Butterscotch clouds, a tangerine and a side order of ham

I used to think I was a morning person.

Have I told you this before? I also to also have a great memory.

In any case, I told Nick the other night that I used to be a morning person and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to hurt himself.

To support my assertion, I said that in Peace Corps, I voluntarily got up at 5:45 am to go running every morning. The fact is, I went to sleep at 9:00 every night, because there were no streetlights, and once it was dark, it was dark.

But in any case, my contention is that I used to be a morning person. I also told him that two different roommates, Maude and Jane, thought I was a morning person.

It could, however, also be by contrast, because neither of them prefer to speak at all in the morning.

At any rate, at some point I became a not-morning person. And there have been years where I could barely struggle out of bed at all.

There were years that I blamed my children, because they were, in fact, to blame for waking me at regular intervals throughout the night.

But now they are solid little sleepers.

And lately my sleep is worse than ever.

So now I'm wondering if maybe I should cut out coffee entirely. Or have, like, one cup in the morning and then be done for the day.

This is very much not my M.O. I like many cups of coffee. Although I do stop with the caffeine by noon. Ish. But maybe, maybe at this juncture, that's not good enough.

I have a friend who quit coffee entirely because she found it made her anxious. Does it make me anxious? I don't know. Not sleeping definitely makes me anxious.

Nick has, upon threats of clockily harm, muffled the Heirloom of My Discontent. So now when I'm up at 3:00 am reviewing every single misstep I've ever taken in my entire life, at least I'm not also counting the hour and the half hour with DING DING fucking DING.

That's better. And yet, still I struggle.

Maybe I go to one cup. Or maybe switch to decaf. Maybe I give up coffee entirely. I do enjoy coffee. And caffeine.

But there have been a variety of things I've enjoyed over the years that have not been my friends.

Have any of you quit drinking coffee and felt like it improved your life?

As midnight nears and shadows creep/Come into my sleep

You know I love my daughter.

I love her more than rainbows and chocolate and sunshine and sprinkles. We play this game regularly. What do we love each other more than?

Everything.

I love her and her brother more than anything they can name. Anything imaginable.

But I want her the hell out of my bed.

I have thought about it, and counting bad sleep while pregnant, and the fact that India was up every two hours for at least her first year of life but in my recollection it was more like two, then if you add all my nights of good sleep together, I've had maybe one week of solid sleep in the last five years.

No wonder I am so tired and haggard and crabby. All the time.

Every night our little dollop of delight comes in sometime between midnight and 2:00 am.

You'll be awakened from a sound sleep with "thump thump thump thump thump" and the thud of a small body reaching the bed. She clambers up, and crawls up  the middle of the bed and into the covers.

And then it begins.

It would be one thing if she just went to sleep and didn't move a whole lot. I could live with that.

I'm not saying you always get kicked in the head or whacked with a sleep-heavy arm, but it does happen with terrible regularity. And she likes to sleep with one leg in, one leg on top of the covers. So your covers are constantly being tugged.

India has the middle of the bed. Prime real estate. But she wants to be right up against you. Nick has his claim pretty firmly staked, so I tend to wind up on edge of the bed.

She mashes against me. So I scoot. And she scoots. And inch by inch, we creep towards the edge. I awake fully when there is nary an inch ahead, just air. Hello, Charybdis!

During the day, it's different. I am super huggy. I touch people's arms when I'm talking to them. I hold hands. My daughter climbs up on me all the time.

But sleep? NO TOUCHING. This is my side, that is your side. I love you very much goodnight, see you in the morning.

If I go sleep in her bed, she turns her attention to Nick. So there is no real sleep. Last night I went to her bed at 2:00 am and then at 4:00 she came down and woke me up to find her water.

I nearly wept.

We have tried a sticker chart. Five stickers and India got to pick her treat! McDonalds! Frozen yogurt! A trip to the Diner! A pony! Our first born!

Anything! Dear child, anything! Just let us sleep!

We had five nights of staying in bed, like until about 5:00 am. Or coming to our bed but then agreeing to stay in her bed when Nick took her back.

This, for us, totally counts.

But then she was done. She'd accomplished it. Five was enough.

It turns out that there's nothing worth more to her than sleeping with us. Stickers for treats? Feh!

Jordan can be bribed encouraged with Pokemon and Lego. And he's always been a great sleeper. And he's like me--if he gets scared and comes to our bed, he stays an hour and then he's done. He wants his space.

India doesn't have things that she's into for bribery. And even the proffer of outings she loves aren't enough.

For a while we put a cute little foam mattress next to the bed. She could sleep in our room, but not our bed. She had her own pillow and my Gramma Lillian's rainbow afghan as her special blankie.

She called it her cozy bed.

Her cozy bed worked all night like twice. And then, then she enjoyed her cozy bed until one or two in the morning, and then crawled in our bed.

She says she's scared. This is what she says every time. No matter how cozy and safe she will agree that her bed is.

You cannot argue with scared. True or not, you don't want your kid to think that you are unconcerned about their fears.

(Even if it is up against my fear that I will never sleep again.)

We are old and tired and desperate.

So if you have any suggestions or resources we are begging open to them.

Why, yes, that does ring a bell

When my son was little some friends of ours gave us the book Go the F*ck to Sleep.

I thought it was funny and charming, and it's got lovely illustrations. But I didn't fully appreciate the genius of it.

Because Jordan slept.

I would read to him, rock him and sing him a little song or two, and then put him in his crib. He would promptly stick his thumb in his mouth, put his little butt up in the air, and fall asleep. And then he slept.

