Three two year olds. Three days. One roof.

Are you reaching for the wine yet?

(Which, by the way, my toddler demanded at dinner the other night. Looked right at the waitress and said, “I need more wine!” Epic parenting fail.)

We retreated to a cottage for the weekend with friends who have two year old twins. We added our two year old girl in to the mix. And it was beautiful, and hilarious, and heart-melty to watch the little girls navigate the world of play and food and sharing and manners and lakefronts and beaches together. And it was also utterly exhausting. Completely, bone-crunchingly, brain-drainingly exhausting. I think I could perhaps run a marathon and feel less tired than I do tonight.

It’s not like having an infant who can’t walk, whom you can then plunk in the middle of the living room floor and at least drink your coffee. It’s not like having a five year old who might be at least capable, however badly, of wiping their own ass and tying their own shoes. No, two – and from the looks of it, well in to three – appears to be very possibly the most bone-wearying exhausting phase of parenting.  (Please don’t tell me it gets worse. I can’t take it right now.)

They’re like unleashed orangutans. It’s the constant movement, the need to be in to everything, the seeming inability to listen to anything – or, let me correct that, the ability to listen and then do the exact opposite of whatever it is you’re telling them to do – the running, running, running, usually while shrieking, the NO DATS MINE!s, the grabbing, the food throwing, the food refusing – I suspect you get the point and, if your child is over two, you may be experiencing flashbacks. My apologies.

Never does sinking in to a kitchen chair at 9 pm in front of dinner and a glass of pinot feel so welcomed as the day when the toddler was up all night then up all day and shrieked from one end of it to the other, let’s put it that way.

But it’s hard to admit that exhaustion, because I think there was a time in my life when I may have said, chasing a two year old! How could that be that hard! Pshaw, parents complain too much!

I would like to now officially declare that if I were to somehow slip in to a time machine and magically meet that Me at any point, I would gleefully punch her in the face should anything even resembling those words pass her lips.

Just like anything, you don’t know what it’s like til you’re in it.

I’ll still do it, gladly, every day. Because that kid is worth it. Everything.

But you’ll forgive me if I go to bed five minutes after she does.

********************************************

Oh, god, go ahead, tell me: Does it get worse?

Photo credit: Mdanys on Flickr.

I settle in, coffee at easy reach right next to hand, lemon-cranberry scone at the other. Window seat at the local Starbucks, sponging off the ‘free” wifi which comes only in exchange for paying their ludicrous prices for a cuppa. 70s funk wafting through the speakers. Laptop fully charged, creative juices more or less poised.

In the opposite corner sits a three year old girl in a yellow rain slicker and pigtails secured with pink butterfly clips.  She squirms in her chair as she points out shapes in her book. “Elffant!”  “RhiNOSSSerous!”  Her mother nods vaguely as she reads her newspaper, trying to use every precious moment she can before the girl melts down and the peace is over. The girl, not discouraged, picks up a napkin and starts gift wrapping her book in it. Ah, the entertainment potential three year olds can find in nearly anything.

I can’t keep my eyes off her. Creativity foiled by the squirmy child, even when it’s not mine. And I sigh, guiltily, because though my daughter is at one of her favourite places in the world – an indoor play world that also supplies food and coffee, a stroke of pure genius – she’s there without me. I ditched her there with the sitter so that I could come sit and write in relative silence.

This is what I wanted, I remind myself. Childcare, so that I could get some freedom, so that I could pursue some other projects aside from Mommyhood. And it still is what I want. Children grow and lives go on and I have stagnated long enough. I need to get back out there. The world has changed and I can do exciting things, writing and talking and organizing and being connected. I am more than Mom, after all, and immersing myself in to stay-at-home-mom world full time was never going to be permanent, for the simple reason that childhood isn’t permanent. While the thought that my little girl will someday be gone is still a shock of pain, the reality is it will happen. And even now, I still percolate with ideas and creativity and things I want to get done, things I’m proud of doing, things I want to do but that require someone else to change diapers and wash blueberries and read books to the almost-two-year-old.  And I have a niece who needs some cash flow and doesn’t yet have a full time job. Win-win.

