Out of Practice

Dave used to travel a lot for work, but recently he hasn't had to travel very much, except for an occasional short trip to the Bay Area. Last week Dave had one of these one-night business trips (which by his company's standards, hardly even counts as a trip). I had the kids by myself for Monday and Tuesday. I'm a little bit out of practice on this business trip thing and I had a hard time on Monday, so I decided to make some plans for Tuesday to make things easier on me. The YMCA didn't have any Childwatch spots available, so I decided to take the kids to "Pump it Up" (one of these inflatable bounce house places) after school so I could read a book while they played. Then we would go out to dinner on the way home and I had a babysitter set up for the evening.

I took the kids to Pump it Up and settled in to read my book-- or at least tried to. They were playing really loud music-- so loud that it was hard to concentrate on my book (and, as the mother of 4 children, I'm pretty talented at blocking out noise). Jared felt a need to race Jackson up the slide which incited screeching and screaming in Jackson and protests of unfairness from Jared when I tried to mediate between the two of them. The two of them argued incessantly in between time-outs.

Addy discovered that the drinking fountain was WAY more fun than any of the bounce houses, so she spent her time seeing how wet she could get her clothes. I made Jackson go to the potty as soon as we got there, but about 1 hour into our excursion, as he was walking between bounce houses he stood in one place with the ever-so-slightest knee squat and a slightly pained expression on his face. "Jackson!!" I called, "Stop. Let's get to the potty!" But it was too late. He had pooped in his underwear. I took him to the bathroom where he got put in a pull-up. (I admit it. The underwear got deposited in the Pump it Up bathroom garbage. There's only so much one can handle. My belated apologies to the staff for the smell....)

After I got Jackson sufficiently cleaned up, he sat on time out for the rest of the time we were there-- which, of course, incited more screaming. I finally gave up and decided it was time for dinner. I had bought a groupon for Baja Fresh, so I decided to stop there to get something moderately tasty/healthy for our dinner. We ordered my Baja Bowl and four kids meals and we sat up to eat. The tray our food came on got stuck in the center of the table. Someone bumped it and it sent Camryn's plate flying off the table, Mexican Rice scattering everywhere. I dove to save what I could of her Taquitos and in the shuffle, the tray got bumped again. This time Jackson's plate went flying off the table. At this point, I realized that we didn't have enough time to finish eating and still get home in time to meet the babysitter and for me to make it to my appointment, so we packed all of our food in to-go boxes and got in the car. The babysitter was waiting at our house when we pulled into the garage. She came to help get the kids out of the car. As she opened the passenger sliding door, the door handle broke off.

I think this may be the part of the story where I start wildly tossing kids out of the car, saying "Please take them!" as I drive off, screeching around the corner. Or start scratching my head at exactly what part of "Pump it Up" and "Baja Fresh" combined with four kids sounded fun. Or ponder how exactly to break it to my husband that business trips and I don't get along so well anymore.

Some Days

Today I decided to make a redoubled attempt to just get done what needs to get done. No more of this beating around the bush and getting distracted. If you just give enough ooomph to something you can make it happen. "So let it be written. So let it be done." (Somebody watched "The Ten Commandments" too many times as a "Sunday movie" as a kid.)

A.M.
Get Jackson dressed: check. (The "Want Jammies, No pants!!" tantrum only lasted about 3 minutes today. Woohoo!) Sit Jackson up with his breakfast: check. Start loading the huge pile of dishes from the night before, squish the ant that is exploring the drippings on our counter, shoo Jackson away from the dishwasher, refill Jackson's milk cup, give Addy a new toy to play with, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, the dishwasher. Back to the dishwasher. Jackson starts crawling on the counters and getting into stuff. I get him down. Did I remember to eat breakfast? No... so I put a piece of bread in the toaster. I get Jackson back onto the bar stool, making sure there aren't any crayons or pens in his reach. What was I doing again? Dishwasher, that's right. Back to the dishes. But there was something else I needed... what was it? Toast! Dangit, it's cold already. Put it back in for a second, get Jackson to sit up with his food, pop it out before it burns (phew), put on some Nutella. Now Jackson says, "Tella! Tella!" so I get him some on his piece of toast. Wasn't I doing something? Oh yes, the dishes. I take a bite of toast and go back to the dishes.

