When the Dog Gets to the Diapers

I went to a friend's house tonight and I stayed too late. It was a good hour past the kid's bedtime when I left.

(Bad Mom: -2 points)

I got home and realized that I'd forgotten to close the door to Evelyn's room. I realized this when I saw diapers (used, of course), torn to shreds and spilled out all over my carpet and the floor in the nursery. Henry was hiding in the back yard.

(Forgetting to close door: -1 point)

I managed make Nate pee, put his pajamas on, brush his teeth and throw him into bed in the first 5 minutes. Then I fed Evelyn. Then I put her to bed. She stayed asleep.

(Teeth brushing: +1 point)
(Kids in bed in 15 minutes flat: +2 points)

At this place in the story, I have broken even on the good/bad parent scale, point-wise.

You know how when you break open a used diaper, there are all those silicony beads inside? No? That doesn't happen to you? Your dog doesn't break open diapers and grind poop into your floors when you're gone because he started getting back at you every time you leave the house when your husband started deploying and because you forgot to close the door to the nursery and you think diaper genies are stupid, so you use a regular trash can? Oh. Well, when you break open a used diaper, there are all these beads and they're silicony. And they're impossible to pick up. And this happens to me on a regular basis, because I think diaper genies are stupid and so I use a regular trash can and I don't get sleep and there's not enough coffee, so I forget to close the door. 

But I noticed something tonight when I was picking up the torn-open diapers with my bare hands (because that's just what starts to happen when you keep having kids (mental note: stop having kids)). I noticed that where the silicony beads touched my carpet, there were light spots. The diapers kind of sucked dirt out of my carpet and so there are slightly cleaner spots where the beads had been sitting. I've cleaned my carpets with a stand-up carpet cleaner like three times in a row and they haven't gotten this clean.

(Initiating partial-carpet cleaning cycle by leaving nursery door open: +3 points)

I'm three points up. Helloooo, Cabernet!

Pictures

Being a parent of the Pinterest generation is tough. The 3% of overachieving moms ruin it for the rest of us. They really do. One of thousands of areas in which I come up short is taking pictures. I mean. I have my iphone. And it's loaded with random pictures of my kids that I snap just as they stop doing the cute thing they were just doing. So I try. But I always have grandiose ideas of holiday memories that will be forever immortalized in a frame on the wall or a scrapbook on the coffee table. Christmas outfits holding sweetly smiling children, who are peanut butter and booger -free, whose arms rest lightly around their darling siblings. Everyone is looking at the camera at the same time. Easter pictures with eggs and bunnies and pastel. Valentine's Day cards in the mail, displaying red and pink-clad offspring asking their Auntie to be their Valentine.

Quick! Take a picture! I'm going to need to remember this someday!


It just doesn't happen like that. Evelyn barfed on her little leprechaun-cute green on St. Patty's Day and I forgot to put the glittery green headband on her androgynously bald head, since green isn't exactly gender-specific. So I didn't take pictures. Even though I freakin' love St. Patty's Day and geek out on all my friends and stuff corned beef and cabbage down their throats and sing Irish drinking songs to my kids. They cheers with milk. Cow and breast. We've got all kinds.

The point is, my pinterest-dreams rarely solidify into the perfect pictures. And it is one of many things I hold over my head to force me to be a better mother.

By the way, it doesn't work. Holding things over my own head, I mean.

So I suggest this: let's give ourselves a break. Let's quit living in the "not-good-enough" mentality that makes us forget the good stuff. Let's take pictures when we can (it IS important) and then let's enjoy being with our kids instead of forcing them to pose for one more for facebook.  I'll check my phone while my kid shovels sand at the playground and you can show up to our playdate in yoga pants. I'll break out the pre-cooked, sliced chicken every now and then and you can buy art for your baby's nursery instead of making it out of marshmallows and salvaged wood. I'll frame iPhone photos and we'll cheers over the convenience of disposable diapers. And we won't judge each other.

Deal? Deal.

Quick! Take a picture of me not freaking out! I'm going to need to remember this someday!

Rules I Never Thought I'd Have to Make

1. You're not allowed to put your cow to bed in Evelyn's crib while she's asleep.

2. Do not pull the baking soda out of the cupboard to "clean" the carpets with the entire box.

3. You are not allowed to hit Henry with a butterfly net. Or your blanket. Or Thomas. Or that basket.

4. You are not to steal the phones from the purses of my childless friends and take pictures of mommy nursing the baby. If this happens, there will be no future children for you to play with.