But then my eyes go to the little girl in the corner.  And I can’t help thinking of the enormous smiles that must be all over my daughter’s face even now, now as she climbs the stairs on the play castle and runs over and starts spinning the strangely placed steering wheel and then ditches it as fast as she ran to it and instead jumps as hard as she can as she goes across the play castle’s bridge just to see what kind of noise it makes and then reaches the slide and laboriously sits down on her tiny bum right before she goes shooting down to the ground to start the process all over again.

I remind myself that even when I’m with her, I can’t help but think of the posts to be written or the dishes to be done or the laundry to be washed or the groceries to be bought or the this or the that or the whatever. So I’ve found a way to do those things. Isn’t that what I wanted?

Isn’t it?

Is this what Motherhood is doomed to bring? Not so much the guilt – although there’s plenty of that – but rather longing, longing at every turn? Always wondering, angsting, churning with the knowledge of what you’re not doing? Does motherhood create a permanent rift in your psyche?  Am I doomed to always think about what I’m missing instead of what I have?

Or is that just me and my never-satisfied brain?

This just in: families with two girl children come out on top in the happiness lottery.

Yes, it appears to be true, says a study out of the UK this fine morning: When families of all child-arrangements, boys, girls, one child, many children, a veritable lottery of child picks are surveyed, the families that seem to come out happiest are those with two female offspring. Apparently, two girls get along and play well and don’t gouge each other’s eyes out nearly as often as I had assumed they would, leading to family – and presumably matrimonial – harmony.  Which I have to admit gives me a certain satisfaction, knowing how under-valued female children can be around the world.

(Beware, however, that there can apparently be too much of a good thing: People with four daughters see a drastic drop on the happiness scales. Can’t imagine why.)

Certainly, were I to have another child, and were that child to be a girl, I would be quite happy. Not that I’d be unhappy with a boy – but surprisingly, I’m not tied to the idea of having “one of each”, salt and pepper, yin and yang. I like having my girl, and I think I’d like having another girl just as well. It’s true, having another girl might make my life easier in a few ways. I already have the wardrobe at the ready, for example. I’m familiar with the plumbing, as it were. I would know well in advance that a second bathroom would be required by the time they hit the tween stage, giving me ample time to save for household renovations. And my husband would only have to buy shotguns for use on the neighbourhood boys rather than actually teach any boys how to use one. (Yes, that’s total gender stereotyping. I like the smell of cliche in the morning.)

Plus, sometimes, little boys scare me. They’re kind of loud. And destructive. And I totally do not know anywhere near enough about Star Wars to keep the average 4 year old happy.

However, as a person whose uterus spent many years hanging up an “out for lunch” shingle, I realize the blessing that a child of either gender would be. So it’s not like I’m tempting the fates by saying that if my body decides to procreate again, thanks, but I’ll only take a girl.

But still, I have the baby girl clothes tucked away in the closet. Just in case.

Yes, we are those parents who ditch the kids with Grandma in order to go have fun by ourselves. Yes, I know there are plenty of parents who don’t leave their kids with anybody until they’re 16. Yes, I know that there are plenty of parents who”ve never spent a night apart, never left anybody to change a diaper at 3 am or soothe a bad dream or leave someone else in charge of dietary decisions.

We are not that family.

We’ve gone away. We’ve gone away for personal reasons or professional, trips for us to reconnect or conferences in cool places. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to leave her. I worry the whole time, wondering if she is OK, if Grandma is feeding her the Right food or letting her watch too much TV. But mostly, I just miss her desperately. All I think about is going home, and how we’ll walk in the door and she’ll spot me and yell MAMA! And run in to my arms for a giant hug.

But toddlers like to surprise us. The first time we went away, there was no giant reunion hug.  Instead, we walked in the door and I took off my coat and leaned down to say Hello to my sweet daughter. Who looked at me coolly then went back to playing with her tea set.  Dismissed.

