the pieces of my life

Almost exactly two years ago, we Ferberized Doodles. This time around, I promised myself that we wouldn’t make the same sleep mistakes with Sweetie, that this time I would be firmer about her cosleeping in the cosleeper rather than inbetween Adam and myself, that this time around we would not have to Ferberize my poor sweet innocent little Moon Pie.

Needless to say, we’re now Ferberizing Sweetie Pie. It’s horrible. It’s always horrible and it doesn’t get any easier. I fell into the same trap with Miss Pie that I had with my little Doodlebug: cosleeping lead to all-night nursing. I’m not exagerating. Sweetie Pie was unable to soothe herself to sleep, so she’d wake up once an hour and need to pacify herself on my br*east in order to fall asleep. I’ve been a zombie for months. And yet I don’t want to kick her out of bed. She’s my little Sweetie Pie and I love waking up to her sweet little coos and the soft milky breath as she greets the day. But I reached my breaking point and it was time to remove the little br*east monger from my bed.

Unfortunately, we did not want to Ferberize in her own crib, as she’ll be sharing a room with her big brother. So we detached the cosleeper and made it into a crib at the end of the room where she can’t see us. And we started. Oh, did we start. It was horrible. She’d do this, “Waa waa waa” thing and just as I was to go in and comfort her, she’d go, “gasp gasp gasp” and I’d hear sleep breathing and feel relieved. Except that within two minutes, she’d start with the crying again. The second night was much, much better and last night was just okay. Of course last night, I told Adam I was going to bed at 8:30 because I was so darn tired. So I crawled into bed, just in time for Sweetie to start her little cycle of waa waa. I listened to her cry on and off for about an hour and fifteen minutes. And then she fell asleep. So, I blissfully, drifted off myself…for five minutes. Which is when child number 1 decided that for the first time in five months, he wasn’t going to sleep through the night. I went in to soothe him, wondering where the heck Adam was. I got back into bed only to have Doodles call out again. Too tired to do anything else, I simply brought him back to our room and stuck him into bed with me. Apparently I am incapable of not having a child in bed, but at least this one doesn’t lunge for my chest on an hourly basis. I finally got to sleep at about 11. And where was my charming husband who is basically in charge of child number 1? I found out later that he fell asleep in the armchair downstairs mid-spreadsheet, his laptop open on his lap, his arm propping his head up. At least he got his when both children woke at 4:40 this morning and he had to take them while I slept for two hours more.

Tonight I was spared Ferber as I had a girls’ dinner out. Adam’s on duty and so far, he hasn’t fallen asleep on his post yet. I do see a light at the end of the sleep tunnel, but it’s a very faint light and I fear if I look too closely, it’ll end up being the headlight of an oncoming train. (And no, Doodles, not a Thomas train).

Rachel is the coolest mom I know (Jennifer, don’t worry you’re the second coolest mom I know) (everyone else: Jennifer is so not the second coolest mom I know, but she did make my blog her home page, so I feel obligated to throw her a bone here). And yet, Rachel went and done it. She bought a minivan just last week. And she lives in San Francisco where I thought it was pretty much illegal to own a vehicle with more than two wheels.

Which meant it was time for me to make the plunge. Time for me to turn in my pretty dashboard and to gracefully accept the title “Soccer Mom.” Time to buy the minivan.

And so we did. I opted for no DVD player (I refuse to have hear on every trip to the grocery store, “Dora! I want to watch Dora now!”) but I did opt for the ipod integration, which again, makes the statement, “Yes, I am a soccer mom, but one who is still cool enough to listen to the Killers even if I didn’t know who Fergie was just a couple of weeks ago!”

Buying the van was absolutely painful. Service was sloooow and because we’d already test driven, we brought the kids with us to make the final purchase. I think my favorite part was sitting in the finance office with Sweetie (while Adam tried to wrangle Doodles) and the totally cliche Boston car salesman is trying to sell me every single add-on known to man. “Uh huh. Uh huh,” I reply bored. “I get the point. I don’t want any of it.” He gives me a look and Sweetie starts to fuss. “Mind if I feed her?” I ask just to be polite, because I have every intention of feeding her no matter what he says. “Oh sure, go ahead,” he says. But somehow from the shocked look on his face, I don’t think he was expecting me to whip out what I did whip out. I’m guessing in his day, feedings came from a bottle. The good thing, though, is he focused on the task at hand with a renewed vigor.

Anyway, Rachel owns a minivan and now I do, too. Which leads me to one of two conclusions: 1) Maybe Rachel’s not as cool as I thought she was or 2) (my preferred conclusion) Minivans are now cool!! Yes, that’s the story I’m telling myself and I’m sticking to it. It’s the only happy way to explain the Ocean Mist atrocity sitting in my driveway.

