Scream

There's a fish in this bucket!

Chris left town for another week. Things have the potential to get pretty grim around here soon.

My sweet, laid back baby girl has been replaced with a raging monster, and this makes single parenting a difficult endeavor.

It's not just whining. And it's not just a little loud. It is ear piercing. It is clenched fists and red face. It's shut the windows so the neighbors won't hear. It's cry in the middle of the night and wonder if maybe, just maybe, you drank too many glasses of wine while pregnant and this is what happens to bad parents like you.

On Sunday I tried to walk with the three of them to the grocery store to get food for lunches for the week. She wanted to "walkie" and push her own stroller. I wanted to pull my finger nails out. But instead we walkied, slowly, towards the closest store. But she had no shoes on, nor any intention of putting them on. So I said, Hey Gill, wanna walkie? You need shoes. This is the big city!

She screamed and threw her apple at me.

Aware that the only person who would be judged in this public performance would be yours truly, I took a deep breath. Pretended to be zen and calm; pretended nothing could push me off my high momma horse.

I said, Walkie? Shoes. No shoes? Stroller.

She screamed and threw her shoes in my face.

I put her in the stroller. And things just deteriorated.

This was the point where Mae and Bela chose to have a street-side squabble of their own. I was looking pretty bad. I started to sweat a little. I felt a little nauseous. I felt embarrassed. But mostly, I just felt so, so tired.

I buckled her screaming and writhing body into the stroller with brute force. I scraped her shoes off the sidewalk, fisted the apple, stifled a desperate and psychotic scream of my own, swung the stroller around and marched back home.

When we entered our alley I took her half-eaten apple and threw it with all my strength into the side of a brick garage, to watch with indulgent satisfaction as it exploded into hundreds of mealy apple bits.

The girls looked worried, and I only felt a little better. 

Once inside I needed a minute to collect myself, and then I gathered her up and hugged her and started doing weird yoga breathing, inhale for 10 exhale for 10, in the hopes that she would either A)begin breathing deeply, become fully relaxed, and chill the f*** out, or B) just stop crying because she was wondering what on earth had happened to her mother.

She stopped. And we're all fine now.

But we are only on day 2 of the 1 against 3 challenge. If you need to find me tomorrow I'll be in my office late, catching up on work (hiding from Gillian) until my yoga class (further escape) starts.

Don't stay away too long, dear. 

Yikes

Holy crap it's been 45 days since I last checked in. Where does the time go?

Well, in an effort to slow the unforgiving march of the clock (and to wean an overly booby obsessed almost-two-year-old), and to celebrate my husband's 36 years on this planet, I spent 5 hours in the car yesterday. My mission? Drive all three (ALL THREE!!!) of my children to their Grandma's house for 60 glorious hours.

I got them settled in, nursed little Gill (for the last time?), and jumped back in my car and drove home. Alone.

I'm disoriented and can't get my bearings, but have big plans for the day. So far? I ran 14 miles out at the lake, had coffee with a great group of ladies in Lincoln Square, made my list and headed to Home Depot.

On the agenda? Some window washing, some laundry, some grouting, some yard work, some dinner out to celebrate, some wine, some sleep. Maybe some knitting.

Extractions

Bela got two teeth pulled yesterday. About a year ago our dentist sent us to an orthodontist to talk about the lack of space in her mouth, the crowding of teeth.

Their recommendation was for me to spend $5000 on some form of "pre" braces (because she was still going to need braces later, they assured me.) This was an expander, executed in three phases. Each phase costing more than the first.

After a few weeks of worrying about ruining her looks for good by rejecting this procedure, by letting her teeth be all jammed up in her mouth, I smartened up. I said no way.

So she needed some baby teeth pulled to make room for the grown up teeth that were coming in. I guess the new plan is to just keep pulling until we run out of teeth to pull, and then we fork out the money for braces.

The dentist put her extracted teeth, with roots intact, into a little tooth shaped container. And within an hour Bela lost this container in our car.

I searched high and low. I just couldn't believe she managed to lose the teeth in the car so fast and so completely. I absolutely could not find them. 

"Bela! How can the tooth fairy come tonight if you don't have your teeth?" I grunted.

She shrugged me off and said she had a plan. She would write a lengthy letter.

"Why aren't you more upset about this?" I asked, genuinely surprised by her lack of drama.

She responded with a serious face: "In the middle of my heart I am very upset. But on the outside of it I think my plan will work."

I didn't share her optimism. I know just how fickle the tooth fairy can be. I mean, sometimes she doesn't even show up when there are real teeth under that pillow.

I headed to the car after dinner with a headlamp and new determination, and found those little teeth in the most impossible to reach little hole under the passenger side front seat.

She put one tooth under her pillow, and one under Mae's ("because she's not had a visit from the tooth fairy yet"). And you know what? The damn tooth fairy actually showed up.

Vampire Girl

Bela is writing a book. Here is chapter 1. Ok. I miss them. They can come home from camp now.

VAMPIRE GIRL

Written by Bela Strong

Illustrated by Chris Strong

                                                        CHAPTER 1

                                                                                                                    

It was a rainy day in July 25^th a family called the Johnsons was about to go to the movies. They had two daughters named Mae and Nora. Mae was a very brave and Nora was very curious. When they came back Nora and Mae’s parents put them to bed, kissed them good night and went to sleep. Just then Nora screamed was is it? Mae asked” Something bit me on the leg! Mae tried to find a flashlight but she did not have one. Nora got out of bed what are you doing? Mae asked. Something is wrong” Nora said. They both went down stairs It was dark all the lights were turned off. Just then there was a rustle of mowas the first night that some mysterious things started to happen

 

Camp

I dropped the older girls off at sleep away camp this morning. I left home 24 hours ago with them and headed towards the heart of Amish country, Ohio, quite excited about the idea of solo travel with just those two. How long has it been since we've been alone? 19 1/2 months?

