sigh.

this week has left me, us, very weary.  both kids, i'm happy to report, are out of the woods regarding their new year ailments.  i myself have another cold under my belt for 2012, but so far the kids seem immune to it (curiously).  however, when babies get sick, it's not like adults or even older children.  it's not a day of malaise, three or so of real misery, and then a day or two more to recover.  it lasts weeks, between the terrible sleep, then returning to a normal sleep schedule.  refusing all food, then reacquainting with solids that were an unfamiliar experience even before.  you can't tell a baby to eat this, sleep now, drink that, take this medicine, and so, any illness reverbs, literally, for weeks.

bean is definitely back to her old self, experimenting with new foods (and asking for "mo" or "mas" particularly in regard to chocolate), reading, laughing, dancing, singing, and adding exponentially to her vocabulary.  she is saying a few new words every day, it seems, and finally tries to repeat all words back when we're reading together.  she continues to impress us with her letter recognition as well.  today she said her first two sentences: "reesee's sad" and "reesee's happy."  both accurately.

reese is using his ninth month to make up for the first eight in which he was perfect.  realizing he'd set the bar awfully high and was thus risking a
lifetime of disappointment, he decided to fall from grace in his babyhood when his fat rosy cheeks still somewhat compensate for it.  my little angel baby who i never heard cry since the day of his birth cried for about two straight weeks between his terrible cold and then what we chalked up to teething once his other symptoms resolved.  his behavior during the day is thankfully a little more status quo, although he's not as content to just play by himself all day as he once was, but his sleep has turned into an ugly monster of a problem that scares me before bed each night.  he is up screaming HOURLY and awake for the day at 6am.

it's a cruel trick of nature, but i know that sound sleepers suddenly shirk those good habits without warning and have spurts of restless sleep.  i define a spurt as a few days.  we're going on two weeks now and it's worse every. single. night.  i was so fed up/exhausted last night that i finally went to sleep on the couch (again, sleeping arrangements and space in general in this apartment is not ideal) while he screamed his bloody head off for 1.5 straight hours at 5am.  i always try to comfort myself in those situations by saying "they can't cry like that forever," but he's working on it.

additionally, he's definitely in that phase, right around the time bean was, where he doesn't want to sit anywhere.  no carseat, no high chair, no stroller, no diaper changes.  thrusting, screaming, crying, and inevitably hitting his head on something.  he's no longer interested in cereal and purees and has been subsisting entirely off of lentils, of all things...he really surprised me tonight when, out of curiosity, i gave him a little bite of rice and split peas that bean and i were eating, and he munched away on it happily, followed by a few generous mouths of blueberry cake.  clearly, he does not have the same textural issues as his sister.  so, maybe he's just ready to graduate from grain cereal and purees!

sometimes babies have behavioral issues that correspond with big developmental changes, and this week we have watched the big boy become very agile, easily moving from sitting to crawling and back.  that's a big step toward independence, i think.  he also started talking in consonants, mostly "dadadadada," which bean recognizes as understandable language, so now they have lengthy conversations which each other, which is pretty cute.  not as cute as sleeping several hours straight, though.

overall, i'm really exhausted by these kids right now.  reese's increasing demands make it difficult to attend to bean in the way she's accustomed, which can lead to a lot of tantrums, depending on the day.  between the staggered naps and meals, mood swings, refusal to sit in anything, and cold weather to boot, life right now is day after day after day of confinement to two rooms with zero privacy, quiet, or solitude, and almost constant whining/crying/screaming.  i think often as i wheel my screaming children through public and people look on sorrowfully if they're aware of how absolutely god awful it is to hear that sound constantly, all day, and now, most of the night.  they might reconsider who they feel sorry for.

the other morning they were particularly needy and after feeding and changing both of them, i had to pump, which i have to do sitting on the floor or they scream because they can't reach me.  they were climbing, crawling, tugging, whining, pulling apart the pump, and reese has taken to climbing with all limbs and his mouth with his sharp little snaggle tooth that has left puncture marks all over my body...i literally felt like i was being eaten alive by parasites.  their little hands get into everything, ripping, tearing, destroying everything in their paths.  it's difficult to feel like you can never, ever do anything...not just anything you want to, but anything you need to...can't drink anything, it will get knocked over.  can't go to the bathroom, they scream because they can't be held.  can't even look at the kitchen or bean will pitch such a fit she will turn blue--no cooking, no eating, no doing dishes.  day to day, there is not a lot of joy in parenting right now.  THERE.  i said it.

