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Oct 27

My belly is rumbling

That’s what my son said to me today. It was so cute, and such a random thing for him to say – his language skills are exploding all over the place, and he’s got a phenominal amount of information to get out. It’s like he’s been stocking up, and now that he has the words, I can’t shut him up :-). He’s started groaning in frustration when things disappoint him, he’s singing random snatches of songs and starting to count and recite the alphabet. He still believes that everything is blue (when asked what color something is, his inevitable answer is bwue) and won’t actually say the whole alphabet, but he’s getting there, he’s getting his numbers down, able to tell me if I have one or two of something in my hand. He’s so smart, really just brilliant. I know that every parent thinks that – but Marc’s IQ is technically in the genius range, and I’m fairly bright – but these kids just blow me away. The memory – the other day, he asked if Jessie was going to blow the shofar when we were at the synagogue, because in his little mind, that’s what she goes off to do when she’s at Hebrew School.

Weekend was fairly crappy. There were serious high points, on Saturday afternoon, all four girls were occupied happily in Jessie’s room with the door shut, and Sam and Marc were asleep. I had cleaned the whole house, made myself a cup of reheated coffee and settled onto the couch to read. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was lovely. And most of Sunday was pretty good, but the morning was so unbelievably bad, that it colored the whole day.

Sometimes I just get overwhelmed. Too many kids, not enough help, constant cleaning and dishes and laundry and it all piles up and I just need to explode. A kick ass migraine did nothing to make the weekend any easier, but even without the mind blowing pain, I think it would have sucked. It’s a tiny little apartment, and it’s perfect, maybe a touch small, for Marc, me and the two kids. Adding any more (and we are never NOT adding more) and it’s just … utter chaos and it’s so difficult to handle it sometimes.

Oct 20

I like my daughter

And the older she gets, the more I like her. She’s legitimately fun to hang around with. I know all the perils of thinking that you are your child’s friend. She needs a parent, not a buddy, etc… but she’s still just such an amazing person to be with. She’s funny and wise and I get such a charge out of spending time with her and learning about the person she’s becoming. Every day she grows up a little more, and I’m so enormously proud of the little girl she is, and the inklings I get of the type of woman she’ll become.

I spent yesterday in Salem. And I went with Becky, Aimee, Annie, Glennys, my mother and my daughter. And it was wonderful and fun but the best part of it, for me, was spending time with my mom and my little girl. I love my mother, and am so lucky to have her for a parent. I see so many people with such crappy relationships with their mothers, so many mothers who just hurt their kids, unintentionally and without thinking, and there’s still nobody who loves me like my mom loves me. And my little girl, I know she’s not perfect, there are days when I think if she whines one more time, I might just lose my mind, but she’s so exactly everything I ever wanted in a daughter, and so much more… I’m so enormously grateful and blessed to have those two in my life.

Oct 13

Bread of Idleness

That’s what I’m dining on today. Even though I can make a list of all that I’ve accomplished today (folded two loads of laundry, changed two kids, washed two loads of dishes, fed three children, entertained my mother and Annie, put Sam down for a long nap, took a shower, cleaned off the dining room table, put away most of the laundry, listed out all of the parent volunteers for the fall festival), I still feel as though I’ve accomplished next to nothing.

Had a great weekend. I love my step daughters, and I love the family, the whole family, when we’ve got all four kids together and the chemistry that we all have… but there’s something magical about spending the weekend with my husband and the children that we have created together. We went to Boston on Saturday – and my favorite part was the lunch at Wendy’s. I know that sounds goofy, but meals together, just us, and no fighting is still so… magical. And we ate again Saturday night and last night, the four of us shared tacitos and it was so nice. We don’t fight, we don’t yell, there’s no sighing and moaning, it’s just the four of us and we’re happy.

It wasn’t like that when I was growing up. Meals were… busy, harried, and usually painfully uncomfortable with Paul, Scott and Mandi all brawling it out. Sometimes Eric would blow up… and there was always the weight of Mom’s expectations, she wanted so badly for us to have… what I have now with Marc and Jessica and Sam.

