1 Mother 2 Another

I do believe the worst is over – but
I also believe that if I’ve learned one thing as a mom,
it’s to never say that the worst is over.


We’re back at school today (or at least planning on it when I
wake the girls up) and getting into our regular groove. We
gradually emerged into public again over the weekend, white-faced
and anemic from lack of sun and stimulation. Ok, perhaps
that’s a slight exaggeration, but there was something
distinctly animalistic about the avidity with which my girls ran
towards fresh air and public places.

Another day home sick yesterday, and
mommy’s about done. I’ve got a lovely cold myself, and
the last thing I want to do is entertain kids hit hard with cabin
fever. But yesterday was rainy and miserable, so even a walk to the
park was out of the question. Maddie’s cold is full-on now,
with lots of snotty tissues all over the house (“In case I
want to use it again!”) and periodic denial (“I’m
not sick! I need to go to school so I can be calendar helper!
IT’S MY DAY!”) which makes my life just that much more
joyous. And Cora’s RSV seems to have segued smoothly into
Maddie’s cold as well – either that or Cora’s
taking a record amount of time getting over this RSV.

Maddie did not, indeed, wake up bright and
cheery, but arose droopy and rheumy and dragged herself into my
room to cough all over my bed. “Mommy, I’m sick, and
should definitely stay home today.”


This would seem like and astonishingly mature act of heroic
self-sacrifice, given how much Maddie loves school, except that my
kids absolutely adore being sick. To them it means two things
– television and junk food. When they’re sick –
and I mean really sick – they’re allowed to watch up to
three (THREE!) hours of television in one day (IN ONE DAY!). They
also get these graham cracker-y treats made by Keebler called Bug
Bites, which are amazingly tasty when you don’t feel good.
And to top it all off they get to drink juice (JUICE!) throughout
the day. Sure, it’s organic apple juice cut generously with
water, but it’s a heck of a lot more juice than they normally
get, which is none.

I thought we were getting better over here
– Cora’s has RSV for almost a week and a half now and I
was thinking we were moving into the home stretch, getting out a
bit and going back to church (though not the nursery!) Then Maddie
woke up Tuesday feeling “droopy” and starting to cough,
and my hopes plummeted.


I canceled her Tuesday playdate and kept her home from ballet, all
the while hoping it was just a touch of allergies or something. But
Tuesday evening saw her even droopier, and that night she began to
complain of her stomach aching a bit and running a low fever.


And of course, we got an email from her preschool saying both RSV
and strep are going around.


She’s still asleep, but if she wakes up still feeling punky
we’re going in for a strep test. I can’t deal with
Maddie having strep – she throws up and runs a fever and it
ain’t pretty. And of course, will pass it to the rest of the
family.


Let’s cross our fingers and hope she wakes up bright and
cheery.

Maddie is having a big issue with greed
right now, preschooler-style. If I give her a treat – say, a
cookie – she’ll ask for another one ten minutes later.
If I let her have a donut hole after church, she’ll ask to
stop for lunch at IHOP on the way home. And woe be unto me if Cora
gets something –perhaps a new pair of jeans to fill out a
hole in her wardrobe – and Maddie does not. Then we get the
tears and the “PLEASE!!” and the “It’s not
fair!”


We’ve spent a lot of time these past few months talking about
being content with what you have, and a few times we’ve had
to do some harsh consequences. A couple spectacular days of begging
for sweets, and Maddie lost having any kind of food treat for two
weeks. That was rough, and I thought had taught her a lesson
– treats are privileges, not rights, and should be few and
far between – but she quickly fell back into her old
ways.

Cora’s on the mend after a rough
week with RSV, and she finally began sleeping through the night
again on Friday. (Thank you, my Lord.) She’s even been
napping again, which tells me she’s still not completely
well. And sometimes she’ll wake up from a nap before
she’s really ready to, and she’ll start crying from
fatigue and achiness.


That happened Saturday afternoon, so I went in and cuddled her and
she fell back into a light sleep. I lay there holding her, going
into that dreamy Mommy mode where all’s right with the world
because you’re holding your precious baby in your arms and
she’s happy. Cora eventually woke up but wasn’t ready
to move, so we lay there snuggled up while she had me sing a few
lullabys for her.

No time to chat here - Cora's got RSV
(first time in our household) and the nights are, um, not restful,
and the days are spent with a clingy wheezy girl. Hopefully she'll
feel better tomorrow and I'll have a moment to breathe.


Prayers are appreciated!

Yesterday Maddie spent the morning playing
with a friend of hers while Cora stayed home sick. The mom called
me later to report in on Maddie’s behavior, and gave her (of
course!) a glowing report. Then she said, “You know, we did
have one conversation that I didn’t quite understand. Maddie
saw some campaign signs in someone’s front lawn and said that
her church forbids the use of those signs; she said that God
didn’t like them and they’re bad for the earth. I
didn’t quite know what to make of that.”


What?


Oh, I think I know where she got that.

Yesterday Maddie and I headed out on a
long-anticipated Mommy and Me morning, partaking of that great
mother-daughter ritual: shoe-shopping. Maddie had some money saved
up and I’d promised her a morning with just Mommy so she
could pick out whatever crazy and impractical shoes her heart
desired. (There’s more to that story, but it’s not the
focus of this entry, so check back later -)


We slept in and had a lazy morning, and I finally got myself around
to getting dressed. Maddie trailed behind, watching me get ready. I
selected a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, and Maddie said,
“Mommy, I want to wear exactly what you wear today.”
Startled, I mentally ran through her wardrobe and reassured myself
that she had a black t-shirt, then said, “Sure, pup, no
problem.”

It’s playoff season (or at least it
was up until yesterday afternoon for us) and both girls seem to be
bitten by the football bug.


