And also a more patient patient

Tad and I had a big date planned for Saturday night so I was not at all surprised and a little dismayed when Coen plopped down on the couch next to me on Saturday morning and said, "My tummy feels a little weird."

After Lucy's bout with a stomach bug, I had been worrying about one of us getting sick in time for date night, but I hadn't thought it would be Coen!

I remember when I was in my twenties and every night was just another night out. Every concert was just another concert. Every party or planned activity was just one of many.  So missing one here and there was not so horrible.

Nowadays the nights out, the parties and most especially time alone with my partner is fewer and farther between, making each one seem like a BIG EVENT.  This night's BIG EVENT was a concert and hotel stay, so it was not only a BIG EVENT but also an expensive event.  And I felt like I would be crushed under the disappointment of cancelling this night.

I called my parents, who were slated to have the kids overnight and told them what was happening.  "They are staying here no matter what" my mom said. "We can handle a sick kid!" 

Too true.

And handle they did.  Coen, after throwing up for the third time, while my mom was getting him settled back on the couch again, put his hand on her face and said, "You're such a good Baba."

He was happy to be cuddled and coddled and and unlike his little sister, he soaked in the sympathetic looks.  I was feeling guilty for leaving him with the stomach flu but he didn't seem upset about it.  "Baba and Papa can handle me when I'm sick." He said as I stroked his hot little face.

So they did.

And Tad and I had a lovely long drive, a wonderful sushi dinner, a delicious ice cream dessert and a fantastic They Might Be Giants concert.  Not to mention a night in a hotel.  

And when we came home, Coen was no worse for the wear.  He cuddled up on the couch for the rest of the day and I took him to bed and read him to sleep at 6:00 in the evening.  After a nice, long day home with his Daddy (who also got sick yesterday), he''s heading back to school tomorrow.

My favorite band of all time rocking out at the Vic in Chicago

Not so patient patient

Sunday night I said to Tad, "You know? I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow.  I have no appointments.  About a hundred new consumers to file paperwork for and new songs on my ipod."

Monday morning Tad woke me up and said, "You shouldn't have said that you were looking forward to your workday.  Lucy threw up last night."

The bad news was that my little girl was sick and I needed to take a sick day.  The good/interesting news was that I had missed out on all the middle of the night sick action.

Tad was up with Lucy when she threw up twice, changing her bedding...twice.  He was up again after he'd put her to bed in Coen's room and Coen called, wanting to know why she was in there.  He was up again when Coen called, not happy with her in there and afraid she'd throw up in his room.  I slept through this whole thing.   Tad said he wasn't mad but after the third time up, he could not believe I was still sleeping.  To my credit, I did do all the vomit laundry in the morning.

So home with Lucy I was and she is not at all a patient like her brother.  Coen, when he is sick, wants to be cuddled and when I make a sympathetic glance his way, he just cuddles all the closer.

Not Lucy.

When I cast a sympathetic glance in her direction, even laying flat out on the couch, she'd look at me haughtily and say, "WHAT?"
When I reached out to rub her back, she'd stiffen and pull away from me as if to say sympathy? No thanks!

My favorite part of Lucy's sick day, however, was when she wanted to watch Dora three times and proceeded to make fun of Dora three times. 

Dora: What do we need to find our way somewhere?  Everyone, say MAP!
Lucy: (dull droning voice) BACKPACK

Dora: Everyone say 'Swiper! No Swiping!'
Lucy: Say it yourself, Dora.

Dora: Do you see a cornfield?
Lucy: I see a BANANA field!

It was great.  I kept her home again today as she stayed on the couch yesterday for 10 straight hours and ate no solid foods.  But she's watching old-style Sesame Street as I type and eating cereal.  So I think we're on the up and up.  She even just let me rub her cheek!

Balance

This morning I let the kids watch a little extra TV because last weekend and yesterday we had to get out of the house early for different events. I was trying to even things out.

But it turned out to be too much TV in the end as they kicked at each other, complaining about not having enough room and who was on who's particular side of the couch.