Anyway – eating the bread of idleness… still. I have dishes to finish, laundry to put away, a living room to vacuum, a dining room to vacuum, two kids to bathe, dinner to make, etc. And I’m wishing I could just read instead 🙂

Oct 07

Is pizza ready yet?

This is what my two year old said to me this morning. At nine thirty. And I thought to myself, why not? So I popped in a frozen pizza to bake. I’m not a fanatic about what my kids eat. I don’t give them artificial sweeteners, and I don’t keep soda or ice cream in the house, rarely buy chips or junk, they never, never get dessert unless we’re at a holiday party at Marc’s family’s house. But other than that – I figure everything in moderation works. And if Sam wants a handful of chips for breakfast once in a while, so be it.

I wish he’d stop nursing – and honestly, if I can bribe him to get off of me with a piece of cold pizza, then absolutely – I’ll keep it in the house. It just works for him. I never anticipated I’d still be nursing a TWENTY SEVEN MONTH OLD but lo and behold, here we are… and I’m so incredibly ready for it to be done. I’m just not willing to make him cry and suffer without it.

Oct 02

Superfriends

Several times, since Sam was born, I’ve found myself thinking that I’m glad I was able to give Marc a son. Even though I know it makes no logical sense, it’s the sperm that determines the sex, and truly, Marc loves his girls as much as his boy. But there’s something magical about his relationship with Sam and the older Sam gets, the more and more I see it. Sam is just in love with his Daddy. He hero worships him, Marc has the tools, he’s big and tall and strong, he can kill bugs, fix stuff, wears cool clothes and goes pee in the potty. Sam loves nothing more than being told he’s like Daddy – he likes wearing button up shirts, just like Daddy, wants boots just like Daddy, and lately – loves nothing more than sitting on Daddy’s lap and watching violent cartoons about superheros. Last night, Marc told me that he felt like he’d finally found someone in his family who was his kindred spirit. Sam loves the kind of dare devil, be careful or you might kill yourself sort of activities that Marc likes, he just instinctively gravitates towards that sort of stuff. And as much as it confuses me, I have no desire to jump out of a plane or hurtle myself thru the air, and I really can’t stand cartoons – it gives me enormous pride and pleasure to see my two guys loving each other so much 🙂

Sep 25

Mom

Jess and I went out to the library last night. We purposely split the kids up, Marc stayed home for quality time with the boy and I took my girl to the library. So we’re driving along and Jessie told me that she doesn’t like to call me Mommy or Mama any more. “That’s just for babies, I’m going to call you Mom. That’s what the big kids do.” And I literally had to catch my breath for a minute – and my eyes got a little misty, and I took a big breath and told her that I understood, but sometimes, could she just call me Mama once in a while, just so I could remember what it was like before she got to be such a big kid… I’m getting a little teary-eyed just remembering it – it all happens so damn fast. You get this perfect angel and then they start outgrowing you – way before you are ready for it.

Sep 22

Sometimes it’s just so simple

I like Mondays. It’s such a good day now, one of my days off, now that Harrison is going to preschool, and after the hectic weekends, it’s nice to have one day when it’s calm and quiet and relaxing. Sam and I hang out, we talk, go for long walks, take naps, clean a lot, watch television :-). Marc goes to the gym mostly on Monday nights, so after Jess comes home, I have the kids play for a while, and they are missing each other because they’d been together all weekend, so they actually play together and not try to kill each other, and I make an easy dinner, let them have a picnic in the living room instead of a formal sit at the table dinner. Now, it’s six o’clock, I have minimal dishes to do, Jessie’s lunch is packed for tomorrow, her clothes laid out already. Jess is taking a “play bath” which is, as she explained to me earlier, different from a “hose you down bath.” Sam is still hating all things aquatic, and is happy watching Dora and playing with his Batman figurine. And I’m… happy. Content, peaceful, relaxed.

