the ONE thing I didn’t really want her to inherit

When I was pregnant with Maja I talked to her a lot inutero, trying to convince her to inherit the right mix of traits from her parents:

• my teeth, hair, and feet
• blue eyes (don’t know why this was so important)
• her dad’s temperament and brains

Well, she’s got the blue eyes… the rest remains to be seen. What IS becoming clear, unfortunately, is that Maja inherited my trait of Extreme Crankiness Related to Exhaustion. My finest hours do not happen after 9pm — when I get tired I get cranky and Maja has inherited this. Suffice it to say evenings are not usually a happy time in our house.

What about you? Do you, as an adult, still have a “cranky time”? C’mon… ‘fess up!

parenting challenge #101

Madeleine has been home with a fever these past two days — and as much as we’ve tried, we cannot get Emerson to heat up a bottle or change diapers, so when one of the girls is sick it really means that either Richard or I have to be home as well. While staying home from work is often desirable it seems, for whatever reason, that when we’re forced to stay home we want to be at work. Perhaps this just falls in line with the argument that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

When you’re home with a sick child things can go in the extreme in one direction or another: baby sleeps all day; baby stays awake all day (and cries). Fortunately for me yesterday Madeleine fell into the former. She slept for 1 1/2 hours in the sling in the morning, so I knit. Then she slept for 1 hour in the stroller during a walk, and then for 2 hours in her crib in the afternoon during which time I made dinner and did the laundry. All in all it was a fairly relaxing day.

Today Richard and I split the day with me staying home in the morning. Madeleine was not as sleepy as yesterday, indicating to me that she’s feeling better. She was still pretty cranky and clingy, there were many tears. On the plus side, the weather is gorgeous today… and since her temp. was normal we did a little gardening and then headed to the playground for a bit. It feels strange being at the playground on a weekday morning for a number of reasons:

1. I hardly know anyone there — a lot of new parents & families; the usual crew comes in the afternoons

2. It feels weird being there without Maja. I get the sense that the parents look at me as a ‘newbie’ when in fact this is all old hat to me. I felt like saying to everyone: this is my second. I know what I’m doing!

3. Because I practically lived at the playground the past 2 summers I feel like all these new people are infringing on MY territory. Totally ridiculous, I know, but still I use toddler logic: I HAD IT FIRST!

Madeleine hanging out in the backyard in the morning sunlight. The picnic blanket was made by my mom!

trip the light fantastic

So here we are. It’s Friday. It’s POURING rain outside. The kind of rain that you just really want to look at from behind a wall of glass while you’re in a warm, bright room drinking a cup of good coffee and eating a melt-in-your mouth brownie. Just sayin’.

It’s been one of those weeks where I’ve had to surround myself with pretty little things just in order to make it through in one piece. The beauty of this plan is that about 80% of these pretty little things are not physical — instead they’re ideas, thoughts, blog readings/images, and dreams.

What have I surrounded myself with this week?

• a new sketchbook — for lists to keep me sane, for garden design ideas, and for whatever the hell else I decide to put in there
• a set of rubber alphabet stamps because I saw them, liked them, and then bought them
• two glass jars for potential terrariums
• the reading of design blogs (Design*Sponge, Oh Joy!, Push me pull you, and others)
• daydreaming about re-purposing various rooms in my house
• arranging a field trip with coworkers to VIX Emporium in a few weeks
• takeout from the new Vietnam Cafe in West Philly (this is still to happen this evening)
• thoughts of exercise and the vision that one day I’ll be back to my svelte pre-marriage pre-baby self
• reminders to myself that toddlerhood does not last forever and that someday it will be replaced by a hormonal teenager who will wear crazy clothes, crazy hair, have crazy friends AND not only won’t listen to me but won’t give me as many hugs as the toddler will

for an explanation of the title for this post see this

in case of sudden depressurization…

In air travel they always advise you that should the cabin depressurize, you should always put YOUR oxygen mask on first before helping others (i.e. small children). Believe it or not, in some instances this applies to parenting as well: should your blood sugar level drop at the same time as your child’s, always feed yourself FIRST. No starving parent can even begin to cope with an unreasonable, screaming, hungry, and tired toddler.

You’ve been warned.