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Just Imagine

Just imagine waking at five am to the sound of a crying kid and realizing that your air conditioner has broken.

Then imagine getting the kid back to sleep but being unable to fall back asleep yourself because the five and a half straight hours of sleep you just got was so much better than normal it’s almost like you aren’t tired.  Plus you are panicking about the broken air conditioner since it’s five am and the temperature is already nearing 80.

Imagine that after you do fall back asleep you are violently woken up when hearing…

…”MOM THE FREEZE POPS AREN’T FROZEN ANYMORE!!!” …

…and all that that implies.

In case you are having trouble imagining the implications let me help you:

1) Daughter is out of bed, down stairs helping herself to freeze pops for breakfast without your knowledge.

2) Freezer has clearly quit working, (insert very bad words of your choosing here).

3) If the freezer isn’t working, the fridge probably isn’t either (more bad words here).

4) Remember that the air conditioner is broken and that the house is now nearing 80 degrees, consider what that means to food in non-working refrigerator (bad words here).

5) Realize that you were in fact quite tired and that your now cumulative six and half hours of sleep doesn’t seem like near enough and that more sleep is clearly out of the question.

Imagine that the adrenaline involved in the situation is enough stimulant to have you out of bed shuffling thawing food into the chest freezer before your eyes are fully opened and you’ll just have imagined my day before 8am.

 

The good news –

-we have a spare fridge

-we have a chest freezer

-it rained all morning so it is only now approaching beastly hot

-my fridge needed cleaning out and defrosting anyway

-the pigs like it when I clean the fridge

 

Despite the “good news” I’m hoping you all only ever have to imagine such a morning!

The Keys

I lose stuff. Well not all stuff.  In fact, like most of the mothers on the planet, I’m usually the one who knows where the – pajamas, swimming suit, toy horse, tape measure and dogs are.  My wallet and keys, that’s a different matter.  I have misplaced my wallet so many times it no longer bothers me. I’ve yet to truly lose it and eventually hours, days or weeks later, I find it again. Same with the keys. Once I tried carrying a purse. Not a good plan, then instead of losing just my wallet I’d lose my wallet, keys, cell phone and purse. After kids showed up I tried using the diaper bag as a purse – same problem.

Now I have a system. My wallet is tiny, it fits in my pocket, mostly I leave it in the truck. My keys I also leave in the truck. When I go out in public I leave my Great Dane in the truck and figure truck, keys and wallet are safe behind her big, slobbery barks. When Piper needs to stay home I cart them around and it usually works out. Except when it doesn’t.

Many months ago I lost my truck keys. The good key ring. The one with all those little tags from stores ( and libraries) that I have collected over the past 10 years and can’t seem to get rid of just in case I stop by a Sentry store and need to save $.50 on a bag of grapes.  I looked in the truck (because that’s where I keep my keys) and then I looked in the basket on the fridge (because that’s where John keeps keys) and then I looked again and again. I looked in unlikely locations and I questioned Ivy repeatedly.

No keys.

John harassed me about losing keys, I ignored him.  Months went by. John locked the spare (and only) set of keys in the truck and I couldn’t harass him as much as I wanted to because it was pointed out that if I had not lost the other set a locksmith would not have been necessary.  More months went by.  I used the spare keys, life went on. John occasionally would bring up how I lose keys and I would agree that yes I really seemed to have lost them this time.

AND THEN

John checked on the bees.

Guess what was in the pocket of his bee suit.

What followed was some very childlike and very satisfying crowing in the kitchen that detailed just who it was that  really lost my keys.

Forgiven

Last night Clara had an especially bad, nightmarey, screamey, yelley, sort of a night. So this morning when she didn’t sleep until noon I was still tired when we got up. Tired and perhaps a little grumpy that the girl who kept me up all night was also the early riser of the day.

Without waking Ivy we quietly made our way downstairs and found an armchair in a patch of sunlight to sit in. Clara went into her snuggling pose. (Unlike most snugglers Clara cuddles up to your chest, nestles in with her heads, then picks up both arms and tucks them in between you.  Which is odd but endearing) So we sat in the sun while we woke up snuggling and every so often Clara would pop upright and give me a kiss on top of the head.

And all the screaming of the night was forgiven, forgotten and irrelevant just like that.

