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Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (6)· December 31st, 2011

2011 will not go down as my favorite year.

Holy hell has it been a rough one. An anxious third trimester gave way to Ellie’s 72-day hospital stay, and the rest of the year is pretty much a blur of doctor’s appointments, physical therapy, and attempting to juggle the needs of three kids.

There were good things, here and there. And of course I am glad to have Ellie, my sweetest pea, in our family. But my overall feeling on 2011 is that it could not possibly be over soon enough.

As you might guess from my absence here (it’s been more than two weeks since I last posted? whoops…), December was the perfectly ridiculous ending to a perfectly ridiculous year. Our annual holiday trip to Chicago was the most stressful one I’ve ever experienced, and that’s saying something after 25 years of joint custody. Again, there were good parts: bowling, the Museum of Science & Industry, and princesses galore. But mostly I just wanted to curl up in a ball until it was over.

I’ve got nothing more to recap. I’m exhausted. We’re spending New Year’s Eve at home, at least half of the occupants of this house are still in their pajamas. Laying low, nachos and fajitas for dinner, and I’ll probably be in bed by 10.

I’ve got ideas for next year. Goals and plans and a desire to do what I can so that I am not writing this post again next December. But for today, I’m just going to be glad this year is done smacking me around.

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Categories : Travel

Awesome

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7)· November 7th, 2011

It doesn’t bode well that it’s Day 7 of NaBloPoMo and I’m already searching for ideas. Well, that’s partially true. I have a few ideas kicking around that I’m not ready to actually sit down and write, yet. Like how much I hate feeding therapy, and the fact that my 4-year-olds are obsessed with death. I’ll get there.

Tonight, I turned to M and asked him what I should write about. He said, “write about me. Because I’m awesome.”

He tried to backtrack and say he was kidding. Too late, buddy.

Marriage isn’t easy, even when you’re married to the “right” person. Toss a few kids into the mix… well, you know how it goes. So much stress, so much to do, so little free time. I know I’m not the only one who unintentionally puts her marriage a few steps too low on the list of priorities.

This weekend was a really good thing for us. We’ve both been mighty stressed recently, and a lot of it has been cumulative over the last, oh, eight months or so. 48 hours completely to ourselves was unbelievably restorative. A three-hour drive, just us. A hotel, no kids, no laundry, no cooking, no to-do list. Just the two of us, doing whatever struck our fancy.

It was a wonderful reminder that we actually, you know, enjoy each other’s company. That conversation and company is as easy and funny as we remember it being. It was comforting to quiet that nagging little voice in the backs of our minds that wonders if we’d lost something, and lost it for good.

It’s still there. We’ve still got it. It’s hard to see sometimes, amid the daily grind and hassles and irritations and pet peeves and obligations and pressures. But it’s there.

So, a public thanks to my beloved M for our much-needed and much-appreciated weekend away. Thanks for convincing me I was ready to leave Ellie with the grandparents. Thanks for indulging my requests for a fancy massage and some hibachi for dinner.

Thanks for 7 years of marriage, for holding on tight, for not letting go of my hand, through all of the bumps in the road. I wouldn’t want to travel it with anyone else. On we go.

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Categories : Just me, My beloved, Travel

Tags : NaBloPoMo

Luxury

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (0)· November 5th, 2011

Would that every Saturday could start with a spinning class, immediately followed by an 80-minute aromatherapy massage.

A lazy lunch, a spur-of-the-moment drive through rural roads, a stop at a fabric shop for an early birthday present.

Tomorrow, we’ll return to reality, and be glad. For today, we’ll appreciate this luxury.

Comments (0)

Categories : Just me, My beloved, Travel

Tags : NaBloPoMo

When in Vermont

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (4)· November 4th, 2011

Me and M.
48 hours.
Grandparents have all three kids.

Why not stop for the factory tour?

Oh, the sweet sweet freedom.

Comments (4)

Categories : Just me, My beloved, Travel

Tags : NaBloPoMo

Woe is Nobody

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (9)· October 12th, 2011

I went away for the weekend, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

On Thursday afternoon, I flew to Salt Lake City for the Sewing Summit. (Oh yes, it was supremely awesome and fabric-geeky.) It was just for me, just for fun. I was BY MYSELF. Oh, the luxury of traveling without children. I had a four-hour layover at JFK, and I could not possibly have cared less. In fact, it was great. I was in the JetBlue terminal, which means I managed to get a manicure, have some mighty fine sushi, and charged my phone and iPad at one of about a million outlets while I enjoyed the free wifi. Layover, schmayover.

