Around Here

I loved that in the O'bama speech he promised his daughters a new puppy. It was the best of both worlds, a gift and an expiediency...every president has a pet, and now Big Daddy Barrack gets credit for his. Besides that jaded response, it was sweet to see his family standing infront of that throng in Grant Field (as Katie Curric reffered to it) in black and red dresses. I appreciated how Michelle's dress was a combination of her daughters, tying the family together. Michelle has seemed stern to me in the past, but on election night the full nature of her motherhood stood out.

What the hell, yer thinking, if I wanted to hear about Barack Obama and family I'd visit his blogg. So i move on.

Maybe the reason I am talking so much about Obama, is because of his message of hope. It is all we have left. Katy had her hernia surgery 2 1/2 weeks ago, and we've been scrapping by ever since. We've had help. My sister Laura spent a week with us and then as she was leaving we made a call for help to Katy's mom who spent last week with us. Kathy left on on Halloween, which was a real trick.

I have no idea how we've made it these last 3 years, er 5 days, without her. Not to talk just about me, but I was sick, Katy was half sick and half recovering from surgery, and Nyssa was bored crappy and wondering why we couldn't spend beautiful fall days outside playing. The thing is the wreckage of our lives just now seems like more than the sum of its parts. It seems irretrievable.

Katy is going back to work on Monday and Nyssa has learned it is funny to run away from you if you want her to do something. She has discovered that No no no no Noo, is a full service every day reply for anything. And because of Nana and Halloween she has discovered Cookies and candy.

All of that is fine, none of that is really going to change, but we have no energy to address it. What if Leila doesn't want to fall asleep at mid-night? What if Nyssa requires a 2nd or 3rd visit before she'll goto bed. Just about every night I look at the clock at 6:30 and think, "How will I make it till 8:15?" Nyssa's bedtime.

I Don't want this to be merely a list of complaints, but also, since new parents are not allowed to complain about all of their joy and luck and happiness I am sort of enjoying complaining.

What fascinates me is how different having baby #2 is from baby #1. From conception to till today they've been very different prospects. Nyssa has a Journal full of letters from Katy and I and Leila...
I was the one who read Nyssa'a positive Preggy test, and Katy and I were excited and euphoric from the get go. This time, Katy surprised me with a text message as i sat on the floor of my childhood bedroom...I never thought I'd be the kind of guy who needed to be "Told" I was pregnant. Who was so outside the process that I didn't even know I was being tested. And my first thought was, "There is no fucking way." No way it could have happened and no way we could sustain our burgeoning family. I had a million other thoughts too, most of them happy and full of good cheer.
I think I will love having 2 children. And I do love each of them right now, indidvidually. But right now, at this moment, they are so demanding, and their demands are so pressing that it is hard...That doesn't sound right. I loved having a new born. I love having 2 kids. I don't love having a child and a newborn. Things...emotions and actions...are so different this time around. The exhaustion I felt with Nyssa was bathed in a glow of euphoria. I have no glow this time, just an amazingly easy narcolepsy.

I started this post the morning after the election, (the picture above is of the "train of history" moving onwards...Nyssa and Kaitlyn in the Orange can) and it has been a full week without me finding the time to complete it. Everything is so fluid that my impressions change daily. I wanted this post to be about complaining and some of the horrid parts of parenting. I don't think it is. Although I am sure I complain amply.

They say that God gives you only the burdens you can handle. I don't know who Them is, but they were thinking of children. I remember this from Nyssa (Look how fucking cute she is!), trying and trying and trying to get her to sleep or to stop crying, and being at my wits end when she would finally and for no reason stop crying. Or she would be a whining and horrible child for 2,3,4,5 days and just when I thought, "You mean she's going to stay this way?" her tooth would pop through or she'd come down with a cold, and gradually her mood would improve. Well this process is happening again only it is multiplied by 2...I am convinced that anyone who has more than 2 or 3 children is a bad parent...You have 3 options. 1) both kids are crabby. 2) one kid is crabby the other is not. 3) both kids are happy or asleep. Obviously I am existing most of my life in the 1-2 zone. And I haven't even spoken about my house yet. Or my dogs...

We have a propensity in our culture to blame children for being children. I am not blaming Nyssa and Leila (well especially not Leila) they are just responding to their physical cues. In Nyssa's case complete and total boredom.

We had another weekend this weekend. We got lucky actually and it went pretty well. On Saturday we drove down to Des Moines to get Leila a fuzzy car seat cover. A wind proof shell and puffy fluffy fleece on the inside, it is really a slickster. But Leila had kept us up all night fussing and crying and now she was doing the same thing. She wouldn't really eat, and she wouldn't settle down. It was 10:15 and i decided to call the Dr. What a lucky break, for us. Apparently Leila has an ear infection and by 12:15 she was snarfing down her first set of anti-biotics. (Another way the 2 births are different for me is that Nyssa seemed like an instrament of perfection, a refutation to the idea of orriginal sin, and Leila is, well a baby...I felt bad befouling Nyssa, with Leila, giving her something like formula or Anti-biotics, while not ideal is not a big deal...by the way, 2+ years out and I don't think either of my kids has sinned)
Leila felt better almost immediately, or was tired enough to sleep the rest of Saterday and most of Sunday night. And Nyssa, who has been sick herself, started to feel better. She spent Saturday, playing with us or by herself (a real rarity) and Sunday trying to wake me up.

I do not know what happened, I slept well Saterday night. But on Sunday all I could do was sleep. I went back to bed from 7-9am, slept durring the 2nd half of the Bears game...and for 45 minutes after Nyssa got up while she jumped on me, and said, "Daddy no." and "Daddy sit up."
I sat up Sunday night, but still slept from after dinner to Nyssa's bed time. I'm not proud, just sleepy.

But I feel bad for Nyssa, cause I want to play with her, especially once her idea of playing evolves past sitting on my lap, kicking me in the nuts and jabbing her elbow in my ribs. I mean if Katyfullin wanted to do that...And look at her when she smiles, it is so radiant and so full of glee. And to think, some of that is related to me!