Ch-Ch-Changes

I've been thinking for a while now about making some changes to this blog for lots of different reasons. For one thing, I've always felt like there would come a time when it would become inappropriate for me to write about the girls using their real names. That time isn't exactly now, since neither of them is even technically in school, but I think that cut-off was always around age five or so, in my head. Once they're in "real" school, I think they may deserve a little more anonymity as relates to time-outs, mishaps, and embarrassing moments. Just today, I filled out Annie's registration paperwork for next year, so that time is mere months away.

Pushing the deadline forward is the fact that Jason's practice is about to launch a fancy new website in the next month or so, and the last thing I want is for a potential patient to Google his name and inadvertently find my blog (and lots of details about the most recent neighborhood party, vacation, or date night). Plus, I'm spending a little more time and energy submitting query letters to get new freelance work. If any of those pan out, and I am ever actually published (I should be so lucky!), I'd like to be able to reference my blog without giving away too many real-life details for security purposes.

So! I'm taking the weekend off to be up north with the family, and when I return, look for the launch of something new and improved to record all our daily details. I'll avoid using our last name at all, and I'll also probably just reference the girls by their first initial. I'm planning to add new links to all the blogs I currently read regularly (both people I know and people I don't) and possibly links to some of the writing I've done other places. The blog doesn't have a name yet; while I do have a few ideas, I'm open to your thoughts, so either comment here or send them to me via e-mail.

If you are a faithful reader and want to keep reading at the new site, send me an e-mail at sdoublestein@hotmail.com and I'll give you a heads-up when I get it all together. (There won't be any references here to the new name.) RIP, Daily Doublesteins! It's been a lovely adventure.

Bird

Annie hasn't had school this week, so we've been blessed and cursed by the lack of a schedule. Yesterday, we hung out in jammies and had a morning "picnic" with all the dolls, then teamed up for a whirlwind Target trip, where we bought this summer's sprinkler pool (version 1.2, as it is the same one we had in 2007), cousin birthday presents, True North almond clusters (yum!), and a new Belle figurine, since the original one's head has broken off and spends all her time "at the hospital," being waited on and feted by all the other princesses in their sparkly ball gowns. Fun stuff! The afternoon, though, was a Category Five disaster that culminated in my tearful phone call to Jason at 5:05 p.m. to tell him that no dinner would be forthcoming upon his arrival home from work due to my inability to do anything but carry a fussy two-year-old in my arms post-nap and give a Very Naughty Four-Year-Old time-outs (both in her room and STRAPPED INTO HER CARSEAT IN THE CAR I WON'T LIE) for the previous hour and a half. (NOT fun stuff!)

Add to this the fact that Jemma and I had simultaneous, mysterious fevers on Sunday and Monday, and we were cheered and relieved to feel better and get out of the house this morning. We headed to the gym, where, because of other people's schools being on Winter Break, there were a lot of kids and a lot going on. I checked the girls in and headed up to the treadmill, choosing one where I can look down on the kids playing in the gym and they can wave up at me. They were happy enough at first, gathered with Lucy and Ava and Lila and ten or so more little girls, all running around and giggling and then playing Duck, Duck, Goose. They waved, I waved, everyone was fine.

Then. Then! From the other side of the gym came the mascot for the Grand Rapids Griffins, who had been entertaining the many school-aged boys as they played broom hockey. I saw him ambling clumsily towards the little kids, and I thought, some poor little kid is going to freak out about this. I was right. It was Jemma.

I watched as, in response to his cheery wave, her little face crumpled, turned bright red, and she began crying hysterically. A kind woman scooped her up and hurried away, back into the non-gym area, presumably to distract her with some dolls or books or bubbles.

By the time I made my way back down to get her, she was just standing by the gate to get out, not crying, but wearing a sad little look on her cute little face. "Bird!" she said, when I scooped her out and waited for Annie to come. "Bird here," she pointed, and she started crying again. Only the promise of vanilla milk at the coffee shop calmed her down, and by the time we had washed hands and put coats on, she was better again.

Tonight, though, as I rocked her in her room and read her books, she kept hugging me tightly and asking about "bird." Over and over, I reassured her that the bird was just silly, was all gone, was at home now, that just Mommy and Daddy and Annie and Jemma were here together. Poor. Little. Thing. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, I'm going to have to break all my usual Sleep Rules and spend any amount of time in there, rocking my little Roo, reassuring her that the bird is All Gone.

Assigning the Blame

When I went in Annie's room after rest time on Thursday afternoon, something smelled like Hershey's chocolate.

"Did you put on your M&M chapstick?" I asked.

"No," she said. Hmmmm.

Then, we went to the pool. When we got home from the pool, I went into Annie's room again to stop her from jumping on the bed (a daily battle). It still smelled like chocolate.

"Annie, are you wearing chapstick?" I asked again. We keep said chapstick in a drawer in the kitchen, and I wanted to make sure she hadn't squirreled it away to her bedroom where it might possibly be found (and abused) by Jemma.

"NOOO, Mom!"

"Well, then why does it smell like your M&M chapstick in here?" I said.

Annie looked sheepish. "I broke my pink basket that my books are in during rest time and it needed glue but I didn't know where the glue was so I thought chapstick would work so I got it and put it on the basket but it didn't work."

I looked at the basket, and, sure enough, a corner of the pink wicker had broken and was dangling off, covered in a light brown slime that smelled like chocolate.

I tried not to, but I smiled.

