Because life is not worth living without a cookie at bedtime

I feel more sane now, mainly because I am no longer full of raging lady hormones. But I also have a new lifestyle I am trying out to help keep me sane at the craziest of times. It is a radical change for me, but so far I have been rockin' it for a month strong. The major change in my life? No more mommy naps.

You'd think it would be my kids' sleep that would be the problem, but it's not. I am one of those lucky ladies whose 3-1/2 year old still naps for 3 hours every day. Since the Jake also only naps once, I put them both down around 1:30 or 2 and they are unconscious until dinner. Once they were down, my custom, then, would be to fart around on the 'net until I'd read everything twice on People magazine, and then I'd go lay down myself. "I am so tired!" I would tell myself. "I am still getting up to attend to Jake every night, and sometimes with that crazy Isaac, and even the cat! Wow, do I need some sleep!" And when I put it like that, it certainly sounds like I do.

But then enter the reality of it all, where I lay down and it takes me 20 minutes to fall asleep because I'm thinking about all the things left undone by my napping. Usually, no dinner. Dirty dishes. Scuzzy, cluttered house. Any chores that absolutely had to be done would eat into the babies' playtime and eat eat eat away at my guilt-ridden core as they pleaded with me to do even the simplest of anythings with them. And then there is the sleep itself, that will inevitably be unsatisfying because it will be interrupted by the first boy to awaken. This taste of a sleep-filled heaven, so crudely stolen from me in mid-day by a boy ready to rock-n-roll, would make me bitter and angry for the rest of the day.

So one day I chose not to fall asleep. Was I tired? Yes. But instead of gambling on the remote chance of a restful nap, I was given concrete rewards that came from three unadulterated hours of housework. Do you know how much you can get done in three hours? It's quite a lot. Let me put it like this: the first day, I had so much time that I scrubbed out my bathroom trash can. Oh yeah.

Since I gave up naps, my house is so much tidier. My bathroom actually gets cleaned, down to the floor; my kitchen floor gets swept and mopped. My relieved husband comes home to a decluttered house. Also, dinner is better. I have the time and energy to make side dishes (I know!). Once a week, I make rolls from scratch. Once a week, I bake cookies from scratch. And the sheer Betty-Crocker joy of sending your kids to bed with tummies full of cookies and milk, to me, is worth giving up an afternoon of lazy bumhood.

Happy Halloween

Love,

Our Front Porch

Politicians with candy

Today our fair town held its annual Halloween parade, an event to which we are becoming regular attendees. The O'Neal Boys went as Incredibles, and did their best to display their super-suits with pride despite the cold, Isaac shivering and his extremities turning mildly blue before allowing us to put his jacket on.



This town takes their Halloween parade seriously. The three years now that we've attended, it's been nearly an hour long and jam-packed with entertainment, usually with no less than 4 marching bands. I like to complain, however, that the parade is marching-band rich and candy poor. You'd think it was run by dentists, with all the flyers and stickers being handed out. Last year, a major election year, was so mystifying to me. Every single policitican running for a major seat walked in our parade, some even in awesome costumes, but not a one handed out candy. Seriously? If you want my vote? Invest in some stinkin' Tootsie Rolls.

This year was decidedly different. We got candy from boy scouts, girl scouts, fire fighters, a martial arts academy, and, importantly, from John Carney, our current Lieutenant Governor who's putting himself in the race for a promotion next year. His campaign gave us over half our candy haul, including a Hershey's miniature. For that, I will give him my vote. Because of his efforts, the fight over The Last Dum-Dum was staved off for a number of minutes.





The most fun thing about our town is how small-world it is; how easy it is on Main Street to run into people you've met before. For example? Our mayor, who we used as our lawyer when we closed on our house.



Of course, more fun is had in meeting up with one's buds, as we did with Camille and Noah's family.




Eventually we crashed from our sugar high and headed home. For some of us, this crash was a little more melodramatic than others.

Portrait of the artist as a young man

One thing that has given me great joy lately is to watch Isaac paint, which he has done on average about an hour a day for the last month. He is obsessed and very meticulous. When he paints -- and it is always with watercolors -- he chooses a main color theme, usually red (his favorite color) or blue. He paints a small patch with this primary color, and then makes patches to surround them by mixing the primary color with other colors in his watercolor set, with the end effect being that of a mosaic. It takes him a long time because of all the color changes, and because, to him, a picture is not "done" unless he has coated the entire paper. The following examples are not "done".

