My sisters Becca and Jamilyn and my best friend Amanda and I took our 11 kids to the park for a picnic the other day. Towards the end of our afternoon we saw all of the big kids in this play boat structure with an Asian man and his son. Ella, Jamilyn’s 3 year old, was talking the poor guy’s ear off. We heard her telling him every single one of their names, their mother’s names, which dress is her favorite, etc etc more useless three year old information. (It’s a good thing she doesn’t know her parents’ social security numbers. Or her address.)

Anyways, this guy is either one of the special grown ups who are at the park having lunch or he is incredibly patient, because he lets all of our loud children chatter at him for a long time, listening intently without saying anything at all. They’re all clearly enamored with an adult who cares about their meandering, pointless stories. When there’s finally a break in the barrage, we hear him saying emphatically,

“No English. Just Chinese.”

The kids stared at him blankly.
Amelia, Becca’s 3 year old, got up right in his face and said with her arms crossed,

“So… you speak Spanish, or what?”

 Clara was never the kind of baby who smiled at strangers. Or really anyone, for that matter. She liked a small handful of trusted family members and no one else, and she wasn’t afraid to advertise her disdain for the rest of the human population. She snubbed her grandfathers, her aunts, her uncles, unruly children, strangers and friends who stopped to coo over her, and occasionally even her own father. Even now she is a hard egg to crack, hurting lots of feelings and balking at any hug that wasn’t her idea first. Basically, you’re gonna have to earn your place in her heart. And the process is a long one.

This personality trait of my daughter’s, this reluctance to be friendly or welcoming, is difficult for me. Because to be honest, although I know she is really still so young and has a million miles to go in her development-

sometimes she just seems rude.
And I use that word, too. I tell her not to be rude. I probably shouldn’t, I’m probably speaking that into her psyche or something, but for goodness sakes. When she shrieks at her cousins and shoves their arms away after they run across the lawn to give her a welcoming hug? Well. It’s kind of rude. I’m outgoing and I hug everyone, so her attitude, completely opposite of mine, is both foreign and upsetting. I feel like I have to constantly apologize for her, especially to family members she snubs. Again, I REALIZE SHE IS A ONE YEAR OLD. I get it. But she can walk and talk and relate and this thing she does, this rude business- it bothers me.

There is one person who Clara has always been nice to, and that’s Sam’s mom Debbie. We call her Nona, the Italian word for grandmother, and Clara would follow her to the moon. My parents are wonderful and I wish my kids knew them better, but they moved to Boston shortly after Clara turned one, so she spends a lot more time with Sam’s mom and dad. And let me tell you, Debbie looks at Clara with a smile that goes all the way to her heart. When we stay at their house or they at ours, she gladly gets up with Clara and lets me sleep. They laugh together, they eat together, and genuinely enjoy their time together. I love their relationship, but there are times it baffles me.

Listen: Not only do I love her, but I like my daughter a lot. She is hilarious and spunky, full of love and so smart. I kiss those small hands of hers and just cannot believe that I get to be her mother.

But also, sometimes she drives me crazy.

She whines, she asks for the same thing in a louder and louder and louder voice again and again and again…and she is not very nice to new people, ever. What is it that prevents her Nona from seeing these traits? What is it that allows grandparents such a freedom in their love? I’ve watched my mom and dad in the same kind of relationship with all of their grandkids. My dad is way better grandpa than he ever was a dad. To me he was more teacher, pastor, authority figure. But to our kids, he is Papa. Papa who tosses them onto the couch cushions, Papa who will clap for their awful singing, Papa who will picnic with them on the grass. ‘Who is this man,’ I wondered during his last visit, when he happily sat through an entire episode of Bubble Guppies with Clara on his lap and baby Sam in his arms. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the difference I saw, and then I noticed it was the look on his face. He looked, unhurried. Like he could have sat and held my two small children as long as he needed. There was a peace in his movements with them that I didn’t recognize from my childhood, and to be honest, that I didn’t recognize in my own mothering. 

Last month we took a family trip across the country. We packed a suitcase for our kids and a suitcase for ourselves, bought a new double stroller, and flew to the North Carolina sea shore. Sam’s brother Michah was getting married and asked Clara to be the flower girl. Oh, boy, we all said. She’s kind of young for that, but sure. If anything else, she’ll look cute in her little white dress and we can laugh about her bad behavior later. We spent the wedding week in a gorgeous beach house with all of our Horney family. True to form, Clara wouldn’t speak to or look at most of them, unless they ignored her or had a snack to offer. The ignoring trick works pretty well with that girl. She would love to do a song and dance and bat her eyelashes to make you like her, yes indeed. That’s fun. But if you’re her Uncle Josh and you love her with your whole heart and treat her like a princess? She will scream and cry at you like you might be a mass murderer.
(Oh, and by the way? My parents say I was exactly like this as a child. My uncles tell stories of me crying whenever they walked in a room, and I used to have grown ups doing anything it took to win my affection. What goest around cometh around, I suppose the sages would say?)