"Where is the chapstick now?" I asked.

"I put it back in the drawer after rest time was over."

Let us assign the blame for this silly little episode:

30% - to Annie, for standing on her wicker book basket, breaking it, and then deciding to fix it with chapstick

30% - to me, for keeping the chapstick in an accessible place in the house

30% - to me, for wasting time upstairs on facebook during rest time, so as not to hear my child rummaging around in the kitchen for chapstick

10% - to Connie, for providing the M&M chapstick to my child as part of a Thanksgiving goody bag

Behavior Modification

A few months back, at the height of my despair over Annie's increasingly difficult behavior, I bought and read the book Parenting with Love and Logic. I didn't buy into it 100%, but I did appreciate the perspective, and it's given me a couple great new tools for dealing with dramatic discipline situations. One thing the book really points out is that, as parents, we can't actually control certain behaviors (tantrums, language, whining, etc.) but we can control where they occur. For example, if Annie were following me around the kitchen whining about something, instead of saying to her, "Annie, stop whining" (which is unenforceable), I'd say, "Annie, you may either stay in the kitchen with me nicely or go whine by yourself in your bedroom." If she were refusing to go to her room for a time-out, instead of repeatedly telling her to go, I'd ask, "Would you like to go by yourself or would you like me to take you?" It's all about choices, both of which you would find acceptable.

Maybe it's the consistency we've shown over the last six months or so, maybe it's the fact that Annie is almost closer to five than four now (!), but in any case, her behavior has really improved. For her part, Annie has not only responded well to the "choice" scenarios, but she is now beginning to use them on me. A few interesting "choices" she presented me today:

This morning, at breakfast, when she had repeatedly asked, and repeatedly been denied, watching Curious George before dance class and told the issue was closed for discussion, she calmly set her fork down, stopped eating her waffle, and said, "Mom, would you like to let me watch Curious George or would you like me and Jemma to go jump on my bed?" Smile. (Cue Jason cracking up from the kitchen.)

This afternoon, when I told her that the living room was not a good place for her to be doing any type of gymnastics, she said, "Mom, I can either do a handstand in the living room or I can tip over the TV. Which do you choose?"

Can't blame a girl for trying, I guess. I have a feeling I'll be getting the opportunity to make more "choices" in the days ahead. I'll keep you posted.

Because I am Two Years Old.

Sarah and I took Annie and Lucy to the ballet on Sunday afternoon. I discovered this sweet dance company in town that puts on three performances a year specifically geared to young kids and families. They're an hour long and they're all based on stories that kids know. Annie and I had gone to Twas the Night Before Christmas back in December, and this time we invited some girlfriends to see Peter and the Wolf. This is not a story I knew, but I figured: children's ballet, fairy tale, what's not to like?

So we're sitting there in our lovely fifth-row seats before the piece begins, and announcer-voice behind the curtain begins explaining how, in Peter and the Wolf, each character is represented by an instrument. There's the duck, who gets horns; and the bird, who is the flute . . . and the HUNTERS WITH RIFLES, who are drums. "Oh boy," mutters Sarah. The lights go down and all is well with the bird and Peter prancing around the meadow until the wolf comes out. I glance to my right and see Annie glaring at the wolf with her meanest look while Lucy is covering her eyes with her hands and peeking through her fingers. Sarah and I were cracking up but also secretly hoping that there was some sort of non-violent, happy ending coming our way. (There was: the hunters help Peter bring the wolf back to the zoo, while the duck miraculously survives being eaten, is magically regurgitated, and shakes hands with the wolf. Ha!)

Afterwards, I had two main thoughts. One, perhaps I should be doing a bit more research before carting my children off to performances I have never seen before; two, I was giving ten-to-one odds that Annie would be waking up in the middle of the night, crying, claiming that there was a wolf in her room.

Surprisingly, she didn't. But guess what? If she had, I probably wouldn't have heard her. That's because I've started sleeping with a sound machine next to the bed. That's right. The little $20 machine I bought last-minute at Bed Bath and Beyond to bring to Florida has found a new home in my room, and the "rain" sound has given me the most consecutive nights of good sleep in my own bed with my husband since summer 2004. And sometimes I worry that the girls might wake up and cry out for me and I might not hear them, now that I'm actually ASLEEP. And then I think, hey, it's been FIVE STRAIGHT YEARS since I could count on a good night's sleep, so I guess if something is that wrong, they can come and get me, or, in Jemma's case, yell good and loud until Jason wakes up.

While I'm admitting to being a toddler with my needs-sound-machine-to-sleep, let me just also say that I've been eating a lot of PB&J's on white bread, lately, that I'm on the hunt for some cute rainboots for spring, and that I'm starting to get excited about next winter's possible trip to Disney. The truth is out: I'm not thirty-one, I'm two, or three, or four. And I love to sleep during the rainstorm.

How Was Florida?

I've been asked this question at least five times since we returned a mere twenty-four hours ago. My answer, in one word, would be: Cold. Florida was cold, as in, record-low temperatures, scrape windshields off, 25-30 mph winds, wear every layer you brought and the same brown sweater every day kind of cold. So.

In more than one word, though, my answer would be different. Maybe it wasn't exactly the vacation we'd hoped for, but it wasn't a total loss, either. For one, the girls did spectacularly well on the travel days, which involved three hours in the car plus three hours in the air punctuated by an hour or two here and there of just waiting around. They were amazing (and the old people all around us on the airplane let us know it), and we wouldn't hesitate to fly with them again.