Waiting for Lucy's friends to arrive for her play date and for it to be time for Coen to leave for baseball, my two children just bickered.  Coen, bored, got in Lucy's face about things until she became upset.  Lucy, annoyed, refused to let Coen watch her clean her room for her play date until his feelings were hurt.  I started getting mad at both of them. 

Tad took me by the shoulders.  "Go outside for a little while.  Go for a walk before we have a house full of girls.  We need an energy shift in the house."

He was right.  I drove to Grebes bakery and bought six frosted cookies.

I came home with a changed attitude and tried to be the scale tipper in the household energy supply.

And it is nice to have a partner who recognizes when I need a break, even when I don't.  And for our kids to have two parents, each who understand one of the two of them a little bit better.  And to have balance.

Work and play
Tad and me
Coen and Lucy
Inside and outside
Exercise and ice cream
Zoning in and zoning out

Trying not to tip too much in any one direction.

"I'm just not that happy"

We're riding in the car tonight and Coen says, "Mommy?"
"Yes?"
"I'm just not that happy. Like I just don't feel that excited right now."
Tad makes a fake sympathetic noise and I know he is about to make fun. I feel protective of my son and I grab Tad's arm and look at him warningly
"What!?" Tad says. "I was just thinking about something else"
I give him another look
"I was just thinking" he goes on, "about this boy I know who is homeless and hungry."

I get his point.

My child is like me. He thrives on connection with other people. He looks so forward to events, parties, gatherings and the like that when they are over, he feels an extreme let down.  So the week before last we had the Kalahari. And then a crazy week with Monday off and a Wednesday snow day and an ACTION PACKED weekend.  Now it's Wednesday.  Not a whole lot is going on this coming weekend. And he's feeling the let down. I get it. When I was a kid, the night after a party, I distinctly remember lying awake in my room, feeling empty and sad.  It was like I could feel the ghost of the fun that was had there before.  So I get it.  But it's hard, as a parent, when your child says something like that.  When he's just finished going out for dinner with his parents and sister and gone swimming and soaked in a hot tub....  Yeah, I get Tad's point.

And you know, I thought I would feel some sort of let down after the 40 under 40 dinner was over.  But I haven't.  Maybe I'm just grateful for some normalcy.  Which is weird.  Have I become a grown-up without my knowledge?

I went up to tuck Coen in and turn his light off for the night. 
"I just want to show you something." he said.
I sat on his bed.  And he proceeded to go through his ENTIRE Star Wars pop-up book and do some funny voice for each page. Most of them beginning with the phrase "Oh YEAH" said in a scratchy low voice.  It took more than ten minutes, and all I wanted to do was go downstairs and cash in on the back rub Tad promised me and watch something mindless on TV.  But he's my boy. He needed to connect with me by making me laugh as he had Yoda dancing with the Emperor via the pop-up book, saying "Oh YEAH. Do the Jibby."

Fifteen minutes later, I just went up for a final tuck-in and he asked me to cover him halfway with the blanket.
"No, not my bottom half" He said as I pulled it up on his legs. "Actually HALF of me."
"Half your body?"
"Yes."
So I covered half his body and laughed as I went down the stairs.   

I understand him, mostly.  Well, maybe HALF.  And I love him. All of him.

A very large 48 hours.

 So, it's been a very large 48 hour period for me.  If you know me at all, you know I have no trouble with being in any sort of spotlighted position and that's what this past two days has been about.  I feel a little weird sharing this with you all but I'm going to anyway because I've been asked to blog about it and I blog about everything else, don't I?

So Sunday IndependenceFirst had its Stride and Glide which is our annual 5K etc.. fundraiser. I was in charge of coordinating the kids activities so after bribing a very cranky Coen and Lucy with some Cranky Al's doughnuts, we got ourselves to the Zoo at 7:00 in the early morning hours.  My parents met me there to help out with the kiddos and Tad's whole family came too.  Lucy and I got our faces painted like butterflies and while Coen went to see the primates with his grandparents, Lucy got to try out zumba with the other set of grandparents.  Watching my dad zumba might be one of the highlights of my exercising life.