After a few dishes I turn to check on Jackson and he is down from the bar stool smearing brown Nutella hands on some object. I pull him back, wipe him up and decide maybe he is done. I grab Addy and we go up stairs. Laundry. Give Addy toys, Jackson a book; attempt to fold laundry: Jackson climbs on my lap. "Awwww. How sweet." I keep folding but after a few minutes my arms get tired and he starts grabbing at the laundry. Addy starts to fuss. "Wait, I forgot to feed Addy breakfast." We all go back downstairs, I sit her up and start scooping baby food in her mouth. "Wasn't there something I left down here? My toast, wait I only took two bites of it. I need to eat." I go across the room, pick up my toast and take a bite. While I'm gone for 5 seconds, Jackson picks up Addy's spoon and starts shoveling food in her mouth. He has also figured out how to take the lid of the new-fangled rice cereal container (I thought maybe a screw-top lid would keep him out. Nope.) and is licking the pour-spout and peeking inside.

Maybe we should just can this whole thing and go somewhere. But there was something I needed to do first... what was it? Oh yeah, the dishes.

Trading Spaces Back

It's funny how things work... a few weeks ago my mom wrote about how she never felt a need to blog until she was left alone with four kids for the weekend. For the past few weeks I have had other things occupying me besides blogging. Dave and I went on a trip to Maui for our 10th anniversary and then I was caught up in the whirlwind of concert preparations. Aside from being too busy to write about it all, I honestly didn't really feel much of a need to blog about my life: I was happily occupied in lots of things and while writing about it would have been nice, it was an easy enough thing to get sent downward on the list of "to-dos". But real life will intrude itself and suddenly blogging is looking like a good sanity break again.

The Cantico concert went very, very well. I was so happy with it and enjoyed the process immensely. It was a lot of work, but it was very satisfying, fulfilling work. My sister, Alisa, came out from Utah to play the organ for our concert. My mom and dad and two good family friends came from California for the concert and my mother-in-law flew out from Utah to be there for it as well. It was a great week, filled with family fun, beautiful music and good times all around. As I drove my mother-in-law to the airport on Tuesday, I had a conversation with her about how happy and grateful I was to be doing what I am doing, to have the opportunities I have and so forth. I also commented that despite Dave's crazy work hours, we've been able to find a routine that seems to work for us and I just feel like I've really gotten into the rhythm of being a mom and I enjoy what I do and just enjoy life. [Warning, warning...obvious signs of post-concert and family visit high... warning, warning, high wear-off is imminent, look out below....] So I drove home from the airport, secure in my feelings that I finally had this mom/music/life balance thing figured out.

Starting on Tuesday night, the high started to wear off. By Tuesday morning it was a full-fledged, drop-off-of-a-cliff straight shot into the dumps. Jackson was being a stinker, tantrum-thrower and mess-maker; the house went from pristine to completely trashed in less than 24 hours; Jared and Camryn were fighting like cats and dogs; Dave stayed at work until 10:00 pm for the umpteenth night in a row; Addy wanted to be held constantly and Jackson discovered the water in the kitchen sink (Jackson + water = wet hardwood floor and mad mommy. This was after he dumped half a can of formula the night before, making a very sticky, expensive mess).

But the clincher was when I saw a picture of me from that weekend that someone had posted on Facebook. I had no idea I was that fat in real life! What was I thinking going out in public looking that chubby? I had finally decided that I was OK with my remaining post-baby weight and while I was not super-skinny, was at least at a reasonable, healthy, moderately-attractive weight and I would worry about the rest at some point in the future. I also thought I had reconciled with myself that while it is important to be healthy, your whole life can't and shouldn't be about looking perfect, trying to stay the weight you were when you were 18 and going to the gym. I was wrong on all counts. How could I be so stupid and blissfully unaware that that was how I looked to other people? Oh horror!

