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.