shined
packed on
feasted
rocked
snapped up
canoodled
ballooned
splurged
gorged
gushed

1) If you think you see an ant disappear under the toilet seat as you go into the bathroom in the middle of the night, why not trust your eyes and check things out? There is nothing to be gained in this situation from doubting your own sanity.

2) I don’t use top sheets or mattress pads for children’s beds. I use a waterproof mattress cover, a fitted sheet, and a couple of blankets that wash easily (the vellux ones are nice because they dry quickly). This can make the difference between losing my mind with martyred despair when the sheets need changing again—and just going in and changing the sheets. Especially if the child in question sleeps on the top bunk.

3) I have a “crunchies bin.” It’s a plastic lidded container, and we put all the smidges of crunchy leftovers into it: someone’s five remaining goldfish crackers, someone else’s half-bowl of uneaten dry Cheerios, a broken-up half graham cracker, etc. We end up with an ever-changing mix of Cheerios, Chex, Kix, Kashi, goldfish crackers, graham crackers, etc. We sprinkle a little of it on the highchair trays as appetizers if the twins are impatient for a not-yet-ready dinner. I also use it as breakfast for the twins when they wake up starving but I have to nurse the baby to stop the terrible, terrible screaming: pour crunchies into bowls, put bowls on coffee table–easy as feeding a couple of cats.

4) When a baby has a blow-out I can’t face rinsing out in the sink as I usually would, I immediately put the clothes all by themselves in the washing machine on “low” and “pre-wash.” After the cycle finishes, I spritz on stain treatment (if it’s even still necessary, which it often isn’t) and put them in the laundry basket for the next load. I file this under “Keeps Me From Losing My Mind” rather than under “Does My Part for the Planet.” What? She’s a mother, she’ll understand.

5) I only like coffee when it’s nice and hot, and it always gets icky and cold before I’ve had more than 1/4th mug of it. So now what I do is pour 1/4th mug and drink it down. A little later, I get another 1/4th mug. It feels a little lame to do it this way, but it also feels NICE AND HOT.

6) When someone gives me clothes as a baby gift, I like to take a picture of the baby wearing the outfit and send it to the person who gave us the outfit. If you want to do the same, it’s a good idea to take the photo as soon as the child is dressed, rather than waiting for a better time, better light, or a better mood. For lo, the child is about to cover the outfit in barf and poop, and then you will have to start all over with remembering to dress the child in the outfit and take a picture.

7) People don’t notice how cluttered your house is if it smells like cookies baking. And they don’t say anything about how cluttered your house is if their mouths are stuffed full of cookie.

Elizabeth is having one of her “Bad Sleep” stages. She goes through one of these periodically. And no matter how fine and handleable they seem to be when we’re looking back on them from one of her Good Sleep stages, and no matter how reasonable we feel about them during the day, they always seem crazy and unmanageable at night.

Here is our daytime philosophy: These things pass regardless of how we handle them, so let’s aim for what keeps us calmest/happiest and gets us the most sleep.

Here is how we feel at night: NOTHING IS WORKING! EVERYTHING WE DO IS WRONG AND WILL HAVE SERIOUS LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES! WHY CAN’T WE AT LEAST CHOOSE ONE METHOD AND BE CONSISTENT, RATHER THAN DOING WHATEVER OUR NIGHT-ADDLED BRAINS RANDOMLY SELECT FROM OPTIONS WE HAVE NOT DISCUSSED OR APPROVED??

In one of Elizabeth’s previous Bad Sleep stages, I ended up rocking her to sleep in the recliner for about an hour each late-evening (she would go to bed at 7:00 as usual, but wake crying at 10:00 or 11:00). I worried I’d form bad habits, rocking her like that, but it worked to put her to sleep so I did it, and a couple of weeks later she stopped waking up in the night and I thought, “What was the big deal about rocking her to sleep for a few nights, if that’s what she wanted and needed?” Did I feel that way while I was rocking her? No.

This time the problem is that she’s waking repeatedly in the night and crying. Sometimes, as Paul and I lie in bed pretending to be asleep so the other one will have to deal with her, she will go back to sleep after a minute or two. Sometimes she will not, and will escalate into frantic screams. Sometimes if I go in and snuggle her and reassure her and put her back in her crib, she will cry for only a minute or two and then go back to sleep; sometimes she will go into the frantic screams. Sometimes we bring her to our bed, where she lies quietly but doesn’t go to sleep but can’t be put back in her crib either (see: frantic screams). Sometimes she goes to sleep in our bed beautifully, but then gets up at 5:30 a.m. when Paul does. Sometimes SHE sleeps great in our bed, but I can’t, because I’m lying awake wondering if we’re handling her sleep problems ALL WRONG.