Once in Salt Lake, though I certainly enjoyed the company and conversation of my fellow fabric junkies, the best part is that my time was completely my own. Want to go for a walk to the nearest Starbucks? No problem. Back up to my hotel room for a late-afternoon nap? Why not! Oh, it was glorious.

Here’s the thing: I barely thought about my kids at all. Oh, sure, I talked about them from time to time. The people I met certainly knew I had kids. I called to say hello. But I was not consumed by missing them, I was not worried about them in the slightest. Though it was technically M’s first time having all three kids to himself for a whopping four days (hell, I would have complained if *he* was going to be out of town that long), it’s not as though I doubted his ability to make it work. Everyone was well taken care of, fed, bathed, snuggled, the whole nine yards. For crying out loud, he’s a great dad. Not some random babysitter I picked up off the street.

How did the kids do? Are you kidding? It was Fun Dad Weekend. They had gorgeous weather and ate dinner outside. They took baths in the dark with glow bracelets. They went to a fair with their aunt. They gave me a hug when I left, and that was the end of it. I got back and they talked my ear off, picking right up where we left off. None of the post-absence punishment that we used to see when they were toddlers. Nope, my mellow four-year-olds know what it means when I say I’ll be home in four days, and they’re not concerned in the least. Hallelujah.

On the way back from Salt Lake City, I took an overnight in Denver to visit my newly-relocated brother and his family, including my nephew and brand-new niece. It was fun to be with the kids, especially since they ultimately weren’t mine and I could hand them right back when anyone got fussy.

Truly, this weekend was a big win for everyone. Sure, M was pretty tired by the end of it. But he got some serious kiddo time, and practically put me to shame with how neat the house was when I got back. The kids had a blast of a weekend, and barely noticed or cared that I was gone. And me? Oh, it was so full of win, I barely know where to begin. But for sure, I came back refreshed and happy. A little jet-lagged and a sore back from sleeping in a recliner at my brother’s house, but totally worth it.

Get away. Every now and then, just get away. The fresh air will do you all wonders.

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Categories : Travel

Lake Living

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (8)· July 30th, 2011

We’re back from our annual trip to the Great Midwest, and instead of a tremendously boring play-by-play, I’ll just give you the Good, Bad, and Ugly of 10 days in Northern Wisconsin with my family.

THE GOOD:

The kids were super travelers. Even Ellie, on her first flights, who was cutting her second tooth the entire time. And while I was adamant that I could have taken all three kids by myself (M couldn’t take that much time off from work and didn’t arrive until much later), I’m very glad my mom was there. Solo-ing it would have been foolish.

10 days of extra people to constantly entertain my kids was awesome. My mom got up with them and made breakfast. My stepdad was so excited to have them there, I lost count of how many fun things he had set up for them to do. My teenage cousins showed up and Daniel & Becca completely forgot anyone else was there. And my aunts practically lined up for turns holding Ellie.

The indulgences never ended. Delicious dinners every night. Late bedtimes. Lollipops a-plenty. Bonfires and roasted marshmallows. Always someone willing to go fishing or swimming or do a puzzle.

The kids were really good about water safety. We had a clear rule that they could only go on the dock (much less in a boat or in the water) with a lifejacket on, and there was zero pushback. Only once or twice did they forget and put so much as a foot on the dock without one.

Despite the first few days being a relative heatwave, the weather was largely beautiful, the lake wasn’t too cold, and we spent the majority of every day outside.

THE BAD:

By the end, the late bedtimes and hit-or-miss naps got a little out of hand and the big kids got kind of cranky. (Ellie, bless her, took some SERIOUS naps and was always down for the night between 6 and 7.)

We had to get up at 3:45AM for our return trip. It beat the alternative of starting the travel at 5PM and not getting home until midnight, but still. That was ugly.

The lake had a nasty bout of Swimmer’s Itch, a yucky little parasite that sometimes lives in the shallow water and can get under your skin if you’re not careful. This year, it was in much deeper water than normal. And despite taking what we thought were appropriate precautions, Daniel and I got it, bad. The itching was so awful, I literally felt sick to my stomach that first day. Daniel tried to hide under couch cushions and said it made him “crazy and mad.” Thankfully, a bit of benadryl took the edge off, and the itching was mostly gone the next day. The welts however, are only just now fading from my arms, almost two weeks later. We found a zinc-based sunscreen ointment that seemed to provide a barrier, so thankfully we didn’t have to completely abandon the water.

