Shelley's Case

Ch-ch-ch-changes

If someone had said to me a couple of years back that I would willingly go from living with my husband and 2.5 year-old in a three bedroom, two and a half bath 1700 square foot, two story house to move into a 750 square foot loft in a converted warehouse with said husband and 2.5 year-old, I would have thought they were absolutely freaking nuts. 

And yet...I have. And I love it.  I don't understand why more people live like this. 

More to come. 

Art of Mom Thursday

This week has been a clusterf**k.  Monday feels like it was months ago, but the weekend still feels like it's a long way off. 

So, the recap: Peach was sick (cold) over the weekend, but thankfully the rivulets of snot dried up by Saturday evening. We celebrated her half birthday (why not?)  with a cake and candles.  She glowed with joy when she realized it was for her -- "this is MY birthday party," she announced, and ate all the frosting off her cake.  

Parenting-wise, I started reading a couple of books by David Elkind. Even though I know I don't want to subject Peach to academic/activity pressures this early, every time I hear about a kid her age in some sort of lesson, it makes me feel anxious, as though I'm not doing enough for her.  Hence, the books: to remind me that kids do better if they don't get subjected to structured lessons/sports/academics when they're this young, that she's only 2 and a half, and that her job right now is to learn about the world through play. 

(Although all that playing has to be inside - it's been f-ing freezing here.  Seriously, 9 degrees yesterday morning.  This is NW Oregon - come on!  We have magnolia trees here. Who knew 9 felt so much colder than 19?  Not me!)    So all zoo requests come with the answer, "It's too cold, sorry," which actually does stop the debate now.  She says, "Oh, OK."

Art of Mom Sunday Night

Aiee!  Today I moved bookcases, assembled a rocketship, and wrote a petition for review for the Oregon Supreme Court.  I feel like freakin' superwoman (although I still will be working on this brief tomorrow morning, it is mostly done).  Since I don't know what tomorrow will bring, and I still have some energy left, I thought I'd post a bit early.

The rocket looks pretty cool.  I got it ages ago and Peach and I have colored bits and pieces of it here and there.  Today I needed to keep her busy so I could write while Matthew fixed his Linux box (where she watches her movies), so we put it together.  She christened it her house and immediately climbed and closed the door (then peeked out the portholes and laughed and laughed).  

Amazingly, I can fit inside, too!

I have become concerned recently about Peach's stuffed animals.  I used to have a rule that it was one stuffed animal per species (bears excepted).  This lead to some funky animals (we have a seahorse, and a skunk, and a beaver, and an African wild dog, and a weasel). But somewhere along the line, I relaxed my control and this happened:

 

In my defense, while it is a lot of animals, the vast majority of them are quite small- Beanie Baby sized.  And some of them were, ahem, my stuffed animals.  But still - must every trip to Ikea result in a plush animal?!  Why am I so weak?

Art of Mom Mond- er, Tuesday

I don't feel very art-of-momish this week. 

Yesterday - Peach's first day in the young preschool class - I had the worst drop off ever (although apparently she had a great day), a crazy hectic day, followed by leaving early to take her to the doctor, arriving at the doctor at 5:48 (traffic was nuts), and then a surprisingly pleasant doctor's visit.  After about 18 months of fighting the doctor, I asked her on the way out of school, "hey, do you want to go to the doctor?" and she said, "I want to go to doctor."  And it was awesome.  She didn't fight having her weight taken (31.7 pounds - finally over the 30 pound mark!) She didn't fight having the doctor look at the spot on her skin that I was worried about.  She hopped down after her exam and started playing.  She didn't fuss about the seasonal flu nasal mist experience.  It was fabulous.  I thought, "Wow.  She's really growing up."

Bonus: we were both in bed, and asleep, by about 8:30. 

This morning, I was reminded again that yes, I have a toddler.  Waking up: crying and fussing.  Putting on potty: lots of whining.  Putting on clothes: two parent operation.  Brushing of teeth: ditto.  Drive in: much demanding of going to the zoo instead of school.  Drop off: Second worst ever. 

And what is up with this new "I want to go to store" demand that crops up every time she has to do something she doesn't like?  I don't get it. Matthew calls her his little capitalist.

Sigh. 

But we had a great weekend: we met her BFF JM (and JM's mom) at the zoo, and they were so cute, holding hands and hugging and giggling.  Little girls are so cute!  And I love that as dominant as Peach is, personality wise, she is perfectly content to follow JM's lead.  We ate at Peach's favorite place - Noodles & Co. - for macaroni and cheese and meatballs - and much fun was had. I finally found a coat (at Target!) that she will wear instead of refusing my choices with a dismissive, "I just be cold." 

Ah, well.  Hopefully the weekend will come soon.  Work is topsy turvy (down a legal assistant) and I will probably end up having to do a work road trip on Saturday, but I'll look forward to the zoo on Sunday.  

Art of Mom Monday

Crazy, crazy day.*  Twenty minutes from daycare/Matthew's work, Peach announces, "I have to go potty."  She's been so perfect on the commutes that I gave up putting a diaper on her for the trips to/from work (even with commute traffic!) a while back.  So we diverted to my office (closer: I drop them off and then backtrack) and she went there - disaster averted.  Whew. 

