June 2006

Well, so far it’s just "a morning in the life" seeing as it’s just 9:30 am.  But I guess when your day starts at 5:30 am, it seems like the day should be  half over at 9:30.

So at 5:30 the baby wakes me. I groggily bring her  into bed and nurse her until she is no longer interested. Then she spends the  next half hour rolling around between the husband and me, talking, kicking,  cooing, kicking, you get the drift. Finally the husband rolls out of bed to  shower and puts R on the floor with some toyswhile I get a few more minutes of shut-eye.

Meanwhile 3-year-old C awakes  and while she is occupying her sister, I manage to stumble into the  bathroom to take care of the necessary potty, teeth, and contact routine. By now  it’s 7am, and I am ready to face the day. After wrestling the nighttime pull-up  off C, and we make our way downstairs.

C requests pancakes.  See prior post. This project takes up a good portion of the next hour. A few  (okay, FIVE, but who’s counting?) pancakes and a cup of coffee later, I am  finally feeling human.

It’s 8am and the baby is acting sleepy. Back  upstairs I try to nurse her down for her nap, but that’s a no go. She is more  interested in filling her diaper, which is always a signal that sleep is not  forthcoming. So with a clean diaper, back downstairs we go.

I opt to  leave kitchen cleanup for later and spend a while on the computer. By 9am,  R is acting really sleepy. I know the sandman is at work. Back upstairs we  go.

On our way up, C requests a puzzle. Now a good mom would come  back down and get the puzzle and get her set up so she will be occupied, but no.  I’m lazy, and I tell her that when I’m done getting R down, I will get her  puzzle. She seems satisfied by that, and I make my way to the baby’s room  prepared to nurse her down to sleep.

It’s dark and quiet in the nursery,  and I relish the few moments of peace and quiet and snuggling with the baby who  is growing and changing way too fast these days.

Then  the next thing I know, BANG! CLATTER! CRASH! WAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Mommyyyyyyyyy!  Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! CRASH! CLATTER! Mommyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!! R’s eyes pop  open. Startled out of dreamland, she tries to sit up.

Mental head slap.  Is it too much to ask for 5 minutes of peace and quiet? Bad words run through my  brain as I try to decide whether to just give up on the nap and go down and see  what’s up or to wait it out and try to get the baby down and then go deal with  the mayhem.

(Now before you think I’m the worst of moms, and wouldn’t I dash  downstairs the second I hear such a ruckus, and aren’t I worried about a serious  injury after all that noise, you have to know my daughter C. She is a  professional klutz. She rarely if ever has had a serious injury, but she has a  couple dozen falls and minor boo-boos every day, and she is also a drama queen  and makes each incident sound like the world is coming to an end. I can tell by the tone of the "Mommyyyyy!" that she is not seriously  hurt, but upset that her well-laid plans had ended in disaster.)

Then…  CLATTER! CRASH! ALL SORTS OF RUCKUS!!!!!! Mommyyyyyyyy!!!

I give up. This  is obviously a situation for Mommy. Getting up, I start to make my  way towards the stairs, and I hear 6-year-old D coming to the rescue. In his most paternal voice, "It’s okay, C.  Come with me. You can watch me play video games, okay?" I watched from the top of the stairs as he hugged  her and then gently led her out of the playroom (out of the clutter of puzzle  boards and puzzle pieces which were obviously the result of all the chaos as she  tried to pull them down by herself off a high shelf).

With peace and  harmony restored, I returned to the nursery to finish putting the baby to sleep.  Fortunately she was so tired that not even the ruckus from a few moments ago was  enough to disturb her quest for sleep, and after a few minutes of rocking she  was ready for her crib.

I once  again opted for the computer (and a second cup of coffee) over cleaning the  kitchen. Which means now the kitchen still awaits, we are all still in our  pajamas, and it is now 10am.

C is on her second breakfast,  another plate of pancakes, and D is in the living room playing whatever  creative game that little boys do (it sounds more like a herd of elephants than  a single 40-pound 6-year-old in imaginative play). R is still blissfully  asleep in her crib upstairs. I guess it’s time to start my day!