My daughter, on the other hand. She's a sleep-wrecking lunatic.

She's never wanted to go to bed. And now she's gotten clever. It's not just screaming in protest.

No.

Now after stories, after her older brother is fast asleep, it is, "Mama! I'm hungweeee! I'm hungweee!" So I will get her a drinking yogurt and she'll take a couple sips and be all yeah, thanks, great. That was refreshing and now I'm done.

"Now I need another story."

(NO? DID YOU SAY NO?)

"I'm hot! I'm hot! I'M HOOOOOT! I need new pajamas!" We change pajamas.

"I need socks! Socks! Not these socks! I want to choose my own! There's only one pink one!"

(WHERE IS THE OTHER PINK SOCK THESE ARE THE ONLY SOCKS I CAN POSSIBLY WEAR!)

I talk her into one pink and one other color. We get back into bed.

"I'm scared of the dark!"

"Honey, that's why you have a nightlight."

"But it makes shadows and I'm scared of the shadows!"

Sometimes, I tell you, I am pretty sure I myself am not going to make it.

And then sometimes she will get up at night. After stringing bedtime out until 10:00 pm Friday night, she was up at 2:00 am. She had a cough. Then she needed milk. "MILKEEEEE!" Nick got her milk.

She needed...I don't know. Attention. She was just awake. And awake and awake. She wriggled. She hummed. Drummed her feet on me. Shoved her skull against Nick's. Patted my cheeks.

"You are killing me, India." I said this. "Please go to sleep. I love you but you're killing me."

To let Nick sleep, I took her back to her bed and crawled in with her. It was one thing and another. I think we fell asleep around 5:00 am. 

At some point that afternoon India looked at me and said, "Mama, remember last night? When I was killing you?"

Yes, my darling. Yes, I do.

Our own personal dictator

Please forgive my photo editing skills. They're about as terrific as my math abilities.

This is Kim Jong India, our personal household dictator. Her preferred torture methods are sleep deprivation and the piercing of eardrums with screams. These are sometimes used together.
 
She's never been delighted about going to bed, but for a bit she was nice about it, and I thought we'd turned a corner, but it was short-lived. So now I read to her and Jordan, and then I leave her in her room and let her scream while I put him to bed. After she's raged for some amount of time, she's ready to settle, and I can sit with her and she'll agree to go to bed.

If she isn't done raging, however, you cannot get her into bed without a struggle. And then she will rage again. She puts her mouth at the base of the door and yells, "MaMA! MaMA!" She'll cry, she'll scream...and she'll be all fine and delighted when you come in.

It's making me pull my hair out. It takes about an hour of this before she actually goes to sleep.

And.

You will often hear her pad down the hall at 6 or 6:30 in the morning yelling, "Jo-dan! Wake up Jo-dan! Wake up!"

He'll whimper, "Please, India. I don't want to get up."

"Get up, Jo-dan! Get up!"

Then she drags him down the hall into our room, by which time he's fully awake and ready to have some fun.

This means that by the end of the day he is absolutely spent, and by 8 pm you can set him cozily in his bed and kiss him goodnight.

While you take another hour with the back-and-forth with Ole Kim.

And now! Now she's started this terrible phase of waking up WIDE AWAKE anywhere between 1:00 and 3:00 am. Sometimes she will come sleep with us but more often she is ready for a dance party. You can take her back to her room and she will scream like all hell.

Last night she strolled on into our room at 1:30 saying there was a spider in her room. She climbed into bed, stayed an hour or so, then went back to her room. At 3:00 am Nick heart the floor creak, looked down the hall, and there she was, turning on the light in Jordan's room.

Hell broke loose when Nick took her back to her room.

Initially I thought maybe she had a cold or something that was waking her up. But it's been long enough that I'm starting to wonder if, at age 2 1/2, she's been recruited by the dark side.

Dear Dear Dear

Dear Stars in the Sky:
You may already know this, but if you've been busy and not noticed, a brand new star has joined you. Her name is Lou. She's lovely and sparkly and kind. Please welcome her warmly and keep her good company. We miss her very much down here.
Love, Lisa

Dear India:
Why why why is 3:30 am the preferred hour to be up complaining? And by complaining I mean screaming like your skin is being peeled off. Why? I love you more than sunshine but you are messing with my sanity, which is rather fragile as it is.
Love, Mama

Dear Tooth Fairy:
Please bring my daughter the rest of her teeth. I will pay you cash money, as much as you ask.
Love, Lisa

Dear Warm Weather:
You are frabjous! Please settle in, make yourself at home, and do not be scared off by winter. We've had enough of that dickhead.
Love, Lisa

Dear New Orange Dress:
How are you see-through? You are wool. Knit merino wool. You are a strong orange. You looked opaque to me when I put you on.
So how is it that at the end of the day, in evening light, my husband was able to tell me the color and style of my bra and underwear? And, more importantly, how many other people would've been able to tell me the same throughout the day on Wednesday?
Love, Lisa

Chillin' in the crib + bootie butts

Apparently it is a bad idea to get in the crib with your child, even if it makes her so very happy and she goes to sleep very calmly after you hang out with her for a bit.

It turns out that together we are approximately 100 pounds over the weight limit. We could break it.

And then we would have NO CRIB. Lisa.

Nick said this. He had A Tone.

We have taken to rocking her to sleep and if she is up and disgruntled later, we gruntle her and she goes back down and we haven't had a terrible horrible no good night since last week, so there seems to be some progress.

In other news, Jordan has a bootie butt. I cannot, however, get him to shake it.Or tell me where he learned this little ditty.