I knew it was just a kid thing. I knew she was giving us the brush off for what was probably some Very Good Child Psychology Reason – whether she was expressing her displeasure with us for going away in the first place, or perhaps she was overwhelmed by some emotional thing she couldn’t deal with, or maybe she just didn’t give a crap that we were back because Grandma took her to McDonald’s every night and let her watch Elmo all day. Whatever the reason, it stabbed me through the heart. I thought of all those moms who never left their kids and how I bet they never got the cold shoulder and how we never ever ever should have gone away in the first place no matter what the reason and I sat with my heart feeling like a swollen tooth until an hour passed and she finally rushed in to my arms for a hug and everything came back to normal.

Eventually my heart got over the frosty reception, which was a good thing because it happens every time we leave. Whenever she’s overnight with Grandma, we get a decidedly frigid reception on our return. I’ve gotten used to it. As we drove home from the airport yesterday, I was even able to laugh about it.

“You know she’s gonna ignore us completely for an hour, right?”

“Yep,” said the husband. “She’s got Grandma. Grandma feeds her french fries and babbles to her all day and buys her clothes and lets her trash the place. She loves it there.”

I laughed, then sighed internally. Right now, every toddler cold shoulder is somehow a harbinger of things to come, things when she’s 15 and slams her bedroom door in my face and yells how much she hates me. I sighed again and steeled myself for the next hour of being ignored by my own child, my c-section scar burning in sympathy.

We walked in the door and spied my girl across the room, modeling her rubber boots and rain jacket for visitors. She turned around when I called her name. For a long second, I expected her to turn back around and tromp off to the other side of the room, her displeasure with us clear.

Instead, a smile slowly spread across her face. And to my amazement, the little rubber boots started tromping towards us. Finally she stopped right in front of me as her smile grew so wide her eyes crinkled. And then, softly, her little voice whispered “Mama!” in a tone of toddler delight.

My heart bursting, I scooped her in to my arms and gave her an enormous hug. A hug for every other time we’d come home, and every other time we would come home, and for this time. Because right now, she’s still my girl, and no matter how awesome it is to get away occasionally, it’s always, always better to come home.

My daughter is now, after three days, beginning to get over some fever-cold-random-virus sickness.

I have to confess that she is kind of adorable when she’s sick.  I also have to admit that she doesn’t get that from me.

I wouldn’t want to be around me when I’m sick.  I’m whiny and demanding and desperate for someone to fix me without me having to tell them how to fix me.  It’s no surprise that my husband tends to shoo me off into the bedroom, send in supplies, and then flee the house with the children until my fever breaks.

But my daughter? *sigh* She’s the sweetest little thing when she is sick.  Her demands are minor and include mostly “some water please” and “snuggle by me please”. I think she might actually say please and thank you more reliably when she’s ill than when she’s in perfect health.

She even looks better than me when she’s sick.  I am goopy and pale and smelly.  She is flushed, soft and cherubic.

Which is not to say that I’m glad, obviously, that she’s sick.  In fact, her illness is really starting to take its toll on me.  Three nights without normal sleep has me looking and feeling like the mother of a newborn again – which oddly resembles the way I look when I’m sick.

But… still…

She’s spent this afternoon coloring, playing computer games, and doing that mysterious thing she does that destroys her room in less than 15 minutes.  She’s no longer interested in cuddling, and I think the rosiness in her cheeks must have been masking a strange crustiness that is now visible.

And she’s starting to smell like sweat again.

Yes, my baby is on the mend.  And I’m glad.  Really. Of course I am. I’m eager to have a night in my bed with only my husband and more than 90 minutes of uninterrupted sleep. I’m thrilled she no longer feels like crap. Obviously.

But man, the kid sure is cute when she’s sick.

Persona non grata.

I might be a bad mom, but I’ve totally gone soft.

