Melissa Anne Cohen

God, it’s been a long week. And this weekend is going to be absolute lunacy, not that most of our weekends are crazy, but this one is a little excessive. Tomorrow, I have to get up, grab all the library books (there are thousands) and the dry cleaning, drop off Jess at preschool, Marc and work. Hit the library, Target to get a gift for Jessie’s friend’s party on Saturday, and the dry cleaners. Grab Jess, go home, babysit for a friend’s three little boys while making challah, after they leave, I load up Jess and Sam in the pouring rain, pick up Lilli and Sarah at the JCC, come home, finish making dinner, host Shabbat dinner with all four kids, plus Janet and Company. Lilli and Sarah are spending the night, I have to bring Jess to dance, drop the girls off, drop Jessie off at Annie’s house, drop Sammy off at my sisters and go to Beverly for Greg’s party. Then pick them all up (except for the girls) and come back home. Sunday, we’ll do Mother’s Day – which for us is trekking back and forth between Yvonne’s and my mother’s house. I’m tired just typing it.

Kids are both well – Jess is a little whiney, but I think she does it for her own amusement half hte time. Sam is well – pissed that I haven’t taken him outside yet (he keeps pointing to the window and screaming “SIDE”) but I have one too many babies to fit in my stroller or wagon, so he’s going to have to wait until Harrison gets picked up.

On a side note – I’m taking the kids to the ice cream truck for dinner – because there’s not a chance in hell I’m dirtying any more dishes today.

No real reasons, but it’s always been my favorite day of the week. I mean, Fridays are right up there too – but Tuesdays hold a special place in my heart. Marc first e-mailed me on a Tuesday 😉

Nothing really new or exciting going on… kids are both well and healthy. Jessie is growing up so fast, but still so little sometimes. She crawled into bed with me last night and I was so happy. I know I should be encouraging her to stay in her own bed and be all independent, and mostly I do – but I love to have her snuggle up against my back and sneak her arm around my waist to sleep. Sammy is becoming your typical two year old – even though he’s a couple of months away from actually turning two. He’s into saying No all the time, for no apparent reason, he fights with his sister and is loving his little duck called Quackie.

Gorgeous day today – we’re inside until it gets a little warmer. I’m playing toy rotation game – which is really not all that much fun, but necessary when you’ve got buckets and buckets of toys and many toddlers.

Not her first tooth – her first teeth. She cut them at the same time and lost them at the same time. I still remember when I saw them for the first time and know that I’ll never forget when she lost them. Jessie had two loose teeth, and I figured I had a while to get used to her losing them. But she’s got that cast on her arm, and when her shirt got stuck on it, she grabbed the shirt with her teeth and gave a good yank. Out came the first tooth, and she started screaming, came tearing thru the house stark naked and crying. I held her and cried a little, she’s growing up so fast and I’m so proud and so happy to have her. Then Marc realized that the second tooth was barely hanging on, and he gave it a little tug, and out it popped. Two teeth at once! My big girl… she was so proud.

I wrote her a letter from her tooth fairy, I named her Marigold, and we gave her two presents, a book and a diary – plus what she calls “double money.” Because Marc had six singles, we quickly determined that each tooth would be worth three dollars – so I put all six bill in an envelope with my letter, sprinkled the whole thing with glitter (we call it fairy dust) and stuffed it under her pillow.

Having children is so amazing, and it’s just not something I ever get used to. I’m consistently thrilled by it, something new is always happening, and the best part is that I’ve got two, so I’m living thru two sets of amazing milestones. And even though Sam’s the second one, I find his just as thrilling as Jessie’s. Sam’s now seriously saying “No, no” and “Mommy.” And he’s enchanted with this new ability to get his point across, and declines almost everything. In fact, for about ten minutes in the car earlier, he sang the word “no” over and over again.

He shoves his finger in his nose and says wisely “Booooooooogie.” Ah – the moments that make a mother proud. Took everyone outside for a lovely walk and played bubbles and colors. Which is code for Sammy shoving the carriage around the driveway and Jessie blowing bubbles while Harrison clutches all the chalk he can hold to his chest while he runs after bubbles. Sam’s asleep right now on the couch, clutching his ‘quackie,’ and Harrison, who apparently no longer feels compelled to nap, is up and watching JoJo’s Circus. Jordyn is chattering in my bedroom, where she’s supposed to be sleeping and Jessie is drinking a disgustingly chocolate glass of chocolate milk (I let her add her own chocolate).