His paintings usually have elaborate stories behind them involving recently-watched TV. This was painted at Mamaw's house after watching Rocket's Firebird Rescue in the car for the third or fourth time. I was informed that the red and orange patches at the top are the Firebird, while the cooler colors below represent the Secret Palace of the evil ogre Katchai, who imprisons the Firebird.



This was an odd example of a picture without a story, probably because he was distracted by the balloons. We ran out of blank paper in our art box.


I know I am his mom and am almost required by law to say what a genius he is. Have you ever seen such a thing? It certainly runs in his blood -- not from me, noooooo sir, but Dada is pretty good and was offered a place in a prestigious Indianapolis art school when he was in first grade.

My thought is to buy some canvases at a craft store and have him crank out some Christmas presents for the grandmas.

And then my brain exploded

We have been back from Indy since last Monday, but I just haven't felt like blogging. Mommyhood is kicking me in the proverbial balls lately. I feel like I just can't get a break. Out of desperation, I finally did what all other normal people do in my situation -- leave my kids alone with our babysitter for two full hours. I did this on Friday morning. I went to Starbucks and made major accomplishments towards my next book. I also bumped into our old babysitter and the parents of our new friends Camille and Noah. That made me feel quite a lot better for about a day.

Although Jacob's incessant fussing and requests to have his 27-lb frame schlepped everywhere are a decent part of my frustration, I identified the real problem twenty minutes into a family trip to everyone's favorite store, IKEA, the entirety of which I spent screaming at my husband. In front of my kids. It's not that I need a break. It's that I'm sick of being responsible for them. You know, my job? I'm sick of my job.

The decision for me to stay home when we moved to Delaware was a mutual and welcome one. Dada and I are gigantic yellow bellies who do not possess the intestinal fortitude to leave our babies at daycare. Up to this point, my staying home was a decision I never questioned, not even once. I'm sure I was helped along in my resoluteness by the fact that not one of my friends in the Professors' Wives Club had a job. These were all highly educated, employable women who, like me, chose to (temporarily) ditch a career in favor of trying to raise well-adjusted children while supporting the insane demands of our husbands' pretenure jobs.

But suddenly I look around and notice that my peer group has changed. Not necessarily in roster. Of the five professors' wives I regularly hang out with, two have become professors themselves. Another, who swore to my face that she was never, ever going back to work, not even when her kids were in school, now relishes her job waitressing on weekends.

What is going on?

I look at George the Green Car's speedometer roll near 80,000 miles and know that we will likely need a new car in the next year. I see my (employed) friends hiring a cleaning lady while my bathroom grout rots away from mildew as I put off cleaning it to do yet another load of dishes or laundry. I turn around in my house and, guided by Dada's trained eye, suddenly worry that we can't keep up our aging, droopy house, with its 50-year-old roof and windows in need of replacement. And so I luuuuuuuuuuust, hot and heavy, for the money our dual-income friends enjoy.

Yes, I write books, but there is no money in that, seriously. If I told you what I make from it (and I get no royalties), you would wonder why I bother. So I stay up late looking online for job opportunites at corporations or nearby universities, but I don't really know what to look for -- I've never had to look for a job before. I know that, even if I got something part-time, I could make enough money for us to be much more comfortable. To have the almighty things that we need. New rugs to replace our stained and torn-up ones, new bedroom furniture for the big people so we can stand to share a bed, new tile for our rotting bathroom, new clothes to replace my worn-down jeans and t-shirts. Oh, how much happier we would be.

I think in this way for a time, perhaps swaying towards marching on-campus and looking for a flexible sciency job, until things happen like today. This morning as I left Isaac, who hasn't cried about preschool in over two weeks, he was hit full-bodied with the force of missing me when I will be gone for a mere 2-1/2 hours. He stood at the window of the door and I could see his face, contorted with the effort of crying even through my blown kiss, as I drove away.

And I realize that, you know, I've done that schtick before, leaving him at day care for 5 and 6 hours every day. Oh, he was fine, but I remember what it was like for me. He was in day care from July 2004 to July 2005, and not a single day passed during that time where I didn't have trouble concentrating at work thinking about him. They must have really enjoyed me at his day care with how much I called.

