Oh, the joys of motherhood. The ups and downs and unexpected weird turns. I realized I could make a list of them for the past seven days (I'm pretty sure that every thing on every list did happen within that framework...sorry if I'm off by an extra day or two). So then I didn't stop at one list, I realized that the listomania was like a living animal and finally I did have to reign it in. But this is what I ended up with, so read away....
Three things that make me cringe:
1.) Angelica running to the corner of her bedroom, squatting and peeing before I can get a new diaper on her
2.) my little chipmunk spitting milk all over my sweater and hair (that was actually fixed) after having held it in her mouth for a new record amount of time...
3.) What?! That smell again? four poopy diapers in one day before 1:00 PM
Three things that make me feel so peaceful:
1.) being able to shower, get dressed, brush my teeth and do hair/makeup all before going in to get my sleeping beauty in the morning (however...a sacrifice of sleep and warm covers is in the mix for this one)
2.) afternoon naps that go beyond two hours...heavenly
3.) being able to do the dishes or a load of laundry or better yet, drink a coffee leisurely while Elmo or the characters from Meet the Colors are entertaining my girl via "educational" videos (haha, well the "educational" part makes me feel better about this one, and the fact that I ALWAYS choose the Spanish option).
Three things that make me abolutely crazy:
1.) two days straight of trying to put down a super-awake toddler for an afternoon nap who staunchly refuses to sleep and even mocks me by pointing in two directions after I tell her to put her head down "here... okay then put your head down over here because it's time to sleep...." All attempts to settle her down--except by the magic one, breastmilk since this is a first step in the weaning process--fail miserably. Encouraged by her chanting "sleepy sleepy sleepy" I ask her if she is sleepy and get a wide-eyed head-shaking adament "no!" in reply. For two entire hours I struggle with her the first day, and just let her cry it out the second day. Finally on that day there is relief after an hour or so, I think, as silence (oh, beautiful silence) blankets the house and I lie down to rest my weary bones...
2.) I must be dreaming because otherwise I'd swear I'm in my classroom in front of a group of 5-6 students on the last day of class who have come to take the final after not coming to class all semester long. A situation to make any teacher's blood absolutely boil. I remember that I am vividly chewing one female student out, saying "If you didn't want to come to class, you should have bought one of those TV DVD things [What? "TV DVD things?" What are those? I think I meant to say "Rosetta Stone Language Software programs", so obviously I get flustered in confrontational situations even in my dreams...] but if you sign up for a course you ought to know that you have to be there!" when a loud bell rings, and wait, I'm obviously not used to getting much REM sleep these days because it really shocks me to realize that it is the door buzzer to my unit that has just sounded, and the UPS guy has come for a delivery. Oh, the timing. Then it takes me until 2 seconds before opening the door to even try to dissimulate the fact that I'm basically sleep-walking, you know, I do the whole "open-the-eyes-really-wide" trick to make myself look more awake, but first and almost only words out of the soft-spoken UPS guy are "Did I wake you?" (Hey--is he chuckling to himself?!) I fumble through an embarrassed response of something to the effect of "Uh...sometimes when my daughter sleeps I try to, too." Dude, if you only knew.
3.) then there's the slaving over trying to pack a balanced lunch to go and then GET OUT of the house on time for the children museum's story hour and then once ready for lunch time, seeing little Angel girl tear around the area of chairs and tables and fun condiment stands as if her mother never gets her out of the house, just to watch helplessly as this mother can only get her to take bites of the sugary flavored yogurt here and there in between the Tarzan and Jane-like wild-child running episodes and between the disapproving stares consider "lunch" a good idea, but getting her out of there and safely in the car to go home an even better one....
Wow. What a week it's been. Last, but not least, my favorite list.
Three things that make me giggle:
1) watching Angelica stealthily place a styrofoam coffee cup filled with water in the cupholder of an unsuspecting grandmother at church who upon noticing turns to her distracted daughter holding a baby and says "Did you bring a coffee in?" The distracted mother shakes her head with a blank look, and the grandmother looks bewildered. (Sidenote to this one: I got the giggles watching this and said nothing. But don't think that I'm that rude. She IS a toddler, so of course this routine of placing the cup in the holder, removing the cup and running around, and placing the cup in the holder....went on numerous times. Obviously the grandmother soon picked up on the origin of the "mysterious coffee". Although I don't think she was quite as amused by it as I was.)
2.) seeing Angelica's reunion with her daddy after work one afternoon, silly as can be...he squeals at her in this impossible high-pitched tone, and she reciprocates the squeal. (Is this some kind of whale greeting that they're practicing that I'm not aware of?) She then runs into his arms, he scoops her up and it is a Hallmark Hall of Fame moment. Until the door slams shut and she wiggles out of his arms and starts jumping up and down, yelling "Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!"
3.) gleaning words of wisdom from story time at the museum. Sandwiched in between books and songs and toddler joy the story teller dead-pans the following:
You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends' noses.
True enough. And that's about as deep as I can get this week.
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