Monotony and Flow

Why do I feel like I’m missing it? The kids’ childhoods are just whizzing by in front of my face while I’m buried in laundry and dishes. It seems like every time we step out of the house it somehow deteriorates by the time we return. A few fun activities with the kids and I spend the rest of my time getting the house back into semi-shape. It’s so unbelievably draining. I just feel like I clean all the time and now gardening season is upon us, with weeds that grow a foot a day!

When I was at work I had more time to reflect on this whole parenting thing – time away to miss them gave me time to have complete thoughts about them. Now, by the time I think of something to write I have to jump up and kiss a youchie or get some juice or whatever and then the thought is gone. Maybe I should dig out the paper journal again for a while. I guess if I had a job writing, I would make myself sit down and write instead of cleaning or checking e-mail…

Mattie at the Zoo was great. She got really excited just seeing the animals, especially the elephants. She loved brushing the goats in the childrens’ zoo and probably would have stayed for hours if I didn’t see a goat pee a big puddle of pee and then turn around and drink it! No splashing in those puddles please! Wolfie was just so happy to sit in Liam’s wagon with him – not that the thrill of the zoo is gone, just the thrill of independence rings louder in his little ears.

I suppose another issue is the hospital (or hostable as Wolf calls it). We’ve been going there almost every day for 2 weeks now to see Granny. She smiles so brightly whenever she sees her great grandchildren. It's really the only thing I have to give her, so I bring them as often as I can and struggle to keep them ‘entertained’ for the 30 minutes or so that we can stay before I lose it. ‘Let’s All Go to The Potty’ is a great game we play almost every visit. Public potties are Wolf’s newest obsession – wherever we go he has to go – and that’s a request you just can’t say no to, isn’t it?

Struggle is an interesting word – so much of my current existence feels that way. At what point in my SAHM career will things begin to actually flow? It’s hard to get even the daily necessities completed – groceries are a struggle. I thought I had it down, until potty training. Now, at any moment the shopping experience MUST be put on hold to answer the call, “Mama, I have to go POTTY!” And run, don’t walk to the potty, it’s always on the opposite side of the store from where we are. Our last trip was quite special with Mattie joining in the potty fray and me without a diaper. As I turned toward the bathroom, I got a whiff of the smell from the cab – Mattie had definitely made a diaper and I left the bag in the car. I even steered down the diaper aisle and thought of buying a pack, but they weren’t on sale and I knew I had a whole megapack at home. So, how cheap am I? Well, after we got Wolf handled, I put Mattie up on the changing platform and dug right in there with a huge wad of toilet paper. Well, several wads of paper since this was the corn diaper. Corn at dinner always yields a rather full diaper peppered with the swallowed-whole stuff sometime around 12 hours later. I walked right into Jewel with a ticking time bomb, unarmed. Is that my problem? Do I create my own struggles by thinking it should be easy?

Medicine Lessons

Will I never learn about the evils of Ibuprofen on an empty stomach? Wolf started coming down with a cold yesterday, and of course, Grama and Rachel and I still dragged him off to Jeepers anyway since it was our plan. I’m sure he would have enjoyed it a lot more and made much better use of his wristband if he wasn’t stumbling around in his cold-induced mini-stupor. I gave him some Motrin before bed to bring his little (101) fever down, hoping it would last longer than the Tylenol. He wound up coming upstairs around 2:30 a.m. or so to sleep with (read ON) me, the Mama pillow. We got up together at 6:30 a.m. to watch TV on the couch and get him some medicine.

As I was pouring the Motrin, Wolf said, “My puke doesn’t like that kind, Mama.” I reply, “No, that’s only at night, Wolf.” So what, maybe 10 minutes later, he cries this panicked pre-puke cry on the couch and I frantically shove my hands under his mouth to catch it. Then a little more crying, 85 million “I’m so sorry honey”s and one more ‘catch’ in the kitchen and all the awful medicine was finally down the drain. Now listen to this! NO IBUPROFEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH EVER!!!!

MY KINGDOM FOR A COMMENT!!!

Talk about side-tracked! I set up this web page on blogger and can now think of nothing but acquiring a comment. And not just a ‘you suck’ comment or ‘nice site’ either – I actually believe that I’ll receive some apt literary critiques! That someone I don’t know may stumble upon my writing and be struck by one of these deep thoughts that I hide in here all the time. Is that what SAHM’hood has done to me – made me so hungry for recognition?