Words you really don’t want to hear from your underwear-wearing son who is playing in his playroom: “I made a puddle! I made a puddle!”

The plan: Adam’s in London for a couple of nights for business. As bedtime can be tricky, my in-laws came to help out for the first night (to basically hold Sweetie Pie, since Doodles’s bath time is her fussy hour). The bath is pretty firmly ingrained in Doodles’s routine and getting him to skip it can be a challenge. The second night I decide to resort some basic bribery to get him to do so. I’ll tell him that if he goes straight to pajamas and doesn’t take a bath, he can watch an extra show before bed. A simple plan.

The actuality:
5:25 p.m. We’ve been playing at N.’s house with J. and Grape for about an hour and a half. Give Doodles a five-minute warning that its time to leave N.’s house, as J. and Grape’s mom are doing to their kids.
5:29 p.m. Give Doodles a one-minute warning and ask if he wants to go home and watch his TV shows. He says no. I say if we don’t leave right then, there will be no time for TV shows.
5:30 p.m. Get Sweetie into her fleece one-piece and put her in the car seat. Tell Doodles it’s time to go.
5:31 p.m. “I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here.” Repeat 12 times. Add screaming, tears, throwing body upon floor, kicking, more tears, and yet more screams. Add some hyperbreathing in there for added effect.
5:33 p.m. Sweetie decides to join in on the crying.
5:34 p.m. “Doodles, if we don’t leave right now there will be no time for TV before dinner tonight.”
5:35 p.m. “Doodles, I’m not kidding. No TV when we get home unless we’re out the door right now.”
5:37 p.m. “Okay, Doodles, no TV!” [Oh shit! What am I going to do with no TV for Doodles?]
5:42 p.m. Look at N.’s mom with utter helplessness as I try for the umpteenth time to shoe and jacket my temper-tantruming child. N.’s mother shrugs and says, “Just let him scream.” N.’s mom tries, with no success, to soothe Sweetie.
5:47 p.m. Carry Doodles with no jacket or shoes on–in 19 degree weather–to the car.
5:48 p.m. Bring Sweetie, still screaming, to car.
5:49 p.m. Sweetie Pie falls asleep in car.
5:50 p.m. Doodles asks nicely, “Mommy? Where are my shoes? Mommy? Where is my jacket?”
5:53 p.m. Arrive home. Doodles demands, “TV!”
5:54 to 6:11 p.m. Back and forth, “No, Doodles, no TV. I told you at N.’s house that unless we left right away, there would be no time for TV. Do you want to pick out your dinner or should Mommy pick out your dinner?” Whining, “I want Dora! I want Dora! I want to watch TV! TV, please! TeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeeeee!” “Doodles, who is picking your dinner? Mommy or you?” “Doooooooooooooooooora!”
6:12 p.m. Now what do I do? TV was my ace in the hole to get out of bathtime. Do I go back on this? Do I suffer through bathtime? I rationalize by telling myself that I had said, “There would be no time for TV before dinner.”
6:14 p.m. “Doodles, if you sit down and eat right this second, and you get into your pajamas right after dinner, you can watch a television show instead of taking a bath.”
6:15 p.m. Whining immediately ceases. Doodles runs to sit down for dinner.
6:30 p.m. Pajamas on, Doodles watches on episode of Dora.
7:03 p.m. I take Doodles upstairs to put to bed, which involves three books, two songs, his good-night prayer, and lots of smooches.
7:04 p.m. Sweetie Pie wakes up with a vengeance.
7:06 p.m. Try to read stories to Doodles while a squirming, wriggling, bucking-bronco Sweetie goes crazy one leg and snuggle-in-closer Doodles just wants to cuddle on the other. Sweetie screams; I try to just read louder.
7:35 p.m. to 8:20 p.m. Bring Sweetie to my bed. Coo and giggle with her.
8:25 p.m. Nurse Sweetie to sleep
11:03 p.m. Nurse Sweetie back to sleep
12:46 a.m. Nurse Sweetie sleep again
2:21 a.m. Nurse Sweetie again, just for the hell of it.
4 a.m. Doodles wakes up, sits up in bed, and calls out, “Where’s my mommy?” I enter the room. “Doodles, honey, it’s too early for you to be awake.” Doodles just sits there staring at me. “Okay, Doodles, you can lie in bed with us, but you need to go back to sleep because it’s too early to be awake.” I take Doodles into bed and lie inbetween him and Sweetie.
4 to 4:28 a.m. For about one blissful half hour, my two children are sandwiched around me and I actually doze off.
4:29 a.m. Sweetie wakes up crying. Nurse her back to sleep. Whooops, that’s it! Doodles is fully awake. I pretend to be asleep. Sweetie is asleep. But only as long as my br*east is in her mouth. Doodles lies nicely next to me, stroking me.
4:49 a.m. Doodles: “I want my special treat milk.” Me: “It’s still too early Doodles.”
4:52 a.m. Doodles: “I want my special treat milk.” Me: “Too early!”
5:00 a.m. I flip Sweetie to the other side of me to nurse her on the other breast. Doodles immediately curls up with her for a cuddle. Sweetie Pie, as six month olds are wont to do, grabs at him. Doodles: “Sweetie Pie, I don’t like that! I don’t like that, Sweetie Pie!”
5:02 a.m. I’m trying to ignore both of them and will myself back to sleep. I notice, though, that Doodles is holding Sweetie’s hand, and I’m worried he might be too rough with it, so I try to hold on too to see what he’s up to. Doodles: “Mommy, I’m using that!” I let go of her hand.
5:04 a.m. Doodles is awake. Sweetie Pie is awake. It’s time for me throw in the towel and try to force myself awake. “Mommy? Milk!” I peek an eye at him. “Pleeeease!”
5:10 a.m. Doodles: “I want to pick my special treat milk.” I hand him the box. He looks in and throws a hissy fit. “Strawberry special treat milk! Strawberry!” Only we’re out of strawberry. You can guess how well he took that news.
5:25 a.m. Doodles: “Waaah!” Sweetie Pie: “Waaah!” Me: “Waaah!”
And all I can think is, “Fourteen more hours till I can pawn them off on Adam. Just have to get through fourteen more hours…”

