Stress-o-RAMA

Usually, I'm asleep mere moments after my head hits the pillow.  I cozy up under the covers, read seven or eight pages of a novel, and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. 

But last night.  I lay down at around 11:30 p.m.  After I was sure that my kids and my nephew and niece were asleep.  After watching most of a movie but deciding not to watch the ending. It was late!

And then I lay there.  And I closed my eyes. And thought.

Am I getting a migraine?
Will I wake up with a migraine?
Why are there wavy lines when I close my eyes?
Do I have a brain tumor?
Oh God. I have a brain tumor. I can't die! My kids are so young!
No no. I'm just freaking out.
Man, I hope the kids don't wake up at 5:00 a.m.
If they wake up at 5:00 a.m. I will only have five hours of sleep.
Crap! I'm totally going to get a migraine.
No I'm not.  I'm okay. Breathe.

I tried breathing.

OH my GOD I'm totally getting a migraine.
No I'm not.

Breathe.

I must have dozed off because I dreamed.

I dreamed I was driving up a hill which was on a near-ninety degree angle and I was terrified that if I stopped I would roll backwards to my certain demise.

Awesome.

Once awake, I couldn't sleep again. I was hot.  I was sweating. DRENCHED actually.  How could I be sweating? It was ten degrees outside. 

I may have fallen asleep again.  I dreamed that I was at a party of a friend's to whom I haven't spoken in a while.  Her friends were all angry with me.  Everyone was either angry or ignoring me.

Cripes!

Then awake again, I had a throat tickle. 
cough
Cough
COUGH!
Then Tad woke up.
"Sorry!"
 He handed me his water bottle.  I drank.  Then I got up and walked around.

I finally fell back asleep and dreamed that our loaner guinea pig turned into a huge behemoth creature, taking up the whole dining room. And it had babies, all over the place, millions of tiny guinea pigs. What were we going to do with them?!!!

I was actually relieved when it was morning.  And the kids were up. At 7:00! Not bad.

Tonight, however, Lucy was asleep by 7:20.  Coen by 8:45.  Hip Hip! 
Hooray for me going to sleep very shortly and dreaming about NOTHING!

My three Gifts

On Christmas morning, Coen presented me with a wrapped box.  Inside was a note:

Dear Mom. I'm sorry I coudnt get you a real present but I hope you like this gift. You are the best mom in the world. I love you too much! Your the best. I like it when you give me food. You care for me. I love you! P.S. Merry Christmas

And this story:

 One day their was a super smart woman named Alie. She was marid to a man named Tad. They had a child named Coen. When Coen was 4 years old she had another baby named Lucy. But one day a bad guy came and he was super strong and said a mean thing to Alie to make her mad but she was so smart she knew it was some sort of trick so she out smarted him and he ended up in jail.

The end.

p.s. Many years later she was one of the best, fastest, nicest person in the world and so did Coen Lucy and Daddy.

pps. Merry Christmas Ho Ho Ho Ho. I love you

This is the kind of gift that I cannot believe my luck in receiving. 

Also, a few days later (yesterday) Tad's parents came and picked up the kids to take them to an indoor water park and overnight.  I was starting to do some household picking up after they left and Tad said, "Knock that off. Go check your email."

And in my inbox was an email from Tad saying 

"LET'S GO!" with a link to a hotel package.

So off we went to stay at a hotel for our date night.  We never even turned on the TV. Up until almost midnight, we talked about religion, spirituality, love and what feels like our family's collective purpose and our individual purpose on this earth. 

That was a gift as well.

And one more:

I just went upstairs to check on Lucy and she said to me, 

"Mommy...where is dreamland?"

I like my family.

Happy Holidays

 Happy Holidays everyone!!

Happy Christmas Eve, and Merry Christmas, and Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Hanukkah....

And my favorite day of all:

Happy stay in your pajamas all day and play with you new toys Day!!!!

Here's my with my new Hula Hoop from Tad

And Tad trying to figure out how to open up his new portable record player...from ME!

 Coen beginning construction on his new more than 1,000 piece Lego Set....

The Malevolence

From his grandparents.  He just finished it. It took him a total of six hours to finish

Wow.

And finally, Lucy. Enjoying her new Unicorn Pillow Pet, a gift from Santa which she asked for specifically.

Happy Holidays from the Kriofske Mainella family to you!  And of course happy Winter Break to those of you who are lucky enough to be off enjoying!!!

Winter break's already good

I started my winter break on Thursday.  I took my kids to school and then stayed there and helped a group of other moms wrap presents for families with Sojourner Family Peace Center.  I was going to stay an hour and then go to my exercise class but I stayed for two and a half hours and exercised the extrovert in me instead.

Then four of us went out to coffee at Alterra and talked about parenting, getting calls from teachers, household repairs and good china.  It was wonderfully affirming and fun.

Then I went to lunch with a good friend and had great conversation.

After wrapping presents at home and listening to Glee Christmas on Pandora (embarrassingly AWESOME) I went back to get my kids at school.

