Monday, June 30, 2008

minnie pearl

remember her? ms. pequita is insisting on everyone wearing hats these days. i feel like i am ready for an easter sunday sermon much of the time. most of the time monito goes along. here, he was happy in his hat but had just dropped a heavy block on his foot. the transition from foam blocks to solid wood is proving to be a painful one.

My Baby's Baby

little ms. pequita* has really embraced baby dolls, finally. we now turn the car around at ANY point if we forgot her baby; the ensuing crying seriously has no end if the baby doesn't materialize. she picked out this doll from target because it coos and giggles at you. we call it baby lala. after almost 2 years of declining to have any kind of lovey or comfort item, she has kicked in with a vengeance. baby lala requires her own swing, her own carry bag to hold all her bottles and accoutrements, and her own bed. grandma is on the job to find a nontoxic, less offensive baby for pequita to tote around for the next eight or nine years. we'll see what she comes up with when we get to cape cod.as for baby lala, pequita rocks it, cradles it, nurses it, calls for it from rooms away, and generally dotes on it. not bad for $15.
this picture is not highlighting a bloody forehead wound - it is popsicle trail - but the need to swing with baby lala.
*i am reverting to chicken pecking typing with a chopstick one letter at a time over a sleeping baby. monito is walking about 30 % of the time, and spends all night trying to run up the front of my body while still sleeping. i wake up 15 times a night with a still-sleeping boy staggering to his knees over me and crying for nipple - soothie won't do. i hate this phase from the hours of 11 pm - 8 am. the rest of the time it is absolutely phenomenally thrilling.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Wonder Week 55 - Monito

Remember those? I studiously kept track of where Pequita was going through some developmental stage. The 'first child syndrome' to a T.

The book - which I still recommend - describes where Monito is like this:
-He may cling to your clothes
-He may want physical contact to be as close as possible
-He may be jealous
-He may be moody and sleep poorly
-He may lose his appetite
-He may be more babylike
-He may have tantrums

Oy vey. I've been dosing him with motrin in the off chance that he is sick, teething or otherwise fixable by medicine. No go. I have always said that the best thing about this book is that it gives me hope that it isn't a defect in the kid, and that the struggles we are going through are really productive and moving him forward. It still works. And joy of joys, I can be smug in that he is ahead of schedule for this developing. Don't let the zen look of mothers fool you - we all care when our kid does what. Early is always exciting, and late is a tad troubling until they catch up.

We have had a loooooooooooong few days. If I try to touch my computer, he starts crying and crawls, bawling with the now signature scream, to my feet, fumbles to a stand at my feet and clings to my leg while continuing his screamy protests. Joy, eh? When I emailed the post in this morning, I was enduring this while I did it. I have been holding him through the evenings as well, as he sleeps very fitfully and thrashes himself awake frequently. This means that I've been doing 24/7 touching of the boy for several weeks. I am tired of it, and looking forward to the graduation to a new plateau of peaceful non-development.

I was fighting tears and fighting yelling and trying to decide whether or not to take the kids to Homestead Mama's softball game tonight like usual even as I scurried to get the diaper bag packed and she was changing into her sporty clothes when I got a text message that the game was cancelled due to soggy fields. H-Mama was pleased, and sent me out for some time alone. I ran - RAN - out the door with the diaper bag, not even stopping to change out my wallet and cell phone into a purse that doesn't contain poopy diapers and enough tofu pups and blueberries to stave off hunger tantrums in two babies. I have no bra on, I have finger paint hand prints all over my legs and I'm wearing rubber Croc shoes. I am sitting right now outside the downtown Mexican fusion restaurant sipping a frozen mango margarita and blogging, something I've wanted to do for weeks. There is a live salsa-ish band playing loudly across the street with people dancing, loitering, bouncing their babies and enjoying the 78 degree summer night. As am I. I need to call the damn mother's helpers and babysitters whose numbers I have and get my personal life back. I know this. It is hard to leave the kids with other people now that they are older and have opinions. I thought it would be the other way around, but in the baby days it was much easier to maneuver support care.

Unreachable

One of the babies lost one of our phones in the house with the line in use.  We cannot find it.  We cannot use the land line.