Parenting help! Help! He-e-elp! HALP!

My India is basically the cutest thing I have ever seen except for when Jordan smiles at me so sweetly and then I'm pretty sure I've never encountered anything more adorable and so it goes.

They are always the most amazing children I have ever laid eyes upon as I imagine yours are for you and this is as it should be and we are all correct.

India has started saying, "No, tank ou!" when she does not want something. And if she bumps into you, she will say, "Sorry!" in her little tiny girl voice and this I also think is the sweetest thing ever on the planet forever.

But.

Just like a hippopotamus, she can turn on a dime, and when she is angered, oh, the rage. The RAGE.

In fact, I have a Very Terrible little video of her shreiking like a banshee, and I would happily share it with you but for the fact that 1. she is all nakey, and I fear that someone creepy might come across it while searching Youtube for naked shrieking babies, and 2. you might sue me for causing hearing loss.

But in any case, if you have ever been to Target and seen a kid on the floor of an aisle, back arched, mouth open, terrible, hideous, evil screams emanating from his or her mouth, you will know what I am talking about.

And if you have not, well, how nice for you.

So here is where I need some help. Because we did not and do not have this with Jordan. Jordan is a sleeper.

When he was small, I would sing to him and put him down and he would stick his little thumb in his mouth and put his butt in the air and he would sleep. He still naps on the weekends, and he sleeps hard.

He doesn't necessarily want to go to bed, but once you are in bed telling stories in the dark (which are now, as directed by him, about Lego Jordan, Lego Goldilocks, and Lego Sophie, who go on adventures and fight Lego giants. Yes, it is a bit cumbersome to have to insert Lego before each name and object. "So then Lego Jordan got into his Lego car and rolled down the window." "Was it a Lego window, Mama?"), he winds down and then he goes to sleep, generally without protest.

Beelzebub, on the other hand, is now infuriated by having to go to bed.

Even if I lay it out for her ahead of time. Every night. Because we have the same fucking routine every night.

"We are going to read two (or however many) books, and then we're going to turn off the light and sing, and then we're going to go to bed. OK?"

"OK."

Liar.

Every night, when we get to the bed part, even if she's fine when I put her down, she commences screaming when I close the door.

Sometimes at the end of singing, when you ask her if she's ready for bed, she says, "Bed!"

So you think she's all ready to snuggle in with her friends doggie and lion and graff and blankie.

She is, until you leave.

Sometimes she begins wailing before I go, and then I stay and try to pat her back but she is all, "NO, ASSHOLE. PICK ME UP OR LEAVE ME ALONE TO HOWL IN PEACE."

Last night she said, "Bed!" And then we got up to go to bed and she said, "Sit!" Which means, "Mama, plant your butt firmly back in that chair and keep rocking me."

And then she said, "NO BED! NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

I rocked her a bit, then went and put her down, and by that time she was kicking and screaming and when I set her down she really let me have it. No, I could not touch her. No, I was not allowed to do anything to try to make her feel better. No no and no.

She can maintain this level of rage for a long time. Like, over an hour. Last night she yelled for two hours. TWO HOURS.

If she hears your footsteps approaching, she'll quiet down. If you don't go in, all hell breaks loose. If you go in, it's all sweetness until you get ready to go.

And she screams and screams.

Then she falls asleep exhausted, and typically sleeps the night.

We've gone in and patted her, gone in and rocked her, gone in and soothed her until she was sound asleep. But the more we go in, the longer she keeps it up.

I am a cry-it-out parent, and I leave her be when she's having a tantrum. I have let her rage on many a sidewalk when she isn't getting her way.

But this is different.

I don't want her this upset every night. But I also feel like the more we go in, the more she knows that if she yells, she will summon one of us.

She used to fuss in bed, but not at this level, and not for this long. And then she went through a period where she'd be all calm and sweet, and sometimes even say, "Night night!" when you put her down. And she'd go to sleep.

We've had this nightly caterwauling for a good week or so now.

What do we do?

Today I am 44

This much I know right now (not comprehensive, and in stream of consciousness kind of order):

I am older than many of our parents were when we were in high school. And they were old! So impossibly grown up!

My husband is that grown up. I will never be that grown up

I am OK with this. (Pretty sure he is, too.)
 
---

I like myself so much better than I ever have in my life. I have more wrinkles, more brown spots, and now my hair is blonde thanks to the good grace of chemicals, modern foil techniques, and a lovely woman named Sarah.

And yet, I also have so much more confidence. It makes the other things matter significantly less.

Which is not to say I haven't thought about Botox.

---

I have no ability to discern good music from bad. I embrace all things 80s, and 80s dance songs from 1983-1987 seem to be the only ones with lyrics I actually know.

I never know anything musically cool or new. Copacabana remains one of my favorite songs.

Happily, I no longer feel like I need to hide these facts.

---

Blogging changed my life. It made me realize that other people thought many of the same bizarro things that I do, and feel the same intense feelings.

And the people who were going to judge me for thinking and feeling these things out loud were not people I needed in my life.

It was incredibly liberating.

---

Right now I weigh about 10 pounds more than I did in high school Actually, 10-20, depending on the year. But I think I look better than I did back then. I'm stronger and healthier. So much healthier.

Well, not everything looks better. I had significantly nicer abs before babies. Same goes for my boobs.

I do miss my happy little cupcakes.

---

My kids are the best thing I have ever done, the best gift I have ever been given. I had no idea how much richer my life would be.