When it came time for the wedding rehearsal, I introduced Clara to the ring bearer, a little boy named Jake. I was nervous about how she was going to act around him. Would she be snobby? Would she yell at him? Would she throw a fit about walking down the aisle beside him? And he was a rowdy kid, too, so I hoped they wouldn’t fight or hit or… I don’t know. I was nervous. But lo and behold: Clara found Jake infatuating. She held his hand during most of the rehearsal, and they played together like happy kittens. And then- and then- the day of the wedding arrived. I stood in the back of the chapel with the wild ring bearer and my mischievous daughter, praying hard that they would do their jobs, or at least not break down in front of the whole crowd. They got the cue to walk down the aisle, and well well. What do you know. Clara Noelle held Jake’s hand and pranced towards the front of that church like a pint-sized angel, grinning and offering a sweet “Hi!” to everyone she passed. She was a sunbeam. And although I had absolutely nothing to do with that small moment of success, I was so proud my heart almost burst. She was nice to her new friend, she did her job, and she lit up the chapel with her blue eyes and cheeky greetings. I was so glad that her Uncle Michah and her new Aunt Kristan asked her to participate, and that they were so relaxed about what could or would happen with a 19 month old flower girl. I didn’t need to be nervous. I didn’t need to protect everyone from Clara and her moods. Because even if it hadn’t gone well, she wasn’t going to ruin a wedding by being a surly toddler.

What I began to understand on that wedding day, I think, is a gift that I can give myself as a mother. Because although I am barely ankle deep in this parenting thing, and although I am many moons away from having grandchildren, I can still give myself this gift: to see through the lens of a grandparent. To behold the peace that comes from many years of reflection. The calm of knowing this too shall pass. And you will all be better for it. 
I see that peace in my father as he hugs my daughter close.
I hear that calm in the advice from my mother whenever I call her in a panic.
I watch the utter joy in Sam’s mom and dad when they talk to my kids, in the delight they take in our children’s every move.
They have all watched as the layers of pain and goodness in their own families built and built upon one another, and they know the end result. To a certain extent, they know what is to come for my children. And they are at peace.

I imagine what is best about being a grandparent is the distance you are afforded when looking at a child. No longer bound by the day to day minutia of their raising and their development, to a grandparent a child is just that. A child. A child who will eventually have all of their teeth. Who will make their own decisions. Who will stop yelling “mine” all the time, or being rude to strangers, or throwing fits in the park. A child who will fail classes and pass classes and excel in one area while forgetting another. And when a grandparent looks at their grandchildren, they not only see the joy of now, of these quickly passing moments of being little and needy, moments soaked in the intense hero-worship of mommy and daddy; they can also see the later. They know how fast the years will go. They know how hard the nights can seem. And they know that through the pain of child rearing, through the days when it’s too hard to remember that there will be a tomorrow; they know that through that pain comes a family. A family forged together by newborn cries and toddler emotions, elementary adventures and middle school misery, high school discoveries and then the foray into adulthood.

A family is being born here. A family is being made. And it is a lovely thing to watch.

A grandparent knows that.
What a gift.

A response to this post: having two kids is not very fun. 

My mom and Sam’s mom both swear by the 3-Month rule when it comes to adding a new baby to a home. They say it takes three months to establish a new routine, three months for the baby to adjust to the outside world, and three months to start feeling like yourself again. However. I had family staying at our house for extended weekends by the time Clara was two weeks old, and hosted Thanksgiving dinner along with her dedication at church celebration by the time she was three months. So while I appreciated their advice to take it slow, I didn’t feel like I needed a long time to get back to myself. Looking back I see that I was basically running on adreneline and blind confidence, but that first six months of Clara’s life were heaven on earth and I felt great.

Fast forward 16 months. I bring home teensy tiny baby Sam after a stressful pregnancy and a week in the hospital and KABLAM, kick me in the nuts, I was out of my mind exhausted and overwhelmed. I was sleep walking, I was crying, I was eating all my feelings and everyone else’s too, we were quarantined to our house so the baby wouldn’t get the flu: it was bleak. It seemed like a good idea to get pregnant when Clara was 8 months old because you know, she would be so much older by the time the baby arrived (??) but guess what! She was still a baby too! Who knew? Our home vibrated with the absolute dependence for survival of two small, incoherent humans. Lord help us.

