Jacksonesque

The Day Before Christmas

2011-12-24T13:23:00.001-10:00

Before, and After

2011-11-17T18:25:00.001-10:00

I am just beginning my third bout of sickness in the last month. There is something seriously wrong with my immune system. I think the technical term is “kids”.

Many people have been asking me about our recent big news and it’s hard to even know where to begin, but really all you need to know is:

We bought a (little) house.

Read on if you want just the tip of the iceberg.

It basically needed to be completely gutted, and we haven’t even started with the outside yet.

For such a little space, it’s certainly expensive in money and time to fix up a house. How do people buy extra houses?

Jake gets all the credit. I watched the kids every afternoon while he worked. I did feel like I was working hard too.

Buying a house in Hawaii is way more complicated and weird than I would have thought. People want way too much for the most falling apart termite-eaten places, more than you’d ever imagine, and we learned all the funny tricks people use to get around legalities. For example, “square footage may be different than tax-records” means that there’s way more house than they can legally list (which is almost every house), and there might even be a rental attached. One place had a tenant living in a part of the house we wouldn’t be allowed to see until our offer was accepted. Some places that are “for sale” are not really for sale, and building your own house or even buying an extensive fixer-upper is almost never approved unless you’re buying with cash. We learned way too much about mortgages, types of loans, and all the costs and credits associated with them. Many houses lately are real-estate owned and we learned a bit about the process from short-sale, to foreclosure, to REO which is a strange process. Flood zones are a killer—we are in the most expensive flood zone and our flood insurance is as much as all the other insurance put together. If we want to build on to our house we have to lift the whole house and we can build on to the outside—but not below us because the bottom of any new house area we build has to be lifted a whole lot of feet too. Our house was a Fannie Mae REO and the closing date was pushed back something like two months because of extremely silly things and we had to fix things on the sly to get approvals. Jase, our real estate agent, worked a lot of miracles to get this thing to go through. I made him take me to every single house for sale within 15 miles. Even the $700k (but still needing work) ones.

One house we saw was literally the most crazy thing I’ve ever seen. It seemed like a joke. The floor plan made zero sense and they had built on to the edges, gradually, so the outside of the house was now on the inside in several places. The bottom floor’s ground sloped to one corner (like a 6-8 inch gradual slope) and the upstairs parts where they built on to were all an uneven step down, even though it was only 3 feet of a room area. It was super solid, but just crazy crazy ugly and still needed a bunch of remodeling work. The bathroom had a straight up full length picture window next to the toilet so you could do your business and say Hi to the similarly crazy neighbor’s house windows 5 feet away. Most houses are literally completely cemented over any area that are not house, so there was no yard at all.

Luckily, even though our house needed a lot of work, it was solid and it was mostly cosmetic. The bathroom had to be completely redone, including the base floor had to be ripped out. Other awesome plusses about our house include a good sized back and front yard, being right up the street from Adam, and a really large covered patio area where Jake can eventually do some work. If we could do something about the covered area, we could also have an amazing view to the mountains.

I am really sad that we won’t be living right next door to Pammy. I think that will be the hardest adjustment for us. And Amaya.

These afters are really still in progress, but it’s the best you’re going to get right now.

Before:

After

Before:After

Before

AFTER:

I’m glad it’s almost done. I wish it was just a flood of relief to finally be working on our own home and I am grateful but it has been really hard. The fact that Jake hasn’t even been surfing in more than month should tell you something serious is going down. We’re packing and moving this next week. It’s been very very stressful. I think it has definitely been hard on the kids too. It may explain why I completely forgot about Amaya’s primary program and why I bring her late to school almost every day and why we go days, lately, without even writing down what books we’re reading her. Wait, am I reading her books lately? No. Probably not. Everything has been slipping. Absolutely everything.

Or maybe that’s just normal. Who knows. I’m blaming the floorboards for hogging all the attention.

Really annoying things that Alanis Morissette would call Ironic even if they’re not.

2011-09-08T17:08:00.001-10:00

Best feeling in the world: Throwing off the shackles of a 2 week diet and licking dulce de leche off the spatula after eating cookie dough.

Worst feeling in the world: Right after the dulce de leche/cookie dough binge. And maybe you had a couple of chocolate covered pretzels, too.

Reading angry comments on a news article about teachers’ contracts. Because we make so much money.

Being told we can leave early from school, because we have comp time for coming to the open house after hours, but I have 45 more essays to grade and for once we don’t have an after school meeting because everyone else has left. Oh, and did I mention, most people leave school early anyway.