I used to swear by True Crime TV. Law and Order in all its flavours. CSI in all its locales. And Criminal Minds, that one-step-removed-from-torture-porn series with all the cutie FBI agents, was a weekly ritual (Ha. Get it? Ritual, like serial killers have rituals? Oh never mind.) I loved the characters, the intrigue, the plots and storyline twists, the implausible confessions, the pulp-fiction of it all.

Then I had a kid. A kid, a vulnerable baby whom I was tasked, by society and by nature, to protect from all the big bads in the world. And it was like a switch flipped. All of a sudden, any show that had any kind of violence, any of those Big Bads that I need to protect my child from, made me almost physically nauseous. Student nurse strangled on SVU? But but but – that was somebody’s DAUGHTER! Cheating wife found dead in her apartment?  But that woman has two children! Who will have to grow up without her! THOSE POOR BABIES!

From that point on, I could not watch any plotlines involving rape or murder or violence – which, as luck would have it, most of my favourite shows were essentially based on.  Now, every time a show has a person with kids getting killed – or, god forbid, kids themselves being involved somehow – I can’t take it. I’m lucky if I can change the channel fast enough to keep myself from crying. If I somehow got sucked in to the plot before it took that awful turn and I can’t stop myself and want to see how it ends, I can forget about sleep that night. I lay there and I think about what if I were captured by a white formerly upstanding completely normal person who suddenly snapped and turned serial killer and trapped me in his basement -

and I seriously cannot even take that attempt at hyperbolic humour any further because I CANNOT DEAL.

And it’s not getting better. It’s getting worse.  Yesterday I went to a movie. First movie I’ve gone to since the kid got too old to go to the Mommy and Baby movies. And there was this trailer:

Trailers: Scaring The Living Crap Out Of You Since 2011 (Ed. note: we can’t figure out how to embed this, ugh, sorry. Please to click through and come back!)

ALIEN INVASION. KILL OFF THE INDIGENOUS POPULATION. WE ARE BEING COLONIZED.

This trailer scared the living daylights out of me. Seriously, people, I AM LOSING IT.

Seeing this trailer led to me having endless thoughts of oh my god I need to dig a bunker under our house so that when the aliens come I can take my daughter downstairs and we can hide from the scary alien invasion and I can keep her safe. Never mind we’d be the last two people left on earth, or that even if the human race survived a Terminator-Kyle Reese style existence isn’t really among the dreams I have for my daughter’s future.

And, you know. Never mind it’s nothing more than a flight of Hollywood fancy.

MUST SAVE DAUGHTER FROM ALIENS.

I see what they mean now by “parenthood changes you”.  My neuroses have taken on lives of their own.

It was obvious very early in his life that my first child was a genius.

The kid was turning his jigsaw puzzles upside down to give himself a new challenge when he was two.  He was reading when he was three and trying to figure out how to construct a solar-powered car from old office supplies at six.  The kid is smart and anyone who has spent more than 30 seconds with him knows it.

And then there is my second child.

She is charming and strong-willed, a combination that has managed to keep her bordering on the edge of Grounded For Life since before she could talk.  She is sweet and sensitive and stubbornly independent.  She is amazing in hundreds of her very own ways.

Despite my efforts to avoid labeling either of my children as the ___ one, they each seemed to have naturally fallen into their own equally wonderful but definitely different identities.

He is the smart one.

She is the daring one.

Except the school just sent home a permission slip and survey to have her evaluated for the gifted program, the same program that her brother was admitted to a couple years ago.  Apparently, my daughter is also smarter than average and I COMPLETELY MISSED IT.

*insert massive amounts of mothering guilt here*

How the hell did this happen?  How could I have missed “gifted tendencies” in my own child?  To be fair, the characteristics she seems to display and the ones her brother does  appear to be exact opposites.  I guess she’s a different kind of gifted?  Yes, sure, that’s it – and totally excuses the fact that I underestimated my kid.  Sure it does.