There was really nothing to do but pray. So we did. We prayed, He answered, and things are getting better.

Things are getting a lot better, actually. Yes, they are young. But they are so small and smell so good, and I like that they both fit in my lap. I like that I can carry them both around the house if I feel so inclined. Which I often do, because an armful of squirming babies is funny and it makes me laugh. Also- I like baby Sam. A LOT. He sleeps all night. He takes 2 hour naps with no cajoling necessary. He is always thrilled to see me and he is almost never upset. He smiles with his entire body and he has a dimple in his right cheek. It’s a little much on the cute factor sometimes, honestly, like the other shoe has got to drop, but hey: I’ll take my perfect baby while I can. Soon enough he’ll be stomping his foot and running away from me in front of the unimpressed Baby Gap clerk, so. For now he can be my delight.

Another big improvement: Clara.
Just, Clara. For some reason- no, for two reasons- my interactions with her are moving further from “slit my wrists” and closer to “I really like being with you.” Here are the two reasons (I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat).

1. SENTENCES. She is speaking in sentences and I cannot begin to tell you the lowered frustration level for both of us when she can say what she needs. And there is an enormous difference, by the way, between her saying “hep, hep, HEP!” (help) and “hep up please, mama.” Or, “point, cry, moan, wail, throw huge fit” and “more blueberries please.” The days are so smooth, I feel like I’m dreaming. She’s always been a good talker, but every day she is stringing together more and more thoughts and ideas. It’s not only a joy to watch her language develop (it’s like a social experiment that I’m directly affecting) but our relationship with her is taking a new direction as we communicate more effectively. I tell you, when she looks me right in the eyes and says “Thank you, mom”- kill me. It’s the best.

2. SPANKINGS. Capitalizing that word makes me nervous, since I’m sure there are more than a few people who won’t like this. But that’s ok: my kid, my blog. Ha! So. Spankings. Clara’s toddler attitude paired with bringing home a new baby were not a great combination. In my tired, emotionally distressed state, I was letting her get away with WAY too much. Her modus operandi when it comes to being naughty is to whine and disobey. She’s not a climber or a destroyer; she’s sneaky and likes to talk back. And I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t giving her enough credit, if I really dissect the whole problem. She knows when she is disobeying me. She knows what I am asking her to do. And by not holding her to high enough standards, I wasn’t giving her a chance to learn self-discipline, or learn the pleasure of living in peace with her family. That probably sounds crazy, but listen: it took ONE WEEK of being really hard on her, and our whole house changed for the better. I spanked, I started getting serious about time outs (30 second time outs, mind you) and I consistently required that she answer me “ok, mama” even when she didn’t want to do what I asked. One week. And she was a different, happier, just as busy and fun-loving girl. Anyone who thinks kids are innocent, or acting out because they don’t know any better, or just need re-directed, either have really dumb kids, or really smart kids who fooled their parents. Clara is so much happier now that I am requiring more of her. She whines less, she (usually) obeys faster, and you know what happens after I discipline her?

She gives me a huge hug and kiss.

 Every single time. She likes knowing I’m in charge. And she likes knowing her boundaries. After that one hard week, I rarely have to spank, and usually 10 seconds into a time-out she jumps up and says, “happy, mom. happy!” Nothing really changed in her, you know. She’s still Smoochie, still likes to talk back, still likes to have her way (who doesn’t?) but something in me changed. And it’s for the better. The balance of power has been reestablished in the direction of the person who is actually in charge, and we are all enjoying the new sense of peace and joy in our house. Here’s a blog I read that helped me when I was ready to lose it with her. I like this lady a lot, and her no-nonsense approach to parenting. It makes the most sense to me, and puts into words what I know to be true.

Things are getting better. And having two little kids is starting to be really fun.

Pictures from our mother’s day picnic. Thanks for these lovely shots, Joel and Deborah 🙂 

My nephew once poured an entire gallon of bleach all over his living room carpet. He is not yet two years old and has already had 10 stitches above his left eye after an unfortunate meeting with a table corner. My niece stuck her finger in an exposed socket plate and shocked herself, falling backwards as the jolt ran through her tiny toddler body. My friend Amanda took her first helicopter ride last summer with her toddler, after he ingested some old heart medicine up at their family cabin and had to be flown back to the city just in case his heart stopped. He was fine after the drugs cleared out of his system, thank you JESUS. Amanda also recently walked in her kitchen to find her other son, a two year old, with a stool pulled close to the stove, steadying a pot on one of the burners. He was ready to cook himself up a little snack.