THE UGLY:

My mom’s dog, a 100+ pound Golden/Newfoundland mix, bit Rebecca. On the face. AGAIN. This would be the third time in two years, and yes, I’m livid. While a mostly friendly dog, he’s unpredictable. We were keeping them separated for much of the trip, and keeping a close eye when they were in the room together. Rebecca’s offense? She’s a completely undeterred dog lover, all shapes and sizes. She went to give him a pat on the head and maybe a little kiss, and he bit her.

I am done with this animal. Believe me, I am a dog lover, too. But since I can’t trust this one, even with reasonable amounts of supervision, I’m done. Some shit is going to hit the fan when I have to tell my mom that we won’t stay at her house for Christmas with the dog there, but I’m not quite ready to have that discussion yet.

It happened on the last day of our trip, which was a miserable way to end it. My mom was very upset and constantly apologetic. M (who had arrived a few days earlier) showed considerable restraint in that he neither yelled at my mom nor kicked (or worse) the dog.

Canine drama aside, it really was a good trip, and I’m glad we went. The kids had a blast, I found it relatively relaxing, and I was glad that plenty of my extended family members got to meet Ellie. And, as with any vacation, I’m glad to be back home.

Comments (8)

Categories : Family, Infants, Preschoolers, Travel

I shall now become a hermit

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7)· December 27th, 2010

This may have been among the most exhausting six weeks of my entire life. And I’ve had newborn twins.

There was the Hawaii trip, which was lovely and all, but the travel and re-entry was brutal. A few days after we got back, and well before we had gotten over the jet-lag, it was Thanksgiving (at my house, though blessedly small). Barely a week after that, my in-laws came to town for 10 days. And while they didn’t stay with us, and are very nice people, it’s still an additional stressor to have visitors.

After they left, I had precisely one week to get my act together (barely) to fly to Chicago for our annual Christmas trip, where we stayed at both of my parents’ houses over the course of a single week.

Christmas is exhausting. It was always tiring, just with the back-and-forth balancing act that is life with divorced parents. Add in the whole “I converted to Judaism and am trying to raise Jewish kids” thing, and a husband who is generally not psyched about it all, and it’s nothing short of an emotional minefield. The cherry on top, of course, is that I am now firmly in my 3rd trimester, exhausted, but cannot sleep well on the best of nights, much less on an unfamiliar bed.

The kids did spectacularly well throughout this travel marathon. They enjoyed their first snow of the season (it started snowing in Boston a few hours after we left, and we did get back to town in time for snOMG, Snowmageddon, or whatever the hell we’re calling this). They made one snow angel after another with my mom, and thoroughly enjoyed the pile my dad made in the backyard for sledding.

We had incredibly late bedtimes, hit-or-miss naps, party after party, and crowds of relatives they only see once or twice a year. And yet, miraculously, tantrums and meltdowns were near zero. Daniel came out of the defiant funk he’d been in while my in-laws were in town (delightful!) to become nothing short of Mr. Congeniality. Rebecca swung a bit more in the other direction with a little whininess and extra demanding behavior, but nothing too severe.

Me? By 7:30pm on Christmas, as we made our SIXTH stop of the day with no naps for anyone, I was so tired I almost burst into tears. The balancing, the logistics, the constant interaction, the heaviness of the belly, the full week of disrupted sleep. I was D-U-N done.

Our flight home the next day was at 7:00 in the morning. We woke up to an extra 4-6 inches of snow, which made our drive to the airport a rather slow adventure. I crossed my fingers and toes that we would make it back to Boston before the Snowpocalypse shut the airport, and despite a mechanical delay, we were blessedly successful.

I sent M to the grocery store while I threw on a movie for the kids and a load of laundry in the wash. I have not left the house, save for 10 minutes in the snow this afternoon, since we gt home from the airport. For the next two months, I have no intention of going more than about a 3-mile radius from my house. Preschool pickup and dropoff. Doctor’s appointments. Maybe Target if I’m feeling saucy. I’m only going to the gym for the kids’ activities, as I have cut my own exercise down to Prenatal Yoga and nothing more. I don’t want visitors. I just want to sit quietly in my house, have a daily routine, get some sewing done, maybe take a nap.

When we were in Chicago, my grandmother innocently asked me what my next trip was, and if I was coming to Florida. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Not an ice cube’s chance in hell.

I’m 29 weeks pregnant. Stick a fork in me.

Comments (7)

Categories : Family, Holidays, Pregnancy, Preschoolers, Travel

The year of the snowpants

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (4)· December 22nd, 2010

When I picked the kids up from preschool the other day, there was a little note in all of the family mailboxes regarding snowpants. It was surprisingly strongly-worded for a note about clothing from our friendly little school. In a nutshell, they try to take the kids to play outside every day, so long as it isn’t bitter cold (think teens or colder) or pouring rain. The note said that, if the kids were not properly attired to play outside in winter weather, we should expect a call to come pick them up early. Dang. Not messing around, little Montessori!

