Anna's "How To" - Back to School Edition

Anna's "How To": How to Get Ready for School

1. Play dead when mom comes in to wake you up. 
2. Erupt into tears when she suggests you remove your PJs in favor of the outfit she picked out for you.
3. Choose your replacement outfit on your own while she's not looking.  Stripes and polka dots DO go together and pants are ALWAYS optional. Also, no matter what mom says, tights ARE actually pants and CAN be worn on their own.  That woman has no clue about fashion.
4. Feign ignorance when mom suggests that you need breakfast.  Breakfast?  Please.  Breakfast is for the weak.
5. Change your mind at least 4 times about what food is acceptable to your distinguished taste buds for today's breakfast.  Foods you loved yesterday are now disgusting to you.  Keep mom on her toes by deciding halfway through breakfast preparation that you no longer want what she is making.
6. No matter how many times mom says "Eat your breakfast," DO. NOT. GIVE. IN. This is a scare tactic employed by adults who are out to rule the morning routine.  The longer you hold out, the more you are stickin' it to the man (or the mom, as the case may be).
7. Brushes of any kind are not to be trusted.  It's best to hide at the mere mention of a tooth or hair brush
8. Growls and mean faces are the only forms of response required when mom demands that you "stop fooling around and just put your shoes on already!"
9. Get in your car seat, buckle your seat belt and DEMAND your favorite selection of music be played immediately.  Chant, yell or roar until mom complies.
10. Make sure you finish picking your nose before it's time to cross the street to school.  Don't worry about a tissue.  Moms don't care if you wipe it on their hands.
11. Act cool in front of the other kids about saying good bye to your mom and brother, but as soon as she walks out the door, run after her screaming, "WAIT!  I WANT TO HUG MY BROTHER!"  Moms don't need hugs like babies do.

*Anna is thoroughly enjoying school now. She's made some friends and loves recess.  She was very angry with me that this past weekend was four days long.  Hope she's ok with this coming weekend only being two days!

A Letter to Teacher

Dear "Kindergarten Teacher,"

I want to begin by saying I am not placing blame, simply trying to find out how on earth something like this might have happened on the second day of school.  I'm also not saying that this happened on your watch, but by my calculations, it must have occurred during school hours.

Somehow, and I'm not sure how, as I know that you keep careful watch over your classroom, but somehow, Anna got pregnant with twin bunnies during school today.

Can we please schedule a meeting to discuss how to avoid future unplanned pregnancies?  I have far too many stuffed animals at my house already.

Thank you,

A Concerned Parent

First Day of School

This morning started out like the opening scene of Finding Nemo (because I skip the ACTUAL opening scene where Coral and the eggs are massacred by the evil fish).  I pounced on Anna all excited-like chanting first day of school!  First day of school!  She rolled over and flopped back onto her pillow very dramatically and I had to resort to "Just get up already."  But we were both still excited. 

We got dressed, ate, packed up and were out the door EARLY, which is unheard of for us in the last few months, between Anna's ultra-putzy eating and trying to time everything with a baby. I only teared up twice during breakfast. We didn't forget anything either.  Doing well so far!  Took the obligatory "first day of school" photos before piling into the car and driving to school.

We dropped Anna off in her classroom alongside several other proud parents.  Most of the kids in her class looked more nervous than excited, Anna included.  But she remembered her teacher from her home visit last month and that made her feel secure enough for us to leave with just a couple of hugs.  Independent girl, that one.

Then I got teary eyed in the hallway outside the classroom and then again at church while we waited for the opening service to start. And again at home as I sat in my suddenly VERY quiet house and realized that I don't really want Anna to be at school.  I'm not ready for her to be gone every morning.  I'm not ready to share the responsibility of raising and educating her with someone else again.  I feel like I just got her back after two and a half years of working full time.  (Even though we had a great childcare experience which she still talks about all the time, I missed her horribly during that time.)