My life had quickly transformed from a peaceful haven of love and beauty to a black abysmal pit of misery and despair. So what had precipitated this sudden fall? Aside from the fact that my fun concert was over, my family had gone home, I was on my own watching all the kids again, my house was a mess, Dave's work is crazy and the 24 series finale was disappointing with no closure.... :) On Tuesday night I read a facebook blurb about an upcoming concert featuring violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (who is amazing, by the way) and ended up internet-hopping and reading about her. Not only did she graduate from the Curtis Institute and Juilliard and play first-chair violin for the National Symphony for a bunch of years, she has multiple best-selling albums, tours the country playing concerts... oh and she's skinny and beautiful and has four children in the midst of all this.

But the nail in the coffin was how she wrote about how she performs with her two older children and practices with them for 90 minutes and 45-60 minutes a day, respectively. So now, not only does my fantastic concert not seem quite so fantastic anymore, enter severe mommy-guilt that I have skipped piano lessons and enforcing piano practice with my kids for the past 2-3 weeks as a result of being wrapped up in concert preparations. And even on my best days I can't get myself to sit and practice for 2 1/2 hours daily with my children. (Usually enforcing no Wii or TV until practicing is done is the best I can muster....) See, not only am I an artistic and musical failure, I'm a mommy-ing failure as well, stunting the future musical growth of my children by my lack of discipline! And I can't even keep my house clean to boot!

In retrospect, I should have recalled the wise advice of my college roommate Becki, who, when I contemplated calling and break up with Dave at 2:30 am one night for a stupid reason offered the following sage council, "Eat some Oreos and go to bed. If you still feel that way in the morning, then you can call Dave and break up." Problem solved.  But as I didn't have Becki to offer sage advice, I wallowed in my misery and failure for about a day and a half, I had a low-fat ice cream banana split with Dave (whose day at work had been equally miserable-- maybe my subconscious remembered Becki's advice after all), called my mom and talked to a friend or two to complain about my sad, sorry state and how HARD life can be and then perked up and had a perfectly cheerful day once my cleaning fairy arrived on Thursday to work her magic on my disastrous house.

Joking aside, the bad couple of days were very real and difficult. I struggle with the tendency to compare myself negatively to other people. To focus on my weaknesses and ignore the good things I do. To get overwhelmed with the demands of life and trying to figure out what the most important things to spend my limited time and energy on are.... And I tend to get guilty and down on myself because I know that I don't have a HARD life... my life is so easy in some ways, compared to the pioneers, compared to the homeless people in Portland, compared to any number of people, and yet I still manage to have a hard time of it sometimes. But regardless of whether it is "challenging" in any abstract sense, it is challenging to me.

I try to remember that life is meant to be a challenge and we will all have ups and downs, regardless of who you are, how much money you have, where you live or whatever. But this up and down experience is exacerbated when you are the kind of person that gets caught up in an idea, project, an ideal or goal and it propels you along until suddenly at some point reality whacks you over the head with a thunk again.

It kind of reminds me of "Anne of Green Gables":
Marilla Cuthbert: You set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don't get them. [Or, for me, even when I do get them but the experience is over.]
Anne Shirley: I know. I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud.
Marilla Cuthbert: Well, maybe it does. But I'd rather walk calmly along and do without flying AND thud. 

I'm definitely a "flying and thud", not a "walk calmly along" type of person. And I pay for that. But I think the flying is worth the thud. Or the whack on the head.

How's that for a long ramble? Welcome back to my blog....

The Perfect Days of Summer, Part II

After such a wonderful day of picking berries and enjoying the summer weather, I had convinced myself that truly, summer had begun... the golden days of eating berries, playing in the sprinklers, going to the park, enjoying your kids' company all day every day, non-stop fun and enjoyment. We even finished out the day by meeting up with Dave and Costco for dinner, browsing the store and driving home just in time to put the kids to bed.

