Melissa Anne Cohen

The title pretty much sums up my weekend. A three day weekend. Saturday afternoon I went down to my mother’s house, sans children, to discuss the Relay for Life that we’re organizing in Maynard. Why am I organizing a RLF in a town that’s 45 minutes away? That’s a whole other story for another time… but that’s where I was on Saturday. Came home to discover my poor house in shambles. Which led to (yet again) another battle royale re: housekeeping as it relates to making sure that children don’t destroy my house when I’m not here to yell at them. After considerable stress and aggravation (on both our parts), Marc conceded that he’s gotten out of practice handling the kids by himself and will endeavor to do better in the future. I’m not holding my breath, but was encouraged that he realized that something had to change.

I’ve started going out more without kids, and it’s not going well. At least not for anyone other than me. But I’m going to keep doing it, because I kind of enjoy a little time when I’m not Mommy. Not a lot, mostly, I like the kids and enjoy, hell, I actively want to stay home and spend time with them, but every now and again, say once every week or two, to go out without them for a couple of hours is delightful. It’s good for the kids, and good for Marc – to get time without me there running interference – and I really love it.

Sunday – we did Purim. Which is a big two day event, involving costumes and screaming and yelling and some cookies that don’t taste very good. But it was fun, Jess was Queen Esther on Sunday and a fairy on Monday, and Sam was a pirate. With a parrot on his shoulder, which was critically important to him.

Monday, Marc and I spent the day getting him glasses. Now that he’s got diabetes, he’s got a serious relationship with his eye doctor. It ended up taking ALL DAY long, and then we went to the Purim thing again last night.

The kids were up WAY too late all weekend long. Friday night was Shabbat, so we’re always up later then. Saturday night, we went costume shopping and then to BJ’s, which, in retrospect was a mistake, as it led to Jess being up VERY late again. Sunday, Marc went to the gym, and brought home a present for Sam (guns – another whole different post to come someday) and forgot to get one for Jess. So he went back out, but she stayed up later because she was waiting for Daddy to come home with her present. Then last night was the Purim reading – so she was up until nine or so last night. So, yeah, you guessed it – absolute and total melt down this morning on the way to school. Bedtime tonight at seven. That’s my plan.

Seriously – they’re freaking awesome. I adore them. I get up bright and early, ship Jess and Marc out the door – and then… I have six hours or so of just glorious nothingness. Sam and I hang out – we talk, we eat, we read, we nap, we watch West Wing Marathons – it’s so delightful and fun and peaceful. I don’t clean, I don’t put on real clothes, I just hang out. We baked challah today and then I tickled him for a long time – he’s got the best little giggle. I just finished a hot cup of coffee, braided my bread, and am at total peace with myself and the world. Sam took a three hour nap on my lap and I got to just sit there with him, all snuggled up, didn’t have to move, and it was one of the best afternoons of my life.

The rest of my week is so busy and harried, I’ve got other kids to watch, a house to clean, dinners to cook, dishes to watch, and I’m always doing something, which is great, I love my life. But Fridays – Fridays are the one day when it’s just about me. Well, and Sam, but he still takes that glorious long nap in the middle of the day, and on Fridays, I get to sit right there, and he snuggles up next to me and dozes the afternoon away.

We’re Jewish – so we observe Shabbat on Saturday. But Saturdays are hectic and stressed, I’ve always got at least my four and sometimes more, I’ve got to get everyone dressed for services, rush to get Lilli to dance, Marc always wants to take a nap, the house is a mess… but Fridays – those are my days that I celebrate life. I can relax, enjoy where I am and what I’m doing with my life. I bake challah, I make a nice dinner for everyone, and am so content with my life. I love Fridays.

Jess lost her two front teeth yesterday – and my goodness – she’s so gorgeous! She looks completely different, it changes the shape of her mouth and she’s got the cutest little lisp going – I love it. Marigold the tooth fairy came again last night (yes, my daughter has her own personal tooth fairy – she leaves Jessie a book and a buck for each tooth, plus a letter telling her how much she loves her, and how proud she is of all that Jessie is doing, like doing her chores and learing to read and helping Sammy).

