The Marimba alarm on my Iphone goes off at 6:00 am and I think again of how annoying it is. Maybe I should change it… Nope too lazy. Instead of turning it off, I hit the snooze, but plan to get up at the next alarm nine minutes from now. I need to shower and I need to do it before my son is up. I want to have a few moments to myself to try and shower in a small shower stall with a 6 month pregnant belly that makes it hard to even wash my feet now.
That’s when I hear the telltale sound of water running.
Hubby has not left at 6 like he planned. He is instead showering at six, when I shower so my mom can shower when she gets home from the gym.
I groan and silently curse him and wonder if I can get away with skipping the shower today. I don’t want to. It’s Tuesday and the last shower was Sunday. Not bad considering in third world countries they don’t even have showers, but not everyone would necessarily agree with me. I don’t think I smell, but when do we really ever smell what we really smell like?
Maybe if he hurries, I can hurry and get in before my mom gets back from the gym. He just had to mess with the system. Only a few more weeks and we won’t have to worry about the system. I can shower when I want, because we won’t have to live with my parents anymore. I mull on that a bit and I think about all the help I won’t have when that happens and wonder if I can convince everyone that we can deal with this system a little bit longer? Maybe till I’m done work?
He’s finally out of the shower and I find it even harder to get out of bed and try and shower like I planned. He comes over and kisses me good bye tell me he’ll see me tomorrow. He’s staying overnight in Calgary tonight, so he won’t be back. It will be me versus the two monsters, I mean children that I adore.
I finally push myself out of bed, gritting my teeth at the pain of rolling and sitting up that wasn’t supposed to happen for another month or two. I go through my clothes trying to find something that is suitable for work and comfortable too. Nothing fits right anymore. I know that’s supposed to be normal, but this pregnancy is so weird that a lot of clothes that fit me in the previous pregnancies don’t fit right anymore. Clothes have a way of making you feel like crap before you even put them on. The capri’s and baby doll top will have to do.
I head into the bathroom to finally shower at who knows what time, and then I hear it again.
Water running upstairs.
Shoot! She’s not supposed to be home yet, and I realize it’s not mom, it’s dad in the shower.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Now Caleb is up. I sigh, pick up my clothes and open the bathroom door to find Caleb standing there. He startles me and I can’t be mad because he’s just getting up like he always done. I tell him good morning and he greets me sleepily. We jump into mommy and daddy’s bed for a quick cuddle and he climbs on top of my growing stomach and gives me a big smile and hug. He tells me this brief story of how I apparently bent his neck funny and that was a silly thing for mommy to do.
Okay, not sure how I did that or what really happened, but we move on and I suggest a movie. I’m still determined to try a shower because thankfully my dad has quick showers and I no longer hear the water running.
Caleb jumps out of the bed and I drag myself out of the bed for the second time wondering why I bothered getting back in to make myself suffer this pain a second time. Caleb is already turning on lights and asking to help turn the movie on.
Of course you can, I tell him. It’s not worth fighting him because it’s just easier if I do it. It’s actually easier if I let him help because then I don’t argue with him for ten min about it, when it will only take him 5 minutes to help me. I help him choose the right buttons to push and “Toy Story 2” starts where we left off yesterday. I think again that I’m letting him watch too much, but how much is too much really?
Then he drops the bomb and tells me this isn’t the right “Toy Story”. Oh brother, here we go again. He opens the DVD player while the movie is still playing and tries to spin the tray of other movies. I cringe and tell him not to do that and ask him which “Toy Story” does he want to watch, if not this one or the first one?
“I want the one with Buzz flying.”
Right…Buzz flying? Then I realize he just wants this Toy Story to start at the beginning. Because I now know it as well as my three old and remember that it starts off with a Buzz Lightyear game where Buzz is flying….Okay, start the movie at the beginning….
Shower please?
Nope, I better check to see if he wants Cheerios and milk, which of course he does. So I grab my phone to plug in upstairs and walk what feels like the mile long stairs to get him some cheerios and milk. I head back down the stairs already dreading going up them again and give him his cheerios and milk.
Now I can shower. Finally.
He stays watching his movie, and I manage to shower without being interrupted. Success!
I dry off and hold on to the counter and wall trying not fall as I get dressed. I wonder how I managed to stand on one foot at yoga, yet I fall over four times trying to put pants on.
I brush out my matted mess of hair, and realize that yes, Meghan does get her bed head from me. No wonder she cries when I brush her hair. My scalp is numb, and hers is not. Better brush her hair more to help the numbing process happen quicker.
I laugh at the thought, and wonder if that makes me a bad mother. Oh well, she has to brush her hair sometime.
That’s when I hear her hollering for me. She knows already that I’m around and not daddy. It’s amazing what kids can pickup on just by having a routine.