I do what makes me feel least like screaming and sobbing. Sleep with child in recliner? Sure! Rock child to sleep while watching trashy television? Sure! Allow child to sleep in our bed despite our usual preference for non-co-sleeping? Sure! Put child in crib and close door, then sit in living room writing resentful entries in my journal while she cries? Sure! When one method starts making me feel fed-up, I try something else. I wouldn’t say that any method “works,” exactly–it’s more like what passes the time until the situation resolves itself.

This time, though–NOTHING IS WORKING! EVERYTHING WE DO IS WRONG AND WILL HAVE SERIOUS LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES! WHY CAN’T WE AT LEAST CHOOSE ONE METHOD AND BE CONSISTENT, RATHER THAN DOING WHATEVER OUR NIGHT-ADDLED BRAINS RANDOMLY SELECT FROM OPTIONS WE HAVE NOT DISCUSSED OR APPROVED??

If around 7:30 yesterday evening you thought you heard a train going past, CHUG-a-chugga-CHUG-a-chugga, and then thought, “Wait, we’re not near train tracks,” then perhaps you were hearing ME, heaving and panting as I jogged THREE ENTIRE MINUTES WITHOUT STOPPING. Week Three is jogging 1.5 minutes, walking 1.5 minutes, jogging 3 minutes, walking 3 minutes, repeating all four things. I will tell you, I did not think it was possible to do it. The only reason I even TRIED is that I remember I thought one single minute was my absolute upper limit and then was pleased (you realize I am using that word in a loose, careless way, as you might say you were pleased when the inquisitor moved from “sharps” to “blunts”) to find that I could do 1.5 minutes if I gave up any foolish sentimental attachment I had to my lungs. Going to 3 minutes involved additional sacrifice, including watching a carload of teenagers drive by FOUR TIMES, knowing they were almost for sure making cruel remarks from the fleeting shelter of their perfect bodies. I started a motivating refrain of “BITE me…BITE me…BITE me” with each left-right.

This morning I was looking up maternity tees for Linda, who posted about needing something for the in between stage where you’re not ready for a canopy-for-two but you need something more spacious than your usual shirts. I recommend the Duo t-shirts on JCPenney.com: I purchased them in the smaller of the two sizes I fall between, and they were perfect for early/mid pregnancy–and frankly, I’m still wearing them now, more than 2 months post-partum. Anyway, I found the ones I bought (I liked the scoopneck, but they also have crewneck and v-neck), and I saw they were on clearance for $3.99, and that they had the new colors on sale for $9.99. And suddenly I was seized with the impulse to buy some “for next time.” I squelched that urge as quickly as I could–which is to say, it is not yet squelched.

I don’t understand this drive I have to have more More MORE children. I don’t even particularly enjoy the ones I have, based on how much time I spend hiding from them. And there is so little chance of having another: Paul states emphatically, “We are NOT having ANY MORE babies.” And yet–

I went to the grocery store a couple of weeks ago to get more pints of Dove, and I saw a baby about Henry’s age, all smooshy-cuddly sleeping on its daddy’s chest, little mouth open, little legs folded up and little bottom sticking out. I got a sharp, nauseating pang of wanting a baby, a kicked-in-the-ovaries feeling. And I have a baby already, right now. This is the kind of thing that makes me fear for my future happiness–and for Paul’s, since he has so many years ahead of hearing about it. Fertility has been more than generous with me, and yet I can’t seem to get my fill of this:

This morning Elizabeth woke up saying “Boo? Boo? Boo?” She was exceedingly pissed when I told her she had to take a bath before she could wear her boots. Her theory was that she could wear them into the tub and that would save time later. She did not stop bitching about it until she was dressed and wearing the boots. Then she flounced around in them saying “Boo! Boo! BOO!!!” and forcing her brothers to admire them.

When I bought those boots I also bought a bottle of I Am A Sucker For Good Advertising. I’d seen ads for All Small & Mighty 3X concentrated laundry detergent (note to agency: now try concentrating name of product), but I was always like, “Big deal, so it’s ‘concentrated,’ who cares? I’m not exactly spraining my arm pouring in the non-concentrated stuff.” Then they totally got me with a new ad, one that showed how much plastic they save when they can make the bottles smaller, and how much fuel they save when they can fit more bottles on a truck. OHHHHHHHHHH. NOW I get it. It’s an environmental thing, not a “Look, we can make it cuter!” thing. Immediately I started thinking Their Way: it is stupid to package and ship water just so the bottle looks like a better value; it is smart to give my money to All. I don’t know if the plastic bottle is better for the environment than the cardboard box I was buying before, but I HAD TO HAVE the cute All.

