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