Playing an “All Things Considered” piece about the misuse of the term “That’s Racist” and then hearing students misuse the term almost immediately after that.

Catching students chewing gum after I’ve made 10 of their peers spit out their gum within the same hour. And them telling me that gum tastes good.

A parent lecturing me about why her student doesn’t like my class after I’ve called her because the student is messing around and being disrespectful in class.

Me complaining about Harry Potter even though I’ve never read it. And don’t intend to.

Babies Cry

2011-08-28T16:13:00.001-10:00

I believe that there is another dimension, an alternate universe, where I am not a complete baby.

The day starts with me getting Amaya to school, late, the middle goes like a to-do list a mile long which rolls right over my lunch break and my own class prep, and the end of the middle is when I sit down to start actually working on my own class and Mozely wakes up as Jake is walking away to get some time to himself.

That’s when the end-end of the day is me trying to contain my hysterics about small setbacks.

And that’s when the end of the day turns into Taco Bell for the rest of the family.

Once they leave I start feeling really silly but also extremely angry at them for leaving me behind. Even if they’ve promised to bring something back for me.

Then when my family gets home, they try to show love and affection for me, and I just want to cry in misery.

It’s a spiral of self-loathing. I really, really, really hate that my one year old pulls my hair constantly. It makes me want to cry sometimes. He starts crawling all over me and grabbing fistfuls of my hair, even if I have it up in a bun, and I feel like sobbing: “Just please, please, please stop eating my hairrrrr…..”

I would shave it, but since I already do nothing to make myself look like a girl…

I guess I’ll keep the hair for now. Even if it does have spit matting it down and half of it is pulled out of its ponytail.

This week we’ve been really tired because Mozely has been having a hard time sleeping. We’ve had him sleep trained since he was 6 months old and since he started walking there are nights and way-too-early mornings he cries for so long and so loud that I’m sure he’ll have a brain aneurysm. He prances back and forth in his baby pen, pressing his face against the mesh and screaming. That’s why I’ve decided that baby book parenting is CRAP. We put him to bed, we don’t get him, he goes to sleep. Sometimes. The books say that if you answer their cry then they’ll start expecting it. Sometimes he goes to sleep without crying, sometimes he cries for 10 minutes, and sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and cries for way over half an hour.

Since when can babies tell time? And why does he do this for 2 weeks every night in a row and then not at all, even though I got him every night? And why the heck does he absolutely insist on waking up at 5 am even though every book says that he should be sleeping for 10-12 hours?

I’ve tried everything (for many nights in a row) from going in every 10 minutes to reassure him, to the Super Nanny method of sitting in the room with your back to them (just resulted in several nights of little sleep), to ignoring him completely, and the only solution is milk. Hours of crying will become milk, I think. And I don’t think it’s because I’m wimpy.

Mozely is showing symptoms of some strange joint problem that both Amaya and I have. I only figured out when I was an adult that it was my joints and not my muscles, but I get very intense pain that emanates from my knees at night when I don’t drink enough water during the day. Sometimes in my wrists too. I had so many people tell me it was all in my head (including doctors), but then we realized Amaya has it too. Now Mozely, we think. He was wiggling his legs around like crazy and Jake massaged them and then he fell right asleep.

Plus he finally broke his 3rd and 4th tooth. It was an agonizing week.

My mama totally must have picked me up in the middle of the night. I fully expect someone to come rescue me.

The world is much more forgiving of a crying baby than a crybaby.

My only hope is that I am some CIA secret agent bad A with 10 kids, good hair, and a clean house in that other dimension.

Maybe she should come show me how it’s done.

If I were to rule the world

2011-08-24T21:03:00.001-10:00

I would change a few things.

1) Gum would have the Surgeon General Warning: “Gum Chewing causes spit transfer, poor taste and may cause you to look like an annoying 13 year old while causing the sidewalk look 30 years older than it really is.” Mint gum would have a further warning: “Keep at least 3 feet away from any other consumables as they will be tainted with synthetic mint flavor.”

2) Girls would buy THIS instead of the more common option. Because it is one billion times better.

3) Jack Reacher would be played by Liev Schreiber instead of Tom Cruise in the upcoming One Shot movie.

4) I would put scientists on a mission to make carbs slimming.

Everyone would love me. Except the gum chewers. And Tom Cruise.

(But later, they’ll thank me.)

Walking

2011-07-09T22:59:00.001-10:00

I truthfully don’t remember Amaya’s first steps.