Toddlers, like a group of lunatics on a cocaine bender, live a life blissfully and stupidly unaware of consequences. Or basic science.

This is hot. It will burn you.
This is poison. It will make you very sick.
blah blah blah I WANT THAT COOKIE AND DON’T YOU DARE PUT THAT SUNSCREEN ON MY FACE AND ACTUALLY I WANT A COOKIE IN EACH HAND YOU IDIOT AND I JUST REMEMBERED THAT I HATE THIS SHIRT GET IT OFF OF ME RIGHT NOW.  “Peeaase, mama?”

before the day started, obviously.

<< My sister and I took our kids up to the mountains for a day trip, with plans to picnic for lunch and hike around for a while. We have 5 kids under the age of 4 between us, so it's always an adventure. After we finished our (10 minute) hike, I took baby Sam to change his diaper. A few minutes later I heard Clara's wailing echoing up the path. I ran down and found her in my sister's arms, inconsolable. She had fallen and hit her head on a boulder, and a nasty blue lump quickly rose above her right eye. I calmed her down and made a face at my sister like, "whoopsies, that's a bad one," and held Clara tight.

throwing pine cones. their dream afternoon.

We pulled into our driveway a few hours later and Clara was in the depths of the afternoon whine state. I dragged her and the baby and all of their stuff inside and by the one millionth time she turned my name into a ten syllable “maaaaammmmaaa” I lost it. I yelled, I told her to sit, and went to change out of my dirty jeans. I had barely unbuttoned my pants before I heard a loud bump and a scream. Somehow, somehow, from a sitting position, she fell onto the hardwood floor and hit her head in the EXACT same spot as the boulder. She screamed herself breathless and I felt terrible. Had I magically made this happen by yelling at her and putting her in time out? I scooped her up into my arms (where is the baby at this point? I mean, really?) and took her into my bed. She cried for awhile as the lump on her head grew twice as big and dark. I bowed at her mercy, serving yogurt and water and letting her watch 3 episodes of Bubble Guppies while I texted my friend Hollie the nurse and my friend Eric the pediatrician to see if I should be worried. (I always text them both because Hollie has twin boys Clara’s age and runs her own small business and Eric is, you know, a doctor, so sometimes one of them is too busy to answer my panic texts. Can you imagine.) Here is the picture I sent in the text.

I know a bump on the head is not the end of the world, but since she hit it twice in the same spot in a matter of hours, I was concerned. They both told me the same symptoms to watch for and sent me their condolences. I love them for not judging.

Sam didn’t get home until late that night and I really didn’t want to skip my workout (my body is weird after baby #2. I barely gained any weight with this pregnancy but gained a lot of stress weight the weeks following his birth and anyways, workout DVD’s. That’s all I have time for some days.) So I popped in good ol’ Jillian Michaels even though my kids weren’t in bed yet because I was keeping them up to see their dad. Baby Sam was in his bouncy seat beside my mat and Clara sort of hovered around me, laying across me during the ab workouts, trying to copy my movements (cute), and just being sort of a nuisance (not so cute). Sam walked in about halfway through the workout and Clara started running around, chattering up a storm, excited to see him. She ran behind me right as I swung back with a free weight,

AND I HIT HER ON THE HEAD.

I hit her goose egg with the full force of a back swing. With a hand weight.

You’ve never heard such screaming. At this point, her lump had a lump which had a lump and didn’t I feel like the world’s best mom? I damn well wasn’t going to quit the rest of the DVD, either, so I paused for a moment, handed the crying and probably concussion ridden little girl off to her father, and settled back in for some squat presses. I chose not to text Hollie or Eric about that hit because what if they said she needed to get checked out, and then the ER saw her broken leg in her medical records, and then suddenly we’re being reported? I felt it best just to set my phone alarm for every couple of hours and make sure she was still breathing all night long. It was a long night after a bad day for my smoochie girl, but I needed the penance.

So, ok, her head looks like hell and if she doesn’t get into an elite college this is what we’ll always look back and blame her lack of success on, but everything is fine. Say a prayer for Smooch, you guys. She could use an extra guardian angel.

Sincerely yours and avoiding the emergency room at all costs,
Jessie

PS I’d love to hear your own funny dangerous-toddler stories in the comments on the blog… anyone? Bueller?

That time we broke Clara’s leg and the cutest x-rays of all time were taken.