I also had no idea how much sleep I actually need. It is approximately 1-4 hours more than I get on a given night.

---


This is going to be the year I write my book. It is.

Saying that out loud terrifies me and pulls out all my insecurities.

---

And I still feel like an imposter when I put on lipstick. I don't know why.

---

The only thing that really matters to me is the people I love. That's all life comes down to. I love our house, and I do, of course, have some fantastic boots, but let's be honest: people are what matter.

And I have excellent taste in people. I do. This struck me the other day, and I know it for an absolute fact.

This is reality, Greg.

I don't know if you remember the movie E.T.? Apparently it just played at Screen on the Green, and it would've been a delight to sit outside and watch it.

And I bring it up because our house has gotten very E.T. towards the end, when the Feds discover that Eliot has an alien at his house and they quarantine it and cover it in plastic and there are all these tubes and machines and such.

You know, I know how that movie ends, and still I sob when it looks like he's going to die, and I get all panicked when they are trying to escape. I do not know why this is, but it is so.

In any case.

That's the second floor room that India used to sleep in, which the elevator goes through. The part of the closet that hasn't fallen in or been pulled off will basically be ripped out. We're hoping the floor isn't ruined. We've already thrown out half the closet contents and are washing or dry cleaning the rest.

The photo below is Betty's room. Thankfully, she's visiting Maude's parents. Because she wouldn't be able to get to the elevator. And you can't use the stairs, because they're blocked off on the ground floor (top picture).

We have a plastic areas on every floor, and gigantor fans and dehumidifiers that suck 16 gallons of water per hour! This I find very impressive, I don't know why.

I have lots more pictures I was going to post, but then I was like, do they need to see every damn room and hallway with plastic and tubing and a big water sucky machine?

Anyway. Let me sum up.

Some of you may recall how we moved in just over four years ago and immediately commenced construction and really only got done with indoor construction, what, right before India was born?

I mean, now Jordan is almost four and has basically grown up with Australian Builder and Hector Big Wood.

So. We went away for five days. Last Wednesday to Sunday. We so rarely go away, almost never for that long.  But we did. All of us. We went to Nick's work retreat, and Betty went to Vermont.

And during that time, the AC on the fourth floor backed up and flooded. Soaked through the floor, through the wall, through my mom's closet, through what used to be the nursery closet (which, being one of our only closets, was packed to the gills with coats, comforter, clothes, stuff), through another wall, through the dining room ceiling, and down to the dining room floor.

Water turns out to be very terrible, even if it's not a tsunami. Fuckity fuck, basically. It is a giant fucking disaster.

That said, nothing bad befell any of us, and honestly, it's only money and stuff and a big hassle. We have too much stuff. But we can always use more hassle.

Also, everyone we have dealt with, except the initial claims people, who were the ones who broke the news about how our agent snuck in a whopping deductible, has been lovely. Totally professional and very pleasant. The appraiser and all the water mitigation people have been fantastic.

Which is good, because they've spent a lot of time with us lately, and it doesn't look like their visits are going to end anytime soon. The asbestos-checker arrives at 7:00 am tomorrow, the water mitigation fellows arrive around 10:00.

So, basically, I'll...be....right...here.

(I love E.T. Love. Makes me cry every time.)

We're the kids in America

Last week Nick had a conference in Denver.

We were there for five days. We flew direct out of National. Denver is a lovely city. We stayed in a nice hotel. The tap water tasted great. We ate all our meals in restaurants of one sort or another.

It was the hardest trip of my life.

I say this without exaggeration. I say this as someone who has ridden on sketchy buses in the Andes, buses with drivers desperate to pass the next bus on a blind turn, buses with questionable brakes. I say this as someone who has ridden on the top of those buses, figuring that if the bus went over the side of the eroding road, straight down the mountain, I might be able to leap to my salvation.

I say this as someone who has spent a month trekking in Nepal, from where the road ends to the top of Kala Pattar, just before Base Camp, at 18,192 feet, and back. We slept in tea houses heated by yak dung, which, FYI, is a not-awesome heat source. It's hard to breathe at altitude such as that. We were so cold I didn't take off my clothes - any of them, including my hat - for an entire week.

And still, travel with my daughter, my love, my hurricane, was more exhausting, more challenging.

That said, this trip was also fantastic.

For one thing, Jordan has become a wonderful traveler. He was delightful. He was delighted.

We got to see Maude and Wendy and their families, and Jordan and Maude's son totally hit it off. That was such a joy. Really, the trip for him was magic.

Because, oh, because so many things.

The incredible Denver Children's Museum, which has a whole fire engine and so many amazing rooms of activities and why why oh why, why don't we have one of those here in DC?

The MONSTER TRUCK parked right outside our hotel. A MONSTER TRUCK. A REAL LIVE MONSTER TRUCK, WHICH CAN DRIVE OVER OTHER CARS AND SMASH THEM!

Balloons! Dear Lord do we love balloons!

The pool! Which was cold! So we hung out in towels with our friends!

 Hiding in the lobby. Annoying other patrons. Generally acting like Eloise at the Plaza.

 Sunglasses. And toy monster truck.

Lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory, which used to be a train station, and where you can sit and have lunch with your new pal Benji in an actual old trolley car!

And last but not least, the airplane! The window seat! THE AIRPLANE THE RUNWAY THE TAKEOFF THE AIRPLANE, MAMA!

Magic, I tell you.

And all should cry, Beware! Beware! Her flashing eyes, her floating hair! *

Dear India,

While this is less than flattering, I feel like your 14th month is most characterized by your SHRILL SCREAMING.