however, once in awhile, i'll get a day where the stars align and the kids busy themselves long enough for me to drink a glass of water and make us all some lunch, take a nap at the same time so i can drink some hot tea and read a few pages in a book.  and suddenly my faith is restored in...the world?  justice?  equity?  humanity?  obviously i never lose my faith in the kids--i'm very aware they can't control their behavior.  that's what makes it so difficult.  they're irrational, demanding, illogical, and mercurial, they take, take, take, and really there's no good option but to give, give, give...but that's a tremendous, burdensome strain, it's contrary to everything we know and understand about relationships.  it saddens me that their proximity in age prohibits me from enjoying either of their babyhoods much...i'm just really looking forward to one or both of them moving on to the next phase as soon as possible.  but, trite as it sounds, there are moments of laughter, of tenderness, of discovery and curiosity, concern and companionship and understanding, few and far between as they may be on some days, that really do make it more than worth it.  and for the rest of the hours of the day, i will steadfastly cling to my knitting needles, my saving grace and comfort, the singular "me" activity that carries through all this adversity, and dream of when i can disappear here sometime maybe in the not so distant future...

we have been accumulating some serious work hours in preparation for a trip we're taking to california in a week.  david has one more day of work to go before a two week break!  for someone who only works two days a week in theory, i have found myself a little too present between the walls of my hospital, picking up a lot of extra shifts, sometimes in the icu, today in the er.  it was neat to see the very different workflow that david is a part of daily.  i never thought that was something i'd enjoy, but i actually thought it was pretty fun.

however, we have managed to get out once or twice, and of course, work on some knitting projects!

we celebrated jeannette's birthday with a kid-free-adults-only brunch at the signature room in the hancock building.  we were all a little off kilter without the kids running around, but managed to have some adult fun.

we presented her with this silk mohair cowl i started in my xmas knit withdrawal stage.  it's my most serious lace project to date and also my first beaded project, 300 tiny (so tiny you can't see them here) little glinting beads shimmied onto knit loops on a hair thin wire, to be exact...never have a screwed up a pattern so badly and still ended up with a presentable, even rather nice, result.  but i'd like to knit it again now that i figured it out, just for curiosity's sake!







david and i had our first date in several weeks, which we celebrated by seeing the third movie in a theater of our entire relationship.  we braved a legitimate blizzard (wherein i very chivalrously lent him my hat seeing as i had a long scarf, a hood, and hair) to enjoy some italian pints followed by a small feast at xoco, a favorite mexican restaurant.


we were enjoying ourselves so much that we were running a few minutes behind to see tinker tailor soldier spy, but were relieved to find a showing of war horse was set to start right on time for us.  given how much we enjoy films about war and animals, and the best picture nods, we figured we couldn't go wrong.  i left the movie with one burning question...have the people who nominated war horse for best picture actually seen war horse?  we finished the evening with dad making a pit stop in the theater bathrooms on the way out and dropping my hat in the urinal.  perhaps it's best to avoid movie theaters altogether in the future.





other than that, i finished the girl who played with fire, very entertaining and easy to read.  and finally finished up what was meant to be a baby gift and turned into a rather major care package consisting of several minor gifts for my dear friend alyssa who should have welcomed another little one sometime this week.
 
  


this week's recipes were toasted millet pilaf and winter vegetable stew with maple glazed tofu.  bean liked the tofu but didn't much care for the stew, david and i felt neutral, and reese ate more of that soup than any of us in a few breaks from lentils.  even when the recipes aren't ones we'll hurry to return to, it has been pretty nice having large, warm pots of nutritious and interesting foods around every week.

our plan is to enjoy our beautiful little bean's company as much as possible the next few days because we say goodbye to her for TWO WEEKS this saturday.  she's off to michigan while we head to california.  i don't want to think about it!