I have a very stubborn son. In my head, he’s mild mannered and laid back, I think, only because I have have two of them, and Jessie is so much more emotionally intense and dramatic. But Sam – he’s no slouch in the strong personality department. And when there’s something he doesn’t want to do, be it visit the doctor, give his grandmother a kiss (or even a glance of acknowledgement), or take a bath, he makes it abundantly clear. I can still win a battle with him – because he’s two and I’m thirty five – but it’s a major struggle.

Which brings me to the latest battle. His hair. Sam’s got great hair, it’s straight, baby fine, and a gorgeous honey color. I love it. We had one bad hair cut experience, involving Marc’s clippers (I told myself that Sam was his son too – and let him cut his hair). Needless to say, he cried, I cried, it was a HORRIBLE haircut and I was so glad when it finally grew out. Now we do a bowl cut, and I trim it myself. The second to last haircut was done by holding him down on the floor and whacking away at his hair while he screamed. It took both Marc and I, and didn’t look all that great… but it was out of his eyes, and he’s so cute anyway, I thought he still looked beautiful. But that was a while ago, and it’s getting longer and longer… and in his eyes and it just needed to be cut.

We talked and discussed, and I kept bringing it up, and he kept saying “No cut my hair!” but I persisted, and randomly, about ten minutes ago, he agreed that it would be a great idea. It would tickle, and he was game… I cut his bangs, and it’s not in his eyes anymore, but then I got too ambitious and cut one side of his head, so it didn’t hang over his ears. I was going to continue around the back and finish up on the other side, but then he rebelled. And is now lopsided. He got more and more upset, and since I was afraid that he’d move too fast and I’d end up cutting off his ear, I gave up. He’s running from me, screaming “Not cut my hair never ever again!” He looks goofy – although maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe lopsided will be the new trend – little boys the world over will start to follow his lead… and they’ll all look ridiculous together.

It’s a good thing he’s so cute, I’m just hoping that nobody notices that the hair on one side of his head is an inch longer than the other side.

All is delightful in my world (well, it is after two cups of coffee and a couple of motrin). Jessica danced off to school horribly mismatched – but she had gotten up before I did and dressed herself and was so proud that I just smiled and told her she looked great. Sam has built a fort in my living room with boxes from BJ’s, blankets and a couple of bats. He’s made little beds for several of Jessica’s babies and is sitting in the middle of it watching Max and Ruby. Jessie loved that show too when she was this age – but where she related totally to Ruby – Sam watches Max with this hero worship in his eyes… I know he’s looking for inspiration on what to do next.

House is clean (relatively speaking) and I’m so tired of winter. I wish that I could yank on some sandals and shove some shoes on Sam and head out for the morning. I loved my mornings spent out on a long walk to the park, coming home just in time for lunch and naps. I feel like we’ve been trapped in this horrible cold winter for far too long this year. I know I could charge out there – just bundle up – but I can’t bring myself to do it. I hate the cold.

Car is being worked on today – think good, cheap muffler and tailpipe thoughts for me, okay?

Sometimes, just for my misery, I think of the computer as Marc’s extramarital companion. She (the computer) takes away time and attention from the kids and I, demanding devotion – making him WANT to spend time with her instead of us. I fight for him – I do, I nag, I beg, I plead, but there’s something about the keyboard, or the glowing screen, I don’t know what it is. But I know that she ruined yesterday. He was on the computer all morning, which was just crappy, because I felt like I was drowning in crap that I had to get done, and he wasn’t helping – which made me nuts, which in turn, made the kids nuts. There were tears all over the place, and frustration – and it bled over into the rest of the day… I’m crappy at being mad, in that once I get there, I like to stay mad for a while. It takes a lot of effort for me to decide to stop – and yesterday, I was so mad that it just… made for a crappy day. We had scheduled the whole day as a special date day, we dropped the cherubs off at Annie’s and went to a meeting at the BI re: Hebrew School, then went out to lunch and shopping, stopped at the library. Not a real exciting date, I’ll grant you that, but we’ve had WAY more fun doing it together than we did yesterday. He spent most of the day feeling like he’d rather be home playing with his friend, the home computer, and I spent most of the day irritated because of it.

We’ll try again soon, but yesterday was just crappy. Even after we stopped arguing (which really means I stopped, because Marc doesn’t argue, he just ignores me), it didn’t get much better. I think we both wanted to be anywhere other than with each other, which is so not normal for us.