Well, I suppose it has. Anytime I’ve been pissed at DH it’s usually been over me doing so much and him not caring/commenting/recognizing it. And your children certainly can’t give you adult quality recognition can they? Although Wolf has taken up the sweet sweet habit of hugging me and saying “I love you Mama.” That is the ultimate mom-thrill, even when he’s only doing it to counter you being mad at him for some transgression or other like peeing in his Pull-up.

So, here I am starving: MY KINGDOM FOR A COMMENT!!! Since starting this blog, I’ve spent the majority of my free time (i.e. when the kids are sleeping) on the PC obsessing about feedback. I’ve researched traffic advice, added ads and clicked on a number of other blogs hoping to be touched enough to leave them comments, of course begging reciprocation. But I really haven’t found any that I care about (except all the knitting ones out there – awesome!) I guess that’s the trick to it, I really ought to stick to writing for myself and then perhaps, if I come up with something good, then throw it out there and see what happens but not really care if anyone else likes it or not because I already do.
>^.^<

An Ugly Period

I think I’ve subconsciously been avoiding writing about Wolfie’s defiant period because it’s not exactly pretty. But, since this is all about the real Wolf, his defiance is a part of him, one that I have a lot of trouble understanding. It started Feb. 1^st over taking a bath. He refused to get in the tub and I wound up forcibly standing him in it and hurriedly dumping water over his crying screaming form – an ugly scene. Since then he’s picked various times and places to assert himself with loud crying and pulling or pushing against you (OMG! A tantrum!?!) – most of the time it’s not in public, except for Walmart by Becky’s house where he decided he didn’t want to go in once we got just past the cash registers.

I thought I was getting a handle on it with time-outs (which really means making him sit alone in his room until he stops crying.) He can’t stand to be alone, so this really registers with him. He’s gone from several outbursts a day to just one or sometimes none. Whew? Still, he freaked last night when he had to come upstairs and put his PJ’s on (not enough warning maybe?) And then, hopefully the last battleground of this period is actual sleep itself. Wolf refuses to fall asleep ‘on purpose’ – he won’t allow himself to be still long enough. He demands that I sit at his bedside, “Mama can I have you for just a little bit?” It sounds so utterly sweet when I write it, but when you’re actually sitting there nodding off yourself and all you want to do is go to bed, you feel a bit differently. Once I said no and left the room and he literally screamed bloody murder for half an hour, while I yelled ‘Go to sleep!’ from the living room – I have no idea how Mattie slept through it – a really ugly scene. AND the remedy was I STILL went in and knelt by his bed!!

I tell him, “Close your eyes or I’m leaving,” and he complies but dances his little hands around in the air ever so slightly – just enough to keep him from drifting off. I plead with him in clear desperation, “What can I do to help you go to sleep?” to no avail. If he does ‘allow’ me to leave (only on the promise I’ll be back to check on him) he just comes out. Sometimes I let him sit with us on the couch for a few minutes thinking that will help. Last night it did not. I finally left his room at 11:25 and he was still awake. I told him that we’re not doing this anymore and tomorrow there would be a spanking if he didn’t cooperate with going to sleep…

Refreshment

5:18 pm – naptime – solace? Didn’t the Nazi’s torture their prisoners by making them move huge mountains of boulders and rocks from one corner of the prison yard to the other, only to have to move them back again? And this pointless-ism broke people. I totally understand it. Not that I’m saying motherhood (specifically SAHM’hood) is akin to torture, just that it includes a grossly consuming amount of seemingly pointless repetition. Seemingly is important here because you really cannot be there for your kids if you are not there to answer the 300 daily why questions or return the cups to their nest time after time or constantly repeat the instructions for oral hygiene, etc., well I’m sure you get the idea.

At the beginning of the month I was lost in and to this very concept. I knew for certain that I love my children and wanted to prioritize my life to be there for them, but agonized over why I found it so unsatisfying and even, at times frustrating. Today, I have been renewed and my patience supplies replenished. Yes, patience is a commodity like orange juice that can be depleted and refilled. My dear husband refilled it yesterday by taking the kids out on his own for the better part of the day. Now their absence of course, freed me to do anything I wanted. Yet, I felt such immense guilt over being home alone that all I could do was housework. I kept thinking I needed to do something that I could not do with them home. But even that gave me the attitude adjustment I needed because I felt so refreshed and happy to see them all when they returned.

I suppose my satisfaction in SAHM’hood comes from personal pride in being there for my family. And it flies right out the window, the minute I begin to martyr myself by thinking I’m doing it all alone.