Belly and The Bug

Questioning motherhood

Look. I admit that I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember. There have been other goals along the way - I think in fifth grade I wanted to be a lawyer; in sixth grade I decide I wanted to be an actress and that stuck with me for, oh, ever; I did the nonprofit career thing; I've always fancied myself something of a writer (never quite figured out a job around that one) - but being a mom has always been a top priority. Here's the thing, though. I thought it would be easier than this. THIS is really freaking hard. I remind myself all the time that no one ever died of mothering two two-year-olds. I find myself screaming at them to stop screaming at each other. I count to ten 9000 times a day. There are days (today is one of them) when it's all I can do not to spank them. Sure, sure - they're cute, but that doesn't really matter when they blatantly disregard what I say to them about EVERYTHING.

I assembled two new sparkling tricycles for them this morning. They whined the whole time I did it. They argued over who got the first one. Each girl wanted BOTH bikes when the assembly was complete. They ran into each other on purpose and caused massive tears. I took them up for nap. Belly woke up after ten minutes and HOWLED for the next 40 until the music was done.

It is sunny and 60 degrees outside. I'm giving them lunch and have promised that we will ride the bikes in the driveway after lunch. BUT PEOPLE - they refuse to eat lunch. They are sitting in their seats crying about not liking it. I have threatened a second nap if they don't eat SOMETHING.

Seriously. Shoot me. Put me out of my misery. I'm filled with anger in a way very, very unbefitting a mother. Parenting books? Fuck 'em. I have read 32 of them. I'm either told to modify my behavior or to just "get through it." Get through what? The next 16 years? I. Will. Not. Make. It. And modify my behavior? Oh I have. Trust me, I have. And it doesn't do a damn thing. They are holy terrors for me. This behavior is not displayed for Daddy or others. It is reserved for me alone.

I love these girls like no other people in the world, but they are freaking killing me. I used to be a lovely person. Now I'm an evil monster inside. Maybe this is three goddamn weeks of being home with sick kids talking (tomorrow we will actually venture out in the world again), but I'm not so sure. Everyone says to treasure this time. I want to hurt those people. They are not in my shoes. I want six-year-olds who go to school.

Spanglish

I've been teaching the girls tiny bits and pieces of Spanish as we go along on this mother-daughters journey. They have a couple bilingual books that they like to read and both can solidly count to twelve in Spanish. I wish that I could just yammer away at them all the time in Spanish but I've lost so much by not speaking it on a regular basis. To think that I once debated abortion and prostitution and government controls over women (before storming out in a huff) entirely in Spanish in a college class... Anyway. They're picking it up in little dribs and drabs at a time and I'm grateful for that at the moment. I'll come up with a real language learning plan for them before too long.

I'm telling you this because Belly and Buggy are currently having a raging debate - as they sit on the kitchen floor looking at books - over whether the Bug should be counting in English or Spanish. Belly is practically chanting, "English! English! English!" and Buggy is countering with "Uno! Dos! Face!" Those little smarty pants. They're cute (when they're not being total punks).

I heart swearing

Sorry, but I do. It can't be helped. I'm 35 years old and I cannot be retrained to refrain. It's fact. Tonight the Bug said "dammit" in perfect context, with complete nonchalance at the dinner table. I tried not to laugh as I covered my face in my napkin. Dude did not approve. Dude does not approve of swearing in general, so to hear it from his tiny daughter's mouth is not cute to him. But this little episode actually reminded me of another ditty that I wanted to share from a few weeks back...

Again the scene was the dinner table. For whatever reason, Belly said, "Jesus!" I nearly sprayed Dude and all of dinner with my mouthful of beverage as I busted out in full chortle. Dude looked at me like I was his 15-year-old juvenile delinquent daughter and said, "HONEY!" See - Dude goes to church every Sunday. He's got religion, unlike yours truly. That's fine. It works for him. I'm cool with it. But my point is that saying "Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" is really, really not on his list of acceptable utterances.

Buggy was quick to her mother's defense. "Daddy, Mommy loves Baby Jesus." And I was just as quick to add, "It's true - I love babies. If Baby Jesus was here right now, I'd hold him." We all smiled sweetly at Dude. Subject dropped.

Poor Dude. He's such a nice guy.

Middle of the night post

Yep - it's almost 1am. I'm wide awake. The girls have been sick for the last week with a viral respiratory thing that has been pretty ugly - fevers, hacking coughs, snot for miles. Ugh. And today (or yesterday at this time of night), I finally couldn't take it anymore. I woke up feeling like my head was being squeezed in a door. Dude took the girls downstairs and I kept sleeping. And sleeping. And waking up every now and then to blow my nose. And sleeping some more. I took some Dayquil at 12:30p and finally got up at 4:30p. I'm still congested something fierce, but not feeling "sick" anymore.

And now I'm wiiiiide awake. It's so late that they're actually showing videos on VH1. I am going to be so messed up tomorrow.

Happy freaking Valentine's Day

Last weekend was, clearly, the big romantic gesture from Dude and I certainly did not expect anything like that again for Valentine's Day. We're usually more of the Valentine's card and a nice dinner kind of folks anyway - not buying into the giant boxes of chocolates, dozens of roses, etc. But Dude informed me earlier in the week that we were going somewhere for a "family Valentine's thing" on Saturday at 5pm. I pried for clues and was told that it was inside and I didn't need to make dinner. Hm. That could pretty much mean dinner anywhere. Fun!

So Friday late afternoon found me exceptionally tired and crabby with my throat starting to hurt. Uh oh. We ate dinner and I basically went to bed with the girls, falling asleep around 8:30pm. I awoke Saturday morning at 7am feeling fine. Fashew! Crisis averted! Because moms don't get sick. I'm just not allowed to. It doesn't work.

Needless to say, there was a no celebrating of the day of the Valentine on Friday.

Saturday morning found us with one sick little Buglet - nasty cough, thoroughly runny nose, slight fever. Poor kid. We spent the morning being pretty chill, then Dude watched them for about 3 hours in the afternoon so that I could leave the house by myself for a break (lord knows I need those as often as I can). When I came home, Buggy seemed so-so and Dude said that she would be fine for what he had planned. So, off we went to... FIVE GUYS! I love me a little bacon cheeseburger with all kinds of stuff on it. Yuuuuuummmmmm. Anyway. Bug's health proceeded to go downhill rapidly while we there, including somehow getting a diaper wedgie and peeing all over my lap just as our food was ready. No really - Happy Valentine's Day family dinner. Good times.

Both girls fell asleep as we drove home. We changed them, got 'em in jammies, and called bedtime early. Dude laid down with them, as he does every night. It took forever for Buggy to fall asleep soundly enough for him to get up, though. Finally, finally he came downstairs... and announced he didn't feel very well, had a major headache, was going to do the dishes and go to bed. Which meant that I took off the little number I had hidden under my sweats and shoved it beneath the futon. Sigh.

Today, the Bug is more sick than yesterday (including puking on the couch) and Belly's cough is getting worse. I'm not even going to allow myself to think that there might be some sort of romantic anything with my husband tonight to celebrate this day of amour.

But I sincerely hope that you and yours have done something spectacular to mark the day. I've been living vicariously through my friend on Facebook who posted pictures of her hot air balloon ride. Obviously, she does not have kids.