A few weeks back, I just gave up on putting Peach to bed in her room in her big girl bed.  I'd had an easy to put down baby for a long time, then when night terrors started, it got a lot more complicated.  Finally, bedtime become another toddler battleground.  After Matthew's surgery, I didn't have the energy.  She'd been waking up at 3 AM and ending up in our bed, anyway, so I figured, let's skip the battle and the nightly drama and just let her go to bed with us.  (If Supernanny has a problem with it, she can kiss my hardcore commuting, working mother ass.)

And it worked.  Suddenly there was no nighttime drama (other than choosing books and the occasional, hilarious talking in her sleep - last night it was "My bunny!").   As a side bonus, Peach is potty trained, better rested, and a lot easier to be around.  The only downside (other than the occasional kick to Mama's kidneys) was that now I was competing for covers with two people instead of one.  Yesterday we solved that issue by purchasing a king sized comforter/duvet for our queen sized bed, and it was awesome - almost like our bed had grown. Loved it.  

So you can imagine, then, my surprise when tonight she announced she wanted to go to bed in her big girl bed.  And climbed into it, demanded a few stuffed animals, her soymilk - and then promptly went to sleep....!  I knew sleeping with mom and dad was going to be self limiting and just tonight told my mother on the phone that as independent as Peach is, I didn't expect it to last long. But seriously?  45 minutes after I said it? 

Well.  I'm not taking back the king sized comforter.  I love that thing.

*I wish I could talk about work on my blog.  My work is nuts: I represent victims of sex abuse, and occasionally it gets so crazy it's surreal.  So do some of the clients.  But alas, I can't talk about it. 

Art of Mom Monday

I'm not feeling like a mothering maven today - a screaming toddler during morning daycare drop off does it to me, every time - but even a weekend of sick Mactyres had some up moments.

• My favorite, around 2:30 am this morning: Peach wakes up from a bad dream yelling, "No, it's my boot!  My boot!"  Seriously, cracked me up. I really wonder what that was all about. 
  
• Yesterday, Peach and I took the MAX from Lloyd Center back to Sunset Transit Center for no good reason other than she loves trains.  Loves them.  At every stop, she looked at me frantically and signed (and said) "More train! More train!"  In the tunnel, she said solemnly, "Darkness." It was rough when we finally had to disembark, but Daddy was waiting for us on the platform (he drove ahead and beat us there), so that was a bonus. 
  
• Potty training seems to have taken.  I put her in a diaper at night, because she's about 50% on staying dry all night, and those aren't great odds.  Mothering perk: having a toddler means I can go to the bathroom as much as I want to in public, without worrying what anyone else thinks. 

Art of Mom Monday

One word: Schwan's. 

On his own volition, Matthew started ordering from Schwan's.  And lo, there were healthy dinners on the table that I did not have to prepare.  Balance is restored.  Life is good.  (And mostly, he does the dishes.)  The prices are somewhat more expensive than if I cook, but substantially less expensive than eating out.  And the food is pretty tasty. If careful, it's also healthy.  The veggies have been crunchy, and I haven't run across an entree I dislike yet.  Whew!  It makes cooking more of a desire than a demand, and so I - for the first time in ages - enjoyed baking yesterday afternoon.  I made pumpkin-cranberry biscotti.  Yum!

Next item: gratuitous picture of my perfect Peach, enjoying our first post-potty-trained trip to the zoo on Saturday.  She's a jungle VIP:

 

If you ask her, she'll be happy to tell you, "I ride lion." 

Two things about my kid

1.  Today we had an almost completely accident free day (one not-quite-to-potty-in-time morning incident).  All day at daycare: no accidents.  Wearing big girl underwear.  Yes!!! 

2.  This was a real conversation about ten minutes ago. 

Shelley: Peach, don't touch that. It's dirty.  

Peach: Well, wash it, Mommy.  

Matthew: [Cracking up] 

My wild girl

My kid loves Duran Duran, so much so that I'm expecting the next thing out of her mouth to be why Simon LeBon is so much cuter than John Taylor.

(OK, maybe not quite that much.  But close.)

Take this exchange.  The stage: the car, on the way home after a long day of work/daycare.  I had been chatting with my brother via bluetooth, with my iphone connected to the stereo, when I turned the engine over after getting gas.  This resulted in a weird error where the music started playing in the bluetooth adapter.

Shelley: "Can you hear that?"

Shelley's Brother: "What?" 

S: "The Duran Duran?" 

SB, singing: "'Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand...'"

S: "No, it was the 'Wild Boys.'" 

SB, still singing: "'Wild Boys! Wild Boys! Wild Boys!"

I called him back, fixing the sound bug, and we chatted for another 20 minutes or so.  The music came back on, and a few more songs played.  Then, from the back of the car:

Peach: "More Wild Boys, please." 

S: "What did you say?"

Peach, emphatically: "More Wild Boys, PLEASE."

And since then, that is the only song she wants to hear.  I have listened to "The Wild Boys" more in the last week than I did in all of 1984.  