Had a scare earlier, Mom went in to get a couple of spots checked on her skin. I didn’t think too much about it, for the simple reason that the the thought of her getting seriously ill, even deathly ill, and possibly dying scares me too much – I can’t think about it. She’s fine, had a full body scan, and not a spot of anything that might remotely resemble skin cancer. When my grandmother died, almost twenty five years ago, my mother promised me that she’d never die. And while logically, I get that it isn’t true, I have to confess that I’ve always found enormous comfort in that promise. And the nice thing is that if she ever does, she won’t be around for me to scream at for breaking a promise. Win/win for her, she gets to make me happy and not have to face the consequences. And I figure that in that eventuality, I’m going to be such a mess that I’d give anything to have her back to yell at her about it, so I won’t waste my time being angry at her. I plan on promising Jess and Sam the same thing, if it ever comes up.

Sep 12

Shabbos

Maybe I’m not cut out to have a million children. Because all the yelling and the screaming and the fighting and the stress in a tiny apartment makes me crazy. I know I have more patience with my two, because they are mine, I’m sort of biologically prone to not wanting to kill them, but having all four tearing around here, yelling louder and louder each time they pass by me… in an itty bitty apartment with neighbors under us – I’m losing my mind. I’ve hollered at them effectively enough that they are all afraid to speak in anything louder than conversational tone – but this never lasts more than five or ten minutes… soon I’ll have to scream at them again.

Not really the best lead in for what’s supposed to be the most peaceful time of my week.

I’m trying to really embrace Shabbos – to make a big dinner, to spend my time relaxing and really enjoying my time with my husband, with my kids, not to stress out over money (huge stress around that these days), but to be grateful for what I have. My beautiful girl, she’s so smart and so big, kindergarten has already started to change her. She’s learning new songs, and new attitudes and she’s becoming more confident and aware of who she is. My gorgeous baby, who’s not a baby any more… he’s growing into this little boy and I’m so lucky to be able to watch it every day, to be right there for all of it. And Marc – God, what I would have given to know that he was out there ten years ago – to have found someone so smart, so kind, so loving and to be able to just relax into what he and I are together – to know that he loves me as much as I love him, to trust that he’s going to love me this much ten years from now… and my two step daughters – the blessings I got without asking for them… it’s more complicated there, and I struggle sometimes with it. There are so many limits on what I can feel for them, it feels like. I’m very aware not stepping on Lisa’s toes, of not being their mother – but they’re mine too. And Lilli is growing up so fast, and I feel like as she gets older, she may want to have someone in her life who isn’t her mother and isn’t her father – I can be the one she turns to when she hates them :-). Sarah is so very smart, and so eager to learn and read and shine in her own right – and I think I provide that role for her as well – I see myself in her and in Lilli – and am looking forward to watching the women they become.

I’m calm now… The four kids are set up on the couch, playing some sort of intricate game – and really, that, in and of itself, is pretty cool. That four kids, ages spanning from two to nine, can all be together and involved and happy is lovely. My chicken is cooking, my veggies are ready to be microwaved, I’ve got a little more to do to get ready, but at least I’m in the right frame of mind now 😉

Sep 11

joy

Finally heard from Jessie’s teacher. I say finally because my husband finally got around to giving her the note I so painstakingly wrote three days ago – and she says that Jessica Mary is adjusting beautifully, participating in class, following directions, and completing assignments. I feel so much better – so much more relaxed about her going off every day with strangers.

Sep 10

I just want a day off

She’s been going to school for a grand total of five full days and already – she’s had enough. She’s done… yesterday I dropped her off (usually Marc does it) and she was clingy and weepy when it was time to go inside. Today, she was flat out hysterical before I even got her out the door, crying that she never gets a day off, she just wanted to stay home today, etc. She was crying and crying… it was bad. I held it together until I got back inside and then called my mother and started sobbing into the phone about what a horrible mother I was to ship my poor baby girl off to school when she really doesn’t want to go.

I could homeschool. I totally could… I’ve got the time, the academic inclination, there’s no reason not to do it, except… everyone in my family who already thinks I’m a lunatic crazy parent for holding them all the time and nursing a 26 month old would yell at me. I also wanted her to be “normal” and go off to school and have friends and playdates and birthday parties. She really wanted to go to ‘big girl school’ and it just seemed to be so many reasons to send her that I conceded and shipped her off. But now that she’s miserable… I am rethinking everything.

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