Our Poor Carpet

Our house is old, and most of our family, friends and acquaintances have at one point or another suggested the best fix for it might be either a wrecking ball or a fire.  I don’t usually agree with these plans, unless it has to do with the carpet. The carpet in the house was less than perfect when we moved in. Then we arrived along with our unfortunate version of  Murphy’s Law; if anything is going to secrete a bodily fluid it will end up on the carpet.  The marginal carpets made the transition to nasty carpets and I have been removing them room by room. Only two rooms in the house still have carpet in them.  Yet the Murphy’s Law of Carpets remains and every time something in this house pees on the floor, it hits carpet.

Tonight in the current installment of you’ve got to be kidding me. I stepped in a cold pee puddle on the carpet in the girls play room. The play room, the only room in the house I’m not planning on ripping the carpeting out of. No doubt because it used to be a storage room with the door always closed preventing anything from doing anything to the carpet. But I digress, back to the pee puddle.  Given that Clara is working on personal diaper removal and therefore I am working on potty training her I assumed the puddle was hers.

I was wrong.

A long conversation with Ivy later I learned that it was in fact Ivy’s puddle. This conversation, which was conducted in calm reasonable tones by both parties should have won me some sort of award in the Best Instance Of Mom Not Losing Her Cool category. Especially when it concluded like this:

Me: “But why did you pee on the carpet?”

Ivy: “It was just the only place to go.”

Poor carpet.

What Happens in May

What happens in May is that the lawnmower breaks.

Last May I wrote about the difficulties in fixing a lawn mower with help.  (You can read all about it here: New Respect)

This year the lawnmower had difficulties beyond my paltry mechanical skills so I laughed and took pictures while the girls helped John.

That was fun until he looked at me with this smile on his face and said something to the effect of…

….”If you don’t put your camera down and get YOUR girls out of here I’m going to feed them to the pigs, throw the lawn mower in the neighbors pond and run away to Acapulco.”

So the girls and I left him to his work and did the only other thing to do when the lawnmower is broken, we made dandelion crowns. Because when your grass has grown tall enough that you can lose a Great Dane in the yard (Really, it was that tall!) the dandelions have nice long stems for braiding!The lawn mower was back in service today and we finished mowing the lawn for the first time this afternoon!

Seeking Justice

Today as Clara, Piper and I were napping upstairs and Ivy was watching a movie downstairs, I awoke to the sound of purposeful footsteps.

Small purposeful footsteps that came stomping through the house, up the stairs and into my room.

I kept my eyes closed hoping it would go away.

When Ivy yelled, “MOM!” next to the bed in what could only be described as an “outside voice” I lost all hope.

“Yes?”

In a tone of indignation: “Piper ate my dinner.”

I responded without opening my eyes with some mumbly half asleep line about how the dog shouldn’t have done that but you never ate it and you didn’t put it away when you were done and it’s been sitting out for 3 hours so should we be surprised by this?

Ivy was quite for a moment, and then:  “Mom…. aren’t you going to say something to Piper?”

I opened my eyes and looked at Piper who was cuddled up next to me also faking sleep. I gave her a very half-hearted, “Bad dog, don’t eat Ivy’s food.” and closed my eyes.

Apparently satisfied that justice had been served the little footsteps left my room, headed down stairs and climbed up on the counter looking for a snack.

When Chickens Fly

When the girls and I do the chores in the morning one of Ivy’s jobs is to let out the chickens.

Notice how Ivy hides behind the door after opening it.

I used to think she was kind of silly.

I’ve changed my mind.

As I was taking pictures one chicken started flying straight at me. Foolishly thinking it had control of it’s flight I ignored it.

Bad idea – it crashed directly into my camera, and then on into me.

Make a note, chickens are really bad fliers!

This was the picture that resulted from the collision.

Also notice that Ivy is still behind the door, not so silly after all!

When the flow of birds slows to more of a trickle that’s when Ivy starts to peek around the door. Smart girl.

Wallowing

The sudden temperature jump into the 90’s  has been a bit of a shock.

The sheep have been panting in the shade.

The dogs have been panting in the shade.

The chickens have been panting in the shade.

The pigs on the other hand don’t pant so we made them a nice mud wallow to cool off in.

They seemed appreciative, as far as pig appreciation goes.

Ivy watched them roll in the mud, became inspired and shed her clothes at a run to the nearest puddle.