Oh yeah, because I didn’t get to see them. I was kind of annoyed that people other than me saw her walking first. I tried to just ignore the fact that it was a milestone. I definitely saw Mozely’s first steps. Just me. And Amaya. So now I’m pretty cool again.

I’m way too excited on this video. I mean, am I just really so excited for him to be able to get around faster, to chase girls, to run away to college?

Please. I should not be this excited. I should just be in denial.

Puppy Love

2011-06-30T10:17:00.001-10:00

Mozely is our mascot. We think of him as a little doggy.

He comes when we call, on all fours, laughing and moving like he’s shaking his tail. He always looks when we say his name.

Sometimes he teases us and tries to crawl away, as quick as we can, when we play with him.

He gets very excited when we come home or when we peek a boo around a corner.

And he drools, oh, he drools. Always since he was 4 weeks old. He only has two teeth.

His favorite thing is to play in the hose. If he hears the bath on in the house he will immediately crawl to it and beg to be put in.

He’s created his own sign language for what he wants.

Water: Gets really kicking and excited when he looks at a cup of water

Milk: Comes up to you and tries to french kiss your face and shoulder

All done: a modified Indian war cry with his fist

I really want that: immediately makes impatient voices and comes up to you, bouncing up and down excitedly, smiling and drooling wildly. If you don’t give it to him he will melt down quickly. Somehow he ALWAYS recognizes cake, doughnuts, ice cream, yogurt, or oatmeal. I mean, he never does that when I’m eating anything else. He could care less about sweet potato soup, for example, even though it could pass for some of those, just by looks.

He has started standing up on his own from sitting, and he took one big leg up, but it didn’t get any further ahead, so I’m not sure if that was his first step or not. I’m not counting it.

He seems more child-like than Amaya was at this age. He’s still such a textbook baby. He’s not that interested in being grown up.

He’s sweet and recognizes people, like Adam and Mariah. Jake is definitely his favorite person. He either gets really excited when Amaya comes running up to him, or starts getting stressed out and tries to get away. She really loves him and wants to be in charge of him. She picks him up constantly and always wants to get in his face and pay attention to him. She’s very proud of him and likes to show him off.

He hates vegetables. He won’t let you put them in his mouth. I still try every day, but he blows them out before I put them in his mouth. He just knows what they look like even if I mash them up or hide them under other things. I think he might have an extraordinary sense of smell. It’s hard to find him things to eat, so he mostly eats bread, fruit, baby puff stars, cheese, and eggs. It drives me crazy.

He likes to wake up between 4-6 am. Usually way before 6am. It’s not fun and we’re grumpy during the day. I think it’s our own fault for sleep training him to not wake up at night, and now he can’t sleep anywhere but his bed. It’s like 1/2 dozen in one hand, 6 in the other. We spent several days trying to just ignore him and letting him cry (read scream wildly, bounce up and down and try with all his might to crawl out of the crib, and wake up all the neighbors) himself back to sleep, but he doesn’t, and after brushing up on my reading material it seems like sleep therapists think that it’s normal for him to wake up this early and be ready for the day. I should have known because Amaya didn’t sleep much either. He can sleep about 8 1/2 hours at once and no more (which is a big improvement from waking up every 1 1/2 to eat, of course—that training took three weeks, so I’m not complaining). He does take good naps. I tried to take away one of his naps so he’ll sleep longer at night but that was a disaster and doesn’t help the night sleeping at all.

Really, if I just went to bed at 9pm I wouldn’t even care so much. I wish I could just be fine with not getting anything done after the kids go to bed.

I think that there is no love that can compare to loving your child. And you only realize it once its happened: hugging your child feels so good it hurts, seeing them playing with friends is so sweet, or even worrying about the day that they will be apart from you and living their own life even though there is so much left to see and do. It’s a maddening, crushing, at times life-sucking love, but the most fulfilling one there is. Love that you have with your spouse is fulfilling and so important for companionship, especially for refueling and making sure you can still have love and patience to spare, but loving your child is so much bigger than you and so beyond anything that you could want for yourself.

At least in my opinion. Aren’t I such a cliché parent?

Today is our 10 year anniversary. It’s pretty amazing what can happen in 10 years. You even can think that it’s okay just to publish a bunch of pictures of your baby and call that “what’s happening in my life right now” because you expect the world to care as much as you.

For Jiji

2011-06-19T05:30:00.000-10:00

First I thought, what if I sent you some mangoes?