After a brief intermission of activities (during which Coen went to baseball practice with Tad) my family headed over to the Bradley Center for the Admirals game.  The giveaway item was the coloring book that my girls groups were part of creating thanks to a graphic design intern at IndependenceFirst a couple summers ago.  I was thrilled to advertise it by getting interviewed on the Jumbotron.  And I even washed the butterfly off my face before I went!  One must retain some semblance of adulthood, you know.  However, being on the jumbotron is a big thrill for me, (the bigger the spotlight...) so this was positively MAGICAL.

Then last night was the 40 under 40 dinner.  If you didn't know this already, I was nominated by one of my coworkers for the Business Journal's 40 under 40 and I was, much to my extreme excitement and surprise, chosen!  So last night a group of my coworkers, and my parents, and Tad went to the celebration and had a lovely dinner.  When it was my turn to go up on stage to receive my award, I thought I shouldn't dawdle...not wanting to keep people waiting.  Once I got up on stage the award presenter whispered to me "Wow, you got up here fast!" as my introduction was being read, "She's called a energizer bunny, a tornado...." He smiled at me, clearly amused. "Indeed." he said. 

One highlight of last night was that my therapist was there.  She found me and gave me a hug and told me how hard it is to not say, "I KNOW her!" because of course she can't tell people HOW she knows me.  Not that I would mind as I tend to blog about all things in my life and mind and don't really have any secrets, but STILL!  What was most wonderful about that is that I have been working hard on myself personally and I've also been working hard professionally and last night's award was really special to me and my therapist telling me she's proud and being able to see where I came from and where I am now in that way was pretty cool.

Anyway, enough of this self-promotion.  I shall return to my normally scheduled programming now.  But I did want to share.  And thank you. For reading. Or being present with me. Or being my friend. Or just generally being around, someone in my life, who makes it better.  By doing so. That is all.

This has been a test

This morning I was at my desk and my phone started honking at me. I looked at it and it said there was a tornado warning for my area.  My coworker and I started laughing and I was like "Stupid phone! First it doesn't have a camera and now its sending me fake weather alerts!"  But a moment later another coworker approached us and said "Did you guys hear about the tornado warning? I just got kicked off a statewide conference call because of it."

I guess a lot of people got it.  And it was just a test.  I thought they should send another one to call it off, lest people were in their basements with transistor radios and canned goods.  Curiously pondering the clear skies.  Waiting for further instructions.

I remember when I was a kid and we would all go in the basement when there were tornado warnings.  I remember my mom would tell us that a tornado sounds like a train coming through and the we'd hear the train whistle and freak out.  "No!" She'd say, "Not like a train whistle.  Like a train" One time I remember the storm came up so quickly and our front window blew in. And my sister was terribly afraid of tornadoes and had torn down into the basement .  My parents were trying to push the window back into place against the torrents of rain and wind coming into the house and getting soaking wet and laughing and laughing. My sister was already down in the basement yelling "Come DOWN here! The TORNADO  is coming!!" I didn't know whether to watch my parents or to join my sister and I think I just stood there yelling "Hurry up! Hurry up!" Which of course only added to the hilarity for my mom and dad.

So anyway, another friend told me that many phones have those alert systems and you can turn them off.  I started thinking about how nice it would be if your phone would send you little useful alerts. Like:
ALERT ALERT! YOU HAVE CHOCOLATE ON YOUR FACE!!!

or an alert for someone at work who's in a bad mood that day:
ALERT ALERT! JOHNSON'S REALLY ON A RAMPAGE TODAY! STEER CLEAR!

or even one I could have used from my phone back in December
ALERT ALERT! YOU JUST DROPPED ME IN THE STREET AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY DOWNTOWN! FOCUS WOMAN, AND PICK ME UP. YOU ARE GOING TO REGRET THIS!!!
I really could have used that one.

or
ALERT! DON'T ANSWER THIS INCOMING CALL! YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS CALLER! ANYWAY, THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING!