She convinced Clara to join her as well, sadly Clara was a bit too concerned about belly button cleanliness to fully enjoy the experience.

Things in the Night

Oh the things nobody tells you…

When you are pregnant or have an infant baby, unwanted advice is everywhere, and I’ve decided it wouldn’t be so completely obnoxious if it wasn’t so useless.

“Cherish every moment”  is a good idea, but perhaps it would be more practical to mention what could possibly happen to your body after two births.

“They are only little once” is very true, but it should come with the additional advice that even though they are only little once, there will still be times where flushing them down the toilet or selling them to the bum on the corner seems like a completely sane idea.

Currently I’m hating all those well-wishing-baby-questioners who wanted to know if my girls were “sleeping through the night yet?”

Sleeping through the night, HAH!

What people should really ask is: “Is your darling little baby sleeping through the night yet? Because soon she’ll turn into a toddler that you are convinced may be possessed by evil otherworldly spirits and will never again sleep though the night. Ever.”

Many, many, months ago I’m sure I must have reported to someone that yes, little Clara was sleeping through the night.

I take it back.

Here is how our nights go:

The girls go to sleep.

John goes to sleep.

I stay up too late (I can’t help, it it’s a life long problem I have) and finally hours after everyone else, I turn off the light and start to fall asleep.

It is an uncanny coincidence that every night within 15 minutes of me turning my bedside light out, I hear Clara. Let me rephrase that I don’t just hear Clara. I lie there 3/4 asleep when a glowing ball of blue energy flies through the air and smacks me between the shoulder blades jolting me awake with the realization that my youngest daughter is no longer sleeping. And neither am I. Except the problem is sometimes she is sleeping.

Clara cries in her sleep.

She screams in her sleep.

She talks in her sleep.

And sometimes she is genuinely awake and only Mom will be able to calm her down again. So I listen to determine if this is a sleeping noise or an awake noise. If I’m lucky I fall back asleep with the knowledge that she’s just sleeping, and only I got to wake up for that one. If I’m unlucky I get up and check on her, pat her back, rock her, sing a song, do a dance, stand on my head, anything, anything to get me back to my bed. If I’m extra grumpy I make John go take care of her. This usually results in me lying awake listening to Clara scream for me. Unfortunately, since it’s me she’s screaming for and John can fall asleep rocking her while the screaming is taking place, I can end up lying there awake listening for an awfully long time.

Finally I truly fall asleep.

Then the whole scene plays out three or four more times through the night, if I’m lucky.

Between these times isn’t all deep sleeping bliss either. There are times where I will be soundly sleeping and then start waking up because I’m feeling hot, and claustrophobic, and where did my pillow go (?) only to discover that Ivy has joined us in bed, stolen my pillow and sandwiched me between her and John. This is easy to remedy, all I have to do is pick her up and put her back in bed, or I can whisper the magic words, “Ivy, go over to Dad’s side.” And off I go back to sleep, Until…

That nasty ball of screaming energy smacks me between the shoulders again.

Eventually something wakes me up and I’m not sure why at first but I feel sort of like I’m being watched. Because I am. Piper is staring at me from the foot of the bed. Not whining, not moving, just staring. Staring, because for whatever reason she has gotten off her twin sized mattress on the floor next to our bed and would really like to go back to sleep but could I please hold her blanket up so she could crawl back underneath?

During one of these non-sleeping episodes it occurs to me I have to pee. I can’t fall back asleep having to pee. So I get up and head down stairs. As I stumble down our stairs I curse my pre-child self who thought having one bathroom on the ground floor was fine. It’s not fine, I hate it.

Cue Clara.

Finally as morning approaches, John’s alarm goes off (hours before the rest of us get up) and if it happens to wake up a girl, or a dog, or a wife, I hear it. Then I hear him snooze it, and I lie there waiting for it to go off again. He snoozes it. I wait. He snoozes it. I wait. – Alarm clock snoozing habits should really appear more in premarital counseling sessions than they do.

In the final hours before the girls and I get up two things happen.

1) Clara screams one more time. Always.

2) Ivy wakes up way too early and I spend my last hour of sleep half awake trying to keep her quiet so that Clara and I can continue to sleep.

Then morning arrives and I drag myself out of bed after a very restful 7 or 8 hours.

Yes my baby did sleep through the night.  Who wants to know!