Despite the chilly weather, Annie was in heaven the whole time. It's the magic of Florida, I guess. She practically skipped her way through every day, happy to be gathering shells on the beach, playing at the park we frequented, watching a movie in the early morning, eating ice cream, doing a puzzle with Grandma, dangling her feet in the hot tub, or swimming in the pool. You know, because even though it was freezing outside, it was still sunny, and the pool was still heated, so in it Annie went every day with her purple swimmies and a big smile. (Getting out was a sad, cold event.) Gone was the whiny, tantrummy little girl of January; in her place, an agreeable, curious, affectionate person. I think she was just hungry for some sunshine and some grandparent love. She got plenty of both.

Jemma, on the other hand, might not be the traveler in the family. She never threw up again (praise Jesus! Hands raised above head, swaying from side to side with organ music in background, etc.), but she seemed a little shell-shocked and confused for the first few days. Every time we were all in the minivan together, she'd point from her position in the back row and say, "Different grandma. Other grandma. Both grandmas!" like she couldn't understand why both sets of them were here together. She pooped once the whole time we were there. At night when I'd tuck her in, she'd say heartbreaking little things like, "Rocking chair?" or "Own crib" and "Own house." (Also at night once, we read a paperback copy of Goodnight Moon I'd brought along that has a black-and-white picture of illustrator Clement C. Hurd on the back cover. Jemma saw him - an older, balding white man - and started saying something I couldn't understand. "What?" I asked, over and over. I finally understood her: "Barack Obama." "Barack Obama??" I asked. She nodded and pointed at the picture. "What about him?" "On TV." Ooooohkaaaay.)

We learned the hard way that the girls still can't share a bedroom, even with a crib and a noise machine, so after one night of two hours sleep and playing musical beds, we let Annie fall asleep in our bed at night and then moved her to the pull-out couch when we went to bed. Jemma, in her PLG rental crib, hogged the entire other bedroom with two empty twin beds.

We ate dinner at The Mucky Duck on Captiva Island as a group, and Jason and I escaped for a dinner out at Mezzaluna one night, too. We watched the sun rise in the morning and had mojitos and strawberry daquiris in the afternoon for happy hour. We sat in the hot tub a lot. We played cards and read books and magazines and did crossword puzzles. We tried to enjoy (but probably still took for granted) the fact that we were there with both sets of our parents and both our children. We build sandcastles and collected shells to bring home. We reminded ourselves how great it was not to struggle with boots, snowpants, and mittens every time we went outside.

I won't lie, I feel a little bit cheated out of my long-awaited winter getaway. I wanted to be warm; I wanted to be HOT. I wanted the girls to swim and swim and splash and run and roll in the sand and sit in the waves. Still, I know we're lucky to have gone at all, I know we'll always have these specific memories of our first true family vacation, and I know we'll have lots more chances to be together someplace warm and sunny.

Jemma in Florida

Annie in Florida

Backup Plans

In the midst of packing my brains out for a week in Florida with kids and both sets of grandparents plus getting through another winter weekend, Jemma threw up in the middle of the night last night, right on schedule. See, exactly (exactly! To the day!) one year ago, Annie did the exact same thing, just as Jason and I were preparing to take our first trip away since Jemma had been born thirteen months earlier. Also last February, Annie and Jemma both got sick while Jason and I were on a Chicago getaway weekend, infecting my parents and Jason and myself when we returned. Apparently our children, who are mainly healthy except for the occasional cold/extended cough here and there, must vomit in the 48 hours immediately preceeding any planned vacation in the winter. Ah, winter. Damn you. I try to outsmart you by taking trips to warm places, and then you thwart me by cursing my house with the stomach flu and arranging record-low temperatures for Florida just especially for the five days we'll be there.

Positive attitude! I know!

I've spent the hours since 3:30 this morning alternately in denial ("She's fine. It's just one random puke. The rest of us are fine. We've had it already before.") and in a rage of fury ("This is absurd. We're canceling the whole thing. It's going to pass from person to person and infect us all. Someone is bound to be puking on the plane. The trip is ruined.") about these circumstances. After many sleepless hours (and a few hours of following Jemma around the house, sort of waiting for her to puke on something expensive or irreplaceable, like the wool area rug or our bedroom carpet . . .), I've settled into someplace in the middle. I'm still highly annoyed, but trying to forge forward and have hope that we will salvage the trip and enjoy a reasonably fun, healthy week. If one of us isn't feeling our best for a day or two, at least there will be plenty of help from the grandparents while we recuperate. If the temperatures aren't going to be in the 80's, at least we should be able to play at a park, run on the beach, and get ice cream. At least, at least, we won't be stuck in our house looking out at the never-ending snow.

So we're getting on a plane tomorrow with two carry-ons full of plastic bags and changes of clothes, two bags full of clothes for all possible temperatures, and two girls who hopefully will watch movies and suck on suckers the whole way to a balmy, sunshiney place. Wish us luck.

January Sunshine

Some days I can hardly speak through my clenched teeth when Jason comes home, so sapped am I of all normal social impulses. Some days, especially the winter ones, are hellish, and I think, Note to Self: You Cannot Handle More Children. Some days, I am near tears on the couch and feel like a bad, mean, impatient mom in spite of all the things I know I do well.