Last weekend the girls both sat on the couch with Daddy, screaming
at the television as they cheered their beloved Cowboys on.
“Go, white boys!” Maddie yelled at the screen as we ran
ourselves to a touchdown – in our white away jerseys. This
did, of course, bring on a quick lecture from Mommy, even as Brian
and I tried hard to swallow our laughter.

There’s a popular book out called
href="http://www.amazon.com/Love-Languages-Secret-That-Lasts/dp/0802473156/ref=dp_ob_title_bk"
target="_blank">The Five Love Languages, which sets
forth the belief that there are five different ways we say “I
love you” to someone, and if we can learn which ways are
preferred for a person we can make them feel more loved more
easily. The five different languages are (and realize I’m
distilling an entire book into a paragraph here) Words and
Affirmation; Physical Touch; Acts of Service; Gifts; and Quality
Time. My husband, for example, is Physical Touch and Quality Time,
so he feels far more loved if we spend some time cuddling on the
couch watching a movie together than if I vacuum out his car as a
surprise. I, on the other hand, am Gifts and Acts of Service, so
the best way my husband can say “I Love You” is by
giving me money to go shopping for myself (gifts) and watching the
kids while I do it (acts of service).


This has a connection to parenting, I promise.

Cora’s been working hard to keep a
steady stream of M&Ms coming via the whole potty-training
thing, and it’s having an unintended side-effect: it’s
driving Maddie wild with envy.

Remember how I said yesterday that
Cora’s sort of fallen into potty training, and that every
time she goes pee on the potty she gets an M&M?


Yeah, Cora peed in the potty five times yesterday. Before lunch.


And tried unsuccessfully to pee an additional ten times. Before
lunch.

On the nights they take baths, the girls
get time afterwards to do what they call the Nakey Dance, which is
exactly what it sounds like so there’s no need to describe
it. At any rate, Cora was in mid-Nakey Dance on Saturday night when
she turned to my mom and said, “I need to go potty!”


“Well, let’s get you on the potty!” my mom said,
and hustled her to the bathroom. Mom plopped Cora down on the
toilet, and sixty seconds later Cora had gone pee in the potty,
surprising both of them no small amount. But what surprised Cora
even more was that she got a Hershey kiss because of it.

I have learned a lot as a parent. There
are the obvious things, of course: how to sleep train (maybe I
shouldn’t claim that one yet!); how to clip microscopic
toenails; how to make a cat out of playdough. Then there are the
bigger issues: how to be more patient; how to model the
“right” way to get angry; how to forgive an innocent
toddler who accidentally kicks you, hard, in the stomach. And then
of course there are the truly vital facts that I’d never have
learned if I hadn’t become a parent: the color of
Elmo’s mommy’s hair (orange); the name of the Little
Mermaid’s daughter (Melody); the name of Thomas’ best
friend (Percy). Continuing education is part of the parental job
description, and I expect it on a daily basis.


But I never stop being amazed at how much I learn about God, and my
relationship with Him, from observing and interacting with my
kids.

I spent the holidays in a frenzy of baking
– it’s just one of my loves – so all the
“regular” food I usually do from scratch sort of fell
by the wayside. Breakfast cookies, breakfast bars, and granola all
disappeared from our pantry without being replenished right away.
Cora and Maddie both enjoy granola for breakfast so they’d
complained a few times, and finally yesterday I got myself
organized enough to make another batch.


Is it just my girls? Because they’re eating the stuff by the
handfuls as it comes off the tray, still warm. Their favorite is
the tropical granola: I make it with ginger and mango, but any
tropical fruit will do. It finished baking right before dinner and
the girls kept stealing handfuls off the tray as it sat there to
cool.

Wednesday was our first day back into our
complete “normal” routine – Maddie didn’t
have school Monday, so Wednesday marked her return to school, as
well as the return of Open Gym for Cora. Maddie looked forward to
returning to school so much that she had trouble getting to sleep
Tuesday night, and Cora would’ve slept in her gym leotard if
I’d let her.

I think I’ve mentioned once or
twice, ahem, that Cora is not the best sleeper in the world. For
the past several months I’ve been cautiously optimistic at
night; she’ll sleep straight through the night five or six
nights out of the week, which is a distinct improvement over what
it used to be, and I was beginning to feel a tiny bit human with
seven uninterrupted hours at a stretch.


Then we hit Christmas vacation, and for whatever reason
Cora’s been getting up EVERY NIGHT. She wakes at least once a
night, crying and screaming, and it will escalate steadily until I
run in there. I’m thinking it’s nightmares so I grit my
teeth, but I gotta tell ya, it’s rough. A couple nights she
was awake a solid two hours at a time, and the only thing saving my
sanity was a husband who was also on vacation and could thus give
me some relief.

Maddie and Cora went to an ice-skating
birthday party on Sunday. This was stressful to me on a couple
fronts: first, there was the obvious worry – neither girl had
ever ice-skated before, and who knew how well a two-year-old would
even be able to stand up in a pair. Second, I was concerned that
Maddie would try it a bit, find it difficult, and let her fear get
the better of her, sitting down and refusing to give it another go.
We’ve had such a history of fear with new things that I was a
bit dreading adding yet another activity to the list-o-items to get
over. But both girls were keen to go – we watch the skaters
at our mall every chance we get, and Maddie’s pestered me for
over a year to try ice-skating. So try it we did.

Every year, I rant and rave about all the
noble new year’s resolutions we see flying – exercise
more; eat less; save more; spend less; save the dolphins and end
world hunger. We’re always doomed before we start, so I
always make a list I can REALLY stick to.


Here’s this year’s version – taking a stand for
mediocrity and tired parents everywhere.