Me, to myself: Oh, the first WEEK doesn’t count…
Uh-oh. I see a dangerous trend emerging.
I woke up this morning at 4:00 because Pringles needed her seventh diaper change of the night. She pooped seven times. I am happy to report that this is not a typical night for us. For some reason, my right breast has red blotches all over it, is hot and tender, and twice the size of my left. Both my nurslings always favored righty, so the size difference isn’t new. It’s just far more pronounced today.
Surely this is an excellent reason to take an analgesic, relax on the couch with a warm compress and watch “Big Brother After Dark.”
I’m not being a complete slacker, though. Today is Odie’s second day of work, but he doesn’t have students until tomorrow. Most teachers get nervous/excited the night before school starts, therefore I know tonight will be a difficult one for him (and by extension, for me). I have washed his clothes for the rest of the week. Good wife!
Our typical morning consists of Viva climbing into bed with us around 5:30 a.m. and asking for milk and snuggles. She actually says this in an adorable whisper: “Mommy, I want milk and I wanna snuggle with you on your pillow.” Odie gets up and gets the milk, which is waiting in the fridge in a cup thanks to yours truly, saving him the steps of finding a cup and pouring the milk. Pringles is usually in bed with me at this point too. I scoot over and adjust my nursing baby to make room.
Both kids start the night in their own beds. Pringles sleeps in hers for 2-3 hours (4 on a good night) then whimpers to be fed. I scoop her up from the co-sleeper and lay her beside me, pop out a boob and go back to sleep. I’m often awoken by the explosive sound of her pooping in her diaper. She always makes a big production of it. Lots of squirming and grunting just prior. As much as I’d like to, I can’t let her sleep in her poopy diaper, so I have to get up. The first time is usually 1:00. Sometimes she’ll go back to sleep in her co-sleeper after I nurse her back down, usually not. There’s another wake up/diaper change around 4:00, back to bed, then up around 6:00. However we start the night, we nearly always finish it with both kids in bed with us.
This morning, Pringles compensated for the rough night she gave me by rewarding me with the most delightful open-mouthed smile. Good job, nature (but I’m still mad about the sharp little fingernails).
Odie is now getting up at 6 to shower for work. Despite his insistence that we are running out of water and will soon be fighting over it in the streets and we need to get a shotgun (not a handgun because he wants the satisfying and oh-so-threatening sound of cocking it), Odie takes 20 minute showers.
Viva and Odie had gotten into a summer habit of sleeping until at least 8:00, usually 8:30. Since everyone was up, Viva woke up too. I love the way my two year-old wakes up all disoriented and yet her little body cranks into high gear. She climbs down from our bed and runs down the hall to the living room with her eyes barely open, snarled mass of curly hair mostly covering her face.
I’m never sure what kind of morning I’ll have with her. Yesterday was my first time getting both kids up and out the door on my own. I had to take Viva to day care and Pringles must accompany us. Little Miss V. is not ready to potty train yet. We are working on it. We have the potty books (and those Elmo songs stuck in our heads all day and night – Flush goes the potty!), but her pediatrician advises we wait a little bit longer since the new baby is such a big transition for her.
I had sleepy V on the changing table and started the conversation about what she would wear. Pants or shorts?
Pants.
Which pants?
The spotted ones.
These pants?
No.
These?
No. The spotted ones.
These are spotted ones.
Not THOSE spotted ones. The green spotted ones.
Those are your pajamas. You can’t wear your pajamas to school.
I CAN!
You can’t.
I CAN!
I could see this was going nowhere, so I moved on to what shirt she wanted to wear. That was easier. I tried to get back to the pants discussion, to no avail. I lifted her off the changing table in just her shirt and diaper and asked her if she wanted to go to school with no pants on. She fixed me with her gaze and replied:
I’m not talking to you anymore.
She then turned her back on me and crossed her arms. Biting my tongue to stifle my giggles, I replied, “Okay, honey, I need to go pick up your sister,” and rescued Pringles from the Rainforest Baby Gym thingy that she’d had enough of.
Viva called to me that she was still not talking to me. I went in to check on her and got a stern finger held up in my direction with the instruction, “Walk away from me, Mommy. I’m MAD.”
Happily, these toddler storms always pass, and I eventually got her in pants and off to day care. I think it’s understandable though that I was unable to really accomplish anything else that day. If you’ve never tried to get a two year-old to wear pants, then you don’t understand. Otherwise, you’re probably totally with me.
Today, I am washing diapers. We go through a million cloth diapers because Pringles cannot stand the tiniest hint of wetness on her little behind. And if she didn’t smile so winningly when she got a dry diaper, it might be completely infuriating. The sanitary wash takes a long time, so I get to sip coffee and write. A perfect morning, really.
Especially since the toddler got right into her pants today. Now, the ponytails… That was another struggle. We lost one in the car on the way to school, sadly.
My ambitious plans for the day: finish the diapers, wash the dishes, and vacuum the living room. See if Chef Ramsey finally kicks that awful bitch off of Hell’s Kitchen.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