Then there are days like yesterday. It was like someone had written a semi-cheesy script for a show called "Resilient and Enthusiastic Mom Makes Winter Day Fun for Adorable and Funny Children" and we excelled at acting it out. I'm not sure if it's because I snuck in an early-morning run, or because my coffee was especially good, or that the sun was shining, or that Annie had such a great day at school, but the whole day, start to finish, was amazingly good. I splurged on a spontaneous lunch at Marie Catrib's after picking Annie up from school. The girls were perfect at the restaurant, loving their PB&Js while I inhaled my Adult's Grilled Cheese (cream cheese, goat cheese, feta, tomatoes, fresh basil . . . YUM). We came home and I finished a great book while the girls both napped. We played dollhouse, we played daycare, we built gigantic towers out of blocks, we colored with crayons, we danced to The White Stripes, we made homemade pizzas and ate them in the kitchen. Suddenly, it was 6:30 and I hadn't once bemoaned our trapped-inside status, even in my mind.

After baths, I was brushing Annie's hair on the couch. Jemma came running down the hallway in her purple jammies, all excited about something. She stopped, stood next to the fireplace, and said, "I love you, Annie!" for no reason at all. Annie gave me a knowing smile and said, "I realized that she really does love me, Mom." Jemma wasn't done. "I love you TOO!" she repeated, still talking to Annie. Kissing and hugging of movie-like proportions followed, and we ended the night by reading five or six books together in my bed, feeling glad and grateful to have each other.

Hey Jemma

Now that she's two, I'm no longer going to commit to writing something Jemma-specific on the 27th of each month. But today, happy coincidence, it is the 27th, so to mark her 25th month, I wanted to note that she now has two favorite songs. Happy coincidence number two, they both start with the word, "Hey," as in, "Hey Mickey" and "Hey Jude." You can imagine how thrilled Jason is with both of these choices, one being by an obscure late 80's/early 90's pop group, the other by his favorite group of all time. You can even probably imagine that Jason has forced or cajoled her into liking these songs, but no. She actually loves them, requests them constantly, laughs when they are on, sings along, and dances around when we play them. She loves them so much that if by chance we are in the car and unable to produce said songs, she cries.

On Sunday night, we were driving home from my parents' and Jemma began requesting "Hey Jude, Ah Nah Nah" (because what she really likes is the sing-songy ending). We didn't have the CD with us, nor Jason's iPod, and hysterics ensued. Until! Miracle! Some radio station was playing a full Beatles montage to promote the tribute band that's at DeVos this week and Hey Jude was the very next song they played. All was well in the white Subaru wagon on I-96 after that.

Street Cred

I spent the first half of today paying for all the fun I had last night. Food was prepared, drinks were consumed (six? seven? six?), stories were told, pictures taken. One thing led to another (that's how a progressive dinner is supposed to work, right?) and suddenly it was almost midnight. After sweeping me home just before the stroke of twelve, my Prince Charming didn't so much whisk me off to my fairytale dreamland as much as pass out on the couch, fully clothed, lights on, TV on, and sleep there until 6:00 this morning. So romantic . . .

More than once last night, conversation turned to the luck that led each one of our families to buy a house on this street. Nobody knew, going in, what kind of neighborhood it would be. We fell in love with a specific house, or maybe a location here in the "epicenter" (as Patrick likes to call it) of our town, and then later, after we'd moved in and unpacked boxes, we met these funny, lovely, generous, down-to-earth people. Now, at each event (and there are many throughout the year), we joke about taking our Love Of The Street to new and ridiculous levels. In the realm of fantasy, there has been talk of buying up one house on the block, razing it, and putting in a neighborhood pool. We've daydreamed about constructing a float to enter in the EGR 4th of July parade, though only one or two people in the group could even muster up the construction knowledge necessary for that. We throw out all sorts of possible future events - the O Avenue Prom, The W. T. party, having a band come play in the middle of the street in the summer. We can't help it; we like to dream big.

One idea that keeps coming back is having T-shirts printed up for everyone with our street name. Of course, we'd need some sort of catchy slogan to promote our street, and the only one that has been oft-repeated is "Not a Thru Street." As I nursed my headache and stomachache this morning, I came up with a couple more: "Not a Good Influence," and "Where the Grown-Ups are Naughtier Than the Kids." Thoughts, neighbors? And cheers, too, to another riot of an evening.

5:00 on a Saturday

It's still, everlastingly, January. We've been doing what we can to get through the drearyness of winter: mixing up routine with trips to the pool, jaunts out to restaurants, yoga workshops, a few outdoor adventures when the temperature climbs above twenty degrees. But there have been plenty of days, especially on weekends, when it's 5:00 and Jason and I have basically been inside this house with the girls all day long, taking turns entertaining. We look at each other, wonder what to rustle up for dinner, and roll our eyes at whatever drama is taking place inside these four walls.

It's occurred to me, on those days, that now, after nearly ten years of marriage, I would probably still not say that I'm "married to my best friend." That honor goes to someone else. I would say, though, that I feel luckier and luckier to have cast my lot with someone who is really in this with me, who bouys my spirits when I have had enough of the gray skies and toddler tantrums, whose eyes I still want to meet across that dinner table over the chicken nuggets. Because if I had to do this all by myself, it would be a hundred times harder and less satisfying.

Tonight, as we round the girls up for an early dinner and get ourselves ready for our annual neighborhood progressive dinner, I am feeling grateful for my kind, happy husband.

