Glad I Said the Morning Offering Today

Let's just leave it at this--my day involved two separate doctor's offices, two pharmacy visits, snow shoveling, and quality time with our plumber. On the up side, our plumbing is now working, we have a path through the snow to the front door, and the kids have only very mild illnesses and are sleeping peacefully after taking their medicine. Nonetheless, I am soooo tired! I'm collapsing into bed as soon as I put the sewage-befouled laundry into the washer.

Mommy's . . . what?

Oh man. So, one solution to the climbing-out-of-the-crib scenario is lowering the mattress. The bad news is that, since we have them in the lowest position already, there are only a few inches left, and we'd have to re-engineer the cribs. I suppose we could put the mattresses all the way down on the floor inside the crib, but I don't know if that would solve the problem.

So, right now, I'm leaning toward putting the kids in toddler beds ASAP. The good news is that we have these cribs, which are very low to the ground and can be converted to toddler beds very easily (in fact, we had Sarah's in the toddler bed configuration when we had it side-carred to our bed). And, since they're so easy to convert, we can always convert them back to cribs if need be.

Mr. X is at work and I'm not sure where he put the hardware to do the conversion, so for naptime, I just sat nearby with the baby monitors on until they fell asleep, after promising great rewards for staying in bed. I determined that rewards were necessary because Nick put his foot up on the crib rail as I was leaving the room. I determined the nature of these rewards by asking him what he wants to do after his nap. Unfortunately, I had to shoot down the first two requests ("Outside" because we've already been out once to play in the freezing cold--we made snow angels and then pretty much came right back inside; and "ice-cold cocoa," which is the treat the snowmen have in Snowmen at Night, though I don't think Nick knows what that is, because of the stomach bug), so I settled on his third idea, "ricecake" (oh, OK, twist my arm to give the kids something as decadent as a ricecake) with the added bonus of a sticker on his shirt.

So, after jumping up and checking on the kids at the slightest sound, Nick finally settled in to sleep. As I left his room, I could hear Sarah on her monitor (we've given up on joint naps for the time being, and she's in the pack-n-play in our bedroom) saying "Mommy, Mommy." But she was saying it softly, not crying, and she sometimes does that when she's falling asleep. After several times, I went in the room.

She wasn't saying "Mommy, Mommy." She was saying "Mommy's, Mommy's." As in "Mommy's underpants that I'm trying to put on my head." Ah. She finally figured out that she can reach and open my dresser drawers from the playpen.

I guess I'd better find the hardware and tools to do that conversion and prepare for a rough couple of days until they settle in!

Oh, help!

Oh. My. Goodness. Bedtime tonight has been a total fiasco. We tucked the kids in at 7:30. They were really rambunctious, and as we did the dishes, we listen to them carrying on on the monitor.

At 7:50, I went in to put the kibosh on the revelry. They both had messy poopy diapers (we have a bit of a stomach bug going on around here), so that took a little while and necessitated a change of pjs. We tucked them back in, and Mr. X went to walk Wonderdog as Nick started jumping in his crib (again! After he bumped his nose so hard we were afraid he had broken it last night). I gave him a stern "No jumping!" and he stopped. Then Sarah started, and before I could even finish saying "No jumping," she hit her chin on the crib rail, and her front teeth cut into her bottom lip. I carried her into the bedroom, cleaned up the blood, and gave her a cold washcloth to suck on. Nick requested the blankets, pillow, and animals he had thrown on the floor, so I told him I'd give them to him if he was lying down. I got the kids tucked back in and left again.

About 30 seconds later, Nick was screaming, and when I went back in, he was crying for the teddy bear he'd thrown on the floor. Once he was lying down, I gave him the bear and left again.

By now it was 8:12. Things quieted down as they started to settle. Mr. X got home at 8:30, and I was just telling him about Sarah's cut lip when we heard Nick start laughing really hard. Then we heard him giggling, "Open door!" and rattling the doorknob! We ran to the bedroom and then waited for a minute, trying to control ourselves so we wouldn't laugh in front of the kids. We opened the door to find not just Nick, but Sarah, too, standing proudly on the other side of the door. They both climbed out of their cribs! Mr. X made a big deal out of checking them for injuries and putting ice on the (mostly imaginary) bumps on their heads to try to reinforce the idea that climbing out of the crib is dangerous. We tucked them back in, moved anything hard or sharp a safe distance away from the cribs, and left. Mr. X went downstairs to catch up on some work, and I started looking up crib tents online.

I was in the middle of writing this post at 9:12 when I heard "Mommy! Mommy!" and the doorknob rattled again! This time it was just Nick, and he was holding his left arm. We checked out the arm (it's fine), threatened loss of major privileges (We won't visit the snowman in the front yard tomorrow! No educational-video-that-supposedly-teaches-babies-to-read tomorrow!) if they do it again, and now they're trying to sleep.

Oops! I spoke too soon. Sarah started crying really hard, and, given that she's chewing on her fingers and bashed her lip pretty well earlier, we gave her some ibuprofen and gave Nick some juice in a medicine cup. (I promise they're usually better behaved and we're not usually such pushovers, but they're both sick right now.) Finally at 10:00 they seem to be asleep.

Oh, help! We just moved them into the same room a week ago, and they've already taught each other how to escape their cribs! The cribs convert to toddler beds really easily, but I'm not so sure we're ready to have them wandering their room at night at 18 months and 30 months old. The crib tent idea sounds good, but from what I've read, they tend to be expensive, poorly made, and dangerous. Does anyone have any advice, please?

19 Posts

Woohoo! It's only February 5th, and I've already posted more this year than I did last year.