But then I’d have to send my prep chef.

Then I spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to buy you some Blazer tickets.

But even the cheap seats were $300 (for 2x11 tickets. Is that good?).

I even considered a cake in the mail, like the banana chocolate cake you sent me for my birthday once.

Its memory will live on forever.

But the cakes weren’t finished until after the post office closed. Me ‘n the post office have serious compatibility issues.

And at 3:30 am this morning, I thought,

I’ll just send you Mozely.

You were awake anyway, right?

Happy Father’s Day. You are my best Dad ever.

It’s Sunday but I wish we were doing this with these people.

2011-05-01T16:02:00.001-10:00

Progress

2011-03-24T07:44:00.001-10:00

Moze started scooting last Sunday. He has been a totally straight-up textbook baby. Everything people tell me about babies has applied to him. That was never the case with Amaya, so it’s been a strange experience.

He yells a lot. Mostly because he just wants to tell us and the neighbors that he’s here.

Even though they’ve been different, except for the colors, they look like twins.

(Amaya was such a chunk on an exclusive diet of mum mums and mommy milk. Love that.)

One thing’s for sure. I’ve got another social butterfly on my hands. Mozely’s smile just splits the moment anyone looks at him. He’s always flashing those dimples to everyone. He bounces up and down with excitement when someone approaches to pick him up. He makes us all feel special. He even gives me hugs.

Totally, straight up, textbook perfect baby. We’re only waking up 5 times a night to feed these days.

So I’m a textbook crazy tired mother. Good thing he’s such a cutie.

Permission to Act Like a Child

2011-02-27T11:20:00.001-10:00

Amaya recently discovered mud, and she’s been testing its components and applications.

She intuitively knows that playing in the mud is not acceptable in her normal every day clothing so she sneaked into the house for her swimsuit, and (knowing intuitively that she was trying to be sneaky) I, unobserved, peeked out the back window to see her and Minami playing in the mud. Or maybe I should call it bathing.

By the time Jake had come home all traces of the mud play were washed away (except for a ruined swimsuit) so I showed him the pictures. He thought it was kind of naughty. He said, “Did she ask?”

As a child I was the kid in the neighborhood who said, “My mom won’t let me get wet!” (even if it was pouring buckets outside.) I’m sure I was dirty because as a child you are so unaware of your own uncleanliness, but I still worried about “getting dirty” as I ran around the forest and climbed trees and scrambled through blackberry bush trails.

I remember being in trouble a lot, for not asking. I forgot because I was caught up in the moment and there was no thought for safety, cleanliness, or time. Now I see Amaya acting the same way and I’m always saying, “You have to ask!”

There’s a lot that doesn’t seem safe, anymore, in our world. I can’t imagine letting Amaya walk to school on her own (I know, I live in Laie, but still), ride bikes down the street, or even talk to someone as they walk by the front yard. I have her on a pretty long leash, as everyone around here knows, but I am not ok with her even being in the front yard unless she’s with an adult.

She’s as compulsive as a two-year-old, though she often shows the logic of an adult. She certainly has the ability to understand social cues better than most adults. She always figures out when you’re treating her like a kid and trying to control her. Her reaction to this is very immature (tantrums and physically disruptive behavior are a constant for us), but she’s been this way since she was born. She hated being a baby and all along the way she’s looking for more movement and testing her boundaries.

At times I meet kids who seem to have none of her social prowess and are more reserved. They’re very well-behaved, however (and never annoying).

I guess what I have in Amaya is the trade off: extremely social, bubbly, loving, bossy, and wants to be up in your business. Her skill in the semantics of language shocks me. Especially when she busts out with “Dammit” in the right context even though she has never once heard us say it—and I’m not sure where she has--unless Jake or Kipper or Sponge Bob has a potty mouth when I’m away.

(This is why she’s banned from watching TV next door, although she pretends to forget sometimes, and it’s difficult to enforce. I never thought I was going to have to be that parent. Even though, before I had kids, I laughed at that Will Ferrell video where he gets his 2 year old daughter to swear like a sailor, it makes me feel a bit sick now. It must be a process with parents, because using soap as a punishment is starting to sound like a real option.)

With her, sometimes I have to remind myself to let go of some control, because she does thrive with independence. Not that I don’t find myself trying to reign that in. But playing around in the mud, climbing the lemon tree, visiting everyone in our compound and bugging them, making her own bento lunches, packing all her toys into backpacks to go show someone, and dressing up like a “cat doctor”, all without asking, seems like perfectly acceptable behavior to me.