I leave the bathroom and go open the door to her “room”. I really should take a picture of her so called room so I can show her when she’s older how we made her sleep in the storage room while daddy renovated our new house. I still want to try putting her in a toddler bed, but I’m afraid of what she’ll get into. It’s a storage room, she’ll get into everything.
She blinks at me sleepily and I greet her cheerfully even though I haven’t had my coffee that will help wake me up but make me feel worse. She of course doesn’t want me to change her. Sitting in a dirty diaper is actually really fun, is what I think she’s trying to convince me of. Yeah right, you might think its fun little girl, but I am NOT smelling you all morning.
I’m relieved her rash is better, but still concerned at the spots I see on her poor bum. The poor girl has chronic diaper rash. Maybe we should try a little harder with potty training instead of continually putting it off.
I really want to get her dressed too, but I know we still have lots of time to get ready. I don’t want to fight with her either this morning. So I put her jammies back on and she again can’t decide if she wants her baby and her blankets. I grab everything knowing she will want them once I sit her down next to her brother.
I plop her on the couch next to him and she is already asking for the same cheerios and milk Caleb has. Yes, Meghan I will go get you some too. I cringe at climbing those damn stairs again. But I do it anyway, breathing heavily like I’ve run a mile instead of going up about 10 stairs.
I make it back down and hand her cheerios and milk. I escape back upstairs to eat breakfast by myself. They are distracted with a movie and I forget about all the guilt of letting them watch a movie again, because it’s worth it to eat in quiet.
I have bread and honey because it’s the best thing ever, and I sip my coffee while I play Candy Crush. It is now seven, and I still have lots of time before I need to feed them breakfast and get them dressed. I start planning in the back of my mind the best way to do it once I’m done my breakfast. Should I wait till they are done eating, or should I get them dressed before they eat? What will require me going up and down those stairs the least?
My hair is still wet, and I really don’t want to do those stairs more than I have to, so I decide to finish drying my hair first and then I will get Meghan dressed and then I will take them upstairs, get Caleb dressed and then feed them.
So I head down the stairs in time to see Meghan coming towards them. She trips on her own feet, I assume, and starts to cry after she lands on her face. I tell her it’s okay and to brush it off. You’re fine. Its carpet, and you didn’t fall that hard.
I pick her up and give her a hug. She tells me she’s scared which is why she was running to the stairs and I cannot convince her to keep watching with her brother, so she comes with me to the bathroom while I dry my hair. She’s not impressed when I pull out the hair dryer and I reassure her that I won’t use it on her.
She’s apparently still traumatized by whatever scared her because she usually thinks the hair dryer is pretty fun. So I distract her with brushing her teeth, but she wants to use my toothbrush.
No way.
You have your own tooth brush Meghan.
So I finally get her using her own by letting her have a little bit of Caleb’s tooth paste. She sucks it off just as I thought she would, which is why I don’t usually give it to her, but she’s distracted enough that she finally starts brushing and I start drying. Thirty seconds later she’s whining and crying for who knows what reason. I keep drying my hair or I will never get it done. I just keep telling her she’s fine and it’s okay. Maybe she’s cursing me like I sometimes curse her.
“It’s not fine mommy! I’m upset at something! I don’t know what I’m upset about, but I just want you to pick me up!”
I finish drying my hair and pick her up. We give each other a big hug and I ask her if she wants to get dressed.
No!
Everything is no. I take her to her “room” to get dressed anyway, telling her she can pick out what she wants to wear. This seems to work and she starts pulling open drawers as soon as I set her down. I think she’s going for shorts first, but then closes that drawer and opens her jammie drawer. I close it and tell her no, you can’t wear jammies. So I try the shirt drawer and she closes it and goes for the drawer above it that just has socks and sweaters. I tell her that’s just socks. She nods and says, “socks!” Okay fine, I guess you want to wear socks today. She pulls out three or four different pairs before she finally decides on one of the many pink pairs to wear. I convince her to try and pick out a shirt next. She lifts each one up and says ‘no” then puts it back. She does this to every shirt in her drawer, and ends up not picking one to wear. So we try shorts again, and she finally picks out a pair of purple shorts.
Yes! Success!
We go for the shirt again, and I try to play along with her when really I’m just going to pick one for her. I finally get a pink shirt with flip flops on it for her to wear and I pick her up, set her on top of her change table and finally get her dressed. She tries to put on her socks on by herself, which she ends up letting me do for her, and I quickly get the shirt and shorts on and carry her to the couch to convince Caleb it’s his turn.
The fight begins….
“Can you carry me mommy?”
“No, you need to help me out by climbing the stairs yourself.”
He screams, “My legs are broken!”
“No they aren’t, please climb the stairs yourself.”
“Nooo!!”