Traveling With a Teenager

For six days now (not that anyone's counting), Annie's been acting like a teenager with PMS. She spends 90% of her time pouting, whining, or crying about the most minute details of her life and has actually stomped to her room and slammed the door, teenage-style, several times. (Perhaps she's listening to some Tori Amos in there, maybe reading some Sylvia Plath . . . I don't know.) No matter what food I set down in front of her, unless it is PB&J, she nearly cries. Last night she was whimpering while eating an apple and I launched into the "Starving Children in Africa" lecture. Her response? "You're talking mean to me and that makes me sad." Today after dance, I had to run an errand to Art of the Table. Afterwards, we went next door to Wealthy Street Bakery, where I let the girls each choose a treat and thought we'd have a fun, lunch-ruining snack together. Annie chose a cinnamon roll, then spent the next 15 minutes whining that she "didn't like the frosting" and "wanted something else" and asking "When can we go home?" And when we are home, she spends all her time tormenting Jemma, lecturing me on the specific hair clip she needs (complete with finger-pointing and phrases like, "For the LAST time, I'm telling you . . . ), and changing her clothes over and over, refusing to pick up the ones she's discarded.

I had been looking forward to our Florida trip so much these past few days and weeks of freakishly cold weather. I've had visions of all of us playing in the pool, finding shells on the beach, lazing around eating whatever we want, whenever we feel like it. I thought that having both sets of grandparents along would be perfect: six adults + two children = lots of time for Jason and Stephanie to enjoy their kids while other people cook and clean up. I thought we'd be able to snatch an hour or two here and there to read a magazine in peace or run on the beach while Grandma or Grandpa entertained. I thought we'd all have fun together, grilling dinner and splashing around and building sandcastles.

These past six days, a small current of fear has begun to wind through that river of excitment. What if, instead of a fun group of eight, we become a captive audience for Annie's dramatics? Meals ruined, time-outs enforced, happiness strained while I try to turn her around and all four grandparents secretly think that what she really needs is a good, hard spanking.

I got a suitcase out, just one, and I'm trying to pack a little each day. Whenever something occurs to me, I throw it in there, wily-nily, and plan to separate everything into appropriate suitcases later. Yesterday afternoon, the girls took turns wheeling the suitcase up and down the hallway, pretending to sit on the airplane, Annie instructing never-flown-before Jemma on how it will be. I want to ask, how will it be, Annie? Are you going to try to ruin it for everyone? Sometimes I feel sorry for her, that at four years old she can even be so unhappy, so tormented by her daily life. I worry that she is depressed or sick or . . . something. Sometimes, I can laugh about it with Jason or on the phone with friends and believe that it's a phase that will pass. But now, after six days of almost non-stop drama, I mostly feel mad that she's turning the tenor of our house towards unhappiness. I'm not ready for this, yet, for her to be a teenager with all the emotional baggage that comes along. I want my happy, sunny, spunky four-year-old back, please.

A Day in the Life

All Mixed Up

First things first: after a ridiculous number of months when I wavered back and forth between wanting a new, fancy digital camera (saving for later) and wanting a new, non-fancy digital camera (getting it now), Jason got me a non-fancy digital camera for Christmas. And I love it. It's a Canon Powershot Elph - tiny, chocolate brown, and fantastic. It shoots movie clips. It let me shoot in black and white. It hold billions of photos (well, almost) and fits into my pocket. I've been playing with it all weekend.

Other than that, we're a little messed up right now. In a desperate attempt to bring back that winter coziness we felt earlier this season, we actually listened to Christmas music in the car yesterday afternoon. I mean, the temperature has been hovering around zero for days, the snow shows no signs of stopping, so why not pretend it's still Christmas? The girls loved it. Then, today, Jason and I alternated between trying to inject some indoor fun into our kids (board games, movie time, art projects) and turning to one another and saying, "Let's just get drunk" and eating some leftover Halloween candy we dug up from the basement in Operation Mouse Outsmarting, Part Two. And after a day or so of Annie moping around, complaining of her tummy hurting, and not eating much of anything, it finally occurred to me to take her temperature. 100.7. Jemma's? 100.6.

Now, they're on the couch downstairs, watching movies and being coddled with all manner of Tylenol and clear beverages. I have a feeling it's going to be a long, cold week. I have a feeling I'm going to be more dependent than usual on my coffee.

Thursday Night Magic

We took the girls to Marie Catrib's for dessert on Thursday night,
everyone bundled in forty layers
to brave the sub-zero temperatures.
Inside, people talked in corners,
cooks clanged pots together,
waitresses carried trays full of steaming soup.

We led the girls over to the dessert case:
chocolate pudding, bread pudding, cookies, pumpkin pot au creme, chocolate cake, coconut cake, brownies.
They stood, puffy in their boots and coats,
their noses pressed against the glass, their eyes wide.
"I want pudding," said Annie.
"Me! Chocolate!" yelled Jemma.
We chose our treats, then sat down at a table for four,
shedding our layers. We waited.
We watched the waiter bring our choices, set them down one by one, give us extra napkins.
We took slow, small bites.
We shared.

Marie dandled a baby on her hip, spied us, came over to say hello.
"Baby Andrew!" she introduced. The baby smiled uncertainly.
"Your chocolate pudding is the best," said Jason. Marie nodded.
"Yes," she said.
"How do you make it?" Jason persisted.
"Magic."
We all fought
a little
over the last bite
then put our layers back on,
clomped to the car
with a little magic in our tummies.