I think all those would be really useful, don't you?  I'm glad there's not a tornado though.  I'd hate to spend this nice day in the basement.

 

This girl

Last night Lucy was rather an emphasized version of her five-year-old self. 

I could tell she would be more Lucy than usual by the way she was in her brother's face after school, trying to tell him something about her day.  Her story became a bold fonted shout an inch from his face until he focused only on her.

At home, she and Coen settled at the table with the library books I'd brought for them.  Coen offered to read hers to her.  Happy at the harmony, I went into the kitchen to start dinner.  Not too long after, there was a blood curdling scream from my youngest child.  I joined them at the table and asked what was happening.
"He won't read to me any more!" Lucy sobbed.
"Mommy. I was reading to her but it's a long book and I got tired. And then she hurt my feelings."
It was a long book.  
"What did you say to Coen, honey?" I asked.
"That he stinks!"
"And that hurt my feelings!" Coen added.
"Oh." I said. "Sweetheart. I'm sure you heard that at school, but that's not a nice thing to say."
Her tears started again. "It just means I don't like something that's happening!"
"I'm sure you heard that from kids at school but it's not nice to say to someone honey."
She screamed, "NO! my TEACHERS say that!"
Coen and I exchanged a glance. "Your teachers say 'You stink'?"
"NO!!!!!" she wailed.  "They say THAT stinks!!!"
"OH!" I said. "Well, yes, that stinks means that you don't like something.  You just shouldn't say 'you stink'." 
God, how confusing.

So we sorted that out. And after dinner. And after Lucy dramatically gagging her way through her broccoli and the children claiming that they were "still hunger" after dinner, I offered grapes.  Lucy threw herself to the floor. "I HATE grapes!"
"Lucy. You haven't tasted grapes."
Coen offered to make her a tasting chart, which he did, and wrote broccoli on it.  Then he proffered her a grape.  She licked it.  And then she gagged.  "I don't like it!"
"But Lucy!" Coen said. "You have to taste the inside. The juice part!"
He bit one in half and handed it to her.  She licked it.  Nodded.
"You like it?"
Another nod.  "But I don't like the mushiness.  I just like the juice."
"Lucy!" Coen said excitedly. "Want me to squeeze you some juice into a cup?"
They ran together into the kitchen to get materials. I heard another blood curdling scream.  Coen talking. Another scream.  Coen came running into the living room, Lucy hot on his trail.  "Help!" Coen said.
I wasn't sure what Lucy was going to do when she got him but she was gaining on him. I caught her and we all sat on the couch.  "What happened?" I asked.
Turns out Coen accidentally shut Lucy's thumb in the drawer and she just wanted him to hear that.  He had already apologized and didn't want to hear about it anymore. 
"Coen." I said. "She just wants to talk about what happened."
Lucy cried behind the couch, unwilling to accept any offers of hugs or kisses. She didn't even want to be looked at.  I told her that she's like her daddy. 
"And I'm like you." Coen said. 
That is true.

After that, we had some time to calm down.  And we headed up to bed.

And I thought about my daugher who is just like her daddy. Headstrong and brave and serious and silly.  She doesn't want any sympathy when she's hurt or sad and she does not share herself with you until she's good and ready and then, when she is, LOOK OUT.  I love her. And I feel honored when she cuddles up to me. And I know she's not going to have any problems taking care of her self when she gets older.  And when she's a teenager, I shall send her to Tad for counsel.  I have a feeling we'll be butting heads.

Before I went to bed, I pulled the covers up over both my children and kissed them and whispered "Sweet Dreams" as I do every night.  When I pulled Lucy's cover up over her shoulder, she wriggled away from me in her sleep, indignantly shouting "HEY!" Pulling the covers over her shoulder HERSELF. in. her. sleep.

My little wild child.  Awake or asleep she is in control.  And even though I don't always understand her...and sometimes look at her and marvel at how seperate she is from me, how different. I am so proud to be her mother.