You are lovely and joyful and hilarious, yes, and you have such a strong and charming personality, but this month I dedicate to your screaminess. Oh, and your hair. Your hair!

Your hair refuses to be tamed, and I love it. It stands straight up and waves in the breeze and it's just delightful.

But the screaming. The endless screaming.


I don't even know quite how to describe the sound. It's a combination of nails on chalk and sheets of metal being wrenched and a fork scraping on glass with some shrieking eels thrown in for giggles.

It is a noise that you pull out at the slightest indication that we are not hopping to meet your needs fast enough. I know you are frustrated because you know what you want and can't communicate it and this comes out in this song of Satan.

It is a noise that causes my blood pressure to rise, my shoulders to tense up, my temper to shorten, my ovaries to clench, my hand to reach for the wine glass.

It is the very noise that I am afraid will make every single person on the plane to Denver tomorrow loathe us for the entire four-hour flight.

Because yes! We are going to Denver! Daddy is going to a conference and we are going to see so many friends and family and yay it is going to be awesome!

Jordan is so excited. Every night we tell a story in bed, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears has slowly evolved and expanded to Goldilocks and Her Brother Jordan, Who Go to the Airport and Fly on an Airplane to Denver, Colorado.

Last night the story included Goldilocks, her brother Jordan, baby India, their mommy and daddy, their nana, their Lucy, and Molly and her daddy. All going to Denver.

If we add many more people we're going to have to charter a flight.

But this is about you. You have no idea what we're about to do, and while I think you're going to have a blast hanging out with friends, I am pretty terrified about flying with you. And shifting your time zone. And getting you to sleep in a hotel room.

Basically, the whole trip. I'm afraid you will scream and not sleep and we will not sleep and then we will all be crabby and there you have it.

You and your brother are just so different.  I was told by so many people that girls are easier, less busy. You are far more busy, and you always have an agenda. You are always headed somewhere, walking with a purpose.

Your preference during meals is to have one foot on the table, and it is enough of a struggle that at this point I just let you. So after meals I wipe your face, your hands, and your right foot.

You and Jordan are my joy, and we run around like lunatics and snuggle and giggle and have so many delightful moments. I love that you are strong, and I want to foster your strength, particularly because you are a girl.

But dear Lord, the screaming.

Love,

Mama


*Apologies to Coleridge

Wife. Synonyms: helpmate, helpmeet, lady, little woman, madam, missus (or missis), Mrs., old lady, wifey, woman. According to Mirriam-Webster.

So, I've been thinking about polygamy lately. Which makes me feel totally guilty.

Not in the, wow, that would make up for the threesomes I never had in college! kind of way. Or because my wifely demands are such that I feel they should be shared.

No.

It is mainly because I would like to have a wife to exploit. There. I said it. Isn't that awful? She'd be some very nice person who would marry us because she thought we were very nice people, or for whatever reason it is that you get married.

I mean, I know why I got married. And a big part of it was because he is, in fact, a very nice person. And he is a terrific husband and a wonderful father. But he is not a wife.

I want a wife.

Actually, exploit is strong. I want a wife to be home when I can't. I want a wife to make dinner because I hate to, although I don't mind cleaning up. I want a wife for company, and to move the car or to stay home with the kids while I run out to get some groceries or whatever.

I don't need a trophy wife. Particularly because trophy wives, by definition, aren't helpful, right? Just beautiful? No. Definitely not a trophy.

I would like someone cool to  hang out with. Who maybe had similar taste in fiction, so we could talk about.

And you know, I regularly wonder how, how HOW do Mormons manage all those children with no alcohol or caffeine?

Here I should note that I do realize that the polygamous Mormons are in the minority. Even though Big Love made it seem like they were everywhere. Selmer! Selmer! I miss Big Love. I do.

Anyway.

I have, you see, been a single parent for a couple days. Which is not very long in the parenting scheme of life. But India, dollop of delight that she is, feels compelled to scream like her fingernails are being ripped out somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 am. Every. Goddamn. Night.

And Jordan, my Jordan, who used to sleep until 8 am, now wakes up at 5:45. Because there is so much fun to be had! We need to start having it as early as possible!

The good thing is that Nick sleeps on the side near the door, and also, he's the more fun parent. And so when Mr. Lookin'-fer-Fun arrives and sticks his face one inch from that of one of the sleeping parents, it is not mine.

Nick describes it as a rather disconcerting way to wake up. Eyeball to eyeball.

Jordan woke me up this morning, however, with cars in hand and a plaintive, "Mommy! Where is Daddy? I can't find Daddy anywhere!"

(Uh...Delaware?)

And on top of all of this, Betty gallivanted off to France last week with a childhood friend, one of her North Dakota ladies. They signed up for a week-long tour of Provence, and then booked another week to just hang out.

How delightful does that sound? I want to gallivant off to there!

What I've realized is that while Nick gets home after the kids are in bed, I'm so used to not being alone. My mom and I typically get the kids fed and I get them bathed and then we divide them up for bed.

Even when we don't...I'm not alone. I like not being the only adult at home.

Now, of course I was and am all excited for her to have two weeks in France. Excited and oh, yay, hope she is having so much fun and she should totally relax and come back next week at her leisure and also all, PLEASE COME BACK ASAP I MISS YOU THESE CHILDREN ARE KILLING ME I NEED MY MAMA.

I haven't said that to her, of course. Mainly because we've had no contact. I figure she is having so much fun she does not have time to check in.

And also, she firmly believes that her email lives on her home computer.