Jessie has two loose teeth, and is very excited. I’m apprehensive, a bit. Loose teeth, starting kindergarten and watching Hannah Montana – it’s all happening very fast for me….

Probably due to a lack of coffee – but I’ve got my second one beside me and am optimistic about the future. Curious George is on in the living room, all three kids are lulled into contentment with television and cheerios. No major plans for today, it’s kind of chilly this morning, so I’ll put off my walk with them until this afternoon, hopefully after Harrison goes home, so that I can cram the two toddlers into the double stroller and make my girl walk.

Had a lovely night last night, cleaned my house and put my cherubs to bed nice and early, and Marc got home early enough so that we could hang out before I fell asleep. Still not sure what the plans are for tomorrow… but Jessie has all day preschool, so it’ll just be me and my boy :-).

I relented and started letting Jessie watch Hannah Montana. I still worry it’s a bit too old for her, but in all honesty, all she watches is the theme song, so it turned out to be a non-issue. She’s getting so big so fast…

AT least intellectually, I do. Emotionally, I’m convinced my entire family is conspiring to make my life miserable. Sammy starts every morning crying. Every damn morning. And it’s sucky. Then Jessie jumps in, and then Marc starts off on one of his tirades about homeopathy… I’m just sick of everyone. They’re all crappy to me in the mornings. I just like a little coffee, a little friendliness, and why is that so damn hard?????

I’m so stressed about this stupid wedding – I’ve got all kinds of committments and obligations and I’m afraid that Sam is going to cry himself sick while I’m off being the maid of honor. I wish so much that Becky would let me bring my boy – it would make my life a thousand times easier. And as much as I know and accept that she’s the bride and we do it her way – man, it sucks.

Just not having a damn good day. And it’s barely nine o’clock.

Okay – let’s pull it together. So your kids wake up crying… it doesn’t last long, and their overall temperment is lovely. It’s five minutes or so of crabbing. Could be worse, right? He could be still in the grips of colic – I handled that with grace. I can handle morning grouchiness. And Marc is an intellectual snob, he’s also somewhat dead of wonder. There’s nothing surprising or beyond his comprehension – he’s so smart, it’s okay that he believes that he knows everything. He knows almost everything, so I’ll forgive him for being such a jerk. Rescue Remedy works – and if it helps my boy, then that’s good for me. Marc doesn’t have to agree, Sam’s crying isn’t going to hurt him nearly as much as it’s going to hurt me, so his opinion doesn’t matter as much.
(Jessie just started crying, so trying to talk myself into a cheery mood is getting a little more difficult).

I’m a bright woman, I have a lovely husband, who might be an intellectual snob and kind of a jerk about it sometimes, but is still a lovely man. I have two gorgeous children, who might be a bit emotional and dramatic at times, but they are both healthy, and a weekend without me won’t do any physical harm to them. I’ll get thru it.

One of my pet peeves are stacked dirty dishes. If you’re going to touch them to stack them – freaking wash them! I had every single cup dirty. EVERY SINGLE CUP. I have a legendary amount of cups, seriously, and they were all in my sink. Worse, they were in a ginormous soup pot that was so big I couldn’t actually do any dishes without taking everything out of the sink, washing the pot, putting everything back in and then washing the rest of them.

Plus my house looks like a bomb hit it. That’s right, I was out all weekend again. When I’m not here, the whole system falls apart. It saddens me to admit it, I can’t help but think it’s a failure on my part to not instill basic ‘pick up after your damn selves’ into my husband and children – but every room in my house is trashed. Every single room. I’m horrified…

Threw the phone today and broke it into three different pieces. But all in all, I felt it was a better alternative to throwing my daughter, which was what I actually wanted to do. My tiny angel girl screamed like a lunatic the entire way home from Price Chopper. That’s a really long way to be pushing a double stroller with twenty five pounds of Sammy (happy as can be – how can he ignore that screaming?) and forty five pounds of fury filled Jessica Mary. I bought them bottle pops, and then had the supreme stupidity to show them that there was powdered candy inside the bottle, which inevitably spilled… hence, tears. Tears I can deal with, I’m an emotional girl, it was the fact that she whipped the tears into a fury laced hysteria that actually had people slowing down to glare at me as they drove past.