Mouse: No Longer in the House

Kitchen, 7:00 a.m

We awake this morning, check the mouse trap, and find it empty (a little of the peanut butter licked off . . . eeeewwww). Jason and I exchange glances and keep our eyes wide open all through breakfast.


Hallway, 8:00 a.m.

I'm putting on make-up in the bathroom. The girls are changing into dress-up outfits in the playroom, then running down the hallway to see themselves in the mirror. They do this over and over, switching outfits each time.

I am putting mascara on when I hear Annie scream, "MommEEEEE!!! Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy there's something IN HERE!!!!!" and Jason emerges from a bedroom just in time to see the mouse streak past the girls, right down the length of the hallway, and head for the kitchen.

We look at Annie, who has climbed my legs. We look at each other. We have nothing.

"It was a mouse," says Jason. She screams in my left ear. I take the girls to Annie's bedroom and spin elaborate, light-hearted stories about the poor mouse getting separated from his family, how he must have gotten lost inside our house, how daddy will set a trap to catch the mouse so we can put him back outside where he belongs. Jason sets the trap and leaves it on the kitchen counter. I am sure we will be paying for years of therapy and answering questions for days about where the mouse is.


Kitchen, 8:45 a.m.

I am going through the house, picking things up and returning them to their rightful place in preparation for Annie's playdate coming over after dance class ("Hi Grace and Grace's mom, welcome to our house for the very first time ever; don't mind the mousetrap on the kitchen counter!"). I'm turning from the playroom to go back down the hallway when I hear a simultaneous scream and Snap! from the kitchen. Annie and Jemma had just wandered in, finally braving that room in the house, just in time to see the mouse be caught in the trap. More screaming, obviously, and I finally take them upstairs while Jason gets rid of the evidence.


Rest of the day

Annie functions normally, except that she refuses to be alone in any room "because the mouse is in there" no matter how many times I explain that we caught the mouse and put it back outside (which is technically true because the trap went into the garbage bin, which is outside). So every time she has to pee, I go in the bathroom with her. Every time she needs something from her room, I go with her. During rest time, she called me two times to "give me a kiss and a hug and make sure the mouse isn't in here." Bless her heart; she's going to worry about this for a long time. I'm actually shocked that she's in bed right now. I kind of thought I was going to have to sleep with her tonight.

As for us, we set another trap because, really, what are the odds that it was Just One Mouse? We're waiting for his family to show up, so that we can "put them back outside."

"Inside my house, there was a mouse . . ."

from the book Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse by Lindsay Barrett George

We have this book. I've read it to Annie a hundred times, complete with cutesy rhyming stanzas and fun illustrations. At the end of the book, the inside mouse and the outside mouse crawl up to opposite sides of the same window, raise their little claws, and say, "Hello."

When a very large mouse scampered from my sink across my kitchen counter and jumped behind my oven this afternoon, I did not say, "Hello." I did the following things:

1. Thanked God that the girls were happily and obliviously drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows at the dining room table (and, subsequently, imagined the hell that would have ensued for weeks - months! - if Annie had seen this occur).

2. Called my parents to inform them we'd be coming for dinner.

3. Called Jason and left him a semi-dramatic message on his cell phone about the importance of getting mouse traps on the way home.

4. Packed a bag, all while darting furtive glances at my oven and plotting the nearest counter to jump on.

5. Left my house, not to return until Jason was home from work at 7:30.

I am not usually this much of a wimp (as my mom helpfully pointed out to me, "It's a mouse, not a snake"), but something about knowing exactly where it was and knowing it was bold enough to romp across my counter in broad daylight made me think I might not be comfortable here for the rest of the afternoon. It was actually a nice excuse to spend dinnertime with my parents. Annie regaled them with newly-learned facts about arctic animals (Blubber! Penguins!), we got a free dinner out of the deal, and I arrived home just in time to pop them in bed, all worn out from a lot of Polly Pocket and vintage Cabbage Patch Kids action.

On our way home, we passed the hospital. As usual, Jemma shouts out, "Hospital! Me born!" and Annie is prompted to give a long, hopeful speech about how many babies are being born there Right This Second. Tonight she said, "I know how a baby gets in your tummy. They sew your tummy open (?), and then put all the little pieces of the baby in there, and then they sew your tummy back up, and then all the little pieces grow together until it's a baby! Then it comes out. When I'm a grown-up, that will happen to me."

Annie is Thankful

Annie volunteered to pray tonight before dinner. Here is what she said:

Dear God,

Thank you, God, for our house.

Thank you for ice-skating.

Thank you for letting us go to friends' houses.

Amen.

Stir-Crazy

"I'm going to go live at the OLD HOUSE. I need to be BY MYSELF." She'd be all set there, with her backpack full of books, Dinah, and her plucky teenage attitude . . . .





















I spent the weekend writing love poems to my dishwasher, helping at Annie's Sunday School class, running at the gym (go home, New Year's resolution people making the gym crazy), driving with Connie to Rivertown Crossings on the most pointless (but stil fun) mall trip ever (purchased: one frozen Coke), drinking wine and eating take-out by the fire with my husband (yes, it WAS kind of romantic), reading the same five board books to Jemma over and over, watching the movie In Bruges,

and rounding up the family for an afternoon of Watercolor 101.

Domestic Bliss, Your Name is Bosch

So it's 7:30 p.m. on Friday night and I'm settling in with a cup of tea and the instruction manual for my new dishwasher. It's a total party over here.