I'm feeling sluglike. Let's see . . . I put away about four baskets of laundry this morning, took the kids shopping (totally annoying trip--realized once I had the kids buckled into the cart at Co.st.co that I didn't have cash or a check, my debit card doesn't work at Co.s.t.co, and my debit card is brand new and I wasn't sure if I knew the new PIN number for the ATM. I didn't. So after messing with the ATM for ages and calling Mr. X, who tried to find the PIN number, I went back to the car. I realized that Nick has a dirty diaper. I got Sarah into the car and set up the changing pad in the back of the van, but when I took off his diaper, it was dry. So I put Nick in his seat, drove to the bank, went through the teller lane, got money, went back, did the shopping, then lost my C.ost.co membership card somehow while I was shopping. It took forever!), came home, changed diapers, fed the kids, put them down for their naps, took a bit of a break while they slept, got myself ready for mass, woke Sarah and dressed her while Mr. X got Nick ready, went to mass, came home. Then we ate, bathed the kids, put them to bed, did the dishes, went in to change Sarah's dirty diaper, cleaned up the sugar bowl Mr. X accidentally broke in the kitchen . . . and now we've been pretty much vegging out. Oh well.

When I write it out, I think I got a fair amount done, but I'm still aggravated that I didn't do more. I heard K.imb.erly Ha.hn speak recently, and she talked about how there's not enough time to do our own will for the day, but enough time to do God's will. Hmm. That would probably not leave me so frustrated with myself, either. And would have the added bonus of, you know, doing God's will and all. Maybe I should give it a shot :)

Good Morning, Mary!

This morning, we took the kids to daily mass. We went to a parish we don't normally attend (because it has an 8:30, and we were running late for the 8:00 at our regular parishes), and when we made it up the walk to the front door, Sarah saw the statue of the Blessed Mother right next to the door in front of the bushes. The statue was just about her height, and when she saw it, she said "Mary!" and ran to hug her. And I thought it was the most precious thing and was so happy that at 18 months she already has a love for Mary and wished I had a camera . . .

. . . and then she said "Mary! Hug!" and did it again. And then Nick, standing next to her, said "Mary! Hug!" and hugged her. And Nick and the statue toppled over into the snowy bushes.

Oops.

Fortunately, the statue wasn't broken, and Nick just got a little bit snowy. And no one else was there to see it!

Self-hatred = Bad thing

Darn it, I missed posting yesterday! So, to make up for missing a day, I'll try posting on something a little deeper today.

I had really gotten away from posting here for a couple of reasons. Of course, things have been really busy. But, more than that, I think I'm feeling ambivalent about a lot of things.

I have been feeling like I'm not good enough. You know the kind of thing (maybe? I hope?)--the house is a disaster, so I'll just wait another week or two to invite friends over, because I want it to be nice when they come over . . . so that day never comes. I want to get some funding proposals done to make my life at work better so that maybe I can eventually even cut back work dramatically for a while until the kids are older . . . but I don't want to call the woman at the funding source until I have the idea just right.

I'm not sure where I fit. I started this blog to have a place to (a) talk about infertility and (b) share my story of using NaPro (because when I started there wasn't this wealth of great blogs about it like there are now). So . . . where do I fit now? I feel in-between as a mom, too. I had managed to compartmentalize a lot of things into the "I'll think about that when I actually have to deal with it" category. Like when a friend challenged me in college about Church teaching on contraception, and I said I'd think about that more when it became an actual practical issue for me (not my finest hour as a Catholic, but I've come a little way since then). And, more to the point right now, I had this dream of being a stay-at-home mom and a dream of having an interesting career . . . And since the kids didn't come along until I was 35, I just kept on going on the career, not feeling too pressing a need to reconcile that contradiction. So, now, I feel guilty for the time I don't spend with my kids. And guilty (though, let's face it, not as much) and fearful about work--if I don't do a spectacular job on this or that task, will people assume it's because of the kids? Am I cheating my employer if I don't give the absolute best I've got all the time? And I feel less than the stay-at-home moms I know, especially the ones who are already planning to homeschool their toddlers when the time comes. I feel like I haven't prioritized my family like they have, so they must think less of me. And I feel less than the working moms who don't have the flexibility that I do with my hours and time off. I feel like they must think less of me because I should be grateful for the flexibility I have instead of resenting the time and attention diverted from my family.

And I get so mad at myself for not doing more. For getting distracted. For being tired and lonely enough that, when I do have some time to get things done, I end up goofing off online instead of catching up on work or on laundry or on Christmas cards (for real! They really are Valentines now) or finally posting that stuff I have to sell on e-bay so I can get it out of my family room and throw a party without being totally embarrassed--or just calling a friend (or someone who might be a friend if I ever called them) already!

So. That's why I haven't been posting. And the spiritual formation class and my improved (though still wimpy) prayer life are really helping. The priest who's teaching the class talked about penance vs. self-hatred (penance--good; self-hatred--bad (that's a joke--he said incredibly insightful things about both, but, you know, one is good when it's used properly, and the other's always bad)). I've had some wonderful experiences in prayer that make me feel like I'm starting to get this Relationship with Jesus thing that has always felt just out of my grasp in the past. This is all starting to answer the questions of where I fit and what I should be and what I should do, both with my life and with those few minutes I get to myself. But those are really big questions, too, and it's easy to get discouraged when I fall behind at work and the kids just won't nap and there's a mountain of laundry to do. So it's a work in progress. And I think one big step for me is to just be real and let others see me where I am instead of waiting till I'm finished.

Random Tip of the Day

If you make homemade play dough for your kids because you can't leave the house, wear gloves so it won't suck all the moisture out of your hands! I'm off to put on more hand lotion.