September 1, 2010

Oh. My. God.

I have spawned mini-me.

I didn't think I had. I thought neither of my children were going to particularly resemble me in temperament. Elliot is stubborn, but in other ways not like me at all. Charlotte was such a good sleeper and a happy cheerful baby for the first three months of her life I thought she didn't have a cranky bone in her body.

Oh sweet zombie jesus was I wrong.

I have given birth to a baby with my temper.

Clearly this could have serious repercussions.

You might ask "How do you know" after all, she's only three months old, it's not like she's really communicating yet. And I would say, in reply "Oh, she's communicating."

Three days ago Charlotte became unhappy with her carseat. Now, she's been unhappy with her carseat before, but in general has been easily pacified with her (aptly named) pacifier or, at the very least, has calmed down immediately upon removal. This day, however, was different. She was unhappy in her carseat, and when I got her out of the car she was still screaming. And when I carried her up stairs and shushed and soothed her she was still screaming. And when I changed her diaper, made sure she was dry, offered her her pacifier, gave her my boob, and rocked her and held her she was STILL SCREAMING. She screamed and screamed and screamed. And then she stopped. Now, let's be clear, my daughter does actually cry. Tears form and stream down her face when she is sad about something. This was no tear screaming. In other words...

She was pissed.

And she was going to let me know it.

I didn't think too much about it. I mean, it could have been anything upsetting her, and I wasn't going to assume anything about my child's character based on ONE incident, but it's happened four or five times since then. She still sleeps well. She still smiles and gurgles and is, in general, a supremely happy little girl. But if she thinks you are depriving her of one of her rightful comforts, be it being held, being fed, or being allowed to sleep; she screams her tiny frickken head off.

Today she got pissed because she was hungry, and actually forgo satifying that hunger in order to express her extreme displeasure to me. I just kept shoving my nipple in her mouth (I knew what was wrong, after all, it had been all of 3.5 hours since she filled her little piggy tummy) while she shrieked her outrage, until the milk leakage distracted her enough that she gave up and latched on. Then, having explained to me in no uncertain terms how outraged she was, she ate and was completely sunny once again. All smiles.

My mother has been, thus far, disappointed just a wee bit that my kids have not put me through any of the difficulties that she experienced with me. In that light, I have good news for her - just wait. It's coming.

Hi everyone!

A lot of my time these days is being taken up with cleaning. By "my time" I am, of course, referring to time that is NOT spent on the children - holding, feeding, entertaining, teaching, swabbing, bathing, diapering... it's sort of an endless list. So, in the grand scheme of things, the time that is "my time" isn't a whole lot of time at all. However, be that as it may, most of it is being taken up with cleaning. I have two types of cleaning in my life, daily and major. Daily cleaning is the cleaning I do in order to convince other people that I am not a total slob. This is just an illusion, of course, but if you live a lie long enough does it become the truth? (Incidentally, now would be an amusing time to mention that once, as a child, before one of our awesome parties when my mother was FORCING me to help clean up the living room I announced in very grumpy tones that, when I was an adult, I was NEVER going to clean up for company. Either they like me as I was or they could just not come over. At the time I didn't really understand the concept of letting the presence of others shame you into doing something that you wished you did more, anyway. At any rate, all the adult who knew me as a little girl may now feel free to laugh at me. You always have, anyway.) I spend more time doing daily cleaning than major cleaning - between two kids and two dogs the house just always seems like it's a wreck. There's toys to pick up, dog hair to sweep, dishes to wash, laundry to do, and everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE are dirty spit up cloths. Which is better than there being baby barf all over the place, but still, you sort of feel compelled to remove the coddled milk soaked rags before anyone NOT immediately related to you sees them. The more satisfying of the two cleaning routines, however, is the deep cleaning. See, the daily cleaning isn't really a chore that gets done so much as a state of flux that you pass through with great effort and very little long term results. The deep cleaning, on the other hand, well, that's like peeling off a huge, HUGE scab. Painfully and kinda icky, but totally satisfying.

Currently my deep cleaning project involves getting rid of all of our junk. Waxor and I have boxes of junk that have sat, essentially untouched, for the entire eight years we've been together. A few have been untouched for longer than that, being from my college days. I am *gasp* going through them all and getting rid of things I don't need. I went through my old picture box and got rid of all the out of focus, badly shot, odd pictures of people who I no longer even recognize. Waxor and I have donated about half of our book collection to the Salvation Army. I have gotten rid of all the old clothes that I will never, ever wear again (except for that one pair of pants that has the signatures of most of my friends over a period of three years. Those I kept.) I have gotten rid of most of the kids clothes that they have outgrown. I am cleaning house, baby! Eventually I hope to be able to move into our basement and see neat stacks of things that are actually worth storing, and whole bunch of empty space.

Of course, in the meantime I have piles of CRAP all over the house, making that first category of cleaning, the daily kind, a real pain in the ass

Sigh.

Elliot and I are currently engaged in potty wars. He doesn't like being dirty, but he hates being changed, and he refuses, with vehemence and ire, to actually go on the toilet. Oh, and he hates running around naked, too. I need a book for potty training for not so dummies. I mean, Elliot is a smart kid. He knows exactly what it is I want, and how to do it. He just doesn't want to do so. I can put him on the potty at the exact time of day that he always goes, and leave him there for an hour, and he'll hold it until he gets off. Sigh. This weekend we're going to Western Mass, and I'm planning on shamelessly using peer pressure to encourage him to use the potty. "Alex uses the potty, don't you want to use the potty?"

Of course, I know what he'll say, "No, I'm just fine using a diaper now."

The baby timer has popped and now I must be done.