A few things I am realizing about being home...

Summers are really the only time I have to be a stay-at-home-mom, as most people know. What I have found over the last couple of years with Alice is that I have a tendency to freeze Alice in my mind from summer to summer, assuming that this summer is going to be the same as the summer before, etc. What I have come to realize in the last three weeks is that this summer is NOT last summer. Even though I saw my daughter everyday, I didn't fully understand what it was like to be with her everyday. Here are a few things that I has really caught be off guard about this summer, when (surprise, surprise) I realized I had a two-year old this time around and not a one-year-old

1. Cleaning a house with a two-year-old is A LOT different than cleaning a house with a one-year-old. Instead of getting a room cleaned once a day and call it good, it's more like taking all day to clean the same room over and over again.

2. Two-year-olds talk A LOT. Especially mine. Even if she doesn't have anything to say, she still talks. Here is an example of a conversation that happens 5 - 10 times daily in my house:
Alice: Mommy
Me: What?
Alice: Mommy
Me: What?
Alice: Mommy
Me: What?
Alice: Mommy
Me: What?
Alice: Mommy
Me: Alice, if you don't say something, you're going to bed to take a nap.
Alice: Hi, Mommy

Yeah. Alice didn't talk so much last year.

3. Feeding a two-year-old is a lot more difficult than feeding a one-year-old, especially if the two year old talks (refer to number 2). And Alice has decided that she is going to be the pickiest eater on the face of the planet. As an example, here's the conversation we shared over a PB&J Sandwich today.
Alice: Mommy, I want a sammich
Me: Okay. I'm making you a sammich.
Alice: I can't like a sammich. I want a hot dog
Me: Well, we don't have hot dogs, and I made you a sammich.
Alice: I can't like sammich. Hot dog.
Me: No. If you don't eat the sammich then you can go to bed and take a nap.
Alice: I wanna go night-night.
Me: Fine (I start to take the sandwich away so she can go to bed, since it was nap time)
Alice: No! My Sammich! I love my sammich! I no go night night. I can't like it.

4. Two-year-olds are a lot heavier, especially when you are hefting them up three flights of stairs. It's even worse if you're 35 weeks pregnant. Most of the time, I try to make Alice walk the stairs, and she usually does, but once in a while, if it's really hot, she's really tired, and I don't have the patience to be on the blazing hot stairs while she stops to examine every rock, I give in and carry her up. Which is a lot harder when you weigh 25 pounds more than last year, and you daughter weighs about 10 pounds more than last year. But sometimes, I just have to, especially when Alice turns to me and says, "Mommy, Alice too heavy. I carry you?" And then puts out her arms to be carried. What can I say? If someone was standing by that would carry me up the stairs every time I decided to be cute, I would never walk up on my own.

5. There is no shame in your daughter watching two hours of Kipper the Dog so mommy can take a nap in the morning. Because I can't train Alice to sleep in this year by leaving her in the crib if she wakes up too early, like I did last year. This year, Alice walks in our bedroom anywhere from 5 AM to 8 AM (depending on how well she slept the night before) gets in Joe's face (or mine if she sleeps in beyond Joe leaving for work) and saying (very loudly) "Hey! I awake!"

All in all, I have learned a lot about my daughter that I kind of knew before, but not really. As a result, I have a few things to say,

Mom, I realize now why you never listened to me. I talked so much, who knew if I really ever had anything valuable to say?

Jackie, I wasn't paying you nearly enough money. I am sorry. The only consolation I can offer you is this: At least she didn't "puppy kiss" you (which really is what you think it is: licking. Ew.)

My First Week Home...

Alice did this:


It's not a great picture, because I was stupid and didn't take one when it was really dramatic, but it's stitches, or the scar from stitches she received on my last day of work. Poor Jackie--she had to rush Alice to the ER while I was at graduation watching my feet swell, and Joe had to take the day off to cover for me. But that's not all.

The day before I had to take Alice to get the stitches out, she did this:

I took this picture this morning, after Alice has had a day or so to look better. Yes, this is looking good compared to yesterday, when her eye was swollen shut, or the night before when she looked like she had been hit with a stinging hex, like on Deathly Hallows. Or Igor, is another reference that seems to fit. Poor Joe was with her when she tripped over some shoes of some teenager's at the Arctic Circle play area and met the stair with her eye. He was practically in tears when he brought her home and told me that I had to take her to the ER because he couldn't handle it. I decided to wait until the morning, since I was had to take her there anyway to get her stitches out.

I tried to hold it together until Alice went to bed so she wouldn't get scared, but as soon as she went down, I fell apart. I try not to cry in front of Alice or Joe because Alice gets scared, and Joe blames himself for whatever I'm crying about, but I couldn't help it this time. Alice looked so bad, we couldn't see any sort of bone structure under her eyes, and I was convinced that she would need reconstructive surgery. Then, I couldn't sleep all night because visions of blood clots and strokes haunted me. Finally, I couldn't take it, and I crawled into bed with her so I could monitor her breathing. Alice rolled over, woke up, and saw me. She put her hand softly on my cheek and said, "Hi, Mommy. I otay. I all better now." Then rolled over and went back to sleep. I felt calm after that and decided to go back to my own bed.

And then I got up four more times to check on her.

This is why we don't have boys in my family, I guess. Because we FREAK out. And because Alice is more than enough trouble for both of us. Yesterday, then, I took my mom to the ER with me for a witness that I don't really beat my child, and to hold down the freakishly strong Alice when they took her stitched out.

And then my mom made me go to Arctic Circle to "firmly let the manager know what happens when they don't follow their own rules" (shoes are supposed to be kept on at all times, and no one over 48 inches tall is supposes to be playing. Both of which were not being enforced). It's no wonder I became a teacher. My mom is such a rule-follower, and gets upset when no one else is. I think rule-following is an inherited trait, which is why, I assume, I have always gotten upset, even in fourth grade, when grammar rules weren't followed. How else can we communicate when no one follows the rules? So, I (a little too politely for my mom's taste) informed the manager what happens when people don't follow the rules. And then we got ice cream.

The plan this week was to get portraits for Father's Day. And to take Alice to a friend from High School's wedding to brag to my old boyfriend about how pretty my kid is when his are ugly. Oh, Alice. You do have a way of humbling me.