“Fine, see you upstairs.”
“No Mommy wait! Whah!” (yes my son sounds like a baby sometimes)
I’m also trying to get Meghan to climb the stairs because I really don’t want to carry her and climb the devil stairs, but now she’s crying too, and I just want to get them up the stairs. So I take a deep breath and scoop her up and manage to “hurry” up the stairs.
My dad rescues me and takes Meghan to put her in her high chair, while I break the news to Caleb that he needs to go get dressed.
Fight #2.
“No, I don’t want to get dressed.”
“Yes Caleb, I want you to come get dressed.”
“No!”
I walk over to him take his hand and say, come with me. We make it to the hallway before he realizes I’m taking him to his room (which is a real room by the way) to get dressed. He lets go and runs away.
“No, I don’t want to get dressed!”
I go and pick him up thinking he’s won already because I told him downstairs I can’t carry him, and here I am carrying him to his room to get dressed.
I pick out his clothes while explaining to him, it’s better for him to get dressed now so he doesn’t have to after breakfast and he can take his time eating his breakfast. He says something very interesting, but now I can’t remember thanks to Child #3 taking all my brain cells.
I come back into the kitchen with him and manage to smile at Grandpa feeding Meghan yogurt. He likes to help her eat, but boy does she have him wrapped around her little finger. What a turkey.
The chaos of making Caleb breakfast continues. He wants waffles again and I manage to forget that he didn’t even finish one of them yesterday and yet I put two in the toaster (thank God for Eggos). Grandma gets involved and lets him decide to have a “glass” plate and a green plastic plate. What are thinking Grandma?? He’s been happily eating off the bigger grown up plates and now you’re telling him he can have two plates for two waffles? I lecture her, and she laughs. I try to laugh, but the morning is starting to wear on me. She knows she’s in trouble and I’m not really that mad at her, just tired of catering to a very picky three year old, who has a very demanding 2 year old sister (I cried a little admitting she’s two).
Finally he is eating, and so is Meghan. I try to start making my lunch. I’m interrupted several times as Caleb miraculously finishes one waffle and now wants yogurt, then he will have his second waffle, or so he tells me. He finishes the yogurt and actually does want the second waffle. I’ve managed to finish making half of my sandwich.
I finish the sandwich while he works on his second waffle and asks me how much time he has to eat his breakfast.
Lots, I tell him, which is true, but don’t worry about it. The day before he worried about it and didn’t end up eating much of anything by the time we had to go.
I start washing fruit, waiting for them to notice and also ask for some grapes. They of course do, so I give them both some grapes. Meghan eats one then decides to start smashing them. It’s more fun. Grandpa takes them away, and she is officially done breakfast. Apparently so is Caleb. He didn’t finish his second waffle, but it was his second and he did have yogurt too. Pretty good considering he doesn’t eat much supper. Then I notice the full glass of milk on the table that he asked for. I sigh, and put it in a sippy cup so it doesn’t spill in the fridge. We waste so much milk because they change their mind. Now they are actually playing, so I escape down the devil stairs to straighten my hair. The hair dryer didn’t work so well, and before I can plug in the straightener both kids are coming down the stairs. Meghan cries when I scare her, I laugh and give her a hug. Why is it so much fun scaring the crap out of my kids? Probably because it helps release the frustration.
Caleb climbs onto the stool, while I plug in the straightener, and he brushes his teeth while I straighten my hair. He asks me every so often if his teeth are shiny yet. I tell him he missed a spot to keep him brushing, until I magically decide that yes, his teeth are shiny.
Meghan is playing in the corner with the toilet paper stand trying to crush bugs I assume.
We’re done and I have to climb the devil stairs again. Why can’t they put an elevator in the house?
I grab an elastic for Meghan planning to do something with her hair. I know it won’t last, but I love pretending to do something and thinking it will stay. I like getting the hair out of her face, because I think she’s gorgeous.
She actually sits for me, and doesn’t cry once. She even looks at herself in the mirror and makes a saucy little face that only Meghan can. We now race Caleb to put our shoes on, because racing is sometimes the only way to get him to do something. Like any three year old, he loves to win.
We almost have another meltdown when he realizes we aren’t going to soccer, we’re going to day care.
“But you said we were going to soccer!” He says.
“No, I said we’re going to soccer tonight, after daycare. No one will be there if we go now.”
“But can we just go see?”
Deep breath, sympathetic sigh ( or annoyed?) “No Caleb, we cannot go see. We need to go to Daycare.”
After much convincing and a successful race where he won getting his shoes on first, we are heading out the door to day care. One more trip inside because I forgot my sunglasses, and we are finally on our way.
I’m tired again just writing about a typical morningJ
P.S. I later discovered that the pants I had laboured to put on, I managed to put on backwards.
alisabarnim 