Sweetie Pie has a world-class cold. She’s quite the precocious child as this is definitely a toddler-sized cold. The nose is a fountain. The coughing is seal like. The chest is more congested than Storrow Drive when the Red Sox are playing at home. She’s back to not just nursing all night but pacifying herself on me.

Two nights ago, after midnight, her cough sounded horrendous. She’d fall asleep for a few minutes and then wake herself up with her cough. Actually, it was more bark than cough. So I got us out of bed (remember, Sweetie Pie sleeps with me and Adam), opened the gate to the downstairs, got her bundled into her snow suit, put on my jacket, flipped on the outside lights (which shine into our bedroom), and took Sweetie outside for about fifteen minutes to get her some fresh air. It worked. Her cough lost some of the bark and became just a cough again. I left our jackets on the couch, made our way back upstairs, and crawled back into bed, putting Sweetie between me and Adam, while trying to elevate her head.

The next morning Adam says to me, “Your jacket was on the couch!”

Me: Yeah, I know.
Adam: I thought I had put everything away last night.
I just stared at him.
Adam: What?
Me: Are you serious?
Adam: And the gate at the top of the stairs was open. I know I closed it.
Me: Well, when I was taking Sweetie back to bed at nearly 1 a.m. after having taken her outside to clear up her cough, I couldn’t close the gate while holding her.
Adam: You got up last night?
Me: Mmm hmm.
Adam: And went outside?
Me: Yup.
Adam: Hmmm. I had no idea.

They say that you never sleep the same way after having kids. I can vouch for that. I think Adam actually sleeps better!

On Monday morning, we got a babysitter (no daycare because of President’s Day). We headed down to Roxbury with all of Adam’s research. And we test drove… minivans. Two specifically: the Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey. The first thing you need to know is I hate car shopping. The last thing you need to know is I hate car shopping.

Both minivans drove just fine. They’re not stunning cars (Adam thought I was kidding when I complained, “The dashboards are ugly!” but really, who wants to look at an ugly dashboard?). Adam kept asking which I liked better, but honestly, they were really about the same. We had our checkbook in hand, the old car ready for a trade-in, and were mentally prepared to walk out with a new car. The prices were within about $500 of each other.

The Honda salesman seemed to be too busy to give us much time. The Toyota salesman, however, was breathing down our necks. “You don’t need leather seats. Just do what I do: Don’t allow any food or drink in the car for any trip under three hours.” “Oh, okay, you can get the LE and simply add leather.” “You won’t need to move that seat very often–it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t slide.” “I got kids, too, and this car is perfect.” He kept disappearing to do God only knows what. Took forever. Adam tells me that’s a sales technique, that they like to make the customer wait because then the customer becomes impatient and wants to make a deal quickly. Didn’t work on me.

I told the sales guy, “Listen, we’ve got a babysitter at home. We have to leave soon.” He dawdled. He disappeared for a bit. He returned with a sales manager. He thought he had us reeled in but he didn’t get that I was serious. Minivan or no minivan, I was thirty minutes from home sans br*east pump. “We’ve got to go,” I told him. He smiled and leaned back in his chair to negotiate some more. Finally, I’d had enough and I picked up my bag. “You’ve got to understand. I’m a breastfeeding mama and in about five minutes, I’m going to be in a world of pain, so we’re leaving now.” I’m a little sorry now that this was one of those rare moments when I actually censored what I said, because what I meant was, “Hey, jerk! My b*oobs are about to explode!”