5. If you wipe that spilled baking soda on (my friend) one more time, I will clean. it. up. Take THAT!

6. DO NOT talk about mommy's boobs, your penis or nipples in public. In fact, don't talk in public at all.

7. You are not allowed to "wash the dishes" unless I give you permission.

8. If I hear the microwave go on ONE MORE TIME when I'm nursing the baby and putting her down, I will sell you.

9. Never, ever, ever wipe your own butt after you poop. Lord help us all.

10. Once a piece of food is in the dog's bowl, you are no longer allowed to eat it.

11. No, you may not poop on the back lawn.

12. No, I do not want you to pour your pool water into my coffee. Why would you even ask?

13. Speaking of water: Do not start the bath by yourself, do not enter the bath headfirst, do not turn on ANY of the sinks unless I say it's okay, I don't care if you can - do not turn on the hose, stop pouring water on your electronic toys, don't drink the paint water, don't squirt Henry or me or Evelyn or anything with water, stop sticking your fingers in Henry's water bowl only to lick them off and DO NOT turn the temperature dial in the shower while mommy is in there.

14.  Get that orange crayon out of your nose.

15. Don't spit at people we don't know.

16. Don't spit at people we DO know.

17. Stop reorganizing the apps on my phone into folders.

18. No, you may not eat the succulents.

19. Stop feeding Henry your yogurt, under the table, with a spoon.

20. Do not stand in the window naked. The neighbors will judge.


...to be continued...

Up, Up and (if only we could get) Away

Both of my children are peacefully sleeping right now. Which makes it hard to sit down and think about The Plane Trip. There are few quiet moments in parenthood and most of them are indicators that Nathan is on top of the refrigerator, so I tend to savor the restful moments and not muddy them with dwelling on the incidents that make Chernobyl look like spilled glass of milk. But I’ve been putting it off, so here is an account of the The Plane Trip.

I had help. My dad was in town for a business trip and we wisely booked our flight to Virginia together, so that the adult to child ratio would be two-to-two. Or, if you consider the following events, two adults to one baby and one Hurricane Sandy, which is more like two-to-thirty seven. And also a baby.

I have no lack of airplane stories featuring Nate. He earned his nickname, “wolverine” on a plane trip to Utah. He sobered his “let’s have more kids” father on a pretty mild trip to Virginia. And this time, he successfully secured the voluntary sterilization of all travelers on United flight 257 from San Diego to DC. The first indication of which, they may have noted, was upon taxi toward takeoff, when Nathan wriggled out of his seatbelt, stood up in his seat and loudly announced, “I be right back, Mommy”.

Oh no you jolly well will NOT, my boy.

And thus it started. It proceeded like this:

I jolly well WILL press the call button, kick Evelyn in the head and climb over the seat in front of us with a rebel yell ... simultaneously. 

You jolly well will NOT.

King Kong meets Godzilla and neither back down. FOR THE REST OF THE FLIGHT. Apart from a couple 20 minute naps (necessitated by pure exhaustion), Godzilla screamed at the top of his lung, flailed and turned an alarming shade of red whilst King-who’s-your-momma-Kong held him in a wrestling hold to keep his flying feet from hitting the seat in front of him, Evelyn and his grandfather… simultaneously … for, pretty much, the entire flight. Upon landing four hours and forty-five minutes later, my dad (who does not exaggerate) turned to me and asked, “Do you have bruises?”

When we escaped the plane, a man who had been sitting in the very back came up to my dad and asked if it was Nate who’d been screaming that whole time. We were in row 10. Of approximately 40.

And that is how I became deaf.

That is also how I justify the statement that I am a battered woman. I will henceforth refer to Nathan as, “My Abuser”.  My dad has renamed him “The Tasmanian Devil”. Evelyn simply thinks of her brother as a noise machine.

She slept the entire time.

Today I Took a Shower While My Children Cried. A Love Letter.

Dear Jon,

We've been married for over five years, so naturally we are totally over all that romantic crap like love letters. But what the heck. I figure we can bring it back, since you're deployed and all. And because you have nice legs. So here goes. A love letter. For you.

