outside.

This was car camping at its finest - one couple brought a kids play slide and a barbeque, another brought a propane grill. We brought our canopy tent from the farmer's market booth as well as a fold-up table to enhance the kitchen area. One guy who works in construction brought siding scraps for kindling and a power saw to cut wood up with. It was comical for someone who camped for so many years with the less-is-more principles.

I tossed in the towel around midnight and carried Liam, who was sure he was going to sleep on his own in his own little tent all night, to our tent so we wouldn't have to get up in the night when he realized that he was, in fact, all alone. Thea slept very well that night, curled in my down sleeping bag the way babies are not supposed to be curled. I didn't. Between trying to make sure she wasn't over-curled and the fact that she had most of the sleeping bag, I might have gotten five cold hours. I was almost the first one up - one friend who had too much to drink the night before was up a few minutes earlier, muttering about a crow that had serenaded us rather loudly minutes before.

The second day was a little cooler, sprinkling, and people crawled out of their tents slowly. We ate oodles of pancakes and bacon and by noon, were one of two families left staying the second night.

But still, it was delightful to be away from everything - from computers, phones, and the neverending list of things I need to do. I slept better the second night, and we didn't make it home until 5 the next day. It was funny - I was thinking how much I would look forward to a hot shower and being at home, but once we got there, it felt weird - almost unnatural - like I didn't belong inside.

And then Monday started, with Thea pulling an all-night cry-fest, perhaps wishing she had that sleeping bag back, with a big pile of smoky laundry added to it, and a fridge full of nothing, and bills to pay, and Liam starting a new preschool for the summer without his favorite coat (Mom, I look stupid) and his favorite pirate hat (Now I look even more stupid) and Matt unable to find a hairbrush at 7 a.m.

And now, it is Tuesday, and things are not improving, though I am typing all this whining on an awesome new computer, which I finally have all set up and wow, does it zip.

It all seems like a mountain of stuff, this life, and right now I've got to stop myself from thinking about anything other than tonight - maybe tomorrow - because if I do I'll freak out. Seriously.

rollin'

Thea's accomplishments for the day are as follows:

12 a.m. - eat, burp, sleep
3 a.m. - eat, burp, sleep
4 a.m. - request to eat denied. cry, cry, cry, howl, choke, sleep
5 a.m. - repeat request to eat - denied. see above.
6 a.m. - spy sun shining through crack in blanket-draped window. Wake up. Request assistance. Mothership responds.
6:05 a.m. - finally get new diaper. Whew.
6:10 a.m. - finally get fed. Double whew.
6:15 a.m. - blow raspberries at Mommy. Squeal.
6:20 a.m. - out on the deck for some morning sunshine. What a day!
6:40 a.m. - start yawning - ready to go back to sleep.
7 a.m. - Dad gets up. Make googly eyes.
7:15 a.m. - back to bed.

8:30 a.m. - I'm awake. Hey, I'M AWAKE. Rescued. Food.
8:40 a.m. - Take morning drive to brother's sitter. Eat ladybug toy legs with vigor.
9:30 a.m. - back home - Mommy makes lots of phone calls. I contribute squeals.
10:15 a.m. - back to sleep. Ahhh.
11:30 a.m. - I'm awake and I DON'T WANT TO BE. Choke. Sad. Sob. Rescued.
11:40 a.m. - stop in at bookstore. Flirt shamelessly with my adoring masses.
12:15 p.m. - fall asleep in the car ride home. Mommy lets me snooze in the sunny car while she rakes up all the dog poop from the lawn.

2:30 p.m. - wake up. Chortle. Clean diaper. Ahhh.
2:40 p.m. - to town for 20 pounds of hot dogs for camping trip. Smile at all shoppers, especially cashiers. Am quickly done with shopping, however.
3:30 p.m. - Back home. Take stroll in contraband rolling chair. Find bathroom.
4:30 p.m. - Just don't know what's up, but wow, I'm beat again. Off to take a swing in my chair. Ahh. Nighty night
6 p.m. - Awake again - and sooo, so hungry. Have first BM in 4 days. Yah!
7 p.m. - I'm getting cranky. I need lots of attention. Lots and lots of attention. Hey, where did you go???
7:30 p.m. - Bath time. Ahhh. Splash, splash. Now this is heaven.
8 p.m. - Ohh so ticklish. Must you put baby power under my arms like that? It makes me giggle so hard.
8:30 p.m. - Nightnight. Not a peep and I'm off to sleep.

fire swirls

I remember clearly the first summer I lived with Matt. The first busy week came and he was home late each night. The weekend came and he had to work. And the next week was the same. By the third week, I remember realizing in shock that this wasn't going to stop. This was the new normal.
That was eight years ago, but it still takes me by surprise. Matt has logged more than 100 hours of overtime already this year. He is currently on his second "21," when he works 21 days straight and then must take a mandatory day off. And it's not even June yet.
So what, you might ask, does this have to do with Thea? Well, the other day, Matt went over to pick her up and she gave her "stranger picking me up" cry. Egads. Not that she always does that with him - she only did it because she was already tired and crabby. But still. It makes me wonder what it's going to be like for Matt to be gone on fire assignments this year.
This has been a whirlwind weekend for Liam and Thea. Yesterday, there was a scavenger hunt and two birthday parties. Today, a bike ride, playground time, picnic and barbecue at our friends house in the banana belt of downtown Homer. We are all a little windblown and tired, but it was good to get out in the sunshine, despite a persistent wind that kept temps cool and Matt running all over the Peninsula fighting fires big and small. Right now he's all the way north of Kenai where two fires kicked off at exactly 8 p.m. - quitting time - squashing my plans to go have a glass of wine with friends.
Now, the point of this post. Everyone, and I mean everyone, keeps saying how Thea has Liam's eyes. I'm going to dig through my photos of him and find one that proves what I keep saying. They may look alike now, but when Liam was her age, he looked nothing like that. Let's see what I get.