I realize it's the first day of a major transition for both of us. And I'm famously lacking in the "logic department." But there's a huge part of me that just wants to call this whole thing off.  K4 is not required by law.  Let's forget this whole thing and try again next year.  I want another year of her being little.  Another year of lazy mornings, drinking coffee on our back step while she decorates our driveway with her buckets of sidewalk chalk and colored bubbles.  Another year of snuggling on the couch, watching Disney Junior in our PJs.  What happened to the summer?  What happened to the last 4 years?

When I picked Anna up at lunchtime, she told me that she'd had fun, liked school, and absolutely did NOT want to go back tomorrow.  Hmm, kid, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this was not a one-time thing.  After an afternoon of incredible meltdowns and an unheard-of 2 hour nap from Anna, she and I both (separately) had good cries about the fact that she has to go back to school again tomorrow.  To her face I was enthusiastically supportive - asking questions about why she doesn't want to go back, offering things to look forward to, hatching plans to ask interesting questions of her classmates to get to know them better.  But here, in my room, I'm bawling.  Partially because I'm sleep-deprived (thank you very much, Llama Face), but mostly because I want to hug her tight the next time she says she doesn't want to go back and tell her I don't want her to go either and let's just stay here and bake things and hunt for bugs and play Barbies and paint the day away.

But being a grown-up means finding the will to go forward even when you don't want to.  So I'll be the grownup and I'll encourage her to keep trying.  I can almost promise that by the end of next week I'll have to pry her away from the classroom at pickup time.  But I'll still be missing my girl during my quiet mornings.

(A note - I am very thankful for my 1-on-1 time with Henry.  But even he was missing her today.  She's his favorite person in the world.  She loves him more than a buffalo, after all.)

How to Take a Bath

This was an exercise for the writer's group I belong to, and I enjoyed it so I thought I'd share.  The prompt was to write a list from a child's perspective on how to do something.  The example given was how to behave in church.  Very cute.  I had just had the afternoon bathtime from Hades so I focused on that for my response.  Here it is:

Anna's How-To: Take a Bath

1. When mom announces bathtime, strip naked, then run and hide. (Bonus points if you make it outside before she catches you.)
2. Dump ALL the bath toys into the tub before you get in.  If you've done this correctly, there should be approximately 9 square inches of open space for you to occupy.
3. Pretend not to hear when mom says to turn the water off.
4. When the water is so deep that you're floating a little, THEN turn it off.
5. Put on your goggles.
6. Fill at least 5 cups with water and place them strategically on the outside edge of the tub.  These will ward off and alert you to any incoming parents with the intent to wash.
7. Use your goggles to explore the 2 million bath toys you dumped into the tub in step 2.
8. Soap is a 4-letter word.  Treat it as such.
9. Resist "washing" until mom threatens to turn on the shower.  You don't want rain on your rubber duck parade.
10. Complain as much as possible during the washing process.  I promise, this makes it go faster.
11. "Keep the water in the tub" is just something grown-ups say. Go ahead and splash that stuff everywhere!
12. Rub soap across your lips. Blot lips together.  Now you will bubble when you talk.
13. When mom says it's time to get out, hunker down.  You're good and slippery all wet and naked.  No way she's getting you out of there by force.
14. Dry off - use this time to pretend you are Mary or a stone or just plain invisible under that towel.
15. Comb is another 4-letter word.  Run for the back door.
16. Insist on putting on your own pajamas.  Insist that backwards IS, in fact, the way you meant to wear them!
17. Brush your teeth.  Make sure you brush each. individual. tooth.  Repeat process as able with the toothpaste of every member of your family.
18. Fly into a rage at the mere mention of the removal of your toys from their positions in the tub.
19. Leave your towel on the floor.  You have people to clean up stuff like that.

Writing this from her perspective was fun!  I could see looking at other Anna-tics (Anna + antics - get it?  No?  Sorry.) and writing them out like this as well.

