Fruit in my dessert

Conversation

Tonight when B got home...

Me: I can't do this.
B: What do you mean?
Me: It's too hard to have kids.
B: I agree.
Me: F***

S***show

So, I'm pretty sure someone hacked my blog to write that last post about two not being harder than one. I mean, the sentiment is great, but it really feels like a s***show around here these days. I don't write posts like this often because I really, really don't want comments where people are all supportive and tell me it will get better and we're doing great, etc. Seriously, I don't. Ask my mom and my sister and my husband. I know all that already, but right now I'm tired and cranky and want to live in this moment.

I was having breakfast with a friend the other day - she also just had her second - and I was saying how I'm not being the mom I want to be right now and that's probably the hardest part of this. Not that H and I didn't have our tough days and moments before but we had our relationship down, our family of three, our individual and collective dynamics. And, well, now it's a s***show. I'm mourning the relationship I had with my son - I don't want to yell at him when he drops/throws his sister across the room. I don't want to tell him to stop turning the light switch on and off for the millionth time. I don't want to tell him to not go over to L's crib and try to wake her up from her nap. I don't want him to cry to me because HE wanted to get the wipes for me and I already had them in my hand. I know much of this is two and a half year old behavior without the baby sister part, but it does feel quite amplified. I want all the fabulous moments. I'll keep the ones where he kisses L all over and tells me that he loves her, or when he wakes up from a nap all tired and cute and puts his head down on her chest to rest a little bit more and snuggle with her. Or when he says, "I want L to come over and read the story with us." Or when he shows her a postcard of AMNH and says, "L, that's OUR museum." Or when he sees something and says, "L, did you see that?" I know, just like with one, and with everything else, you can't pick and choose which parts you want, but why not already?

I'm also mourning my relationship with my husband. We went through this the first time too, a period of unrest, needing to find our way again, our new normal. But like everything else right now, it just feels amplified. I think I'm also less patient - like yeah, yeah, I know we need to go through this, but can we move on already?

The same friend I went to breakfast with the other day told me about an analogy that her husband's best friend (who already has two) shared with her husband when he asked what he could do to not make her "hate" him right now. The more experienced father of two said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "You're like the president of BP, your kids are the oil, and your wife is the Louisiana coast line. Your kids are spilling out all over the place and severely damaging your wife, and there's nothing you can say or do to make it better." This made my day for several reasons: 1. it's so true, 2. it's so timely, and 3. it's so true. Hopefully, we, our husbands, and the Louisiana coastline* will all recover as quickly as possible.

I'd be remiss if I didn't say how much I am loving L. She's so damn awesome. She smiles at me - and other people too, and laughs, and watches and listens to everything her brother does. I really think she loves him already. She goes along for the ride, wherever it takes us, and is being very cooperative at night. Like her mom, she lets me know IMMEDIATELY when there's a problem and I do my best to solve it as quickly as possible. I go between wanting her to get older faster so I can discover more about her and how the family and sibling dynamics will work themselves out, and wanting her to be this cute little age forever. I could do without the blowouts though...and there, we've come full circle. It's all a s***show.

*And, no, I am not really trying to say that what we are going through is the same as the death and horrific devastation caused by the BP oil spill.

anywhere

Yesterday afternoon, B and I had several minutes to watch a TiVoed episode of The Amazing Race. Okay, I watched the whole thing and he watched much of it while he took turns packing for his trip to SXSW, cuddling with me, and becoming the fifth member of a marching band in our apartment.

Over the years, B and I have often fantasized about being participants on the show. With my navigational abilities and his strength and agility, we would most certainly be top contenders - even (or maybe especially) if they revived the failed Family version of the show.

The couple that was sent home in the episode we watched yesterday was a grandmother/granddaughter pair. As they walked off into the rest of their lives, the granddaughter said, "so what's the next adventure?" to which the grandmother replied, "I'll go anywhere with you." I nearly cried. Okay, there were a few tears. Just a lovely unscripted moment on what I think is the best reality TV out there. It's also exactly how I feel about B. And, it's the best feeling in the world.

Maybe we should sign up to try to get on the show. We might need to wait a bit, unless they bring back an infant and toddler version of the show.

fuzzy math

1. Me = too hard on Me

2. B = too hard on B

3. Me = too hard on B

4. B = NOT hard on Me

Would like to solve all four equations, but trying to change #4 to look more like #3 has proved wholly ineffective. I really need to figure out the key to changing the #3 (and #2 and #1, and yes, in that order) so they all look like #4. Luckily, I don't think H figures (directly) into these equations yet.

And, for the record, this post has been in my head for a long time. This is not a current current event.

Counting the ways

Seriously. I don't know what I did to deserve you, but thank you for quietly being patient with me - over and over again. Today's topic: window coverings. You listened, looked, and responded to countless "if, then" scenarios over two different sittings in an effort to help me try to figure out which window coverings will be best when you don't really care very much which one gets chosen. And, somehow, you managed to keep a straight face when the final decision was to order several swatches of the version you would not have chosen in the first place. You know what not to say and how to not say it and how to keep me sane while I'm likely driving you insane, but you somehow stick with me, far after I'm done sticking with myself.

And, to cap it off, you suggested and made tea - with just the right amount of honey - for me at the start of our evening and delivered three cookies when I asked for one or two at the end, just because.

Thank you.

Electric Love Haiku

When you go away
A heating pad comes to bed
Me (feet) miss you much

Sometimes I miss

BH has a meeting tonight so he wasn't home for dinner, bath, or bed for HD. He was away the first two days of the week so he missed them then too. I'm a little extra tired, but okay and do love - even through the tired - doing the bath and bedtime story with HD.

Before HD, on a night like tonight, I would have worked late and left at a time that would have coincided with the end of BH's meeting. We would have planned out our schedules to meet up on a subway platform somewhere between where he was and where I was. If we weren't getting on at the same stop, the person who got on first (usually me) would try to be as close to the back of the train as possible and stand near a door as the train pulled up to the station where the other person would get on the train. There would be a moment of anxious anticipation: Will he be there? Will I have to get off and wait? Will he see me? As if we hadn't just gotten out of the same bed that morning. Our track record for meeting up was pretty good - although he did have to wait for me way more than I had to wait for him...usually at least one train went by without me on it. He never got frustrated with me for it. Then, on the train, he would pull out the NYT crossword and we would do it together on the way home. If it was Monday, there might not be much left for me to help with, but he would let me take it away from him so I could get my fill. We raced through it to try to get it finished by the time we got off the train. By the end of the week, and depending on how late we were headed home, not much got done on the crossword and we would drift into conversation about our days or the dreaded question, "What should we have for dinner?" Neither of us was ever good at answering that one. Now we're better at it, but only because we have to be.

Sometimes we went out to eat, but mostly we scrounged: fruit, cereal, pasta, takeout, leftover takeout. We'd plop down on the couch and watch a show or four and go to bed.

Sometimes I miss that.

Can you kill that bug?

Dialogue from the middle of a not-so-pretty argument that BH and I had the other night:

ME: There is a large bug crawling on the ceiling. Can you get it?
BH: What? Where?
ME: (Pointing) There.
BH: (Grabs toilet paper, kills bug)

Fight resumes. Intensity of fight resumes.

Is it odd that I found it very comforting in the midst of a pretty icky fight, that we could both step outside our nasty selves to communicate about something as small as a bug, particularly since I'm usually the bug-killer in our house? If only we had both been smart enough to use the bug as an "out" to end the fight altogether. That would have been way too mature.