So I can't, I just can't go back to work yet. I will say it now -- I want to. I really do. But I want it for all the wrong reasons. I want to go back so we can afford to make our house the way we want it to be. I want to go back so we can have the money to get all the things to make our lives just the tiniest bit easier. I also want to go back because I'm not sure how much more of Jacob's fussing and their mutual tantruming I can handle. How much longer can I fight? I'm suddenly afraid that having me around is not what they need right now, because my brain is cluttered with all this stupidness and not with them. Will they get hurt because I'd rather see one more load of laundry done than stick around in the room for that crucial second when Isaac's going to push Jacob to the ground? Am I being too rough with Jacob in just trying to get him to be still while I change yet another diaper full of runny diarrhea poop?

When I'm with one of them, it's just so easy. When I'm with both of them, my brain splits so far open that I just want to shut down. Add to that our financial woes, oh, and did I mention that my grandpa had congestive heart failure over the weekend, and that my grandma's sister is in a hospital in Houston, unable to be transported home to Missouri because she is in such awful pain from the multiple tumors they found in her body during a surprise visit to the ER?

Yeah. So that's why I haven't been blogging. But I have been trying to play.

Howdy from Indiana

We're hanging out in Indiana for a little grandparent-assisted R&R right now. Dada handed off his class to another professor at a time that neatly coincided with Fall Break at Isaac's school. So here we are, taking advantage of this nifty opportunity toescape to the midwest and into the arms of four overly willing babysitters.

We're hanging out at Mamaw and Dadaw's today, running around outside in the gloriously fall-like sub-60-degree weather, helping Dadaw at his workshop, and for three out of four of us, getting uber-stylin' haircuts from Mamaw. Right now the little people are snoring upstairs. Isaac fell asleep in Dadaw's arms about an hour ago, and I am biding my time as I help my hair remember the color it should be, with chemical assistance. There are rumors afloat that we're having dinner at the Olive Garden, and it will be an affront to Dadaw's very being if I offer to pay. Bliss!

Yesterday we luxuriated in the presence of Meemaw and Poppop, who also bought us dinner and chased the boys around the house in Olympic fashion. After both boys realized that Meemaw was their willing slave, Meemaw herself enjoyed being chased around by a two person chorus yelling "Meemaw! MEEMAW!" all night long. And then Poppop took me out and bought some beer for the big people. Why don't we live closer again?

Today Uncle Chrissy is taking his Step II Clinical Skillstest, an 8-hour, hands-on test with actors pretending to be patients at a hospital in Chicago. Good luck to you, future Dr. Uncle Chrissy!

Tomorrow my three boys and I will hit the Children's Museum, and then Saturday we have an O'Neal family reunion of sorts, where we will introduce my babies to all manner of the extended family that resulted from Dada's paternal grandparents having fourteen children. These things are nice in that we have things to accomplish, but lots of time for goofing off and relaxing.

I'll try to post pictures if I get the chance, but history suggests otherwise. Oops, gotta go -- time to rinse!

Icy hot!

Our beloved Dada was featured as the top story on the University of Delaware's website today. The staff reporters wrote an article about the field trip he led in the Cascade Mountains in August, while the boys and I were vacationing in the arms of the grandparents. You can read the article either to learn more about his research or to just ogle the pretty pictures, most of which were taken by Dada with his D200:

Get it while it's hot

My first book is out!

Obviously, I can tell you a bit more about it now. It's through a small, local, non-fiction children's publisher who mainly does business with school libraries; most of their titles are meant to be studied for book reports or research papers for elementary or middle schoolers. My particular book is a retelling of the myths of Artemis for 4th through 8th graders.

So whoopty-doo! Time for a brew!

Run Jean, Run!

Aunt Jean is running the Chicago Marathon today with her friend Kendra. Good luck, ladies!

We are tracking their progress live through this site.

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UPDATE: They finished, according to the race website, with a time of just over 6 hours. Knowing these amateur speed queens, they may be a little disappointed with their time. But according to our Race Correspondent Uncle Chrissy, there were important reasons things went so slowly, mainly that 1) it was too crowded for mid-fielders to run at any other pace than that of the pack, and 2) it got up to 90+ degrees in Chi-town today, so hot that they cancelled the marathon for people who didn't make it to the halfway point by noon. Word on the street is that the heat didn't phase Jean and Kendra too much, since they were smiling and laughing whenever Uncle Chrissy and Kendra's hubby Brent saw them.

Congratulations, ladies, and I look forward to hearing the official stories on your blogs. As soon as you get done throwing up.