Anna the Super Sister

There's a song Anna loves from one of her Tom Hunter CDs that sings about getting up in the morning and leaving for your favorite place to play.  She asked me to sing it to her the other night, so I did. And when I paused so she could fill in her destination, she enthusiastically said "Hawaii!" And as I finished singing the verse she muttered, "by myself! And my brother is coming too."

Ever since Little Llama came along, I'm chopped liver. She tells him every day that she loves him more than me.  But refuses to clarify whether that means that she loves him more than she loves me or that she loves him more than I love him. I firmly believe that if she could lift him, she'd take over as his mother and banish me to my bedroom for the rest of the summer.  And I think I might take her up on it some days!

When I first found out I was pregnant last summer, I was really nervous.  Anna was in the middle of a really nasty tantrum phase and I was terrified about adding to the stress and responsibility of one child.  I was worried about how she would take the addition of a baby to our family.  Worried about how much worse her tantrums and behavior would get. Worried that she would think I didn't love her once the baby came along.

But you know what, that girl is a constant surprise.  She has handled the transition to Big Sister with amazing ease.  From the moment she walked into our hospital room in April, she has been nothing but proud and loving to that baby.  Only a few hiccups here and there, and I think I need to take responsibility for most of those.  I don't have much patience when I haven't gotten any sleep.

She's a great helper and she adores Henry.  She loves to read him stories and make up crazy songs to sing to him. Often when Henry starts to cry and I'm in the other room attempting to scarf the oatmeal that I've reheated 3 times but still not finished, Anna will yell "I'M ON IT!" and run to find his nuk or just be with him.

Her first demand every morning is "where is my brother?"  No "good morning."  No "hi, mommy." And it isn't a question.  It's a threat.  She may as well be saying, "Tell me where my brother is right this second or else!"  Of course, her second demand is to hold him.  And then they smile and talk to each other until Henry decides he's hungry or spits up so hard I have to clean it from between his toes. Anna only wants him when he's clean and happy.  But I'm welcome to him the rest of the time.

Watching them together makes me incredibly happy and also makes me feel incredibly blessed.  I'm trying to learn to hold on to that feeling during the chaotic times because I know how fast this will go and very soon I will be wishing for these days.

Added bonus, a video of Henry's new trick, the fake cough.  Please excuse Anna's smokers hacking cough.  It grosses me out, but Henry finds it funny.

Two's Company, Three is CRAZYTOWN

I had just begun to contemplate changing the name of my blog since Anna's not so hot on the Cheerios and really, she has been sleeping through the night pretty consistently for at least two years now.  And then, boom! Llama Face.

For the most part he's a pretty good sleeper.  But he's hit a growth spurt that has me remembering why I titled this blog Tales of Sleepless Nights.  I tallied it up last night and over the previous three nights combined, I'd slept about 7 hours.  Seven hours of sleep does not a coherent or emotionally controlled Kerry make.

In some ways the second time around is so much easier.  I know what I'm doing now.  I know that the hard parts are not permanent, nor are they really that hard compared to some of the other parenting trials I've now tucked under my rapidly expanding belt (ever tried to explain to a rather inquisitive 4 year old why her brother's "bottom" is all bumpy - why isn't hers bumpy like that? Or calm not one, but two tantrums over the fact that said 4 year old can neither marry, nor procreate with her brother?). 

What I find myself struggling with is the fact that there is only one of me.  It seems like someone is always having to wait around here these days.  And that waiting is frequently accompanied by crying.  I try to meet the needs of both kids as quickly (and reasonably) as possible, but sometimes I just really need to use the bathroom! It's especially hard when Anna makes comments about me never having time to play with her any more (that's partly true, I don't have AS MUCH time to play as I used to).  But she tells me every day she loves her brother better than me, though she won't clarify as to whether that means she loves him more than I love him or she loves him more than she loves me. 