It sounds like she’s being a kid. And that’s something that I love watching.

*disclosure: this permission granting for basic child-like activities does not extend to any teenage or teenage-like behavior. When she turns 12, she’s grounded until she goes to college.

Irrational Irritants

2011-01-30T22:31:00.000-10:00

I have a daily alarm around 6pm these days. It's the "I can't make dinner and hold the crying baby and make sure Amaya isn't running away to the Wrathall's" breakdown. I try to breathe to keep the scream from escaping from its hiding spot in the back of my sinus passage.

Our routine this semester is completely unsustainable, and I really took to heart President Uchtdorf's message about "slowing down".

Problem is that it's difficult for me to figure out what exactly is the thing that matters most. The obvious answers here clash with the reality of job, chores, and daily living requirements. I feel like I'm just hanging on by a thread and letting most things fall to the wayside just because there aren't enough hours in the day. It's a stretch to even get in time-sensitive chores like paying bills or getting to the post office or eating dinner before bedtime. Three times last week I pulled the no bathroom breaks the entire day at school thing and I didn't eat or drink anything two of those days (until I got home). I'm running around like a mad woman and not even coming close to finishing the "have to" things on my list. By the time I get home I'm feeling a bit worn and not exactly ready for what I have to do to just float with my "real life" duties. You can imagine what my house looks like.

I recognize that many people live like this. Many people live in more stressful situations than this. Jake watches the kids until 3:30 pm, I show up and he goes to get a little exercise before his class starts, and then he immediately heads to class which goes until 7 or 8 pm (depending on the day) 5 days a week. We put the kids to bed sometime between 8:30 and 9:30, and every thing I need to do in my life is shoved in between 9:30-11:30. Most things don't make the priority list.

But the absolute worst part of my weekday is the dinner hour. I dread every second leading up until dinner and start hating myself when Amaya whines about being hungry.Jake has tried to convince me that quesadillas are perfectly acceptable for dinner. Something in my brain won't let that happen. Instead I just let Mozely scream his head off for the half an hour I spend making dinner. This isn't exactly a good solution. I feel like I'm pms-ing (which is not something I've ever noticed about myself) because I'm on the verge of crying (and I do NOT cry) when I think of anything I'm slightly emotional about, like
1) hunger or
2) Republicans wanting to repeal the health care bill

I know my daily breakdown is a bit irrational, but I find myself having conversations in my head with Glenn Beck anyway.
He's almost as irritating in my head as in real life. I haven't gotten him to give in yet, either.

I am probably the worst democracy participant ever. All of my interactions with politics are either with like-minded individuals or imaginary discussions.

I guess the real Glenn Beck is going to have to wait for my wrath until after this semester.

Gulp

2011-01-05T21:50:00.001-10:00

Amaya was in bed trying to fall asleep. I walked by so she asked, “Mama, what are we going to do tomorrow?”

I said, “I have to go to work, Honey.”

“Every day? You have to go to work every day?”

I felt a little gulp in my throat when I answered back, “Every. Day.”

Mozely has been suddenly needing me more at night and staying up later and waking up earlier. Finding time to pump during the day is hard. My coworkers understand but expect me to jump into things anyway. The kids at school act like they need me just as much as my kids at home. Jake is antsy when I get home because the winds were stone cold dead.

Everyone needs something from me and I’m wondering why anyone does.

The whole week before work started up again I tried not to think about it.

When everyone asked me how it was to be back I tried not to think about it.

I had 38 messages and I tried not to think about it.

But.

Gulp.

Dogs and Children

2010-12-03T23:15:00.000-10:00

My parents, in 1980, soon to discover that babies were nothing like dogs.

People compare dogs to children quite often.
As in, something about dogs being as difficult to take care of as children.

Man, those people have weird dogs, I guess.

Does your dog's sleeping pattern completely rule your life?
Does your dog require you to pat him at 30 beats per minute to keep from crying?
Does your dog completely destroy your ipples?
Does your dog require burping?

Did you gain 30 lbs before your dog lived in your home?

If so, you should totally march right back to the kennel and get yourself a new dog.

The absolutely only comparisons I could make of children to dogs are that A) they don't always understand what you are saying, B) you love them even though their poop gets everywhere, and C) they are alive.

I was pretty surprised about babies being, well, babies when we had Amaya. I think even I expected them to be more like dogs.

I wonder if Moze would sleep better in a dog house than on a bed.