I took my kids to the zoo this morning, which is really no small feat with these people. It requires a lot of preparation: timing for nursing, sandal buckling, lunch packing, stroller folding, supplies gathering, etc etc. Anyways, we made it out the door, we even made a quick stop at Trader Joes, and then we made it to the zoo. Parking lot. The zoo parking lot. Because once we got that far, I saw bus after bus after yellow looming school bus, parked along the road and emptied of children, whom I could only assume were running through the zoo.

They were.
Hundreds of them.
And normally I wouldn’t care, actually in my old life I would’ve been corralling a big hoard of kids myself, for my job at summer camps or after school programs, but this is my new life and it involves two little babies who can’t do anything by themselves and are easily lost. The zoo, crowded and hot, felt very stressful. Every time I turned around I caught a glimpse of Clara running off with one of her ‘older’ cousins (3 year olds, very responsible you know) and it. was. not. fun. We made it about 100 yards in to the tiger exhibit, only to the find that the great cat was hiding somewhere in his cage, away from the multitudes of pudgy fingers clawing at the glass window of his home. My sisters and I backed our strollers out onto the winding path crammed with school children and said over the din of our crying toddlers: “Let’s get the heck out of here.”

We ate our picnic in the park under the shade of giant old trees and caught our breath. We changed diapers, cleaned up our mess, and after watching enormous crowds leave for their own lunch break, decided to try the zoo again. After 15 minutes of the chaos and the glaring sunshine on Clara’s brightening skin, I knew I was done. So I bid farewell and pushed my stroller with my tired daughter back to our car on the other side of the park. Then I needed to nurse baby Sam. I set Clara in her car seat and fed him behind the steering wheel. Then I got out to buckle him into his car seat, shut the car doors, and stretched in the sun. And felt a cool breeze across my breast.

Yes. Across my breast. Because I was still in “nursing position,” if you will, unhinged for all the world (park) to see.

Perfect. And you’re welcome, park dwellers. I take my payment in singles.

My babies cried most of the way home, hot and exhausted, and I hustled them inside our house for naps. They were both pretty worked up, so I held them close and rocked them. I read a few books. I sang their favorite lullabies. They calmed down and went to sleep.

Some stuff sucks with babies.
Like the zoo on field trip day.
And nursing in parking lots.

But this day right here? This is the tiniest, teensiest, most precious moment in time when they both fit in my lap. And they both just need a whispered rendition of “You are my sunshine” for their lives to be right again. That’s all. Just my lap and a sweet song and they are off to sleep with tired smiles on their faces.

And you know what?
I love that.
I really, really love that.

Parenthood often feels like a secret club. Not the good kind of secret club with complicated handshakes and easier admission into Ivy League schools; the kind of secret club with a membership clause which states “do not tell non-parents about what goes on here, or else the population of planet Earth will shrink and then be no more.” I mean, I guess there are complicated handshakes, but only because one hand is probably covered in human excrement and the other hand is trying to keep the stroller in constant motion so the baby doesn’t wake up. So yeah, handshakes are difficult.

This is not to say that I don’t love being a parent. Just read any of my other sappy posts about my kids. Like this one, this one, or this one.

However.

I decided to potty train Clara. And thus the heavens opened up and declared, “Ye shall be tested, Jessie Horney. And ye shall be found in need of patience and grace. And probably a shower.”

I like to get advice before I start just about anything. I don’t like rules, but I collect advice in mental binders lined up and catalogued deep in my brain. It is odd to me when people don’t want advice – you don’t have to use it, but wouldn’t you like to hear it? Maybe it will be useful later, you know? It’s like women who don’t want to take a birth class before they have a baby. Really? You’re just gonna wing it? Instead of skimming from the experience of all women since time began as well as the medical advice of practiced and wise doctors? Another HUMAN is coming out of your BODY. To me, this necessitates at least a few tips or tricks.

So before I started potty training, I gathered wisdom from many sources. My mom and Sam’s mom (who, between the two of them, have potty trained 12 children. I mean.) I asked my sisters, my friends, cousins, and even the world wide web. And I started to notice a trend.

Everyone hates potty training. And I mean EVERYONE. Everything I read, everyone I talked to, they all basically said the same thing:
It’s going to suck. It will not be fun. And she might not be ready.

My cousin Yael sent me a potty-training manual which claimed unfettered success in as little as 3 days. 3 days? Sign me up, man! I decided to leave the haters behind, to put my head and heart full into the process, and prove the world wrong.
Potty training would be fun. And it would be easy. And I would be its master.

