Oh, for the days of drunken parenting

Public tantrums are just a part of parenthood. I know this. Entire chapters of parenting books are devoted to this phenomenon. Theories are thrown about like so many pearls before swine.... "Let them tire themselves out", "ignore them","walk away" etc. etc......Yesterday, Lena proved herself to be the exception to the rule. I'll explain (you knew I would):

There is a playground next to Lena's preschool room. Everyday when I pick her up we walk by it without incident. Yesterday, she decided she MUST slide down the very tall slide. I had Pilar in a snuglie (I foolishly thought it would be easier to collect Lena if I had both hands free...HA!) and she was starting to wake up and root so I wanted to get home to feed her before she lost it and we had to listen to her cry all the way home. I told Lena we would play on it another day, but not right now....not the answer she was looking for.... She immediately threw herself on the ground screaming "slide, slide." When I went to pick her up she grabbed the side of the slide and would not let go. I finally pried her little hands away and held her by the arm attempting to pull her from the slide and toward the car. She went completely limp and yelled "owwie! owwie! hurts! hurts! stop it!" at the top of her lungs. This gained the attention of nearby teachers, parents and my friend Karen. Karen came by to commiserate, which helped, but this was apparently the cue for other parents to come by and offer advice. Usually I wouldn't mind; other parents are often full of good information. HOWEVER, I was nowhere near in the mood to listen to any unsolicited advice and besides they were giving me "that look." You know the one. If the look were a sound it would be "tsk, tsk." The way some of the parents were looking at me I expected them to throw me change and tell me not to spend it on booze. To be honest, some booze would have been nice at that moment. Anyhow, I managed to drag her to the car, buckle her in, put the now crying Pilar into her carseat and drive home without crashing.

Pilar is crying now and I have to go. There is really no point to this post other than: Aaargh!!

A Few Pictures

Jason remembered he too has a blog and has posted some new pictures of Lena and Pilar to Fishmonger's Daugter. You can get to it through the link on the right.

crying and crying and crying...

It's amazing how much I have forgotten in the last 2 years. Burping the baby after she eats, for example, is very important. Clothes that look too small are usually, in reality, too big. Breastfeeding makes you really, REALLY hungry, which causes you to consider things like lucky charms and kraft cheez n' crackers food. But mostly, mostly it's the constant, CONSTANT crying that I managed to wipe clean from my memories of early parenthood. Pilar cannot be more than, at most, 1 foot from a warm body without losing it completely. beginning this morning, while I rushed to finish making 25 holiday gifts for Jason's tutors, I finally just let her cry. While regular person logic tells me that a baby cannot die from too much crying, my mom logic understands no such thing. Everytime she stopped crying I'd start to worry that something was wrong and go check on her. For example, while writing this, I once again let her cry, but after about 10 minutes I couldn't stand it anymore and am now typing with one hand. I am a sucker.

Meanwhile, Lena has actually been really cute and pretty good (for Lena) lately. After staying at my parents, and using their highchair, I have become a highchair convert. This may actually be the best invention of the 20th century (when WAS it invented?). Lena loves it. She sits in it to eat and watch movies. It's been very useful to know where she is so I can make sure it's far from the baby, whose eyes she must have for her very own. She actually likes Pilar, though maybe too much. She really wants to play with her and doesn't undertand why she can't. After watching too much Curious George, Lena does not seem to differentiate between a monkey and a baby, which may explain some of her behavior toward her sister. Half of the time when George comes on the screen she yells "baby!!". Although, she is talking a lot more now, and "monkey" is a frequently used word. In fact right now, as she sits in her highchair, watching George she is alternately screaming "monkey!" and "out!!" So I'm going to let her out. Wish me luck.

I'm Back!

So, long time no write. I have many excuses (Jason diverted my log-in and since I'm technologically retarded I couldn't figure out how to log back in as me...) and explanations (I was very pregnant and very tired) but now I'm back. So here is approximately 6 months of catch up:

[Special note from the programmer: Lysa is smoking crack. I checked - this purported login problem is clearly a figure of her disjoint imagination. You have to understand: pregnancy does things to people's minds.....]

July, as I previously posted, was very hot. I spent a lot of time either at the mall, taking advantage of the rubberized playground and free air conditioning, or hanging out with Kate and Aidan at their well-cooled home. About one week before Lena turned 2 I found out I had gestational diabetes, which sucked since all I wanted to eat was candy and hamburgers. At the end of July (just in time for Lena's birthday party) Jared, Emily, and Anna came to visit. Anna is as beautiful as I expected, and a very good baby. SHE, unlike some babies I know, will stay in a sling for more than 2 minutes....

August began with us caravanning to Portland with Jared, Emily and Anna. Two children and a pregnant woman make for many pit stops. We stopped in San Jose to see family, John, Ruth, Cynthia and Cynthia's boyfriend Shawn (and their very nice roommate whose name escapes me for the moment) and had a lovely dinner. Ruth gave Emily and I cool blue bags filled with goodies (cookies!!). I still use the bag to tote Lena's car toys and spare diapers. Portland was fun, as always. We enjoyed spending time with Gail and Dan. Lena got some good grandparent time in, which allowed us to go out to eat like real adults. No yelling, no crayon eating, no one ordered chicken nuggets..... We stayed in Portland for about a week, then poked our way back home, with a detour to Placerville to visit Matt and jen, and buy delicious cheese at Dedricks Cheese shop. The rest of August was mostly uneventful and just as hot as July.

In September, Lena started pre-school Monday thru Friday from 9-12 (can I get an amen). She LOVES it. Some days I have to chase her down to get her to go home. If her clothes and hair are any indication, she spends most of the day painting and gluing things to paper and herself.

October is when things really got busy. Monday, October 9th at about 3am I went into labor. This was quite unexpected since I was not due until around November 3rd (I had a planned c-section for October 29th). So, like her sister, Pilar arrived prematurly and by c-section. However, she weighed almost 2 pounds more than Lena, ate immediately, and went home when I did. In fact, she's 8 weeks old today and weighs, I would guess, almost 9 pounds. It took Lena several months to weigh as much. We spent 6 to 7 weeks after her birth at my parent's house. Jason will not be on paternity leave until spring semester, so it was great to have help with Lena and Pilar. My dad spent every morning hanging out with Lena until she went to school. She still asks for him when she wakes up.

So that's about it. I'm sure there were some good stories I could have shared during that time, but I'm positive there will be more. Lena is talking a lot now and is a constant source of entertainment. Pilar mostly sleeps, eats, and cries, but I'll keep you posted if anything changes. I have many, many pictures and hope to post some to flickr soon. Keep checking in.