Firsts

2010-11-17T00:16:00.001-10:00

I distinctly remember that the first time Amaya reached for something and grabbed it was when I decided she was a real, live, baby.

Up until then she mostly was like something we were playing house with. Maybe even one of those robot babies that cry when you’re not attending to their needs appropriately.

(she cried a lot.)

Moze reached for, grabbed and held on to his toy today.

Moze talks a lot to us. We talk back. We have whole conversations of oohing and ahing. He’s good at communicating and we understand each other most of the time.

But I still thought it was pretty special.

The Mom from the Black Lagoon

2010-11-11T23:36:00.001-10:00

I have two kids and I’m turning into one of those moms.

You know, the kind that eat the food that their toddler has previously drooled.
I am becoming the kind of mom that thinks cold spittle covered food is acceptable eats.

I’m not there just yet, but already I’ve seen the signs.

I consider yellow slimy baby poop the “good kind of poop”. The idea that there is a good kind of poop is strictly a parent thought. I don’t even feel the extreme rushing need to wash my hands following a diaper change. Maybe, theoretically, I don’t even wash my hands. Theoretically. Because it was the good kind of poop.

While wearing my nice clothes I get barfed on. Chunky milk barf. Do I change? No. I just rub it in so you can’t see the chunks.

In basketball shorts all day? Good enough.

Let the girl backwash in my water? No problem.

Put my hair in a bun instead of brushing it? Always.

Dropped the pacifier on the public bathroom floor? Yes.

I’m turning into the snot-covered, drag-all-my-kids-to-the-grocery-store, didn’t-even-notice-he-was-poopy kind of mom.

You may want to buy yourself a bottle of hand sanitizer before I have #3.

Baby Face

2010-11-10T17:25:00.001-10:00

Adam just sent me this:

Jake asked, “Who is that?”

I guess babies do grow up.

So fast.

I feel like I’m trying to pinch this moment with my eyelashes.

Hub Lub

2010-11-09T22:33:00.001-10:00

This guy took care of the little guys for 3 days 3 nights while I filled my gut and my brain with all things food and blog.

When I came back the kids barely noticed. Maybe they acted even worse. Jake kept saying, “Are you acting like this because Mom’s back?”

I think Jake makes a better mom than me.

(He even makes better Halloween costumes.)

Election Day

2010-11-02T17:53:00.001-10:00

There’s been a bit of controversy with everyone over the whole Project Food Blog thing, but I don’t really want to post about it on my food blog, because that’s where I try to stay positive.

And here’s where I stay negative.

HA! I meant, “real.”

I’m real on my food blog too, but I’d like to leave my food untainted by bitter. Sometimes I’m ok with a bit of an umami taste, though. In this case I feel like there’s bitter from some of the food community, which makes me feel guilty. And that isn’t totally fair.

I like project food blog. I’m having fun. I think it’s made me a better food blogger. I’ve gotten some inspiration and I’ve figured out a little better where I’d like to be heading as a writer. And I’ll still like it even when I lose. It has been a faith building experience for me, actually, because I feel way more energized by writing and cooking and parenting and thinking about all that than teaching (I love the students, promise!) and I hope I’ll be able to balance this with my slightly soul sucking job when I go back in January. I think the inspiration I’ve felt has not been coincidence.

Today I put up a video on the Lactaid video contest, and I’m mortified but trying not to be. I am not a video personality. Therefore, all my hopes and dreams of becoming the next Masterchef are down the tubes.

(that’s ok. I don’t even want to be the next Masterchef. It’s a total sell-out.)

Anywho, I am glad I got to practice my acting skillz on the Lactaid video. I figured out that

A) I am the worst actor.

B) does my voice actually SOUND like that?

C) I’m getting used to watching myself on camera. I only watched the video about 10K times. It’s a little less painful every time.

Jake and I laughed and we totally ignored the kids for a couple of hours. Jake has been my #1 supporter with all these contest things lately. He has lots of good ideas and has given me pointers, and I forgive him for not wanting to be in the video that I have to make for Project Food Blog.

Mostly.

Pep

2010-10-29T20:58:00.001-10:00

Something about boys with English accents and their pep.

I stepped outside for a run last night, feeling sluggish, and hit play on the shuffle.

BAM!

I ran fast and steady for the next 45 minutes.

Jake is a playlist genius. Every song sat up straight in my brain. He somehow finds music that hits every bit of space. Even the sounds of each word beat on the pavement. There’s something magical about wind in the darkness, tennis shoes, and the right music drowning your eardrums.

