Spa!

 Today the girls gave me a spa day:

-foot bath with peppermint foot scrub
-foot scrub with pumice
-awesome toenail painting with about seven different colors
-hand massage with lotion
-fancy hairdo
-makeup
-shoulder massage

I felt very loved.

Conversations with the Doctor

Doctor (every single time we have a doctor appointment for a baby): How’s he* nursing.

Me (unless it’s the first week or two): Fine.

Dr: How’s he sleeping?

Me (lying through my teeth): Fine.

[Alternately: Me: Like a baby.**]

Dr: And how many poopy diapers?

Me (every single time!): (First there’s panic—oh no! Should I be counting these things? Weighing them? Marking some sort of tally? Then there’s a reality check. Hello? You just discovered that he gained two pounds and weighs in some epic high percentile. He’s clearly fine. Why does this matter? Then there’s fear of judgment. She’s going to think I’m a bad mother if I don’t know! Then, finally, there’s the vague reply.) Um, I don’t know. Enough?

Dr: (always pressing the issue!) About how many would you guess?

And then I make up some random number just to make her stop asking.

Except this last time, when here’s what I really said: Just tell me what number I should say here so that it seems normal.

Dr: They usually have between a couple and maybe eight per day.

Me: Okay, we’ll go with six.

And that’s my strategy from now on. What do you want to hear, Doctor? Oh, that’s what you wanted? Well, it just so happens that’s exactly what my kid is doing.

The end.

* Or “she,” of course.

** Which is to say, not very well at all.

I Know You Didn’t Mean It, But ...

Cuter than feral goats.

Look, before I tell you some very honest and sticky feelings, let me start by saying it’s not your fault. If you’ve said these things to me, I’m not mad at you or offended or anything. I probably don’t remember it was you! 

But let me add that I’d love it if you wouldn’t say it in the future. I’ll still love you if you do, but just so you know, you’re going to send me home bawling my eyes out. 

Okay, so what is it that you may or may not have said? You said, “Sure, this stage of parenting, with littles and all, is hard. But when they’re older, it just gets different hard (or even harder!). The worries are different, but at least as bad (or worse).”

Now, I understand you meant to be comforting but also realistic. You wanted to remind me that I won’t always have to be watching my baby to make sure he doesn’t fall off of whatever precarious place he’s climbed onto and crack his head open. You’re reminding me that diapers will one day be a thing of the past. Someday soon I won’t feel like a Sherpa with baby on one hip, three bags on the other, holding a toddler’s hand, and climbing up and down the co-op’s stairs (so many stairs!). I get that’s what you’re trying to do. 

But this is what I hear: “You will never ever get a break. There will never be a moment when you get to relax and feel like you’ve accomplished something good. You will never feel good about parenting. Every time you start doing something well, things will just get worse. You think you’re struggling now? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

This is what it feels like: Imagine a person drowning in the ocean, seeing the shore from a distance too far to reach. She’s sputtering and splashing and terrified and hoping she can somehow make it to the sand so she can just breathe air for a minute or two.

And you tell her, “Sure, that’s nice. But when you get to shore, there are hordes of hungry man-eating goats all over the beach. They’ll take longer to kill you than drowning will, and it will probably hurt more (they have small mouths and teeth, you see). So you might as well enjoy drowning.”

Not super helpful.

Next time maybe try pointing out the breathtaking vistas on the beach. Note that there are a few patches of sand that aren’t feral-goat-infested. Even if you’re lying to me. Even if every square inch is full of teeth and hooves. Just lie, please. Thanks.

Parenting and Courtship, according to the six-year-old

On the subject of parenting:

* When I have kids, I will let them build mattress forts and leave them up for a long time and sleep in them.

* I won’t make them clean their room ever. I will not give them any jobs or cleaning to do. Well ... maybe I’ll give them table jobs.

* I will let them do table jobs after bath so that they don’t have to wait to do baths. Or if they want to read or do other activities first, I will let them do that.

* I will let them stay up as late as they want so I can stay up too!

On the subject of her future husband:

* He will have to be okay with how I run the house. Before he proposes, I will make sure he doesn’t mind if I let the kids do table jobs later.

* I will make sure that he’s like me, that he likes to stay up late and parent like I do.

I’m looking forward to finding out how this all turns out for her in a couple decades.

Gingerbread in June

Because why not?

I've never made gingerbread before, and the kids wanted to do something tasty. I don't remember how gingerbread came up, but we decided to go for it.* We found a recipe that even suggested the shape of the pieces and such. It turned out easier to make the dough and harder to actually fit things together than I thought it would be. Learning new stuff! YAY! Next time we make a gingerbread house, though, I really want to make a gingerbread hobbit hole.

We all got a side to decorate, and we used Coriel's cake-spinner-thing that she got from her cake decorating class. So, win!


*Lest you're in the background thinking how cool and spur-of-the-moment I am, let me add that our plans had been cancelled that day, and the kids were sad, and I had to really gear up mentally to do it. Meaning it took me several hours to get up the oomph, and it was after I was already prepared to do something different and fun that day. 

Koa's side. It's a door. Which should be obvious, right?

I have always wanted to do the shingles on a gingerbread roof. Now I have! They started out better than they finished. :)

Brice's side. Awwww!

This is Coriel's heart door. See the doorknob?

My hand-cut gingerbread man.

Addra's roof piece.

A glance at the whole thing, sort of.
In front: Koa's lion/hippo/not sure what it is, but he was determined that it stand up next to the house.
In back: Coriel's happy heart person.
The plate we're working on: Yes, it is indeed the plate that I made when I was six years old. You can't see it, but it has my standard pregnant unicorn on it. All my unicorns back then were pregnant-looking (though not actually pregnant).
The blue rim underneath is the cake decorating wheel thingie.