I’m actually much less upset about missing any supposed “signs” of superior intelligence and more concerned that I have fallen into the label trap with both kids.  I didn’t mean to and I thought I was working pretty hard at not making assumptions about their personalities, but somewhere along the way I stopped waiting to see how my kids would turn out and started thinking I already knew.

But I didn’t know my youngest child was smart.

Awesome.

On the plus side, I obviously have fanfreakingtastic genes.

The face of a genius?

The gift giving season is officially over for the next few months in my house.

Thank God.

Now that it’s over, I can tell you what a jerk I’ve been.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we really scaled back on how many presents we bought our kids for Christmas this year.  (And, um, one of their biggest gifts came from a swag bag. I AM THE QUEEN OF FRUGAL!)  But not everyone was embracing the minimalist spirit this year.  Obviously.  And, well, I have a confession to make.

While I watched other people make mad dashes to the mall for yet another toy, I found myself feeling more than a little smug.

And maybe even a little judgey.

And superior.

I’m a horrible, horrible woman.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Not only did I find myself turning up my nose at the amount of gifts other mothers bought their little darlings, but I was particularly opinionated (in my own head) about what types of things people are buying for children these days.  I’m ashamed to admit it, but on more than one occasion, I thought to myself, “I would never buy my kid that!”

What gifts are off limits to my kids?

For starters…

The latest and greatest video consoles. We have a Wii – which we bought for my husband’s birthday a few years ago.  It works just fine and still gets used regularly.  I refuse to replace it with this year’s latest and greatest gadget.  (I may, however, be silently wishing the XBox Kinect had been out when we bought our Wii.  Maybe.  A little bit.)

DVD players and TVs for the car. Whatever happened to looking out the damn window?  Or playing the license plate game?  Or taking a nap so your parents could listen to their favorite hip-hop songs without having to explain the meaning behind the highly suggestive, masochistic and oh-so-catchy lyrics?  I absolutely refuse to bring a TV into my vehicle and I silently judge other parents who do it.

Kicking it Old School

Kids these days have access to things we couldn’t even have imagined when we were their age, but they have no clue what to do with themselves when you send them outside to play.  I, for one, am taking a stand against these unnecessary gizmos and gadgets and instruments of entitlement!  I shake my Mother of the Year fists mightily against frivolous spending and keeping up with the Joneses!  I, like my mother before me, will not be guilt tripped into buying the day’s most popular toys and gift items!

Fortunately, their brand new DSi XLs keep them plenty happy on long car rides.

I have a confession to make:

I very rarely miss my kids when I’m out of town.

I am not that mom who is eager to get back home or who is always calling to make sure everything is OK while I’m away.  I’m the mom who assumes that someone will call if there is a problem and shows my kids pictures when I get home of all the cool stuff I did while I was away.

I mean, if I’m sitting alone in a hotel room at 8:00pm, then I miss my kids.  And my husband.  But if I’m traveling the way I normally do – with a jam packed itinerary full of things to do! things to see! things to eat! go! go! go! – then, well, I’m busy.  It’s not that I don’t love my children or adore spending time with them.  And, like most mothers, I freak out when I realize how quickly my kids are growing up and how much they are not babies anymore.

But…

I am very much a “live in the moment” girl, and that often means being so focused on what’s happening right in front of me that I’m not even thinking about anything (or anyone else) – including the family back at home.  On the flip side of that, when I’m with my children, I can’t imagine anything else in the world being as wonderful as their two little faces.  It’s not uncommon for me to give out random hugs or grand declarations of affection, just because the mere sight of them makes my heart swell.  I take pictures of their ears and their toes and the cute way they line up rubber bands because I want to capture every little thing about them.  I love them so much it physically hurts sometimes.

I just, you know, don’t miss them when I’m out of town.

Of course if they go out of town, I’m an absolute wreck.

This post (with some changes) was previously posted on my personal blog BORED Mommy, June 26, 2009.

I fear things – many things. Having kids really made me aware of just how many things I’m afraid of. I blame the children – it’s just easier. I try to play it cool with the children, but when the fear is directly related to them, my acting skills take a definite hit.