Raspberries

Today was all about Raspberries. Raspberry Lane, Liam's preschool, is closing for the summer tomorrow. That's not the end of the world because I've got a whole bunch of different things lined up, but it does yank on my heart strings because he is so attached to the place. Hmm, maybe it is actually that I am so attached to the place. He comes home enriched, enlightened and exhausted - three very good things which I have had a hard time replicating on my own lately.
Honestly, I am sorry to every older child in the world at this point. You had it so good for a few years, and then us young ones came along. Not that Thea has it so great or anything, but she doesn't know any better. You do. And then it gets taken away - like being served a big slice of chocolate cake and then being forced to split it in two and give half away to a wailing, silly pile of pink.
Raspberry Lane has been amazing for Liam. He comes home singing little songs to himself - a lot. His imagination is blooming with peony-like beauty. He even has picked up a social skill or two along the way, making friends with both boys and girls - though not all of them. He comes home with stories about how he and Miss Red had to have a "conversation" about this or that - some power struggle in the play room, or a rude response that needed correction. These are big deals to him - he takes them very seriously. But he adores his teachers - really, truly. You can see it in his face every morning when he arrives there.
He'll be back at Raspberry Lane in the fall for one more year. When I look at a picture of him at the beginning of school, it blows me away how much he has changed in six months. It just never stops.

I said today was all about Raspberries. Well, Miss Thea learned to blow raspberries today - you know the truck-like bubbly sounds babies all seem to make. She was so pleased with herself, you would think she learned a new language. I guess in a way she did. I laughed so hard when she did it. It's so deliberate. She's working so hard at it. It's a true feat.
She is also squiggling around like crazy these days. Put her on the floor and you never know where she will end up - although she complains about it so bitterly it's hard to lose track of her too much. Consequently, we had to have a conversation, Liam and I, about toilet paper tubes, and things that fit through them being choking hazards, and how if things that size, like Legos, were left in the livingroom, they would be summarily thrown in the garbage.

Again, all you first-born children, I apologize. There is no justice.

too busy to think

I can't believe it has been two weeks since I wrote in this blog. Two weeks is like an eternity in baby time. Things happen so fast - and these two weeks were no exception. But when I try to remember what has happened, I can't. It's all one big blur.

Sleep: We tried to let Thea cry it out, and had some success, but as soon as I started caving in and feeding her (and we had some nights where Ghangis Kahn (sp?) would have caved ) she started wiggling back into the every hour routine. So it's been a push and pull thing. I'll feed her between 11:30-12:30 and then not again until 5. But some times that means listening to her howl for an hour or more. Not fun. On the other hand, neither is getting up to nurse her every freekin' hour. So it goes.
I have noticed, however, that all this lack of sleep has aged me in ways I have never seen before. My eyes are fried. Big, old-looking creases under them. Scary stuff. Seriously. And in every picture, they always seem half-way closed. Camera timing or my new normal? Who knows.



Exercise: I did purchase a yoga video the other day and did a couple routines and found out that they were very calming and deceptively difficult. The next day, muscles screamed in odd places on my body. The other form of exercise I have been doing is called the 4-year-old-on-training-wheels-sprint. Liam has become one with his bike this year, and goes pretty fast at times. This weekend, he biked 3 miles, so I ran most of that. The first few times we went out, I didn't expect to be running so much and wore clogs. Huge mistake. The kid flat-out boogies. We also hiked down to the beach on Diamond Creek this weekend with some friends. I found that carrying Thea in a backpack plus all the essentials of two kids in Alaska (extra clothes, diapers, jackets just in case, food, water...) is a substantial feat. At the top, our friend told us that we had covered 1.5 miles, according to his gps. He refused to tell us what our rate of speed was. I probably should have thanked him for that.

Squiggles: Miss Thea is a ball of energy these days. She rolls over almost the second she is set down on the floor, and then most of the time gets annoyed that she can't crawl. She wiggles and squiggles a lot, drools, teeths, tries to grab passing cats, and generally is ready to move forward if she could just get her body to do what her mind is already doing. And oooh the frustration. It's going to be a long 18 years.



Teeth: two for sure, more coming. Cut marks on both her little fists from teething. Likes to chew on metal, fingers and blankets.

Food: Very enthusiastic about food. Also very messy. Insists on grabbing the spoon as it comes by, usually with messy implications. You can fake her out, but then she laughs and her food consumption efficiency takes a dive. Pears, apples, carrots, bananas, and oatmeal all well received.



Mother's Day: As a friend pointed out, not really for mothers when they need it most at the height of mothering. Really geared toward mothers of adult children now feeling guilty for all they put their mothers through. I will wait to collect my dues.

Dad: Still working on those two. Can't figure it out, but every time I leave the house solo, Miss Thea figures it out and throws a full-fledged fit. Gulping, gasping, sadness. She does, of course, survive, but.... And since Matt is around less and less right now as fire season ramps up, it isn't helping my cause any. She did it again tonight, and I was only gone for a half-hour. I'm pretty close to giving up on those two bonding before she is weaned.

Spring: Oh joy. The snow is shrinking faster than cotton candy in a downpour. Crocuses finally blooming. Happiness. Could do without the winter's worth of shredded newspapers and dog poop in our yard, but that's best left a couple days to cure, experience has told me. And anyway, I am soooo busy. Don't get me started.

Let's see if I can actually get a picture up here before the end of may, shall we?