Watching the two of them together has made every second of morning sickness (mostly) worth it.  Anna pokes his cheeks and makes up crazy songs and Henry soaks it all in, smiles and coos at her.  And you can just see in his face, a look of "Just wait, sister.  I'll be able to move soon enough and then that hair you're always dangling in my face will be mine.  MINE!  Oh, and BTW, I'm going to play with all your toys while you're at school and there's nothing you can do about it." Yes, one look says all that. My baby has some really, really expressive eyebrows, ok?

I'm working on balancing fulfilling their needs and still managing to fulfill mine.  I can't tell you how many times I've run the garbage out or gone to grab something from my car and realized (usually too late) that I have half a boob hanging out from the last feeding because I forgot to put myself back together. Sorry, neighbors!

In an effort to take care of myself, I've taken up running 3 times a week.  I had considered forming an "I Love Ice Cream Club," but running is healthier, albeit, a lot less tasty. Usually I have to go after the kids are in bed which is not until 8:30, but it's still an hour to myself.  An hour when I'm just me and I don't have to answer to anyone.  I can crank my music as loud as I want it, and just go.

So, no, I haven't taken up late-night prize fighting.  I just have some really rockin' dark circles under my eyes.  I'm not inventing a new perfume called Eau de Baby Vomit.  Henry just requires that anyone who burps him wear a HAZMAT suit.  Unluckily for me, I don't own one. There is an awful lot of bribery, begging and prayer involved in my daily shower.  And if I get breakfast before noon, then it must be Saturday.

And Baby Makes Four

I can't believe it's already been a month since little Llama Face made his debut in the world. I wasn't completely sure I wanted a baby boy until I saw his face. Instant love. Even though every nurse on duty for the next two days greeted him with "So you're the fella with the giant head!" He had quite the reputation.

(I don't think his head is THAT big and I had to push him out so I'm the only one whose opinion counts.)

When Anna came to meet him in the hospital the next morning, her eyes were big and she looked a little shy. She walked right up to his bassinet and looked at his face with a HUGE smile. I told her this was Henry, her little brother. She turned on the angry eyes, and with serious attitude told me, "Um, mom? His name is NOT Henry. It's Llama Face!"

 Right.

A week later, I heard her out in the yard talking to who I thought was the 4-year-old neighbor boy (turned out it was his parents!). She told him with much remorse, "I have a baby brother! His name USED to be Llama Face! But now it's just Henry." She said that last bit as if it were an apology. I could not stop laughing.

 Parenting two kids is a bit like showing up for a dance class, in a style you've never studied, only to find out that it's not a class, it's the recital and you are the lead dancer. You'd look a bit silly to just stand there on stage and do nothing, so you attempt to do the steps. You miss a few and definitely look confused, but you're trying and at least you're moving.

We have a lot of he's crying and I'm in the middle of helping her use the bathroom; or he's eating and she's screaming that the crocodiles are chasing her and will eat her right this second if I don't stand up and "save" her; or he's screaming for food, she's screaming for food and, quite frankly, I'm about to be screaming for food because it's 11:00 and I still have no pants on, have not yet had breakfast and can't remember if I showered yesterday or the day before.

But we also have a lot of Anna telling Henry she loves him more than anyone else in the world; and Anna begging to give Henry just one more kiss; and Anna's face lighting up like it does on Christmas morning when I tell her that she can give Henry a bottle (since I breastfeed this is a big deal); and Henry following the sound of Anna's voice with his eyes; and Henry calming down at diaper changing time just from listening to Anna sing.

 We're surviving the transition. More than surviving. I'm actually enjoying a lot of it. Because I'm realizing that newborns are pretty easy (it helps that Henry actually sleeps, whereas Anna didn't). We haven't altered our usual routine by too much. We've already been to the zoo, parks, library, Bible study, grocery shopping and I imagine that list will just continue to grow. Henry's very portable. And Anna's very proud and protective.

 I was going to write more of the "funnies" that have gone on since Henry joined the fam, but I'm exhausted. And you know what they say about sleeping when the baby sleeps. So I'll save it for another day.