The End of It

Hard to believe it's 90 degrees and she has pneumonia

I am standing over Eva’s crib, and between the glow from her nightlight and the crack of light spilling out of the laundry room, I can see her angry face. She is kicking her legs and screaming at me because I have laid her back down on her side and told her it’s bedtime. A few minutes ago I let her cry for a while before crawling out of bed and walking across the hall in the dark for the 4th time tonight. This is her 5th time waking us all up. My mother who is visiting for the holiday weekend took a turn twenty minutes ago. Each time my 18-month-old daughter settles and quickly falls asleep as I rock her, and she seems content as I lay her back down in the crib half-awake. But it’s usually about twenty minutes before she starts screaming again.

I am tired and watching the clock and realizing it’s only a few hours until we all have to get up and go out in to the world. Throughout the last few hours I have changed her diaper and put her in lighter pajamas and turned down the air conditioning and given her ibuprofen and milk and blankets and another baby doll and a third book. When Mom and I met in the hallway the last time she told me she thought Eva was anxious. “Poor thing,” she said. I said I thought she had a tummy ache. She seemed to be uncomfortable, kicking her legs and bending them and usually rolling over on to her tummy when I laid her back in her crib. I know it’s not her ears, and the cough that drove us to the pediatrician last week is actually almost gone.

“Eva,” I said a few minutes ago. “It’s bedtime. What do you need? Use your words.” She was sitting up, her feet facing the opposite direction from where I last left her.

“I want drink,” she said.

“You have a drink.” I picked up her sippy cup full of water that we’d gotten during one of the earlier visits and handed it to her. “Now it’s bedtime.”

Now as she kicks and screams, the next bedroom door squeaks open and I wait for Mom to volunteer yet again to rock Eva back to sleep. Before she can even get the words out I say, “She is fine and she needs to just go back to sleep. She needs to realize we’re not going to pick her up every time she whimpers, and this is getting ridiculous. It is bedtime and we’re all going to go to sleep! She can cry for a while.”

My mother tells me good idea and moves on to the bathroom, and Eva is quiet. She has turned on to her side and pulled her blankie and her sippy cup up to her chest and closed her eyes.

“I love you,” I say as I creep out and pull the door closed.

And that seems to be the end of it. Miraculously.

(This is a post from my blog at The Next Family, seen here.)

Thanks to TT and the inflatable deck swimming pool, a hot Memorial Day weekend with a sick, needy 18-month-old, was not nearly as difficult as it might have been.

Going for a walk with Gamma

 Eva walks around in Mommy's shoes

 TT and the kids hang out in Friday night's wind while the burgers sizzle on the grill

 Bouncing!

 Staying cool in the 90 degree heat

 Staying cool

 Eva helps in the gardens

Sam helps TT cool off

I did it!

Stay for the whole 27 seconds. It's worth it.

Reconnecting

 Olivia and Sam are running from The Wicked Witch out at Farmer's Park

In the car on the way to town Friday I told Sam about Olivia, that we'd be meeting Mommy's friend Rhonda and her little girl Olivia.  I told him that we knew them from a long time ago, that we actually stayed at their house a few times.  He asked me to describe their house, and he was mostly interested in what color each room was.  I told him he was very little when he last saw Olivia, so he wouldn't remember, and when I told him they had a big basement and he and I stayed in our own bedroom there on our way to Hawaii, he insisted he remembered.

"I don't remember a lot," he said, "because I was really little, but I am remembering a little bit."

It's unlikely Sam remembers Rhonda's house.  The last time we saw Rhonda and Olivia, Sam was an only child, and Sam and Olivia had both just recently turned one.  The kids had just started walking and they were still sitting in high chairs, throwing most of their food on the floor.  Rhonda and I were both new to toddler parenthood, and we attempted to have a glass of wine and eat delicious steaks that she'd bought from a local butcher before we fell in to bed exhausted at 8pm.  Rhonda and I met through SMC, and we had braved the crazy world of conception and pregnancy together.  We frequently got together for walks to talk about the shots we were giving ourselves and the hormones cursing through our bodies and the fears we had about pregnancy and motherhood and life in the future. During one particularly memorable afternoon  when we were both newly pregnant we had walked slowly around Lake Calhoun and said "Just think, next year at this time we'll be pushing strollers."

Who knew 5 years would go so very fast!  So grateful we had a chance to reconnect this Friday over a picnic lunch next to the cool, clear running waters of Farmer's Park.

On Chickens and a Prayer

Monday night out of nowhere Sam asked if we could say a prayer before dinner.  I said sure and I did my good little Catholic girl rendition of Bless us our lord and these thy gifts...

"NO!!!!  Not that one.  The [something-indecipherable] one!"

"I don't know that one."

"I bet Gedion's mommy does!"

So that is where we left it until Tuesday.  And when we sat down in Gedion's backyard after playing on the swing set and feeding the chickens and watching Gedion and his daddy perform a memorable one act play involving a phone call and "no backsies," I told our friends the story.  But there were bratwurst from ledebehr's and fresh cut watermelon and a little picnic table for just the kids, and Sam didn't really care about anything but sitting at the table and enjoying the great meal with his friends.  Gedion's mommy said an impromptu prayer about being grateful for friends and warm spring evenings, and we all dug in and enjoyed a wonderful evening together.