Anyway… moving along, snow day again, and Jess and Sam are home with me. Very peaceful, house is clean and they haven’t started trying to kill each other yet.

There are certain similiarities to my children. As much as I think they are so different in some ways, they are mirror images in others. Like baths – Jessie used to scream so much that she gave herself hives, and Sam’s the grubbiest kid I’ve ever met because he’ll literally cry so hard, he pukes when I give him a bath. And the doctor – oh, the doctors… Jess had ear infections all the time when she was little. And she HATED going to the doctor’s. And Sam is following right along in step behind her. He refused to get on the scale, so I had to get on the scale first holding him and then drop him on the floor and get on without him to get an accurate weight. Then the time came to take his temp – and he clamped his little arm down and wasn’t going to let the nurse stick that thing into his armpit. I had to pry it up (and he’s scary strong for a two year old) and the poor nurse shoved it in. Meanwhile, he’s got a fever, and is screaming – so he’s all sweaty (and grubby – see the beginning of the paragraph). Finally, we finish the preliminaries, and I latch him on (one of those instances when I’m actually glad he’s still nursing because it’s an instant calm down for him). The doctor came in, he screamed thru the entire exam – fighting and struggling to get away. When it was finally over (he’s got a wicked cough/cold, but nothing else, thank goodness), he stood up and said emphatically “Wet’s get outta dis pwace!”

Jessica Mary danced off to school this morning, happy as could be.

In other news, my vacuum has broken. I’m heart sore and in mourning. I loved that appliance, second only to the coffee pot.

There’s very little that’s harder for me to deal with than my child’s unhappiness. That’s not completely true, there’s lots that would be harder – but this morning, I had to ship my little girl out the door kicking and screaming to go to school and know that I will spend the rest of the day feeling guilty and worried about her. Jess seems to be thriving at school, has friends, children who come to greet her when we walk into the school yard, her teacher raves about her – so I know that she’s not going there and being victimized by horrible six year old bullies, I know that she’s not struggling academically and not measuring up. I know all of these things in my head, but in my heart, I’m scared that I’m wrong. Scared that there’s something about school – something that I can’t possibly know because I’M NOT THERE, and she’s dealing with it (whatever this phantom problem is) all by herself, and that’s why she’s crying. That’s why she left this morning with tears on her cheeks and misery in her eyes.

Although it probably had more to do with the fact that I got her ready about ten minutes before Marc was ready, so she had time to get involved in a game with her little brother, and just didn’t want to leave it. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if it’s the horrible six year old bully? What if, what if, what if?

It’s mornings like this when I really regret not homeschooling.

(on a side note, I’ve used this title before – which I think is kind of a nice sign of how I feel about my life 🙂

I’m all sunshine and lollipops today – Samilicious is still soundly sleeping, and Miss Jess danced off to school with a smile on her face. We had a busy weekend, Jess and I both got hair cuts, and I’m still loving mine, and loving Jessie’s as well. Marc and I have been at each other’s throats for most of the weekend, which is blessedly rare, but have patched things up rather well, I think. We fought about the way the house looked when I came home on Saturday (why, oh why would they destroy my house? Why?) and his work out schedule (which will forever be a source of conflict for us). For me, marriage is all about choice. When it’s hard. And sometimes it is. You (or at least I) have to consciously CHOOSE to not stay mad. To remember why you love him, to remember that his overall goal is good, and while he might screw up royally in the execution of it, his desire is not to make you miserable. And the nice thing about Marc is that while he might not ever be able to be the first one to make that overture to end a fight (his theory is that if you ignore it, maybe it’ll go away), he’s always receptive (and relieved) when I do it.

Moving right along… today – today is MY DAY. This is the day I’ve been clinging to, all last week, when I was drowning in children. I babysit during the day, but that’s different, I love my babies (toddlers), it’s when I’ve got four school age girls running around that I want to rip my hair out. And last week, I had more than my fill of whining and crying and yelling and ‘it’s my turn on the computer’ and ‘she won’t share with me’ and just the general nastiness that three sisters and one Glennys can get up to when they’re stuck together for too long. But today – ah, today… I’m going to relax, unwind, chill out, watch all kinds of television, read a lot – Sam took unbelievably crappy naps on both Saturday and Sunday, which is why he’s still asleep, and I’m so excited about just being me today.