God help me: for diversity, I may have to introduce her to Wild Boys remixes.

Art of Mom Monday: Commute contemplations

There are mornings when I am up, out of bed, hair straightened (because I was clever enough/energetic enough to have showered the night before), ready to go, with Peach clean and shiny and ready to go - all by 6:45. 

Today wasn't one of those days.  This means I was downing Diet Dr. Pepper before I hit the shower, my hair drip-dried while I chased Peach around the bed, trying to spray de-tangler on her hair, I finally got her completely dressed, but realized I'd neglected to put my own shirt on....you get the picture.  We left the house at 7:15, which means inevitably awful traffic as we crawl into Portland.

The thing is that it's not LA bad or Seattle bad - it's just a pain.  And the sun is in Eden's eyes almost the entire way.  (Leaving earlier means less sun - although before long, it'll be no sun, so I ought not to complain, I guess!) 

Without Matthew with me on the commute, I end up with time to think, and given my crappy sleep habits of late, it's been some weird stuff. This morning's musings:

• Why do Cheerios taste good, yet produce the most foul burps?
• Why do I get cut off in traffic by so many people with yoga bumper stickers?
• Does that mean yoga would probably not help my nerves? 
• Why does Eden like Rammstein and not Alison Krauss?
• Should I color my hair? 
• What is that smell?  Did Eden poo...or just burp more Cheerios? 

And so it went.

I'm back.

Back from hiatus.  I wasn't sure if I would do this again, but damn it, I miss blogging.  I miss having an outlet for the crazy stuff in my life (and there is a lot of crazy stuff).  For a while, it was one long pity party, but the party's over, and it's time to move on. 

 Matthew had an accident at work, major back surgery, almost a week in the hospital, and is now home with us again.  It's an adjustment, having a hospital bed in the house, seeing Matthew go through this slow recovery, and all that entails. Working that into our routine has been tricky, especially since Peach and I had worked out a routine by ourselves.  Still. 

Someone (a parent!) asked me how I "could possibly" cope with what was going on, and I was like, "Um.  I have a kid.  I don't really have a choice about whether I make it or not - I just have to make it."  And so far, I've made it. Maybe hanging on by my fingernails some days, but I've made it. 

As for me, for work, for life - I'm making it.  I have almost no "me" time, but part of why I'm resurrecting the blog is to reclaim some of that.  I want to start taking cello lessons again.  I want to start running again. I want to do NaNoWriMo again.  I want to have something to talk about besides the fact my kid can stack 20 blocks and can put her shoes on and frequently stays dry all night, but she told her first fib last weekend.  You know? 

So, for what it's worth: I'm back.  I'm blogging (and hopefully not bitching too much).

Art of Mom Monday

Forget the months of interrupted sleep, the tantrums, the screaming fits (not the same thing!), the stacks of dishes in the sink.  Today is Art of Mom Monday, and I am going to think positively about parenting. 

Today's setting: harried morning, doctor's appointment (Peach), leaving work early (me), long commute home on the train, (Matthew), four stores to find Hello Kitty pigtail holders (a big negative for Peach & me, because who knew Peach only wanted "kitty piggies?").   Until about 4 PM, the highlight of my parenting day had been thinking to put a clean shirt on the kid *before* the doctor's appointment. 

But around 4, I amped up the kid with some chocolate milk and set her loose in Nordstrom Rack (one of the places I went looking for the kitty piggies).  We just happened to look - in case they were misfiled - in the size 7 shoe area, where I found a cheap (both meanings) pair of yellow fabric ballet flats that match the color of my current favorite handbag - a kind of baby poop yellow, to be honest.  It looks better than it sounds, really.

 I tried one on - and the kidlet went nuts. 

"NO MOMMY!  NO SHOE!"  She lunged for the shoe and pulled it off my foot. 

"But it's a pretty yellow."

"No yellow, Mommy.  No yellow!"  She dropped the shoe, face full of distain, in a box with some fushia pumps. 

Hrm. (This was a funny development - she had been trying to talk me into clothing the whole time previous, by saying, "Mommy shirt" and "Mommy coat" when she saw something she liked, usually in a brand I normally wear.) 

I picked the shoe back up.  "So...do you want to try it on?" 

And before I thought of pulling out the camera, she bent down, unfastened her Keen sandal, and pulled it off - all in one motion.  (Normally, taking off the sandals involves sitting and much pulling.)  She dropped the shoe and stuck her foot in it.

And still didn't like it. "No me, no yellow."  She inspected the shoe one last time, and put it away. 

I got the photo - and the shoes.  We chased each other around the store, which was hugely fun, and actually led to positive fellow-shopper interactions.  (At the Rack?  I *know*!)   My kid still threw some massive tantrums while we waited for Matthew's train to arrive; she stripped naked in the middle of my gourmet - ahem, Ikea meatballs and sauce - dinner, just as my boss called to ask a question, and announced it with "MOMMY NO DIAPER!"; and she pitched the requisite screaming fit when I put her to bed.  (Which the treadmill drowns out perfectly, I've noticed.)

But the shoes?  They were a golden moment in the day.  Well, baby poop yellow.  It works.