Another ad that electrified me like that was one for a line of Biore skin care products. This was a little over eight years ago, when Rob was a newborn, and I saw an ad that started by explaining how to use the easy, few-step system, and then said (as best as I can remember–this is eight years and five children ago), “There. You look beautiful. Tired, but beautiful. Kiss the baby for us.” I STILL choke up thinking about it! It was so sweet! Biore is so TENDER! Biore thinks I’m beautiful even when I’m all post-partum and crazy-haired! Biore LOVES MY BABY! And then, the model DID look “tired, but beautiful”: she had an ethereal look, pale and with lovely violet undereye circles, and her smile was small and Mona Lisa-ish and TIRED but HAPPY. AND–get this–the products were called “Face The Day.” Is that just about the best name you’ve ever heard? Our local stores didn’t have the Face The Day moisturizer, so I ordered it online, PAYING SHIPPING (I hate to pay shipping and almost never do). Man, that was a good ad.

Perhaps wearing them with rolled-up denim capris is a Fashion Uh-Oh, but these dark pink cowgirl boots are on clearance at Target for $3.74. Don’t be fooled by the very similar new-design dark pink cowgirl boots that just came out at $14.99: it’s only the ones with tall skinny flowers on them that are marked down. I bought them for Elizabeth in size 6, 7, 8, and 9, and I am not even usually into cowboy-type stuff.

I have really, really, REALLY been trying to enjoy this summer with Rob and William–especially with William, because this is the year William starts first grade, and I learned with Rob that first grade is when kids take a giant step away.

But I am NOT enjoying this summer with Rob and William, and do you know why? It is because I don’t like my children anymore, apparently. They are loud and obnoxious, and they have two modes: (1) giddy and (2) bickery. They are either saying, “Imagine if, like, a strawberry crashed into the wall and went [*loud spitting sound*]!!!” and then laughing wildly until they fall over, and then saying it fifty more times, laughing just as much each time, getting higher and higher pitched until I feel like covering my ears and screaming, or else they are saying in teeth-clenched irritation, “Give me that thing.” “WHAT thing?” “THAT thing.” “WHAT thing?” “ROB!!BERT!! GIVE IT TO ME!” “OW!! Mommy, William hit me!!” “It was an ACCIDENT!!” “NO IT WAS NOT!!” Or, worst of all, they are doing this sort of nauseating baby talk, and using it to say nonsense. They are as annoying as a flashing banner ad plus a car alarm plus a shirt that needs to be tugged down every 5 minutes.

We did all three days of Week Two of the running program. We thought we might die, but we did it. We’ve had a little trouble with knowing when we’re supposed to stop doing sessions of jogging. Like, if you alternate jogging and walking for 20 minutes as instructed, you do jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking–and there are 2.5 minutes left. Should you jog for 1.5 minutes and then only have 1 minute of walking before you’re done? Or should you walk that whole last 2.5 minutes to cool down? We’ve been jogging 1 minute and then walking the last 1.5. I’m sure a real runner would be making air quotes all over the place: “Oh, you want to know how long you should ‘cool down’ after ‘all that running’? [*gigantic eye roll*] Gosh, are you sure this is ‘Couch to 5K’ and not ‘Couch to Iron Man’?”

I don’t know how we’re going to be able to do Week Three, which goes up to 3 minutes of jogging. [Real Runner rolls eyes so hard he/she risks popping them off their tethers entirely.] We’re going to try it, but if necessary we’re going to go up one 30-second increase at a time: a week of 2-minute jogs, a week of 2.5-minute jogs, and then, MAYBE, a week of 3-minute jogs. We’ll see. [Real Runner has to consume sports drink to replenish electrolytes lost from disdain.]

Comment here if you’re interested in getting Swistle’s Angel DVDs, season 1, watched once, mailed to you free of charge so that you will get addicted and I will have more people to talk about it with out of nothing but love. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, it is about a tall handsome broody vampire with vulnerable eyes and a long leather coat. He used to be evil but now uses hair product and works on the side of Good for 42 minutes once a week. I’m looking for (1) names of people who want the DVDs and (2) suggestions on how to decide who gets them, especially if it’s something fun.

I tried the cookies with mint extract and regular chocolate chips, and they are good. If the ones with mint chocolate chips are a 10, the ones with extract and regular chocolate chips are maybe an 8.5, maybe a 9. They lack the “little bursts of mint” effect, but retain the overall chocolate/mint excellence.

I have Angel season one on DVD. I have watched it, and I really liked it a lot, but I don’t plan to watch it again. I’d like to pass along the contagious Joss Whedon virus find a good home for it. It occurs to me that I could infect give it to one of you.

But how to decide who gets it? I suppose you could tell me sob stories of how pitiful and deserving you are, but that would be barfy and boring that would be sad.

A contest? Maybe, if there’s a fun idea for one. A drawing? Meh. Insufficiently fun.

This assumes that more than one person would be interested in having it.