Amen.

 Feeding the backyard chickens

 Gedion The Thespian

 "No backsies!"

 The kids table

Appreciating TT

The sad truth is that TT sees the worst of me when she visits.  The sad truth is that after five nights in a row of getting up at least three times per night with Eva and two days of shoveling and lifting sod and getting up and down and up and down and up and down using my already questionable knees, my patience with my children started to wear thin.  The sad truth is that a single mama who rarely gets any time off from being the sole parent of 2 children under 5 eventually gets really frustrated by the fact that NOBODY SEEMS TO BE LISTENING to anything she says.

Come over here and get your shoes on.  Sam.  Come over here and get your shoes on.  Sam.  Sam.  Sam.  Shoes.  SAM!!!!!!!

Eva, no.  That is dangerous.  Eva, turn around.  Turn around.  Eva.  Turn around.  Eva!  [sigh]

The sad truth is that I was so exhausted and my back and knees were in so much pain that I failed to really personally appreciate my own mother and everything she did for our family this weekend. Without her I would not have gotten a break AT ALL this weekend.  Without her I wouldn't have gotten through the piles of laundry and the sinks full of dishes.  Without her I wouldn't have gotten the garden in and the herbs divided and the seedlings transplanted.  Without her I wouldn't have gotten to enjoy several fabulous meals full of fresh veggies and charbroiled steak and perfectly flaking salmon with a delicious creamy dill sauce.  Without her I wouldn't have been able to take a hot shower AND wash my hair.  Without her I wouldn't have had time to sit down in the sun and watch my children laugh and play and dance and enjoy the magical weather and their very, very special grandma.

Thank you so much, TT, and I'm sorry I wasn't more appreciative while you were here for an absolutely wonderful weekend.  We love you more than you know and we all miss you tremendously when you leave!

The basketball star in the family

TT shows Sam how it's done
(Yes, Sam has on underwear but no shorts.)

A game of fetch

This girl LOVES her TT

TT teaches Eva to eat the raw corn she's shucking

Sam is an awesome garden helper

Really!

Evidence that I was there... photo by Sam

TT cooks steaks and all kinds of delicious grilled veggies

Morning on the deck

Checking out the weather in our pjs

Sam eats the raw green beans almost as fast as TT can snip them

Not quite warm enough to set up the big pool yet

But not really room for Sam and Eva in the duckie pool.

Lots of water fun

Sammy declares TT's baked salmon with dill sauce the best fish he's ever eaten!

Friends

Our family was fortunate to have some fun visitors in early May.

Mosquitos and Blood and Cartilege

We are laying in bed together, curled up next to each other in the twin mattress shoved in between my bed and the east wall of my bedroom.  We call it "the pink bed" because of the bright pink sheet on it that matches the decor in Eva's room.  It used to be in the closet in Eva's bedroom, reserved for guests, but when Sam started to climb in to my bed every night at 3am, I placed it in my bedroom as his backup location.  I don't remember when he started just sleeping there every night.  The light from the master bathroom shower casts a light glow over Sam's face and the scab on his left cheek from where he scratched himself last week is almost gone.  He pulls his blanket up to his chest and shivers.  I have told him it's time to go to sleep, that it's way past his bedtime, that we have an early morning.  But as usual, this doesn't stop him from telling me a story.  This is almost always his strategy for moving around Mommy's rules.

"Sometimes mosquitoes don't like the blood that they suck out," he tells me.  A mosquito had bit me earlier in the evening and Sam had been fascinated by the way they suck blood out of animals.  "Sometimes they don't like the blood and they shoot it out through their needle things."

I laugh a little.  I know this will inevitably delay sleep but some nights I can't help it.  He knows this.

"They shoot it out through their needle thing and it covers the whole, whole, whole, whole..."  His hand comes out of the covers and moves in circles above his head.  "...whole, whole, whole, whole yellow line in the middle of the road."

"It does?  That's a lot of blood for a tiny little mosquito."  I know I shouldn't ask, shouldn't continue this.  I know it will encourage him.  But I can't help but want to encourage him when he creates stories.

"Yah.  It's lots and lots of blood and it makes the cars slip on the road."

"Oh no.  That's not good."

"You have to be careful when you're driving around mosquitoes," he says.  I laugh and he smiles.

"You're right," I say.  "Now let's go to sleep.  It's time to go to sleep.  We have a long day tomorrow."

He puts his hand back under the covers and turns over to face the wall.  I close my eyes and take deep breaths but his body still hasn't stopped moving and I know it will be a while before he melts in to sleep.

"Mommy?" he says as he turns back around.  "What is that cart stuff that sharks have instead of bones?"  I tell him cartilage.

"Cart ledge," he says.

"Cart a Lidge. Cart Lidge."

"Cart a Lidge," he says.  "Cartilage.  Mosquitoes don't have bones.  They have cartilage like sharks so they can bend and twist and never get caught."

"I bet you're right," I say and I tickle him a little on the back of his leg.  "Now go to sleep Mosquito Boy!"

He laughs and squirms and we say our I-love-yous for the fourth time tonight, and we once again try for sleep that I know is probably a long way off.

Bubble Buddies

Notice how really, really clean my children always are.  :)