And since we didn’t walk out with the minivan, it’s given me lots of time to rethink my minivan position and I believe I’m over it. Really, it shouldn’t be such a leap. I already drive a station wagon, albeit a station wagon I love (a 2002 version of this). I so love my car. Love, love, love. It’s a beauty of a car. And yet… I must find but another to love. The Audi has two points against it: One, a convertible infant car seat in the rear-facing position renders the front passenger seat unusable, so Adam and I will not be able to travel with our children together until Sweetie Pie is both over one years old and twenty pounds. Two, the warranty on the Audi is up soon. Right now the full warranty covers all service. The thing is, the Audi actually goes in for quite a bit of service. And it won’t be economical to keep it. So I need a new car sooner or later. And let’s face it: the minivan just makes sense now.

Here we are in limbo. What do we get? An SUV so there’s room for car seats (and if we do that, a hybrid tops my list)? Another, larger, station wagon? The minivan? Chuck common sense, decide the kids really never need to leave the house, and go for the Boxster? The biggest argument that I can see for the minivan is it means I don’t have to test drive any more cars. (Did I mention I hate car shopping?)

The only response is the Scarlett O’Hara one: I’ll think about it tomorrow.

We’ve entered the phase of the vocal child. In the middle of the Barnes and Noble cafe, Doodles announced, in his outdoor voice, “I tooted!” I did manage to get an “Excuse me!” out of him. Mind you, this doesn’t bother me, but I’m curious and fearful to see where this leads. Especially as his new discovery is a body part that usually goes undiscussed: nipples.

Doodles: What’s this?
Adam: Those are your nipples.
Doodles: Nipples?
Adam: Nipples.
Doodles: Nipples! Nipples! Nipples!
I enter the room to get some clothes for Sweetie Pie.
Doodles: Mommy, I have nipples!
Me: Yes, honey, you do have nipples.
Doodles, pointing: Mommy has nipples, too.
Me: Yes, I do.
Doodles: Nipples! Nipples!

And a nipple to all of you!

I asked Adam what I should blog about. He said, “Me!” He wanted me to write that he was super duper (which is Doodles new second favorite word; his first favorite word is now “stupendous!”). But instead I think I’ll write about how I bitch and moan about his driving and then last night, on his way home from work, he rear ended another car and totally crumpled the hood of the car he’s had for less than a month.

There you go, Adam. I blogged about you.

Pee on the armchair. Pee on the floor. Um, something a little worse in the playroom. Sweetie Pie, you think? Oh, but if that were the case. No, it’s Doodles. Doodles whose favorite person in the entire world, E., who shall henceforth be referred to as Grape for her fondness of wearing purple, is potty trained and wearing big-girl underwear. Whenever Grape is over and uses the potty, Doodles has to go too. And he does, quite successfully. So when he asked for the tenth time for big-boy underwear, I so no reason not to comply. My plan was to potty train this summer, when he was closer to three and when summer clothes are easier to remove (all those layers in winter). But if he’s asking, who am I to stop him?

So we went to Kohl’s, picked out a lovely selection of big-boy underwear (Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, and of course, The Wiggles), got a few “treats” for successful pottying, and headed home. The underwear went on immediately and sure enough, he peed in the potty. Success! He got a Thomas the Train sticker for the lovely potty chart I made him. He was happy. I was happy.

And that worked for… exactly that one day. After that one day, he wanted to wear his underpants. Crying, desperate, want to wear underpants. But he doesn’t want to remove them to go to the potty. He wanders around in his shirt and underwear, denying all bodily functions. “Doodles, what’s that smell?”

“Nothing.”

“Doodles, I see something in your underwear. Did you poop?”

“No, no poop!” Which for some reason was much more charming when the boy wore diapers.

Puddles appear over the house. Who made them? Not Doodles!

So the answer appears to be that he’s not ready to be potty trained and we hang up the underwear for a few more months. Only he still cries and whines, “I want to wear big-boy underwear! I want to wear big-boy underwear.”

There’s no point to this story. Just a plea for help. Any suggestions?

Okay, I’m willing to admit this. Two weeks ago, I read something online about Fergie and I couldn’t imagine why the Duchess of York was suddenly a style maker. Oops. To redeem myself I used my Valentine’s Day gift (an iTunes gift certificate) to download “My Humps.” I can slowly feel my coolness seeping back in. Well, okay, not seeping back in but at least it’s no longer leaking out. Ah the joys of being a suburban mom.