Which might formerly have been called, oh, Tuesday. If remarked upon at all.

Typically our weekend nights are much like our weeknights, and we're in bed by 10 or 10:30 because dear God, sleep is precious. And the wee savages are relentless.

But every once in a while, you just have to throw caution to the wind and go ahead and carpe the diem  - or noctem (I looked it up) - as the case may be.

Last Friday, we had a glass of wine after dinner (uh, not so much on the 15-day experiment...but there were extenuating circumstances like children and the Kentucky Derby and the deliciousness of mint juleps, which we may have Cinco de Mayo'd with as well. I do, however plan to try it out...one of these sometime soons.) We sat outside, as it was lovely and clear - Nick in shorts and a t-shirt (Oh! The delightful briskness!) and me in jeans and a down jacket (Brr! It's fucking May motherweatherfuckers!) and then alas, it was  somewhere past 10 pm, which, as I said, is pumpkin time.

Except! Nick made the bold and unexpected proposal of television! He suggested it somewhat furtively, as if proposing we skulk off to do something dirty.

Incautiously, I said, yes, oh, yes! Television. I miss you so.

So we went upstairs and turned on the TV and there on the Netflix screen was the Hunger Games! Do you know how long I've been waiting to see it and haven't because my TV-watching companion AKA husband is never interested? But Nick was amenable!

(And I know this is now such old news, but Peeta was so much cuter when I read the books.)

So suddenly and inexplicably it was midnight(!) and I suggested we finish the movie another time and Nick said, "Let's keep watching. I'll get up with the kids."

The odds were ever in my favor!

It was the parently crazy late hour of 12:30 by the time we were crawling in bed...and then, then although this is not that kind of blog, there was some S-E-X, which I only mention because this was how wild and crazy our night was.

And then it was insanely late and I was all, now that we've been this insanely careless with our sleep, I feel like we should totally inject heroine into our eyeballs.

Lullaby and good night. Close your eyes and sleep tight. Little angels 'round your head, as you scream bloody murder in your bed.

For the most part, India is the biggest, sunniest dollop of happy joy you can imagine.

She loves the bath, she loves to play, she loves to eat new things, she loves dogs, she loves indoors and outdoors and really, almost everything so far.

She beams at us. She smiles at people on the street. She squeals in delight when she sees Jordan. As soon as you go in to pick her up in the morning she  bursts into smiliness and holds out her arms for you.

FRABJOUS DAY! CALLOOH! CALLAY!

She is just so happy. Except when she's not. Which centers mostly around sleep.

Because sweet India, it must be said, is not so much on the sleeping. It pisses her off to miss anything. And when she shrieks, she is shriiiiiiiillll. Yikes.

For naps and for bedtime, you can get her all drowsy and sweetly snuggled up against you, seemingly too tired to lift her little head. Then you lay her down gently, and while some of the time she just chucks her hands behind her head and falls asleep, other times, she raises holy hell.

Because as soon as she realizes what's going on, her eyes pop open and she is all, "OHHH, NO! NOT HAVING IT!"

Sometimes I keep my hands on her, willing her to settle, and she quiets.

Then I tiptoe away, and immediately she is all,  "DON'T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME! GODDAMMIT, LADY! PICK ME THE FUCK UP! DID YOU HEAR ME?! NOOOOOO DON'T GOOOOOO!"

If I make the mistake of turning around and heading back to sooth her she's immediately all, "OH HI!" She beams! She holds out her chubby pink arms.

She's immediately delighted. "That rage? Was so 30 seconds ago. Actually, I was kidding! Hahaha!"

I leave her in her crib and pat her back, and she snuggles down. I wait until her breathing settles, until she seems comfortable and content.

And then I walk away.

The harangue begins immediately. "WHAT THE SHIT? COME BACK HERE! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!? I'LL FUCKING WAKE UP THE GODDAMN NEIGHBORS! SEE IF I DON'T!"

Open and close the door as quickly and quietly as possible.

"COME BAAAAAAAACK! COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW! DO YOU HEAR ME?!?"

I want to be all, "Listen, kid, yes, I can hear you. Everyone in the greater DC area can hear you."

And on top of state secrets I'd probably be all, yeah, and my mom makes awesome apple pie and I'll totally trade you the recipe for a pillow.

Wednesday: The Bullet Version

• I lost another glove, thought I lost a sock (but, after getting several people in the gym involved - because how did I lose a sock in the 20 steps between the lockers and the gym? - learned that I was looking in the wrong locker), and left my purse at work.
• Bedtime: 9:30
• Awake with India: 11:30 pm. 3:30 am. Up at 7:00 am.
• Caffeine: 1 cup of tea. 2 cups of coffee. With eggnog. Unspiked. Alas.
• Weird smoothie ingredient of the day: None! Pas de smoothie! Nick has been gone all week and dear Mahavir, he needs to come home because I have eaten way too many fish sticks, slept way too little, and am kind of desperately hanging on by my fingernails.

Let me sum up:

The whole bamboo thing would super suck, and I doubt I would hold up to waterboarding, but I know for sure that I would crack faster than Humpty Dumpty if the terrorists used sleep deprivation.

Um, and if you're reading this and you're a terrorist, I don't actually know any state secrets. My mom does make good pie, though. Hand to God on both.

Downton and lack of sleep. With a dinosaur hat. But a healthy urinary tract. Oh, snap (peas)!