Clara is 20 months old, which some say is too young to take out of diapers. In fact, this 3-day method I used says that no child is ready to be fully toilet trained until they are at least 22 months old. And by fully trained I mean no accidents when the 3 days are up. None. But I had a few reasons to start now:
1. I’m tired of buying diapers for two kids.
2. I know kids who were trained way earlier than this.
3. Clara gets a diaper rash every single day. Every. Single. Day. I don’t mean some innocuous rash, either. I mean a painful awful rash that makes me grimace every time I see it and makes her cry in pain whenever I have to change her. I have done everything in the world to make it stop. Tried every diaper brand in the world. Used every medical and non-medical cream (and if one more person tries to tell me that mother f-ing coconut oil is going to solve it, I will flip). The only way we’ve been able to keep it at bay is by using cloth wipes and absolutely pasting her with Desitin every time we change her. She still gets a rash every day, but it doesn’t get as bad, and it usually clears up pretty quick. So this is my main motivation to get her out of diapers: I just feel bad for the poor girl.

Keeping these reasons in the forefront of my mind, I prepared to kick ass at potty training. I made meals and healthy snacks ahead of time so I wouldn’t have to be busy in the kitchen. I bought cute tiny undies. I put away any textiles or toys that I cared about and laid comforters over my living room rug. I was ready. I was excited.

What? I love my rug, ok?

But how cute, I know, I know!

The first time Clara peed on the floor, her eyes widened in shock as a puddle formed beneath her. She froze and whispered, “Hot, Mama. Hot.” I rushed her into the bathroom and explained again about where we go potty. I changed her undies, gave her a big hug, and told her she was doing great.

The 7th time Clara peed on the floor, I knew it was going to be a long first day. She’d been wearing a diaper her entire life, living in a dreamy freedom of release with no consequences, all day and night. Now I was asking her to learn when that release was coming, run into another room, drop her pants and do it on a hard plastic seat. I mean, I get it. That’s a lot to learn.

By the third day of my little plan, I was desperate but determined. For every success there is a very large amount of failure. Seriously considering quitting the whole endeavor, I sent two desperate SOS signals via e-mail. I keep a short list of smart and normal moms on hand for when I have no idea what to do with my kids. I’d highly recommend the practice. Both of my wise friends told me to keep going, and poured out some much needed encouragement. I decide to push on.

Starting. To. Lose it.

A picture of the 78th time we read Go Dog Go, waiting for Clara to Go Go GO.

Morning of Day 4: I am exhausted. Clara is exhausted. Sam is sick of doing laundry. Smooch probably has six pounds of chewed up gum piled in the pit of her stomach because that is the only currency she’ll accept in this twisted black market of pee and poop. I am willing to make her a peppermint Trident millionaire if she will just GO IN THE TOILET. She has one great moment where she tells me she has to go and actually makes it in time, despite being 3 blocks from home in our stroller. In other news, I can sprint when necessary.

Night of Day 4: Sam and I go on a much-needed date. I haven’t left the house since we started training (as dictated by the 3 day method). We take the baby but leave Clara with two capable 7th graders, a couple of girls we love and trust. Also the only people who don’t know how bad potty training blows. They promise they’ll get her to go potty. AND THEY DO. TWICE. With no accidents. We cautiously rejoice.

Date night. Even baby Sam needs a drink by now.

Morning of Day 5: Clara makes it all the way through church with dry undies. Amazing. It’s been almost 24 hours since she had an accident. I swell with pride, pulling a muscle in my shoulder as I hardily pat myself on the back.

Afternoon of Day 5: Everything goes to hell. Clara is in open rebellion to our efforts. She pees in the kitchen. She pees in her bedroom. She pees in her high chair. We shut ourselves in the bathroom with her and make a silent agreement that she is not leaving until she goes on the potty. She catches on to our plotting and pounds on the door, telling us it’s “stuck.” We try to distract her with jokes and songs. We  plead. We get serious. She takes an obvious “I have to pee” stance, dancing around with a pained look on her face. I sit her on the potty. She cries and gets off. I put her back on the potty. She yells, kicks, stiffens her entire body, and gets off again. The blue in her eyes turns to ice as she slams shut the plastic lid of her little potty chair, then slowly places one foot on top of it in a Captain Morgan pose. She crosses her arms and pees all over the bathroom floor in absolute silence. We have become hostages in a four foot by three foot laminate jail cell, and our jailer is daring us to do something about it.

Motherhood at its finest.

Double-fisting. Probably wondering which room to pee in next.

Later that afternoon of Day 5: Clara wets her bed during nap time. She has never peed in her bed during this entire process, and we know she’s upping the ante. We change her bedding, give her a kiss, and put her back in her crib.