Nate has been throwing LOTS of tantrums lately. I've called my parents yelling and/or crying more times than I want to admit to someone whose job it is to fly a 45 million-dollar helicopter through the night. Yesterday, my mom assured me, "No, Bek, he's not a psychopath... he's TWO" for a good twenty minutes while Nathan sat pantless on the toilet, screaming his face off. I wish I could give you some background as to why that tantrum happened... and why it started on the TOILET of all places, but I'm as mystified as you are, Dear. He asked me to take him to the bathroom and for help with his pants and as soon as I put him on the toilet, he started wailing like a Chicken Fil-A cow at McDonalds. Sunday I stood, shaking and ready to sell my ovaries to the highest bidder, in the parking lot at church while your son arched his back and screamed like a ... psychopath... trying to ignore the appalled glances and sympathetic smiles from passers by. It took me 15 minutes and more patience than I have to even get him buckled into his car seat. Not to mention the hauling through the parking lot to the car with him under one arm and Evelyn sleeping happily in a sling while Nate bansheed it up. Or the drive home. Or the continuance of the tantrum once we got there. Or the daily mini tantrums we have. Every night I put him to bed and pray with him  for obedience and self-control.

I also pray for him sometimes.

I keep having moments in training our strong-willed son that make me want to call all of my friends who haven't had kids yet and congratulate them on their excellent life decisions.

The truth is, though, I like our kids enough to put up with wolverine tantrums. And that's a lot of love. When there's no screaming, I'm downright in love with the little sinners. So when you get home and your family is alive and healthy, no members of which having been sold into slavery, I do believe you will understand. Not because a more patient, loving person couldn't have done this job of mine better and with grace (and without complaint on a public forum), but because it's me. You already know my crazy. And I'm showing deployment whose BOSS with the help of family and friends and Stella Artois. So this is my love letter to you. I love you so much that I love your kids. Enough to not ship them to you with my letter of resignation. Enough to consider a homecoming gift for you that doesn't start with hyster- and end in -echtomy. Enough to give you a love letter that takes the time of two back-to-back deployments to write and looks like two tiny, smiling faces when your plane lands and you see us waiting for you.

Just know that a lesser man would have gotten a screaming box (with holes punched for air and cracker crumbs falling out) in the mail months ago. But because you are kind and strong and so good to us and you love us with every single part of your being, we love you, too. And because I love you, I'm writing this letter. It's a long one, but you're worth it.

Love, your wife.

PS... I really did take a shower while they cried, but Nate was being banished to his room for a rebellious revolution of the French degree and Evelyn was soon soothed to sleep by his wails, so I felt it justified the neglect. So... you're welcome...?

And Then There Were Four

I am wearing just my wedding band as I type this. I had to take off my engagement ring before I went to the hospital for the C-Section and I left on my wedding band in hopes that they would let me wear it into surgery, so that Jon would be there with me in some small way. It's been two and a half weeks, but I keep forgetting to put my diamond back on. I've been up a lot at night.

They even didn't let me wear the ring. I make jokes when I'm nervous and having a baby cut out of me without Jon makes me nervous, so I was cracking up the whole operating room. I'm a hilarious terrified person. Truth is, C-Sections scare the crap out of me. I become convinced that something will go wrong and my precious baby won't be alright. That the room will go silent and no one will tell me why. It's not really rational, but that's what comes of the unhealthy habit of putting off fears instead of facing them when they occur. They all smother you when you can't put them off anymore and your arms are strapped to a table and your baby's life is in the hands of someone else who raises goats in his spare time. No joke. My doctor is awesome. He raises goats. I even joked about it during the surgery. (I was nervous.)

While I was trying to figure out how the smell of the alcohol swab the anesthesiologist put in my oxygen mask took my nausea away, the doctor said, "Oh! She's breech! When did that happen?" Then, over the sheet he asked me, "She wasn't breech, was she?" and I tried to figure out if that's bad in a C-Section, but it was followed by, "It's okay, Just grab her behind the knees like this..." and a few moments later, the most beautiful sound in the world - a healthy (angry) baby wail - filled the operating room. Everything - the stress of finishing my stupid degree before this moment, the pain of not having my husband to hold my hand, the fear that something would go wrong - it all dissipated, showing its weight by its absence and tears of relief and joy rolled down my face, because she was okay. I could have bled out on the table right then for all I cared, but she was okay and the tech said she's so long and look at those feet and I couldn't see her, but it didn't matter, because she was okay. They brought her over and I managed to turn my head enough to kiss the face I could only really half see but already loved more than I could ever speak. She's okay. She's perfect.

Evelyn Kate Butterfield. 8 pounds, 5 ounces. 21 1/2 inches long. Born at 9:10 am on Tuesday, November 13th. And perfect.

Jon called his mom from the ship. She was waiting in recovery with Evelyn while I was still in the operating room, and he got to hear his little girl cry. The same cry that told me everything was okay reassured her daddy as well.

