Night

I've just had the worst night.
Ever.
Not sure it could have gone worst. And I want to tell someone but I don't think anyone would really care. There would be smiles and a few giggles and "Ah, yes. The joys of parenthood. Isn't payback horrible?" And I wouldn't get the sympathy I'm hoping for. Not that I'm hoping for sympathy. Because I don't need sympathy. Pfft. Me? Need sympathy? Ok, maybe a little sympathy would be nice but as a mother I don't think you're allowed sympathy. So I'll settle for someone smiling and giggling and saying "What goes around comes around."
Hobbette has been turning her nose up at certain food. She won't eat her banana at breakfast. She picks at her sweet potato chili. A few bites of chicken and she's down from the table playing with fake bacon. Which is all fine and dandy. She'll eat when she's hungry. Well, last night it all came to a head.
She finished her bottle and I was all set to brush her teeth and put her to bed.
"Humry!"
Alright. Here are some beans. She picked at them, grinned at me and ran to the TV.
"Curious. George!"
No, it's time to go brush your teeth.
"Humry!"
There are beans at the table. She sat at the table, ate one bean and ran to her toy kitchen.
We're not playing right now, honey. You have a choice. You eat the beans or you can go brush your teeth.
"Toast."
Here are some beans. No toast.
*Whine*
She goes back to play. No, honey.
*Throws herself onto the ground*
At that point I had had enough messing about. I picked her up, took her to her room and tucked her in.
What followed was a night long tantrum. I lost track of how often I got up in the middle of the night but to give you some idea of what my night was like: I was up 5 times in the one hour between midnight and 1 a.m.
It. was. horrible.

Don't cry at the nice old lady!

We went to the nursing home today.

Hobbit stole the show. Unfortunately he wasn't happy about it. Two very nice old women simply loved him. They wanted to hold him but he wasn't going to have any of that. He wasn't even sure he wanted to sit on the table in front of them. Touching his toes was definitely out. 

There was a lot of lip trembling. And a few tears.

But they still loved him.

My son's a mamma's boy.

Hobbette had a good time as well. It took a little while to warm up but she eventually said "Hi" and "Bye." A nice woman gave her a cup of clear soda of some kind which she did pretty well with. But some did end up on her sleeve and the floor. 

She also got a cupcake... I think she ate half of the cupcake wrapper as well...

Then I did something terrible. I made breakfast for supper. We had pancakes. We got home late, kids were hungry and Hobbit was tired and still a little upset about getting to know little old ladies. So I needed a quick solution and pancakes are pretty quick and easy. And Hobbette loves them. 

I was brought up that breakfast should have breakfast food and supper should have supper food. And never the twain shall meet. Oh, well. I'll just be sure not to make a habit of it.

Bored?

What is this? What's this strange feeling? I think I'm... Can it be... I'm... BORED!

It turns out my husband contributes a great deal to my entertainment value. He's gone for a while, enjoying seafood and a beautiful beach and I get to play single mom. In all honesty, my routine hasn't changed that much.

Except for some strange reason things stay clean longer. 

Which you wouldn't think was a problem. It's not. Don't get me wrong. I couldn't be more satisfied than when my house is orderly. But now that my house stays tidy with less effort... 

Let's just say I've started to clean things that don't normally get cleaned. Like Shaun's sock drawer. I've started making the bed. I suddenly have time to put on makeup. I've completed projects that I've put off for months. I swept the balcony... Today I bought a can of compressed air so I can dust our computers.

And this whole time I have this nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something. I use to be so busy... What happened? The laundry still gets done. I still do the dishes every day. The children get diaper changes and fed. Their naps still take the same amount of time.

But Shaun's not around to play games or read books or talk to during their naps...

So, I do projects or clean or put on makeup instead...

I think I'd rather have the companionship than the time.

I miss my husband.

Single parenthood...

Silly me, thinking I'd just run into the Commissary and pick up some milk and diapers. I should know by now that I can never go to the Commissary and just pick up two items. I walked in, picked up a basket and immediately remembered that I was almost out of oatmeal. And I should probably get more fruit. And I could use more flour. And the sugar is running low. And I think there's only four slices of bread left. And... I should probably get a cart...

So, I get a cart. 

Now that Hobbit can sit up on his own I can get one of those funny carts where half of it is a car with two steering wheels because the genius that designed it realized that some kids have problems sharing. Hobbit chews on his steering wheel. No, I didn't wipe it off first. Does that make me a bad parent?

After I get done I realize that I only have 11 items so I can still go through the self-checkout. I'm cheap and avoid tipping baggers whenever possible. 

I should have tipped a bagger. 

For some reason you're not allowed to take the regular shopping carts out of the store. They have special two-tiered carts that the baggers use to get your groceries out to your car. So, I wheel my cart back to the entrance, pull the kids out, get my bags and realize... I have two very heavy bags, two gallons of milk, two kids, and only two hands...

Just then a nice man was coming back with his two-tiered cart and gave me his. But I still had the problem that one hand was holding Hobbit, the other hand was pushing the cart... How was I going to get Hobbette to the car? I have a rule: if a car frequents the space, she's not allowed to walk without holding onto my hand. This includes parking lots. Just then a woman was walking by and made the suggestion that she sits in the lower tier of the cart. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? She helped Hobbette get situated and the whole way to the car I heard "Whee... Whee..." In that voice that says "this seems like a time when Mom would say this in an effort to make it feel fun and exciting but I really don't find it fun or exciting..."

Kids.