UPDATE (10/8): So apparently my puking joke was in seriously poor taste, since somebody actually died from participating in this disaster of a marathon. Jean and Kendra blogged about their experiences here, including about Jean, the more experienced of the two, nearly passing out. At least they had my brother to keep their spirits up.


(stolen from Kendra's blog)

Le project du jour

Among the many reasons to love our Dada:

After a brief contemplation, Dada decided yesterday afternoon that his outlook on life would be better if we had a Pergo floor in our laundry room. He and the boys procured the necessary supplies last night just before I went out with my homegirls for coffee. While I bathed the babies, he started. And here is our laundry room this morning, after less than two total hours of labor in there:



I have been told that, by the end of the day, we will also have pretty white baseboard and perhaps even a floor cabinet installed. He's a freak!

The bonus? I can't do laundry today. Boo to the hoo.

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UPDATE: It's done!



Instead of committing to cabinetry, Dada opted to add some nice trim to the garage door to match our other exterior doors...


...and to install a nice new door to the laundry room to replace the old and disgusting one he tore out a few weeks ago:


We will allow ourselves some time to ruminate on how we want to swing the cabinets and whether or not we want to keep the laundry room sink.

Advanced Home Depot entertainment

Our house is old and sturdy and has many nice features, but also has outdated, out-molded, or just strange things about it that Dada is constantly laboring to sexy up. Thusly we tithe to Home Depot. We go there at least once every weekend, if not also Lowe's and Sears Hardware to boot.

Our visits to such stores almost always have this format: Dada needs to get some stuff and to get it wisely, perhaps with some cognitive workings involved that are not so conducive to having to look after running boys or the alternative, screaming boys who writhe violently to free themselves from the restraints of a shopping cart. So I take the boys and my cell phone and we go entertain ourselves around the store until Dada is done.

When we first bought our house and we were new to the Home Depot experience, the boy(s) were content to explore the lawn tractor collection. But as Dada's home improvement desires grew and festered into a cancerous sore, we were forced to find less obvious sources of Home Depot amusement. We have become such pros at this that Home Depot is now a baby wonderland to us. Among our favorite things:

*The kitchen display section. We climb in the cabinets that can support their weight, open the refrigerators, talk about the colors and textures.
*The appliance section. It's our "maze". Good for running races.
*We play Find That Forklift! Where is the obnoxious beeping coming from? Let's find out!
*The door section. You hide behind the door and say "Ding-dong." Why, whoever could it be?
*Looking at paint chips and picking our favorite colors.
*Admiring the fountains in the garden section, or gently touching and smelling the flowers.
*This new game we played at Lowe's last night. Baby Coneheads!




Conehead races!



Conehead jail!



For the most part -- can't you tell? -- Isaac only wants to wear Disney pajamas out in public. And for any grandmas out there thinking ahead for Christmas, he could use some more in his size (4).

The Enchanted nap

Saturday we met up with our new buddies Camille and Noah (and their mom and dad) at nearby Winterthur, a museum to which we had never been but had heard good things about. This particular venue, like others around the region, is a former DuPont estate that has been transformed into a museum or garden or nature preserve or the like. The great attraction for big people is a collection of Revolutionary War-era antiques associated with the estate, which is apparently so enormous that they offer a course to the public in antiques appraisal, you know, for those who aspire to host Antiques Roadshow.

The great attraction for little people is this play village, the Enchanted Woods, set up in a small forest. When I read fairy tales as a kid, this is pretty much how I pictured them to look.





And I think the fellers enjoyed themselves. I mean, how could you not? There was some vague idea when we got there that we should sit down and eat a picnic lunch together with our buds, but we abandoned that for a hummingbird-style feeding option, one that was more conducive to my children's desire for constant motion:















Before we left, I asked Camille and Noah's daddy to take our picture with my camera. This is the fourth picture I have of the four of us together as a family. It's always a crapshoot, the taking of the group photo, but this one turned out quite well. Look how stunningly handsome my boys are, all of them smiling, with the sunlight dappling their faces! Now all they need to do is lose the greasy-looking homeless chick. Or at least buy her some highlights. And a toothbrush.



We spent over 3 hours at Winterthur, during at least 75% of which both boys were running their precious legs off. So you can imagine after that we all went home to ...

...for nearly four hours. Score!

I apologize for the photoblog-arrhea, but the setting was so conducive to picture-taking. If you like, you can see even more of our Winterthur pictures on a Flickr Slideshow.