We’ve gotten snowpants and boots in previous years, generally of the inexpensive Target or Old Navy variety, but have gotten pretty minimal use out of them. I don’t mind playing in the snow, but it seemed that it took longer to put all of the gear on than it did for them to decide they didn’t actually want to be outside, anyways.

This looks like it might be the year we change our minds.

We arrived in Chicago on Monday morning for our annual holiday visit extravaganza, and on the ground was the first snow my kids had seen this year (it finally started snowing in Boston a few hours after we left). Driving to my mom’s house from the airport, Daniel exclaimed “oh my! Look! More snow!” about every quarter-mile. It snowed a bit more that night, and by Tuesday morning, the kids were dying to try on their new snowpants and boots (which we had to splurge on at LL Bean – Target and Old Navy were both sold out of 3T, barely halfway through December!).

Oh my lord was it a hit. They happily stomped through the (not at all deep) snow in their heavy new boots. They plopped down on their bellies, and flipped over on their backs to make their first snow angels. They were disappointed that it wasn’t good snowman-making snow.

And it didn’t end there. After 15 minutes of playing in my mom’s little yard, we walked the block and a half over to the snow-covered playground (oh, to live that close to a playground!) and they had at least as much fun playing on it as they do in the middle of the summer.

The Farmer’s Almanac isn’t predicting a very snowy year for New England (just cold, sadly), but I get the feeling we’ll be out in it every time the white stuff comes down.

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Categories : Preschoolers, Travel

Tags : playing outside, snow, winter

Totally Worth It

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7)· December 3rd, 2010

Didn’t mean to leave you hanging on the slightly more negative aspects of our trip, like long flights, jet lag, and… well… vomit.

Because despite all that? TOTALLY worth it. It was an awesome vacation. And yes, I actually used the word vacation.

The first thing that made it awesome: traveling with a large and helpful group. A total of ten adults and four kids. My dad and stepmom were obviously enthusiastic kid-watchers, and all of the extra pairs of eyes were great. My stepbrother’s daughter is only 10 months younger than my kids, so she was an awesome extra playmate.

The house we stayed in was to die for. Five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, huge (and well-equipped) kitchen, covered outdoor eating/lounging area with a table big enough for all of us to eat dinner together, and even a small pool.

And it was one house away from the beach. A beautiful stretch of beach, completely uncrowded, just people walking or running by with their dogs.

I hereby declare the rental beach house to be possibly the most ideal mode of vacation with young kids, and not just because this particular house was a million times nicer than my own. No, I think it’s perfect because it gives you so many options. When you stay in a hotel, you are either cooped up in the room, or you are out Doing Something. You have basically no option but to eat at restaurants, which gets old, real fast. Especially with young kids.

In the beach rental, you have space. You have flexibility. You have options. You can stock the kitchen with cereal and sandwich fixings, and you can choose to make a real dinner if you’re so inclined (on this trip, each family group took a night to be responsible for dinner). You have space to just hang out and lay low if it’s a quiet kind of a day, and the adults have somewhere to hang out and relax when the kids are asleep.

And then there’s the beach aspect. Oh, the beach. What a joy, to be able to put your towels and toys in a little wagon and be so close that you don’t even bother putting on shoes. Once again, it takes the pressure off of finding Something To Do for every moment of every day of your trip. You can just decide to wake up slowly, eat your breakfast, watch a little Curious George, and then spend the morning at the beach. And then wander back on your own time for a snack or when someone is tired of the sand. So, so lovely.

We did some of the other great Oahu things, of course. We took the kids to the (nice but surprisingly small) Waikiki Aquarium, where they got a kick out of the audio tour.

We went to a Luau, where I started chatting with one of the dancers (not the guy in the picture) only to find out she has two-year-old identical twin boys. Twin moms find each other, everywhere we go.

We left the kids at home with the grandparents (woot!) so that we could spend most of the day taking in Pearl Harbor. It was on M’s absolute-must-see list, and I’m glad we didn’t have to rush it and entertain the kids. As it was, my pregnant ass could barely keep up with all the walking.

All told, it was an amazing vacation, a practically once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (thank you, Dad!). Would I have had the guts to do it on my own? Most likely not. But boy am I glad we did.

If for no other reason than to hear M proclaim that he has found his happy place.