Maybe he could get paid for doing that. A Professional Playlister.

(It sounds a little naughty, doesn’t it.)

Mr. Personality.

2010-10-20T12:22:00.001-10:00

Moze woke me up early. He likes to get up early, just because, and very insistently yell (not cry, yell. He knows the difference.) for me to get up, talk a little, and then go back to sleep 20 minutes later as to assure that I am wide awake and won’t go back to sleep.

In his defense he has been sleeping pretty well up until 2 nights ago. He would always take 2 long naps (and a couple short ones) during the day and sleep for about 6-7 hour stretch at night (of course, I am awake for most of it, but whatever). Then I made the mistake of telling Damaris that nursing is going well, and then my milk supply dried up overnight. Literally. Now he’s hungry and it hurts and we have to wake up every two hours. Or less. Still investigating the cause of this, since I passed my test already, and the dreaded punctuation mark is not showing up.

He likes it when we watch him sleep.

He is sensitive about his poop. He hates sitting in poop. And he lets me know the second it is invited to his diaper party.

He smiles when you talk to him, and he laughs if you can get him in the right mood. His voice is so cheery and sweet.

He doesn’t freak out when we put him in the ocean. He looks annoyed, but doesn’t hate it.

He’s a lot like his sister. And a lot different. Mostly different. But mostly a lot like her, too.

Especially when you see this:

and then see Moze:

This must be what our offspring look like. I guess I’m okay with it.

It’s my Birthday and I’ll feel unsettled if I want to.

2010-10-19T21:31:00.001-10:00

I’m pretty sure when I was 10 and writing about where I wanted to be in 20 years, I said, “Be married and have 2 kids”, because that’s what everyone says. Maybe there’s a little variation with everything else, but most people, at least when they’re 10 and they’ve never had a real relationship, says they want to be settled down, and this means married with kids. Despite dysfunctional family TV.

I’m married, I have 2 kids and I’m not sure what settled means.

Today I am 30. I have a college degree, I’m an English teacher, I have an island I call home, and a fridge that I can open the door of and eat anything I want out of. I put a 4 year old in time out. I clean my floor with an electronic mop I bought off the internet. I have to choose a new medical plan during open enrollment. I know what “open enrollment” actually means. I’m pretty sure this is what it means to be an adult.

When I woke up I felt crappy. I couldn’t decide if I should just shake the funk of night wakings and sore ipples and move on. I sat down with the baby and yelled to Amaya to bring me stuff while I wrote e-mails one-handed. Then I felt bad about what I haven’t accomplished in 30 years and at least I could accomplish something today. I changed and thought about lunch. I put the rice on and immediately felt like I should have made something else. I sat down and started researching grass fed beef in Hawaii and made an order to pick up at the Farmer’s market on Thursday. I started feeling very guilty about buying chicken nuggets last time I was at Costco. I realized that Amaya was basically running wild and decided to make lunch for us to eat outside. Then I sat in front of the computer because I was worried about going back to work in January. This seemed like a solution of some kind. I flipped through the Momofuku cookbook and made notes for challenge #6 for my food blog. Then I felt guilty for basically spending the whole day thinking about food. So I did what I do best: I started getting out stuff to make molten chocolate cakes.

Jake came back and asked me what I wanted to do. I didn’t know. What do you do when you’re trying to eat healthy and making molten chocolate cakes? What do you do when you’re too tired to go out but find it weird that your birthday has become a day that you still have to live your regular life? What do you do when you’re 30?

I started worrying. Is this what 30 is like? Not knowing and feeling guilty and fighting urges? I’m thinking that if I could go back in time to my 10 year old self, I would say, “You should learn how to organize your stuff, control your impulses, and only shop green. Maybe then you’ll feel settled when you’re married and have 2 kids.”

Then I thought, this is probably not what 30 feels like.

This is probably just what a day after a night of waking up 6 times to feed a baby feels like.

Jake came to the rescue and made us go to the beach, eat out, and wolf down molten chocolate cakes with Haagen dazs. I felt pretty settled.

Especially in my stomach.

Religion

2010-10-13T21:21:00.001-10:00

I was thinking about that test I needed to take when we were all three in the bathroom stall at the mall, Amaya was crying and saying she did not need to pee (while peeing), and Moze was crying because he felt claustrophobic and because I had stupidly left his pacifier in the car.