Mama said there'd be days like this

Today could have been a lot worse than it was. Let me tell you.
Hobbette woke up at 5:30 soaked. Cold. And mad. Madder than a wet hen (Shaun had never heard that saying before. He's convinced it's a "south" thing.).
So, I change her and escort her back to bed which she seems to have no problem with since she usually gets up at 6:30-7ish.
However, her outburst has awaken Hobbit. I feed him hoping to lull him back to sleep. No dice (Shaun has heard that one...). But his outburst has renewed Hobbette's door pounding and by now it's 6.
I start the day. Hobbit gets a little nap early on and then we go out to do a few errands. The kids love the car so everyone is well behaved between errands and the running into the post office and clothing stores have only a few hang ups.
Then it's on to our play group. This is the first time we got to attend and it was hilarious. We get there a little late so it's already started and there are kids running around with bean bags and yelling the alphabet. Hobbette stares.
She's not shy. I've been told she's bold for her age. So, as soon as I get her coat and shoes off she takes off. Someone gives her a bean bag and she's jumping with the best of them. She seems a little confused with what's going on but she's willing to go with it. I just sit on the floor and hold Hobbit on my lap while she brings me the treasures the instructor hands out. Finger puppets. Scarves. Rhythm sticks (which she was thrilled that part of the activity was to bang them together and on the ground). There's a little boy there who wants to be her best friend in the worst way. She didn't really ignore him but she didn't really interact with him either. It was kinda cute. She'd sit on the floor and he'd sit in front of her. She'd crawl off to get a rhythm stick and he'd crawl after her. She'd pick up a scarf and he'd hand her another one.
Overall, a great time.
We get home in time for lunch and after a valiant fight Hobbit finally goes down for a nap. Hobbette struggles through her bottle and I put her down... It doesn't last. Five seconds after I close the door she's banging on it. "Poop!" So, I change her but she won't go down again. Her crying wakes Shaun and Hobbit so everyone goes out to do a few more errands.
By supper everyone is exhausted. The routine is that Hobbette plays by herself while I put Hobbit down and then we pick up her toys, diaper change, bottle, brush teeth and bed time. I get Hobbit down, open the door and nearly trip over her. She curled up outside his door and fell asleep waiting for me. We skipped everything but the diaper change and the poor girl went down a whole 45 minutes early tonight.

Come back wagon!

Ok. I fell off the face of the world for a bit, so here's what has happened.

Friday: I gave myself the day off. I decided I wasn't doing anything. No cleaning, no laundry, no cooking, no going anywhere or doing anything. Hell, I wasn't even going to get dressed. So, of course, that's the day my family wants to see me. And, of course, my laziness was noted.

Saturday: I didn't get back on track. That's the thing about falling off the wagon... it's really hard to get back on. House work began to pile up. But we did go to church because the masses on Sunday were canceled because of the air show. It was... horrific. It was packed, people were hungry and Hobbits were tired. We survived.

Sunday: Got up ridiculously early because Shaun needed to be at work for the big air show and he couldn't park anywhere close. So, being the sweet wife that I am, I got up at 3 to drive him there. The Hobbits were not happy. It went down hill from there. I had planned to see the air show... but one of my tires on the stroller was flat, Hobbit wouldn't stop crying unless I was holding him which meant I only had one hand. Only having one hand makes normal things, like getting dressed and going to the bathroom, suddenly very tricky. When he finally fell asleep and I wasn't going to be the one to wake him up to go for a walk to see loud jets and loud people. I decided there was always next year. I managed to survive the rest of the day.

Monday: I closed the curtains. I was embarrassed about the state my house was in. That wagon I fell off of is now miles away.

Today: I caught up to the wagon. I got most of the laundry done and most of the kitchen cleaned. I felt comfortable enough to open the curtains again. Hobbette's new favorite word is cookie. And she knows where I hide them. I can't go to the kitchen without nearly tripping over her in her effort to get in front of me so she can point at the cupboard I hide them in and yell "Cookie!" She gets two for her afternoon snack and you should see the grin on her face when shouting "Cookie!" actually gets her a cookie. So, now she tries it all the time... In the morning, when I make lunch, even immediately after she eats her cookies. The crumbs are still on her face and she's shouting "Cookie!" again. Good thing she hasn't made the connection about ice cream yet.

Lamen

I went to my first class in "survival Japanese". It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. Such as you need to know all three ways of writing Japanese in order to read anything, like books or newspapers, because one method is used for Japanese original words like teriyaki, another is used for the Japanese version of foreign words like personal computer, and the last is the Chinese symbols that they originally used and still use today for things like some nouns and all names.

It was a bit confusing. Our instructor told us we weren't getting into the reading part of it she just wanted to make us aware of it. If we wanted to learn to read we'd have to go to the advanced survival course that they just started. Perhaps next month I'll be learning to read Japanese... who knows?

Today we just learned basic "Hi. My name is... How are you? Where are you from?" type of stuff. It was pretty cool. I don't know what it is about Japanese but I get way more excited about it than I ever did going to my Spanish class in high school. Maybe it's the immediate chance to use what I learned... We learned a phrase to say after a meal that our instructor said would make restaurant servers proud of us. I wanted to eat out for supper. Shaun's working. Perhaps another day...

I also learned that I've been saying ramen wrong. The Japanese language doesn't have an 'r' sound in it. They pronounce it lamen (the 'l' sound is a softer version of 'r' if you think about how your mouth makes the sounds...) We all laughed when we found that out.

I can't wait for next week's class!