For a guy who’s a major home-body and not much of a traveler, to hear him proclaim his love for it over and over, or to say that, if he didn’t have a wife and kids, he would have called his boss and told him he was never coming back to work, but instead going to live on the beach… and you couldn’t pick someone who is less of a “beach person.” Yeah, it was that awesome.

Comments (7)

Categories : Family, Preschoolers, Travel

Tags : beach rental house, Hawai'i

On Jet Lag and Re-Entry

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (1)· November 28th, 2010

Aside from surviving the flights, my other major concern about taking two three-year-olds to Hawaii was, obviously, jet lag.

While we travel quite frequently with our kids, we generally either stay in our own time zone (Florida) or go a single hour earlier (Chicago). The only time we’ve dealt with any significant time change was our trip to California when they were only 7 months old. Over the course of our brief four-day trip, they didn’t adjust to Pacific Time AT ALL, and we essentially started each day at about 3 or 4AM. Charming.

With that being my only precedent, I was nervous about the 5-hour time difference between Boston and Honolulu. No adjustment at all would have my kids awake for the day by 2:30AM. Obviously, that would be entirely unacceptable. Thankfully, however, 3-year-olds are a hell of a lot more adaptable than 7-month-olds.

When we arrived at our rental house, it was around 5:30PM local time, so after 10:30 Eastern Time. My kids had been up since before 5:00AM, with only one pathetic nap between the two of them. Daniel passed out cold on the drive from the airport, and for the second time in his life, actually transferred inside and stayed asleep. For the rest of the night. I managed to change him out of his travel clothes and get a Pull-Up on him, and when I set him into his bed, he just rolled over and smiled.

Rebecca went to bed shortly thereafter, and thankfully I had thought ahead and packed our friend, the Good Nite Lite. I set it to “wake up” at 5:00AM, local time. And while we were all awake before it turned yellow, at least it was dark out and the light was blue, and we were able to convince the kids to stay pretty quiet and rest in bed (we shared a room, alas) until it turned yellow. We weren’t the only ones in the house up at that hour, of course, so we all took advantage of being wide awake and about 100 yards from the beach and went to watch the sunrise. (I even let M hold my camera for a minute…)

After that, it honestly wasn’t bad at all. Being up early, plus plenty of activity and sunshine, meant both kids took an awfully good nap nearly every day. The nap enabled them to stay up to a normal bedtime, and I bumped the Good Nite Lite to 6:00AM for the rest of the trip. By about 5 or 6 days in, they even slept quite a bit past when it turned yellow. Hooray!

My pregnant and jet-lagged ass, on the other hand, was completely exhausted and crashed HARD at about 8:30 every night. Ah well.

However, I have heard from a number of people that West-to-East is about a million times worse as far as jet lag goes, and unfortunately, that has proven true for us.

Obviously, travel day was all over the place. Barely slept on the red-eye, “naps” were here there and everywhere the day we got home. Both kids were exhausted and losing their minds by 6:00PM, so we put them to bed. I think I only lasted another hour or two before I crashed, too. Unfortunately, we were ALL awake from about 10:30PM to 1:00AM. It was so ridiculous, we ended up putting on a TV show for the kids at midnight.

Yes, they “slept in” the next day, but then what do you do? Nap? No nap? Plus, Daniel had picked up a nasty cold and was that much more exhausted from being sick. And me? Completely bone-tired. We ended up trying a no-nap day for the kids (I may have put on a movie so I could grab a nap, myself), in the hopes of getting them tired enough for bedtime, but it didn’t work. Another night of being wide awake at 11:00PM, though at least it wasn’t as long this time.

Add to all of that insanity the fact that we’re on a bit of a let-down from leaving a great vacation, it’s a holiday week, the kids haven’t been to preschool in over two weeks… basically, it was a nightmare of re-entry. No routine, no schedule. Getting them up and to school would have been hard, but at least it might have forced us back into normalcy. What actually happened is that we didn’t get back to near-normal sleep until Saturday (got home Monday), and behavior has steadily deteriorated as they are simply bored.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for them to go back to school on Monday morning.

Could we have made the adjustment back to reality any easier? Who knows. I think my attempts at skipping the nap to get them tired enough for bedtime (the challenge of the West-to-East transition) backfired, and I would have been better off with a mid-afternoon nap and a late-ish bedtime. And had we not been sick and had it not been a holiday week, I think making ourselves get up and go to school in the morning would have been a good thing. But regardless, it took a solid 5-6 days to get adjusted back to our home time.

Was it worth it? Hell yes. The trip itself was great, and I’ll talk more about it in another post. But re-entry has been absolutely brutal.

Comments (1)

Categories : Behavior, Preschoolers, Sleep, Travel

Tags : Hawai'i, jet lag