I was thinking about that test I needed to take when we were at Costco and several people commented about me having a handful (Believe me, if they could fit in my hand, we would not be having this problem), and I, again, had stupidly left Moze’s pacifier in the car, so he was crying, and Amaya was constantly trying to stand up in the cart and people were trying to make her sit down because she was endangering her life and I was trying to lift a 25 lb bag of flour (while Moze was in the Bjorn) into the cart. I finally decided not to buy the flour. I completely forgot about the milk. Milk is the reason we go to Costco, which is an hour away from our house. The woman manning the taste testing counter for clam chowder locked me in her gaze for five minutes and spoke to me about the wonders of God and how blessed we were to have children. Then I was really REALLY thinking about that test I needed to take.

I was thinking about that test I needed to take when I was standing at the checkout counter holding a crying baby (guess what I forgot? AGAIN?) and a 4 year old who was walking away while I was yelling at her to come back and I was buying that test I needed to take. The guy handed it to me with raised eyebrows.

I was thinking about that test I needed to take when I got out of the car to get gas and realized that Moze was screaming because he was completely covered in yellow poop. Even his pacifier was covered in poop. There were 5 cars waiting in line behind me while I attempted to clean up massive amounts of yellow sticky drool-like poop from him, the car seat, and strangely, little tiny splatters all over the whole back seat of the car. I just threw away his onesie. A woman, blessedly, offered to hold him while I pumped gas. While I was pumping gas I looked at her and him and realized there were still yellow streaks on the backs of his legs.

I said nothing.

I was thinking about that test I needed to take when I got home.

I went into the bathroom to take that test.

I am so happy to report that I passed.

That woman at the clam chowder stand was right, but today was not a day for us to be blessed.

God is good. God is great. God is so much smarter than me. And maybe the woman at the clam chowder stand, too.

Time out can have a time out.

2010-10-11T10:25:00.000-10:00

I hate time out. Hate hate hate. Almost as much as Amaya does.

Amaya is Jekyll and Hyde these days. She can be the sweetest, cutest person ever (especially for other people who demand absolutely nothing from her and give her whatever she wants--you would be amazed at the amount of sugar she can get out of the average person), and she can be the most unruly, bossy, lying and impulsive thing ever. She has started screaming the second I say No to anything, screaming when she doesn’t like what we’ve asked her to do, and screaming when I send her to time out for screaming at me.
The second I put her in time out (because I have to pick her up, kicking and screaming, and put her there) she jumps up immediately and runs after me, hitting me all the way. I have to pick her up and put her back. Over and over and over again, all the while explaining that she is going to stay in time out until it’s over.

So today I closed the door on the way out and she had a complete breakdown, screaming (did I tell you she was screaming?) and kicking the door and not listening to a word I said through the door (that I would not let her out until she sat in her time out spot). I just waited. And waited. And waited. It was like torture. In fact, she sounded like I was torturing her.

When she finally went and lay down on her bed, still screaming at me, I went to google “Time out doesn’t work.” Did you know that there are 88 million results for such a google?

The first site was an article on Dr. Spock’s website. I read it. I felt like I was reading my autobiography.

“The temperamental traits that make the behavior of some children in general more challenging--high levels of activity and intensity, high impulsiveness, persistence (which comes across as stubbornness), and relatively low sensitivity to rewards and punishments--make all forms of discipline less effective. Parents and teachers of these children often turn to harsher forms of punishment in the hope that yelling louder or spanking harder will work to correct the unacceptable behavior. But these tactics almost always backfire, resulting in a child who is angry and resentful, or fearful, and even more badly behaved, at least when adults aren't watching.
So, even though timeout doesn't work as well for some children, it is still far and away the most effective form of punishment. Parents of children who have "difficult" temperamental traits need to be even more skillful in the use of timeout and other nonhurtful discipline, whereas parents who are lucky enough to have easygoing children can get away with only a basic understanding of timeout. (For these children, almost anything works.)”

It is SO difficult for me to keep my cool. I don’t.

I read everything that related to this article and tried to prepare myself with an arsenal of techniques. (Techniques I’ve used before, of course.) It just sucks that time out is not that effective but is the only thing I’ve got.

The funny thing is, she is completely wonderful for the five minutes after she comes out of time out. I always hold my breath and hope that she is going to stay that way. It’s like waking up from a dream and trying your hardest to keep it in your memory.

And that’s why you’re the child.

2010-10-09T22:50:00.000-10:00

Amaya said to me, while picnicking at the BYUH parking lot,

“Mom, I love you. You should take me to the haunted of the goon again.”

She cried when I said No. No. No.

See, I’m getting better at this.