She did eventually calm down, after I got her inside, made her apologize to Sam and I for ruining our walk, went thru Temper Tantrum II, which only concluded when I threw the phone across the room, stormed into the living room, grabbed her ankles, which she was pounding on the floor, and hauled her upside down. I told her if she didn’t knock it off, I was going to cut her feet off. Then I ordered into her room and left her there for a half hour. She actually calmed herself down and played quietly for a while. I peeked in there, hoping that she’d fallen asleep, but she was on the floor playing with her doll house.

Everyone is irritating me, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s actually me. Possibly – it could be PMS. But I have a strong suspicion that it’s everyone else. For example, my husband who’s religious ferver is making me nuts, or my mother who’s just crabby, or my daughter who’s the aforementioned emotional lunatic. I’m perfectly happy, if everyone would just stop bugging me. I like Sam. He’s a chipper guy – grubby as hell, but cheerful about it. Nothing bothers him – for example right now, he’s covered in dirt and grime and probably got a messy diaper, but he’s cool as a cucumber, smiling and content. He’s my boy. Now if everyone would just follow his lead….

Which baffled and confused me. It’s a cast, isn’t it supposed to stay on? I called the orthopedic surgeon and had Marc take her over immediately and now she’s got a nice neon pink one welded to her wrist. She’s actually adjusted really well to only having one hand – I’m surprised at how quickly she’s adapted. I caught her yesterday trying to peel a banana with her mouth, holding the banana in one hand and tugging down the skin with her teeth. But that’s Jessie, she’s relatively self-sufficient. She rarely asks for help if there’s a way she can do it on her own.

Many, many children today – I had Harrison, Julia, Jordyn and my two. And by the time everyone else left, I was pretty harried and stressed out. I packed them both into the double stroller and pushed them down to Elm Park. Granted Jessie was having a screaming temper tantrum – she screamed literally until we were a block away, which earned me several glares, a couple of sympathetic glances, and one guy who just looked scared. He was standing on his porch, holding an infant. And I told him to enjoy this time with his baby as I pushed my kids past, but can’t say for sure if he heard me over the screams…

I bought the kids burgers. There, I’ve said it. I confess… Marc is really pushing us to keep kosher for Passover and it’s bugging me. But I’m doing it, at least where the kids are concerned, but they don’t like Passover food, and didn’t eat any of the matzobrie that I made. So I got them burgers, and fed the buns to the fish and the turtle. Sam ate his bun, but it wasn’t my intent, I gave it to him to toss into the water, but he’s not stupid, he shoved it in his mouth :-). I would still celebrate Passover, and cook lots of matzoh oriented dinners, but I’d relax the rules, if I was the boss. Or if I was the only boss, I guess, because it’s not that Marc is the one who makes all of the decisions, but I know this is important to him, so I’m really trying.

They’re both asleep on the couch, and I’m reluctant to move them. Marc is off at the gym, and I’m sleepy and wishing that I could have showered.

And still in the midst of Passover – Marc really wanted to keep kosher for Passover this year, and I’m doing my best, at least where the kids are concerned. Presenting a united front and all… but I admit that I’m frustrated by it. The kids don’t really like matzoh, and I’m flat out shocked by how dependent I obviously am on dry cereal. It’s my standard snack, and the kids munch on it off and on all day. Without that, I’m left with fruit (which they will eat, but not with the same consistent enthusiasm) as a snack. I’m about to make bubbled up eggs for Jess, so at least she’ll get something in her belly this morning. Passover is my favorite Jewish holiday, but ironically, the one with the worst food…

Just got back from taking the kids out for a walk – and it was not good. Three toddlers is one too many when you’ve only got a double stroller. I had one of them in the little harness, Sam for the first half of the walk and Harrison for the second. Sam fell several times, as did Harrison. Sammy actually skinned his little knees for the first time ever 🙁

I think we’ll be sticking with inside for a while – they just aren’t steady enough on their feet for a serious walk…