Fear #1: Vomit: I have always been terrified of vomit. It started young when I was around five and my little sister was born with a reflux problem. Every time she would drink or eat for the first year of her life, she would throw it all up. I unfortunately earned the honour of towel girl. Obviously, my mother had no idea that I would be scarred for life, but I was. Eventually I got over it, and simply avoided any and all vomit situations. Then I had my son, also known as the king of vomit. He was that baby that spit up, if you moved him even in the slightest way after eating. But spit up wasn’t the issue, it was the full-on vomit that I couldn’t handle. On January 18, 2005 (yes I remember the exact date because I’m a loser), he was sitting in his high chair, he coughed and it just started pouring out of his mouth. He was so little he had no idea what was going on. He just looked at me, and gave me this “what the hell was that” look. I grabbed him and ran for the bathroom, where he continued to spew orange vomit. My husband was calm and collected, whereas I was a crazy woman. I proceeded to call every one of my relatives that live in town, crying hysterically. I was insane. Sadly, that was not the last time it happened. In his first five years, he has probably vomited close to 100 times, and no I am not exaggerating.

Fear #2: Germs: I am afraid of all germs everywhere. I am constantly thinking about germs; Purel is my best friend, along with babywipes, soap, water and the avoidance of all things everywhere (that may be a slight exaggeration). Pre-babies I was a relatively sane person (some may argue this point), and normal about the whole germ thing (again, totally arguable). After babies, I became more aware of my surroundings, and the need to keep my kids clean to avoid fear #1. We avoided those bouncy castles (germ haven) and all climbing thingies (bigger germ haven). Sadly my husband disagrees with my craziness, and has taken him to both of those germ infestations. So far we are all still alive. I wish Purel came in spray form so I could spray down everything in my kids’ path. Hubby says this is crazy talk. Whatever.

Fear #3: Bugs: I am no bug killer. I can handle a mosquito, an ant and the occasional spider. But any kind of bug, with any sort of body, with any sort of thickness, I’m out. Truth be told however, my greatest fear is centipedes. They are the most revolting bug and I can’t kill one of those to save my life. I remember sitting on the couch one night, with my then 3 year old, watching television, and I felt something crawl on my leg. You have never heard a scream like that come out of any human, I promise you. I kicked my leg which made the centipede (yes it was a damn centipede) fly across the room, and then ran for higher ground. My son had no idea what was going on, but he ran for cover too. My husband laughed so hard, I swear he peed his pants. I didn’t sit on that couch in the dark for weeks.

Fear #4: Flying: I used to love flying. Then in July 1999, my parents, sister and I flew to California to visit my brother. On the way back to Toronto however, the flight was the scariest thing I have ever experienced. The turbulence was hellish for what seemed like two straight hours. People on the plane were crying, and when I looked back at my dad who isn’t afraid of anything, and he looked petrified, I could have dropped dead right there. Luckily, we landed safely but the damage was done. I was now officially afraid to fly. When we flew to California again three months later, I prayed for 5 hours straight. I was a nervous wreck when we finally landed. When my husband and I flew to Spain for our honeymoon, I held on to his arm the entire time. Of course, this was all pre 9/11, which just gave me new things to be afraid of. In 2003, I had to fly to Vancouver and Calgary for work and it involved 5 flights within 4 days. I remember driving to my little airport in town, and getting on this plane that sat less than 20 people. When I saw that the “flight attendant” was also the pilot, I nearly turned around and ran.

I guess having these four major fears isn’t that bad, except I have so many that I couldn’t possibly write about them in detail. I could list them however.

#5: Natural Disasters

#6: Diarrhea - seriously is there anything dirtier?

#7: Anything with teeth

#8: Things I can’t see

#9: Things I can see but don’t want to touch

#10: Death: I’m so afraid of this one I’m not even going to talk about it

#11: Slimy things

#12: Anything involving my children, and I mean everything.

I’m sure I’m not the only person with fears. You must be afraid of something, no??