If any of you know us in real life and want to reach us, use my cell phone. 

Sigh. 

Rainy day here.  Monito has been crying so much in the past couple days with no apparent cause that I barely hear it anymore.  I am tired of telling Pequita that he is ok; she is so concerned for his well being that he can barely see over the mound of toys and books she has brought him to comfort him.  It is distressing, since he has figured out how to scream and all his protests and sobbing are now punctuated with blood-curdling screeches instead of a nice normal, tolerable, crying.  It really sounds like someone is sticking bamboo under his cute little fingernails.

We're going to get out of the house and go to the science museum where he may stop crying long enough for me to stop my brain from sticking in this nasty hazy place.  Some days I can't believe I entertain thoughts of a third child.

I have been meaning to respond to a few blogs and can't carve out the time. - Mama Fox, Pequita hasn't stopped begging to see BABY EAT!!! since I first watched the eating/thumb-sucking video you posted.  She says Messy! and then giggles and sucks her own thumb.  Becca, you were lost in my neck of the woods outside of Boston.  I still get confused in that town if I can't see the Prudential building.


Sunday, June 15, 2008

I.O.U.

My internet connection is sketchy.  By that, I mean that it is nonexistent when I have time to post and works when I don't.  My repair appointment is for today between 7 am and 9 pm.  Seriously.  We aren't hanging around and may miss it.  This is the nicest day we've had yet all summer, so we are taking Homestead Mama's father to the farmers market and then to the park. 

What was supposed to be posted yesterday was Monito's birth story and pictures of his birthday party which was a ton of fun.  I'll write it in Word and post it when I can. 


Friday, June 13, 2008

A.M.Timeout

Monito was up at 6:13am.  A record.  Pequita joined him at four mintues past 7am.  God help me.  Monito is ready for a nap - he fell asleep while nursing at 8:22, for goodness sake.

Have I mentioned how much I hate mornings?

We're off to the lake in a bit.  It is a stunner today, and the cool water calls.

I Guess I'll Have

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Ño!

We have arrived. Pequita has found the word no, except pronounces it ño. Very cute. A harbinger of long difficult months in the near future, I presume. Sigh.

Ticker help?

Monito turns one on Saturday, yet the Lilypie ticker says he's already there. TANSTAAFL, for sure.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a better = accurate ticker site?

Tiiiiime is [Not] On My Side

I do want to blog more. It used to be that I had all these great ideas for posts, narratives that I wanted to tell and threads that I wanted to tease out. Good things, hard issues, thoughtful reflections. I have notes to prove it. Now, I am so busy and being so hyper vigilant with the kids that I can't even string thoughts together in my mind, let alone get an interesting and meaty blog post down.

You may have noticed I have been a little absent lately. Just as Pequita is settling into being a child who is fairly responsive to my requests and commands [she is smack dab in the terrible twos] and has a pretty firm grasp about what is appropriate behavior for a two year old, Monito has reached the point in his little life in which he inflicts a great deal of damage. Between the clawing, scratching, whacking, repeated pinching, he is leaving a trail of tears behind him.

Monito is extremely capable of zooming around on all fours, stumbling around on two feet, and ripping a room to pieces in seconds flat. Pequita went through this - all kids must - where it is their full time job to clear all surfaces and shelves. And KEEP them clear. Also climb anything that is dangerously high, like the couch, stairs, dog, all because they are THERE. A really fun stage, but not one during which to leave them unattended.

So I follow, chase, monitor, entertain, all within a long arm's reach in case of damage. So far so good. He's only had one tumble down a couple stairs, gotten in one really bad finger bite that kept Pequita crying for a few long minutes, and had repeated head bashes that I now know likely won't affect his I.Q.

In my spare time, I'm consoling Pequita during her myriad meltdowns over things I can't see or discern. She is so vibrant right now and her play is wild and fun and experimental, but frequently punctuated with fearful responses to yesterday's favorite things. Right now the list of things that cause her to scream and freak out include hippos [both stuffed and on youtube], spiders, ants, something in the corner of the dining room that I can't identify, and any specks of grass on her slide. Teeny, tiny, almost invisible specks of dust will cause her to smack her feet against the sides of the slide while well under way down and screech to a stop until I wipe away the offending fleck.