The Bullet Version

• Look, it was a hard morning. And then I couldn't find my hat.
• Bedtime: 11:30
• Awake with India: 2:00-4:00 am. Feeding, shushing, rocking, applying gum numbing stuff. Up at 6:30.
• Caffeine: 2 cups of tea. 2 cups of coffee.
• Weird smoothie ingredient of the day: Snap peas.

The Text and Photo Version

Jordan's dinosaur hat: It's is a bit tight and uncomfortable, but better than cold ears. And I quite like the look. I think it says danger! Prehistoric danger! I can totally kick your ass, paleontologically speaking!

Yes. I am a tremendous dork, if that's what you're thinking.

Bedtime: So it's my fault that I stayed up until 11 pm watching the Downton premiere, but you guys, Downton!

I don't know if you've read The Night Circus, but I decided last summer that if I could live between there and Downton, I'd be delighted. Recognizing that both are fictional. And that I'd want my family to come along.

Anyway.

I have to say, I was underwhelmed with the premiere. It was fine, but for me to stay up until 11 when my daughter is sure to rip me out of a sound sleep within three hours, I need spectacular.

For starters, I wanted more wedding. I thought the Matthew inheritance thing was sketch. And Shirley MacLaine's lines weren't clever. She was kind of flat and overdone.

Which is not to say that I don't want Downton playing on a continuous loop at my house, because I still do.

OK. So now let's talk about this one fact that underlines everything in my life at the moment:

MY BABY IS KILLING ME. She has woken up no fewer than three times per night for weeks now. Sometimes more like five or eight times. It is fucking brutal.

She's hungry! And she's teething! And standing! And I am old and tired, oh so tired. Tired like I want to do shots of hard liquor and crawl into a warm, dark hole and sleep for three days straight. Kind of like a little hibernating bear.

Caffeine: See above for explanation.

The smoothie business: So, in an effort to eat better and incorporate more vegetables into our lives, as a present to ourselves, we got a Vitamix for Christmas. We have just begun exploring the possibilities.

I learned immediately that yes, you can have too many beets in your juice. And that if your husband has never eaten a beet in his life, he will be alarmed when it comes out the other end.

Anyway.

Nick has, very kindly and enthusiastically, been making smoothies for us every morning. He gets up before me, or gets up when I'm nursing India, and he gets all kinds of things done before I stagger downstairs. For which I am grateful.


The smoothies, however, are...unconventional.There's always a mystery ingredient that I can't quite place and wouldn't choose, if left to my own devices.

One morning it was an innocuous brownish green. I took a sip, and ooh, it was tart, oh so tart!

"What's in this?"

"Apple, pear, spinach, carrot, banana, blueberries, orange..."

"It's kind of, uh..."

"And cranberries! We have a lot of frozen cranberries! I may have gone overboard."

Good for our urinary tracts, anyway.

Another morning it was cauliflower. Which turns out to be kind of a bold flavor in a beverage.

This morning's tasted kind of like grass clippings. I was trying to put my finger on the flavor.

"Snap peas!"

Which I now totally want to try the next time I'm wide awake at 3:00 AM

When you hear piercing shrieks in the middle of the night, you tend to leap out of bed and run towards the shriek-maker to see what the problem might be.

Because maybe something calamitous has happened to your baby. Maybe there's a bug in her bed! Or she's had a ginormous poop! Or something equally terrible!

Or.

Maybe she sat herself up for the first time ever. And cannot figure out what to do next.

I have read about babies trying out new skills in the middle of the night. Apparently it is common.

Jordan, however, did not do this. Or if he did, he did so very quietly. As far as we knew, once he started sleeping through the night, he stuck his thumb in his mouth, his butt in the air, and slept. All night long.

And by the way, he no longer removes his pants when he gets angry. I see this as serious progress.

India, however, is so very unlike her brother. She's figured out how to turn on the very same mobile that her brother enjoyed but never touched. She flips and squirms and is generally just itching to do everything she possibly can and then all the things that she cannot yet.

So I saved her from the dread sitting. She was all, "Oh, hi! Awesome to see you!"

I fully expected a repeat performance an hour later.

When I returned to bed, temporarily wide awake, I started thinking. What if adults did that?

One minute there you'd be, sound asleep, all ensconced in dreams in your cozy bed.

You'd have no idea that your partner had woken up and was trying to figure out how to pass the time before falling back asleep. She'd be thinking and thinking, and then she'd realize that her trainer had showed her this great exercise.

And then you might feel the bed shake a little. Or you might hear a tiny noise. You'd slowly begin surfacing from asleepness as you came to the realization that something was going on in your very own bed.

You'd briefly wonder if you even wanted to know. But of course you'd be curious.

So you'd open your eyes to see your partner, wide awake, practicing one-legged squats or something of the sort.

And really, "The hell?" would be pretty much all you could say, you know?

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more! MacIndia does murder sleep!"

Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? 

Uh, no. It's an iPhone. Pretty cool, huh?

Also, if you've ever done any internet dating, is this picture not reminiscent of those in a number of men's profiles? I was always like, why, why are they taking their own picture and not smiling? It makes me think they don't have any friends. And they don't, in fact, love to laugh. No matter what their profile might say.

So anyway.

In sooth, the only difference between a zombie and me today is that I'm not out to eat anyone's brains. Well, that and I can talk and type. I don't think they can do either. Although I can't say for certain, because honestly, I avoid zombie shows. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Truly.

But if you were a zombie and you nursed your kid, would you turn your baby into a zombie, I wonder?

So my non-zombie baby, she is not happy about this sleep-training bullshit. Her cries are not, "Help me, help me!" 