10 minutes later on the afternoon of Day 5: She wets her bed again. With what bodily fluid I do not know because how can someone this small have so much to release? Is she some kind of witch doctor, conjuring up urine at a moment’s notice? We change her bedding again, put her back to bed, and collapse in stunned silence on our couch.

Sam closes his eyes. “I think I’m starting to hate my daughter.”

I crack my neck. “I’m imagining slapping her. And it feels good.”

Sam laughs. “Well that’s funny because I was just imagining giving her a swirly in the toilet.”

I sit up with a groan. “I think- and call me crazy- but I THINK the fact that we are sitting here fantasizing about slapping our daughter might mean it’s time to call it. Let’s put her in a diaper and take a break. Do you think so? Should we?”

Clara has been back in diapers for two days now and peace is once again restored in our home. Along with her rash. And a $40 diaper purchase at Target. I’m not sure how long of a break I’ll take. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe I’ll let her kindergarten teacher give it a shot. Either way, the gum is put away for now and I haven’t mopped up a puddle in over 48 hours, so things are definitely looking up. As I write all of this down, I realize that she really was starting to understand what to do. But she was also absolutely terrified of the toilet. She would NOT sit on it without crying and screaming, and I’m just not willing to engage in that kind of a power struggle with an irrational toddler who can barely speak English. So…

We wait.

Sincerely,
the worst potty trainer ever (off to pour myself a well-deserved drink),

I vacuumed Clara’s room recently, setting her laundry hamper in the hall and propping furniture up so I could get to every surface. We don’t spend a whole lot of time in there, in the ‘nursery,’ and her carpet still looks pretty new. But today as I pushed and pulled the vacuum in uneven lines across the rug, I noticed a matted down spot. The spiraled fibers lay flat in an odd shaped pattern, not quite a circle, not quite a square. It was the carpet space directly in front of her crib, tamped down to a practically smooth surface, in a spot precisely the size of two grown up feet. It made me pause, that little mushed spot, because it is such tangible evidence of the two grown ups who have stood there so many times. There we are, tucking in the corners of the sheets before we brought home our teensy five pound daughter. There we are, staring at our sleeping newborn, touching her ribcage to make sure of its rise and fall. And there we are pacing on those painful nights of teething. Trading spots on the worst nights, handing over the baby and trying to sleep in between turns. Rocking and stepping in that forever slow dance of caretakers, a sway somehow built into our bones before we even knew we were parents. Tying the ribbons of the much-researched and debated crib liners, an argument between broken limbs or suffocation. Neither was likely, let’s get real, but first time parents are what they are, those darling people. There we are humming, there we are laughing, there we are, delighted to see you once again, cheeks pink from sleep and arms stretched eagerly towards us. That carpet is flattened because we could not leave your side, sweet Clara. It is a worn away spot in our home that never saw any attention before you came along. I never even knew such an important square of space could exist, such a physical representation of the subtle pressing down you have done in our lives, until the carpet is still carpet, but it can never look the same. I felt wistful as I vacuumed over it, so very aware that you will soon move to a bigger bed, out of your crib and far away from those days and nights when we raced to your room because we simply could not stand to miss a second of your life.
I love you, Smoochie girl. On your most rotten days and in your most tender moments, I love you with a heart that is mushed beyond recognition. It is a privilege to be your mom. It is a privilege to call you daughter.
 

Oh my gosh, we’ve dragged our kids coast to coast the last few weeks (literally) and we are glad to be back in our own house. Last night we had to drive home from Washington, so we decided to leave late enough that Clara could watch yet another mind-melting episode of Bubble Guppies on the iPad and then fall asleep in her seat. We fed her dinner, nursed the baby, gave them both a bath and clean jammies, loaded up the car and took off.

Now, listen. When faced with a 6+ hour car ride with a toddler and a 3 month old, you find yourself in a state of constant prayer. There’s really nothing that brings me closer to the Lord than my silent pleas for the children to sleep, Lord Jesus. May they be smothered in sleep until we pull into our driveway.  They are too young for a roadtrip to be anything but torture by carseat buckles, so the only way to survive sans weeping and gnashing of tiny teeth is to travel by moonlight. SO. Last night. We prepare as much as possible. We say sad goodbyes to Nona and Poppi. We get on the road. Around 10:00 p.m. we’ve been driving for two hours and Clara has. not. stopped. talking.

 Only the fool makes plans for a baby to follow. I’m gonna stitch that on pillows as baby shower gifts from now on.