Phone calls can be disappointing during a deployment. What I want is to snuggle into Jon's voice and stay there in its comfort the way I would put on a cozy sweater and curl up on the couch. In reality, phone calls are like trying a sweater on in the store. You can feel how comfortable it is, but you can't receive the full measure of comfort from it, because it's borrowed. It isn't yours yet. It just fuels the longing to really, truly own it.

But this phone call with the newborn, healthy cry was different. It relieved all the pent up worry that something would go wrong and he wouldn't be there to hold my hand. It answered the countless prayers he'd sent up throughout his days flying and studying and eating crappy ship food that God would watch out for his family when he couldn't be there to see how tiny she was. And it reassured him that we were okay. It didn't matter that he'd been up late night after night and it wasn't so bad that he couldn't be there in this moment, because we were okay. I got to talk to him half an hour later, ring back on my finger, and we shared relief and thanks to a good God. It's hard doing things like that over the phone, but in that moment, there was mostly joy.

Evelyn Kate, you are so deeply loved. And we are so intensely grateful for you. "Evelyn" means "life" and Kate means, "pure". You are pure life, sweet girl, from your healthy cries to your wide, observant eyes, you represent the joy of life to us. Welcome.

Sasquatch Wears Makeup

Obviously when Jon is gone there are beauty routines that just don't get much attention. Saturdays are the only days I don't have to wear makeup, so unless we have somewhere to go, I usually slub around, barefaced, in work-out clothes that never get to participate in actual exercise.

Poor things. They probably had high hopes of being owned by my sister, who is totally in shape and adorable whenever she works out. But instead, they got me. Fatty McPreggers with not an ounce of energy to even inspire a visit to the gym.

Anyway, I don't shave my legs as often as I do when the husband is home and with cooler weather coming (I'm keeping my fingers crossed), and with my belly obscuring my view of my legs more and more each day, pretty soon I won't have to shave much at all. When you think about it, I'm growing rounder and larger everyday and with my legs becoming less and less ... groomed... there may be reports of Sasquatch sightings in San Diego in the upcoming months.

But today I had church and a baby shower, so I was in the process of applying my war paint when Nate walked in to the bathroom. He steals deodorant, make-up, hair brushes, etc., so when I am getting ready, I have to keep all the supplies pushed as far back on the counter as possible and run interference with my hips. He had grabbed something - deodorant I think - which has not turned out well in the past. (Our only poison-control call concerned a small child consuming a stick of deodorant). So I traded him for a tiny tube of clear mascara, assuming that he wouldn't be able to open it. In addition to larger and hairier, I appear to be getting stupider. Yet another Sasquatch qualification.

He left the bathroom, talking to himself, pleased with his contraband and I continued to put on my face, listening to his happy jabbering, "Henry!"... "Henry... Eyes!" As I was musing on how nice it is to listen to contented toddler talk, it occurred to me that 'Henry' and 'Eyes' in the same sentence might necessitate a quick check. I peeked my head out to see Nathan with mascara in one hand and the applicator in the other, poking at Henry's reluctant eyelashes. "What a smart and observant child to know precisely what to do with a mascara wand," I mused as I lunged at him, hollering, "NO!" He squealed with delight at the commencement of a chase and ran, wand and tube held high over his head, into the living room, chortling. I prayed, as I often do during a "give-that-back-to-me--no-I-will-not" race, that he wouldn't fall and get a wand-full of mascara/fork/stiletto to the eye. He did not, thank God.

As a side note, when I get to heaven and God pulls out the list of my most frequent prayers, my number one will not, as you might suspect, be, "Please, oh please, let there be chocolate cake at this function," but, instead, "Please make that child go to sleep" and "Don't let him get hurt doing that!" in no particular order. But the latter will mostly be in all caps.

I caught him and took the mascara back. To his credit, there was little to no fussing. But episodes like this make me wonder. If he's SO observant and brilliant at noticing the precise way I do certain things - like apply makeup - why does he never take notice and emulate the things I WANT him to do? Like *not* hitting the coffee table repeatedly with a spoon and *not* jumping off the coffee table onto my pregnant, couch-ridden belly and *not* applying yogurt to Henry's ears, to name a few examples.

I'm going to start pulling out my makeup and, when he's present, saying to myself, "No, I will not touch this, I'm going to put it back in the drawer and then go and thank Mommy for being such a terrific parent."

I don't have very high hopes for the results, but it's worth a try.