Oh, no sirree, no! These cries are all, "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS? I'M AWAKE! AND I'M USED TO MUCH BETTER SERVICE THAN THIS! IN FACT, I'D LIKE TO BE ABLE TO JUST RING A BELL TO SUMMON YOU. BECAUSE WE'VE ALL SEEN DOWNTON, BITCHES! NOW GET THE HELL IN HERE!"

It pisses her off, and she is not shy with expressing her ragey rage at top volume. I must say she comes by this honestly.

With Jordan, it only took a couple nights. Not with this one. I met a friend for lunch today and she said that it had been a long, hard slog with her daughter. 

"The problem," she said, "is that she's stubborn. I think the real issue is that our girls are just like us."

Which makes me think, oh, man. I am in for it.

When I was in high school, we were at my North Dakota grandmother's for a few weeks in the summer, and I found a letter Betty had written to her mom when my brother was a baby. She said she'd thought I was a good baby, but only because I was her first. Because my brother, he was actually a good baby. He was easygoing. He slept. He was wonderful.

She had written something like: Lisa, on the other hand, never slept. Never napped. Never wanted to be put down. The minute you put her down, she opened her eyes and screamed. 

It wasn't until my brother came along that she realized how exhausting I actually was.

I read the letter out loud to her. She felt terrible about what she'd written, and being a teenager, I teased her about it mercilessly. It didn't hurt my feelings, even then. And now, now all I can do is sympathize with her.

Pretty sure we all owe our mothers big-time.

India: Month five

Dear India, my sweet, sweet girl,

Today you are five big months old. Sometimes I can't believe you've gotten so big, and sometimes when I look at pictures from even a couple months ago, I can't believe you were ever so small.

You are relentlessly smiley and happy and charming. When I nibble on your neck, which I try to do at every opportunity, you giggle. Sometimes you shriek in delight, just out of the blue. Like, wheeeee the breeze! Hello, world!

I love how you're not afraid to mix your prints. And it turns out, to my delight, that you too view animal prints as a neutral.  I also covet this shirt. I hope that I'm stylish enough that you will want to raid my closet when you're older.

Hopefully I won't have taken to wearing Mrs. Roper muumuus or something equally unfortunate. If I have, the future you needs to give me a good talking-to, okay?

Last week, at your slightly late four-month appointment, we learned you had exactly doubled your birth weight. You have these deliciously plump cheeks and chubby arms and scrumptious dimpled legs.

You've recently discovered your feet, and when I picked you up from day care the other day, you were in a new pair of socks. Because you'd gotten your socks thoroughly soaked with the chewing.

You actually quite like your stroller, but in this moment, it looked so much like prison that I had to document it. You shot a man in Memphis just to watch him die.

I love this picture of you, because it looks like you have a devil horn, which is perhaps unfair. But I'm pretty sure that you are going to have a gleefully wicked side. I'm not so much on bows on babies, but your aunt Jenny gave this to you and I couldn't resist the whole ensemble.

You are clearly delighted by your older brother, and it so clearly makes him feel good. He's proud of you. He refers to you as HIS baby. As in, "Is my baby upstairs?" "Are you going to put my baby to bed now?"

I love this age, I truly do. The smiles, the giggles, the feet, the new noises. I find it kind of exhausting, however, in that you and Jordan both NEED so much at the same time. Some nights I get you bathed and into bed and then I turn my attention to Jordan and once he's in bed I take a hot hot shower and tuck myself in, too. And we're all asleep by nine pm.

Because you, my little friend, have been a terrible sleeper. There is no reason, I have told you repeatedly, to be up four times in a night, as is your current preference.

With our pediatrician's blessing, we've started sleep training. It's going slowly and painfully, but we seem to be progressing. You fall asleep on your own fine, but when you wake up in the night YOU WANT ATTENTION! AND BOOB! NONE OF THIS BACK-PATTING BULLSHIT, YOU ASSHOLES. Is generally how it's been.

Just because I am delighted when you and your brother are both asleep, sometimes so much so that I giggle with glee and then pour myself a giant glass of wine, does not mean that I don't love you both so much more than I could ever have imagined. Because I do.

Sometimes I see you and catch my breath, I love you so immensely.

I'd just like a little more goddamn sleep.

Love love love,

Mama

Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?

When I was in the Peace Corps, trainers would regularly bring up the "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach him to fish..."

This popped into my mind at 3:30 am, when my little dollop of delight was up for the SEVEN MILLIONTH time. And every time she wakes up, no matter the reason, she needs boob, stat.

So as I lay there, listening to her start to squawk, willing her with all my might to settle herself, I was thinking: Give a baby a roll and she'll eat for a day, but teach her to roll and you will NEVER GET ANY SLEEP AGAIN.

You see, our India has learned how to roll over onto her stomach. But she cannot get back.

I didn't actually teach her. I just encouraged her.

And now I am all, why for the love of Peter, Paul and Mary - and maybe Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and even the Eagles and America (both of whom Nick hates. Seriously. How can you hate the Eagles? America? Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't, didn't already have! But I digress.) - why oh why did I encourage her?

Really, why was I enticing her with toys, cheering her on, all "Yes, sweetie! You can do it!" Why???

Instead, I should've been busy sewing giant pieces of Velcro to the back of her pajamas and onto her sheets.

She can roll both to the right and to the left. She really has to work at it, but she can do it.

You see her turn her head and fix on something to her side. She gears up all, "I want to go to there!" And she throws her arms and legs up and flings them sideways and then she grunts and struggles and wiggles and squiggles and finally, finally flips herself over.

At which point she is all, "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS I'M LOOKING FOR!"