I recorded 3 minutes of her chatter. You will not regret listening to this. I often wish she had a twin so they could speak this language together, because I really do feel bad that no one understands her. She has a lot of words, and even decent English sentences, but no where near the vocabulary required for the kind of stories she has to tell. This one involves snacks, Jesus Bible songs, going bye-bye, her brother, and a lot about the moon.
Good luck.

This girl, you guys. She’s such a ball buster. I’m so glad she’s ours 🙂

This time of toddlerhood is hard. I think, like Heather said, it may be a time of darkness. Clara will come out on the other side of this more independent, more herself than she’s ever been. And just like when I burrowed into my own darkness all those years ago, we are not alone here. There is a tendency to fear the dark. We install nightlights, we avoid the streets, and we dread the times in our lives when everything is just absolute crap. We want the light. But listen: 

My friend stopped by the other day to visit. After she’d been here a few minutes she said, sheepishly, “I watched a baby last weekend and I felt bad because I didn’t think it was very fun. It was actually not fun at all to have a baby AND my toddler around. It was stressful.”

I looked at her, wide-eyed, mouth dropped open in an incredulous ha ha kind of laugh.
“Oh, yeah. Listen. It is NOT fun having two little kids. We are not having fun over here.”

And I meant it.

When I was pregnant with Sam and people found out how close our kids would be in age, anyone who had kids the same distance apart would tell me the exact same thing:
      The first year will blow. After that it’s all worth the trouble.

Obviously I didn’t believe them because I love Clara sooo much and also I am a really good mom and also I used to direct camps and run after school programs for hundreds of kids and also how much harder could two kids be than one?

Oh my gosh. So much harder. It’s so much harder, you guys. What did I ever think was difficult about ONE baby?

And now Clara is driving me crazy.

Living with a toddler is like living with a cranky foreign exchange student. Who also poops her pants. She speaks very little English, yet has mastered enough words to convey her extreme displeasure whenever I don’t know what she wants/doesn’t want/thinks she doesn’t want/wanted a few seconds ago but now is outraged that I think she still wants it. Sometimes it feels like every new phrase she learns is simply a new weapon in her arsenal. She’s smart. Really smart. I appreciate her social awareness and wicked sense of humor, and I know that she is a sharp girl. But guess what? I don’t care how smart she is, I just want her to stop yelling at me about everything. This morning she started asking me WHY. Can you imagine? As I’m wiping poop off of HER butt, she has the audacity to ask me WHY she can’t wear two pairs of pajamas at once. Look, kid, in the hierarchy of life, those who do the butt wiping make decisions for those whose butts are being wiped. End of story.

A lot of people tried to comfort me as Sam’s birth approached, assuring me that I would always have enough love for both of my babies, that I would love the new baby as much as Clara, that mourning my time with her was normal.

And I was like, What’s that now? I should feel sad about a new baby coming? 
I never worried about loving both of my kids. I never worried about losing any precious alone time with Smooch. I felt exactly the opposite: I was sad to miss out on the magic of the first year with my son, because I knew I would be busy with my daughter. I wanted to give him that same experience I gave Clara, to sleep in together and stare into his eyes for hours and spend every minute getting to know each other, but it isn’t possible. Instead I spend most of my time protecting him from Clara’s loving hands. And fingers. And gigantic loving head. I’m just praying that he is translating every thwarted head-butt and quickly diverted ‘let me lay across your tiny rib cage’ lingering hug as a Mama loves you, baby. Because safety equals love, right? Maslow said that, RIGHT?
 Right.

I wanted our kids close together. I wanted to give them the joy of close friendship and a life of being raised in the same pack. So I’m happy we were able to get pregnant when we wanted to, and every time Clara wakes up from a nap and immediately asks where her brother is, I swell with adoration for my babies. We’re getting the hang of this. Every day gets better with these guys, and we’re slowly finding our new rhythm of being at home together, of being four instead of three, and of finding space for a 19 month old and a 3 month old in our patience, understanding, and willingness to laugh at the bad times. Because surprise! There are bad times. But there are also moments of sweet wonder, when the gray light of morning is creeping over our bed full of sleeping babies, and I can’t believe how much love can even fit in one house.

So yeah. It’s not always fun having two little kids. But it is wonderful. It is funny. It is good.
Even when one of them is calling you ‘Jess’ and refusing to eat the apple that she JUST ASKED TO EAT.

Happy Tuesday, guys. Take a deep breath, eat your damn apples, and call your mothers to tell them sorry for every tantrum you ever threw.
Love from the Horney crowd,
Jessie, Sam and the hooligans in the room next door