Friday I went and got my hair done and then lost my cellphone.  I drove around back to where I was, trying to find it and to AT & T to get a new one (didn't) and back to where I was to try to find it (again) and finally back to school to gather the children (Thus taking a deep breath and saying a mental goodbye to my iphone) That night was the kids' school holiday program.  It was beautiful and hilarious and tear-jerking and laugh-producing as always.  The best part: two of my friends getting publicly engaged on stage just before the end of the last upper elementary class' performance. 

Coen's hard to see but he's back there, between the two girls in black dresses.  They sang "I can see clearly now"

Lucy with some classmates. She was Two Turtle Doves

Tad's class did Cat Steven's If you wanna sing out sing out.  Watching him direct them and the kids singing that song with all their hearts and souls.  Well, it made me fall in love with him all over again.

Saturday Tad and I got to have a date night, courtesy of Tad's parents.  We went out to dinner and a movie.  It was tremendously lovely.

And we were very happy to see our children in the morning.

Today we watched the Packer game with my family, including my mom's cousin Barbara here for Christmas from Virginia.   We had a wonderful time and the cousins played and went sledding together.  We ate good food and decorated Christmas and Hanukkah cookies and laughed and talked and watched football.

And we let Coen stay up and watch Star Wars Attack of the Clones tonight.  He was so excited.  He said, "Mommy, excitement is just building up inside me. I feel like I could jump from a cliff!!"  During the love scene between Padme and Anakin (which Tad and I were privately scoffing at) Coen sighed and looked at us and said, "It would be great to sit in a prairie with someone you love."

Tad and I just looked at each other.  Wow.  And. It is, Coen. It is.

Cheeky

So yesterday was yet another day that Coen couldn't keep it together at school.  He was sent out of group time for excessive silliness and missed recess because he didn't get his work done due to messing around all day. 

I'm having trouble not seeing this as end-of-the-world style terrible problems (partly because I'm at the time of the month in which a person of the female persuasion tends to feel as though her emotions/reactions/mood are entirely out of her control and the slightest problem is apocalyptic). 

We sat at dinner and tried to sort out why Coen got sent away during his class' time to practice their holiday song.  According to him he had no idea what he did wrong and he was just trying to sing like Otis Redding.  Tad suggested that maybe tomorrow he just sing like himself and asked if Coen was absolutely SURE he was not doing anything.  Coen shrugged and said that maybe he may have been messing around a little. 

After I gave him a bath and tried to talk to him about things during which he sunk down underwater in his extreme desire not to hear me say anything about his part in this situation and broke down crying about two kids who are mean to him.  I feel bad about this but suggested that he really only has control over himself and his own reactions to which he replied that "that's NOT even what I'm TALKING about..."  After all that, I got him tucked into bed with his Star Wars book and went downstairs to talk to Tad.

Tad assured me that the ship would right eventually and that I'm just freaking out because I was the kind of child, in school, who-in his words- just spent all my time at the teacher's desk polishing her apples.  I laughed at that and left for a meeting during which I received this picture text from my smart-ass husband:

So, even though I'm as frustrated with Coen as I am sympathetic towards him and I'm at a loss as to what to do about this endless barrage of troublesome days...I feel incredibly lucky to have a partner who goes to such lengths to make me laugh and I know that if his son is even a fraction like him when he grows up, we have no worries.

Good GOD is this the TWEENS?

It's happening. 

Either that or an alien came in the night and took my child and replaced him with a moody, angry, easily frustrated version of himself. 

Coen is becoming a tween. 

He even asked when he would be old enough to have his own laptop as he deftly maneuvered around my mom's, never having been taught, just somehow knowing how. 

So here it is.  My child is getting very frustrated and annoyed with me, with his sister, with Tad.  He's having trouble controlling the energy in his body at school and I'm getting countless reports from his teacher about disruptiveness, excessive silliness.  But never unkindness.  So I know he's still in there.  He torments his sister and then yells "I KNOW!!!  Jeez!" When I tell him that he needs to stop.  He breaks down crying over the suggestion that it's nearly homework time but pulls away when I try to hug him. 

So, I must prepare myself.   Here are the steps I shall take:

1. Grow thicker skin
2. Remember to honor more requests of "Mom, will you play with me?" Because those are getting fewer and farther between
3. Laugh. It's hilarious.

So, my friends with similarly aged children: Strap yourselves in to this roller coaster called Parenthood and get ready for a  hormones filled, moody, broody thrill ride.  Let's remember, we went through it too.  And call me for lunch. We'll need to commiserate.

A moment with Lucy

Last night, Lucy leaned on me while we watched The Charlie Brown Christmas Special. She sat up suddenly and rubbed her hand down my front. 

 

"Mommy?" She said. "Why are you so soft?"

 

"Oh Mommas are supposed to be soft." I said "So they're more comfy for their children to cuddle with."

 

Lucy thought.  "Well...I know that some people think God made the world and some people think Jesus made the world and Coen thinks the Big Bang made the world, but I think that all of those things made the world. And whoever made Mommas...Well they knew Mommas had to be soft. But how did they know that the children would like that?"

 

*Sigh*