What it really is, I guess, is the logical end to a day that included my irrational emotional breakdown and a few minutes of nonsense crying in our bedroom closet; a chatty Sears deliveryman who apparently had nothing else to do all day but install our dishwasher and show us lots of pictures of his grandchildren; Annie hiding from me (again) at preschool pickup; Jason and I practically jumping for joy in our kitchen this afternoon, holding a hot-from-the-dishwasher plate, yelling, "It's clean! It's really clean!" The highlight of my day was a walk to the grocery store. For bread. (And possibly the croque monsieur sandwiches I made with it.)

I'm tired of the snow, the mealtime drama from Annie, the cooped-up feeling that everyone in our family has now that winter has been around for a while. It's starting to feel like Narnia over here: always winter, never Christmas.

I'm trying to bolster myself with positive thoughts about Florida (we leave February 1), but all that is leading to, so far, is some unnecessary anxiety about packing and logistics. I'm trying to keep it all in perspective, especially after reading (gulping down, more like) Kelly Corrigan's book, The Middle Place, about, you know, her courageous fight against cancer while raising two girls and helping her dad fight his own cancer battle. You'd think a book like that would make me doubly or triply thankful for my many blessings, and it did, but still my mood persists.

So I'm back to putting all my hope in the dishwasher. It's so shiny, so clean, so quiet, so efficient. It will change my life, I tell myself. It will get me through this January, and beyond.

By The Numbers

5 - pairs of children's socks scattered around our kitchen floor tonight at bathtime

1 - hour late Jason got home from work

60 - blessed minutes on the treadmill while the children played in the gym daycare

8 - hyper, tutu-ed little girls in Annie's newest round of Twinkle Toes dance class

28 - hours, approximately, until our much-anticipated new dishwasher is installed

10 - number Jemma can count to by herself

10 - time-outs (at least) Annie had today

12 - art projects (of her own making) Annie ripped off her wall during aforementioned time-outs

3 - meals which Jemma asked to "see, Mama" the preparation of

3 - meals during which Jemma used her fork with her right hand, her fork with her left hand, and then her fingers. And then ran her fingers through her hair.

2-4 - inches of fresh snow coming down right now

5 - times Jason and I giggled at Jemma because he taught her to say, "Stop looking at me, swan" from the Billy Madison movie. No sense . . . .

6 - the o'clock hour during which Annie went to bed

8 - times I opened the fridge today and caught a tempting glimpse of Founder's Double Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Breakfast Stout.

Off to give in to temptation . . .

Contradictions

Here on our utopian street where the weather is always perfect and nobody grows older except the children, we are lucky enough to have a neighbor who is so committed to teaching his children to skate that he builds an ice rink in his lawn every winter.

This afternoon, I took the girls over. While I was wrestling Jemma into her snowsuit and laughing while she called herself "Pink. Marsh. Mallow" over and over, Annie lectured me about her skates. How they are hockey skates. How the blades are really, really sharp. How we don't walk on the cement with them. I was only half-listening, worried about how I was going to manage two small beings on a hard, slippery surface.

I needn't have worried. Jemma, it turns out, benefits from her runtiness and low center of gravity. Basically, she toddles around the rink kicking a puck or throwing little snowballs she's made and she hardly ever falls down. When we started skating, Annie was holding on for dear life to a little patio table our neighbors use as something for the kids to push. At most, she was ice-marching in place; I had to pull the table slowly across the ice. We did this for 15 or 20 minutes, then went inside to play.

Later, just before it was time to go, Annie insisted on "skating" one more time before we went back home to make dinner. And this time, she actually skated. She refused to hold on to anything. Instead, she slid and marched and teetered and balanced and, yes, skated her way back and forth over and over again. I cheered for her. When she fell (numerous times), I asked her if she was OK. Over and over again, she just laughed, got back up, and skittered off in another direction. Second time ever on the ice, and she's a pro.

I am so proud to see stubborness, bravery, and determination at work in positive ways in her life because so often I dwell on the times when it's just the opposite. She is still afraid of so many things: scary characters in books and movies; the vacuum, the coffee grinder, the food processor, automatic flush toilets, the car wash - in short, anything noisy; flushing the toilet; blood, even the most miniscule amount. Within the last week, she's cried over such things as the toilet seat being too cold, the water being too hot to wash her hands, having to eat an orange rather than a purple vitamin, me leaving the house, and Sid the Science Kid being a re-run. CRIED.

So today, when she was bravely propelling herself across that ice, unprompted, unafraid of falling, I wished so much that I had a video camera to capture her accomplishment. I want to play it for her during those not-so-brave times, remind her: Look. See what you can do? And even though I still kind of hate winter, before it is over, I want to dig out my old ice skates from the basement and skate with my little girl around that rink.

Pleasantly Surprised

I think I've written before about my insomnia, but if not, a quick recap. Since Annie was born, I've struggled off and on with sleep issues. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and am wide awake for a couple of hours. Sometimes I wander all over the house, trying to read for a while, searching for a different bed or coming back to mine when I feel sleepy again. Sometimes the littlest things wake me up (Jason getting up to pee, one sound from a child, a noise outside) and I never really get back to sleep. And sometimes, I just can't fall asleep at night in the first place. Last night was one of those nights, both for me and for Jason (who normally sleeps like a champ no matter what). Maybe it was that back-to-reality thing I spoke so cheerily about yesterday; maybe, deep down, there was a reluctance to re-enter the real world this morning.

