Cooperating for a common purpose

"Come, Kye!" sang Rascal.

I looked around the corner suspiciously. Usually Rascal hates Kye horning in on anything he's trying to play with.

Don't misunderstand - Rascal really loves his little brother. Just so long as he's well out of reach of his carcars.

As I observed for a moment, Kye looked over indifferently toward Rascal. A wad of drool blobbed onto the floor.

"Kye! Come, Kye!" Rascal patted the floor beside him enthusiastically.

A fresh driblet of saliva began forming on Kye's lip. He returned his attention to Tweenie's Polly Pocket car. I was satisfied that nothing improper was going on, so I returned to the stack of laundry.

Eventually I heard some strange grunting noises. I looked over curiously to see Rascal standing on Kye's back, straining to reach the TV and DVD remotes I had purposely placed out of reach.

I frantically stuffed the sheet I was folding back into the basket, roaring at Rascal to get off Kye's back.

He responded quickly, prize in hand, then immediately handed one of the remotes to Kye who sat up and crammed it into his mouth, shmatzing loudly.

I firmly plopped Rascal into the Naughty Chair, who looked at me calmly and said,

"What?"

Ferber and Oatmeal with a side of Insanity

I have been on blogger hiatus lately. I'm sure my REAMS of fans have noticed!

Today, instead of an *amusing* (at least, I think they're amusing) anecdote about my rapscallion offspring, I will offer an inside peak of what's going on in my head.

Kye stopped sleeping through the night just after Thanksgiving. Now at 9+ months of age, he's still not doing his part to ensure maternal sanity. After lots of soul-searching, weepy half-tantrums (in the privacy of my bedroom), and a stern conversation with our pediatrician (I conversed, he was stern), I have decided to go Ferber.

For the uneducated, the Ferber Method is a technique to get your kids to sleep through the night. It involves several nights of blood-curdling howling from Baby, stuffing head under pillow by a guilt-wracked Mama, and hourly elbow jabs from Husband reminding Mama about his 7:30 a.m. meeting tomorrow.

Ferber does allow Mama to quickly check at the beginning of each new wail cycle to ensure the safety of the child, but this results in raised hopes and teary smiles from Baby. This wrenches at Mama's heart and causes her to pick him up and cuddle for a minute, making the inevitable parting even worse as Baby realizes he's been tricked again.

After several nights of this, we had some partial success last night. Kye made it from midnight to 5:30 in one stretch! I was so excited.

There were some side effects, however. I was a little disoriented at having so much sleep that making breakfast became quite an adventure.

First, I made coffee with half the amount of beans that I usually use. Frowning at the taste, I looked into the filter and noticed that I had ground them espresso-fine. That would explain the coffee dust at the bottom. So I had weak, sandy coffee.

After that I mixed up some oat porridge for myself and the kids as I do nearly every day. I started off intending to make 2 cups of finished product, for which I usually use 1 cup water, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup of oats.

Into the pot went the 2 cups of mixed liquid, followed by 2 cups of oats. It was thicker than I expected, and I quickly realized my mistake. I hurredly added 2 more cups of liquid and 1 more cup of oats (I don't know why either). That didn't quite do it. I thought hard about my process. Once I realized that I was at 4 cups liquid and 3 cups of oats, I added 2 more cups of liquid to come to the right consistency.

We all had our fill of porridge and a large Tupperware-stored supply for tomorrow and Monday.

I blame it on too much sleep.

toxic contamination

When I was a teen, I had breakouts like everyone else. Nothing extreme, but let's just say I was waiting for puberty to be over so that I wouldn't have to deal with it again.

It took some time before I was mostly breakout-free, but then I started having babies. I get that the hormones involved in pregnancy would cause zitty flare-ups, but I assumed that the problem would go away after birth. Now I'm on baby #3 (Kye) and I've had an epiphany.

The confusing thing was, that while I was a teen I had zits on my face mainly. Now that I'm a mom, my face is clear but I have breakouts on my neck, beside my nose, and on the tops of my shoulders.

This morning Kye was so excited to see me. He clutched happily in my direction, finally finding a sure grip on my neck and nose. As his sharp little fingernails dug their way in, I suddenly thought of where those hands have been.

As with Rascal, Kye grubs around in his diaper area while I clean him. I always wash his hands at the end but never think to clean under the fingernails.

Gross.

What a Mama does for love

Love hurts, they say. Usually they mean emotionally, but I can vouch for the physical pain today.

The little boys and I were having a lazy morning playing in our bed. A very mellow start.

Baby, who Rascal recently christened "Kye" (not remotely close to his actual name, by the way), is crawling now. But apparantly that's not enough for him yet - I can tell he wants to walk. I learned early on that mobility in children is in fact not desirable. Just read any of my Rascal stories and you'll know what I mean!

Where most children would perhaps pull themselves up on furniture, Kye uses any part of my body to accomplish this; it's usually my hair, ear, or jaw. Today, however, as I was lying on the bed, he crawled onto my chest, then sank his head like a tripod onto my face and pushed his legs out straight.

There were two small problems: first, his feet were grinding into my stomach; and second, his mouth was open when he planted his face directly over my nose. If only it were deja vu... As I attempted to free myself, he bit down and balled his fists in my hair. I actually called to Rascal for help.

"Kye, what doing?" Rascal sat there, not overly concerned. Kye just laughed.

Later, after I cleaned myself up, Rascal and I were wrestling and tickling. Then he pulled a fast one, headbutting me on the nose. I thought I was going to die, the pain was so excruciating! I probed gingerly convinced something was broken, feeling and tasting the coppery blood trickle back down my throat.

I might not survive these toddler years.