I have to go now so I can wash my hair and get dressed before the carpenter arrives. Yesterday he walked in on me changing my shirt in the dining room, which mortified him. I don't really care; at least 45% of my town has seen my boobs as the kids now do the on-off, on-off distracted tandem nursing thing. Thank god nipples aren't illegal or I'd be in the slammer. My goals today are to tidy up and mop the floor, get at least one pile of crap to the local donation center and gift some little baby girl clothes to a friend who is adopting a baby girl scheduled to be c-sectioned next week. And keep the kids from killing themselves, as always. You know, a regular day.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Bonanza, continued

The kids love the yard. This a good thing, since Grandma brought Pequita the Once Upon a Potty kit, including the actual potty, the book about little Prudence and her potty antics, and the DVD of the book plus many repeats of the Potty song with film of live dancing diaper clad babies. Oh. My. God. Pequita wants it on a continual loop when she is inside the house. I HATE Prudence. We escape to the ultra-fun backyard now posthaste upon waking or returning home from elsewhere. I was up with Pequita this morning at 6:49am; I was folding laundry and she was sitting on her potty all naked noodle sipping juice and watching Prudence. Ack.


The heat spell is keeping us in the pool as well. Thank goodness for our ice cold well water.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Bonanza

Homestead Mama's good friend from college has girls a bit older than our kids, and frequently gives us hand-me-downs. It is usually stuff that we wouldn't have bought for various reasons, but oh, lordy, how the kids love the profusion of toys that come our way and I love the NYC clothing they send.


H-Mama spent all of Saturday driving round trip to New Rochelle - about 4 hours away - to pick up this latest load. When the kids woke up on Sunday morning, they went nuts with excitement since our backyard looked like a daycare had exploded all over it. Slides, tricycles, two smaller plastic slide/swing combos, extra baby seats for our big swing set, and wagons.
Monito and H-Mama on the teeter totter:


And the most coveted item? The car.

It rode proudly on the roof all the way home and so its front grill has a realistic coating of dead bugs which really looks like Pequita can make it go faster than the average toddler car. We washed everything down and let the kids loose on it all. There is almost enough stuff now that there is no need for fighting over toys, but they still manage to want what the other one has on occasion.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Walkies

This morning, Monito took two steps.  Sadly, I was outside with the video camera filming the dogs chasing down an animal in a pile of rocks - I kid you not.  Hopefully he'll do it again soon. 
 

Visiting Parents





Having houseguests really slows down the blogging. You'd think the extra help would buy me all the spare time I needed to nap, blog, shop, go see the Sex and the City movie, but you'd be wrong.




What we have had time to do is go to the birthday party of one of Pequita's friends. Monito got to ride a pink trike, and he totally didn't feel emasculated as you can see. Bring on the streamers!


I did more gardening, a lot more playing in the yard and the kids have been giving Grandma the grand tour of local playgrounds. My favorite has lake, park, playground and shade trees. We spend hours there.
Mom got me a nice pair of blue Crocs for my birthday and also CLEANED OUT MY CAR. We took out the car seats and washed the covers. She cleaned all the windows, vacuumed it to within an inch of its life, scrubbed down the seats [which took three buckets of soapy water to come clean] and scraped all the moist detritus from under the backseat. Oh my goodness, but that was not an activity for the faint of heart. It is so lovely now I was loathe to put the babes back in it, but who knew that some naked time in the empty car would be so very exciting?


Gorgeous, no? To keep it that way, I have made a waterproof seat cover that is installed under the car seats and covers the whole back seat. At least we can shake it off once in a while and vacuum easier.We had a first birthday party a little early for Monito, who turns one year old on June 14. His present from his grandparents was this wagon. We are entering the most fun ME/ MINE/ Noooooooo!!! phase in Pequita's life at the same time that Monito is finding his [screamy] voice, and I wanted nothing to do with toys that only he can play with. They love their wagon, and if it is in sight of the kitchen window, they start begging for rides before we even have breakfast.

The fieldstones we picked out were delivered and are still on their pallets. As I had hoped, the kids really like climbing all over them. I'll be happier when my landscaping guy comes with his skid steer and places them in the yard where I actually want them. Sometime this week, he says.