In any case, today was a day much like any other Monday, but with less sleep. Annie was thrilled to be back at school. For show and tell, she brought the chick that had hatched out of the egg she put in water, a favorite stocking stuffer from Santa. Jemma happily watched Sesame Street and downed Cheerios while I went back into Accomplishing Things mode for the morning: making doctor's appointments, catching up on e-mail, unloading groceries and planning this week's meals, sneaking in a phone call or three. This afternoon, we went to the gym, where both girls hung out in the kids' area with no tears from either while I spent some time with the treadmill. And tonight, I managed to conjure up a dinner that every person in my family enjoyed (chicken, rice, and black bean tostadas), which is a small miracle in itself.

After dinner, after baths, I tucked Annie in at 7:00. I shut her door and came out in the living room to find Jason and Jemma on the couch, surrounded by books and covered with a big blanket. Jemma was climbing all around, scrutinizing each page for "A Annie" and "J Jemma" and "M?" (today's Sesame Street letter of the day). As I sat with them, Jason fell asleep. As soon as Jemma noticed, she ceased all her squirming and looked at me. "Daddy?" she said.

"What's he doing?" I asked.

"Nigh-night." She nodded solemnly. Then she scrambled over my legs and over his legs so she could put her arms up around his neck. She laid her head on his chest, closed her eyes, said, "Cuddle." It was the most still she'd been all day, excepting naptime.

Sleep. We're getting it when we can. And in spite of the lack, it was still a pretty great day.

Lazy Luxury

After the rush of the holidays with all the travel and packing and presents and cooking and baking and cleaning and finding places for new toys and seeing people, I've spent the last couple of days giving myself time to be lazy and spoiled. It's been a nice post-holiday way to decompress (and, during that fun-but-busy holiday crazyness, it was something I held in my mind like a little prize, a carrot on a stick, if you will). I've had some lovely meals in restaurants (notably, dinner at six one six and brunch at Cygnus), gotten a haircut, been to the gym, swam at the pool with the girls, lazed around playing princess and doing puzzles with Annie, had some wine in front of the fire with Jason, read my book club's next selection, and had breakfast with Connie at Cherie Inn after our glorious girls' night away.

Tomorrow, it's back to school and back to work and back to reality, which I welcome. I'm feeling good about 2009, so far. I predict it's going to be full of luck, laughter, and more good food.

New Year's Quiz - 2008 in Review

From one of my favorite bloggers, Sundry Mourning, for whom I may just be doing some regular writing in the new year. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, my attempt to sum up 2008 by answering a few random questions:

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Got paid for writing something.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I believe they involved drinking more (yes) and doing more cultural things around GR (yes again). I have already made three for 2009; we'll see how that goes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Too many people to count.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Nope.

5. What countries did you visit? Sadly, none.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? More discipline to write consistently and keep up with annoying house/family maintenance issues instead of procrastinating them.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Election Day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Staying sane and (mostly) happy amid the chaos of two challenging children. Maintaining the relationships that are most important to me. Getting an audience for my writing on a well-known blog.

9. What was your biggest failure? Still not achieving that ever-elusive balance between family and self.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Ahhh, the great Doublestein family stomach flu plague of January and February 2008. And if insomnia and irritable bowel syndrome count, then that, too. Luckily, nothing major.

11. What was the best thing you bought? A pair of Joe's Jeans, red patent leather peep-toe heels, a really comfortable leather chair and ottoman.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My friend Andrea, whose life inspires me every day.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Occasionally, Annie's.

14. Where did most of your money go? Our TWO mortgages, student loans, car payments, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, investments, Costco, the Gap, coffee.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? The election, a writing class, my annual girls' weekend, Christmas morning, finding a new yoga studio.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Bizarrely, the first one that comes to mind is that little ditty by Colbie Caillat called Bubbly. Must have been on a lot at the pool this summer.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder?b) thinner or fatter?c) richer or poorer? Happier, fatter by a pound or two, about the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Travel.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worry.

20. How did you spend Christmas? All over the place, as usual. Christmas morning here, Christmas afternoon in Petoskey.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Nope.

22. What was your favorite TV program? I think 30 Rock edged out The Office this year. Also loved The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nope.

24. What was the best book you read? Ohhhh. That is too hard. Maybe Eat, Pray, Love?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? I don't really make new musical discoveries, but I was introduced to the New Pornographers by my neighbors.

26. What did you want and get? The new Barefoot Contessa cookbook, a decent finishing time in The Riverbank Run, time to myself, a cute haircut.

27. What did you want and not get? A new dishwasher, kitchen island, fancy digital camera, iPhone, new Mac. (They are on the list for 2009, though!)

28. What was your favorite film of this year? I see so few movies. I think the only one I went to in the theater was Sex and the City.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I hosted a little front-yard party for Annie, then drove up north for Jason's cousin's wedding. I turned 31.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A glorious trip somewhere? Hmmmmmm.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Too Much Time Wearing Yoga Pants.

32. What kept you sane? Running, friends, Jason, alcohol, yoga, sunshine.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Barack.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Ditto.

35. Who did you miss? All my faraway friends, especially those in Seattle.

36. Who was the best new person you met? Maybe our new next-door neighbors. I am realizing that I don't meet many new people.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. "Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally" - Eckhart Tolle

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. "O bla de o bla da Life Goes On"