Gilli our constant companion, we don't get many moments to be alone, the three of us. So I left our little blue house with high hopes and a couple of audio books and some peanut butter crackers, looking forward to reading together, to cuddles, to special moments.

The reality of it all, though, is that I was quite grumpy. I'm in my special grumpy time of month, which lasts quite literally from 1 week, 4 days before my period starts to 1 week, 4 days after. Yeah. The math is ridiculous. I get about 4 good days of sanity per cycle.

And I just couldn't get past it. Their bickering, their rivalry, their drama...it just ate away at me most of the trip. There was no reading, no cuddling in soft, cushy hotel beds together. We just crashed out of sheer exhaustion.

This morning we woke up and decided to get along like good little ladies, and I started to get teary eyed at the thought of dropping them off at the farm, without me and their dad.

Hotel pool fun

Sleeping beauties, first day of camp.

I shed some secret, interior tears as they bounded out of the car, kissed me, and squeezed my love handles in some strange gesture of goodbye, and I turned our enormous rental car around and drove 6 1/2 hours back to Gillian.

As I drove home I listened to Jonathon Franzen's collection of short stories, reviews, and lectures (Father Away) and couldn't help but ponder my relationship to the girls. Listening to him reflect on his relationships - to his parents, to his ex, to his friends, I found myself hearing a lot of things that resonated with me strongly.

Being a Mother is some tricky, messy business. So freakishly easy at times, at times natural; and yet often just as confusingly not so.

I longed to take back my hormonally induced inability to tolerate the competitive tendencies shared by my 6 and 8 year old. I longed to cuddle in that hotel bed. I longed for Gillian and her sweet smushy skin that smells like wet, warm bread with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

I turned off the radio, loaded up on iced caffeinated beverages, and raced toward home to relieve the babysitter and grab my beautiful girl and hold her in my arms.

I ran through the front door to a lethargic, sweaty Gill on day 5 of a fever. I scooped her up, nursed her, brought her face to mine... and watched as she threw up in my bra.

I tried to explain the non-electric aspect of Amish life (totally unsuccessfully) to the girls. "Why?
 they asked. I didn't have an answer. But they recognized that these were "non-electric" hay stacks :)

The list

Chris and I flew to Denver and back yesterday. I found "the list" while cleaning out my wallet on the plane.

I really want my girls to learn to sew. And to like it.

In order to accomplish this, I enlisted the help of my mother-in-law. Yes, I do know how to sew. But no, I would be a terrible teacher for the girls. I'm impatient. I meddle. I can't let their skills just unfold naturally. I'm pushy.

SO. Last Spring Break, I sent Bela down to her Grandma's house to have a three day sewing date. We picked fabric. We picked the pattern. Chris drove her down and dropped her off.

I envisioned them there, in the sewing room, textile knowledge pouring from one generation to another. I pictured Bela, enthused. Bela, learning. Bela, sewing.

Then we found her list - the list of things she wanted to do while on her sewing date with her grandma:

Bela Strong

1. play out side

2. lunch

3. play on the porch

4. clean up room

5. draw pictures

6. play 'easter'

7. put balls in order (no idea)

8. jump on pillows

9. play with dad

10. look for bunnys

11. go to the river (the drainage ditch)

12. spy on grandma

13. go to bed

14. eat dinner

15. read

16. go to bed

Hmmm. There was just one thing missing. Hmm, what was it? What was she forgetting????

They did end up sewing, and almost made it through two nightgowns. Paula packed up the pattern and the fabric and the mostly finished nightgowns: one for Mae, one for Bela. I put them next to my sewing machine. Last March. And they're still there.

What's your parenting style?

My parenting style lies smack in the middle between my high and lofty goals and the grinding reality of the constant everyday pressures exerted on me by my children. You could say we meet pretty much in the middle.

One thing I've held fairly steady on is the TV/Computer thing. I'm all about moderation. No screen time during the week. Friday nights we get a teaser, and Saturday is pretty much a no holds barred kind of day. I may be mis-using this metaphor.

Anyway.

They still fight me. I say one cartoon they say two. I say 20 minutes on the ipad they say 200.

And they really want me to like their cartoons and their games as much as they do. I can't figure out why it means so much to them, but I find it pretty much physically impossible to sit and listen to the finer points of Minecraft for anything longer than 30 seconds. And I cannot sit through another episode of Gravity Falls, funny though it may be.

I was determined to find something we could watch together. Because I read somewhere once that watching things together is important. But I can't remember why.

Enter NPR. More specifically, Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. I heard a story on NPR about the cartoon Adventure Time (which airs on Cartoon Network). NPR said it was cool, so I believed them.

I sat down to watch.

I saw the following scenes, and suddenly felt amused and uncomfortable at the same time. Because they pretty much illustrate my parenting style. This detail did not escape the girls.

Hurry and watch these before blogger takes them down :)

1) The house is a mess

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2). I'm so angry I can't even answer the simplest of nice questions nicely

3) When all else fails? Insanity. And dictatorship.