The next day (Friday morning) I was awakened to find that my 6-year-old had wet the bed. This from my girl who has never wet the bed since she quit wearing diapers at age 3? Maybe I just have to attribute it to letting her get one extra refill of her drink before we left Costco. Wetting the bed wouldn't have been such a big deal except that for the past few nights she had been complaining that she didn't want to sleep alone in her room (because she was afraid of hot lava-- a pressing concern on the second story of the house) so she was sleeping on the empty bottom bunk in Jared's bedroom. Because that bed is not normally used, I had just thrown some sheets on and it did not have a mattress pad. Hooray. Oh joy.

In my enthusiasm to enjoy the delights of the summer from the previous day, I had bought tickets to go see a children's production of "Sleeping Beauty." Trying to overcome my irritation at lack of sleep and pee-pee mess at least we could look forward to going and doing something fun. I even, despite my tendency to always be late, started getting the kids into the car in the garage a full 30 minutes early! As we were walking to the car, Jared said, "What's that stuff dripping on the garage floor?" I thought maybe our car was leaking oil, but the fluid was red and coming from the freezer. It turns out that the freezer door had been left open since the afternoon before when I told the kids they could get themselves a popsicle. [Jared is reading over my shoulder and corrected me, saying that the door was open "A tiny bit. Just a crack."] Everything in the freezer had thawed, including bags of frozen raspberries and strawberries, which were streaming juice down the shelves of the freezer and on to the floor. Hooray. Oh joy.

So instead of being unusually early and having a stress-free ride to the play, I stuffed Jackson in his carseat (to keep him away from the mess) and crankily yelled for the older kids to get towels and help clean this up unless they wanted to be grounded for life. I spent the next 20 minutes carefully cleaning up the sticky juice from the freezer and then threw the kids in the car to race out the door to the play (which I had considered skipping as a punishment, but being stuck at home in the mood that I was in did not seem like a great idea). I was planning on taking the kids to Wendy's for lunch, but that seemed inappropriate after they ruined all the food in the freezer, so I packed some bread and butter, fruit leather and cheese sticks in my bag to eat after the play.

We made it into the play only a few minutes late and had a great time. Hooray! The kids enjoyed getting autographs from all the cast after the show. We then ate our lunch in the car and went to run errands that needed to be done. In the course of the afternoon shopping, the kids got incredibly cranky and fought the whole time (not surprising, considering their small lunch), Jackson missed his nap and would not go down once we got home, and we came home to a dirty house with a pee-peed mattress to clean up. Tired cranky mommy. Tired cranky kids. Hooray. Oh joy.

Is it just part of being a mom (or maybe just being pregnant) that your mood can go from "Life is wonderful!" to "My life is a disaster!" in a matter of hours? Or minutes? =]

A Brief Travelogue

For the past few weeks I have been battling the urge to "catch-up" before I can write anything new. As a result... I haven't written anything. I guess I need to make at least a lame attempt to overcome my all-or-nothing tendencies and try to just write about now.

On Wednesday at about 1:30, we got back to Portland after our trip to Utah. We spent 25 consecutive hours en route after leaving St. George, Utah at 11:30 am the day before. The moral of the story is just buy plane tickets-- especially if you have an infant who still nurses. Jackson was remarkably good, all things considered, but it was a loooooong trip. We stopped in Beaver at Dairy Queen for a quick lunch, refuel and snack purchase. Then we stopped again in Nephi for gas, in Spanish Fork for bottle liners, at random places to feed Jackson, in Bountiful for a quick dinner with Dave's parents (where we were able to fix a well-timed diaper disaster from Jackson), and then 3 times in the next 3 hours at random places off of the highway to change poopy diapers (I think his apple-prune juice did its work.). We passed through Boise at about midnight and went on to Ontario (Oregon-- not Canada) before crashing at a Motel 6 for a precious 6 hours of sleep. At 7:00 am we were back on the road. After quick stops at a gas station in Pendleton and at the Troutdale Burgerville (which is remarkably far from the highway, despite what the signs would have you believe) for lunch and strawberry milkshakes, we finally made it back home.

After all of that toil, Dave did-- sort of-- get back for work on Wednesday. We are supposed to leave for Utah again in less than a month for Dave's family reunion. After spending 25 hours on the road, $50 on a motel and $400 on gas, I just bought plane tickets.