When Irish eyes (aren't) smiling

Nine years ago today, I saw a cute guy with a glowing Miller Lite shamrock button across the bar. I wanted the button, he wanted my digits and the rest is history. So, if it wasn't for beer, these three little leprechauns wouldn't exist.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone from me and my little pots of gold. And a happy meetiversary to Josh, the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, besides finding my new Hunter boots. Let's not be ridiculous.


Could they ever all smile at the same time again? Just once?

The never-ending ear infection

I took Emmie in for her two-week ear recheck today only to find she has another ear infection. Or maybe the same one from two weeks ago that never fully went away. We'll never know.

What I do know is that the day after she finished her big-gun antibiotic (Omnicef) she started dripping snot all over the place, coughing up a lung and woke up multiple times per night.

Now she's on the Z-pack. Thanks to her delightful penicillin allergy, she's a little limited on the drug choices. If the new meds can't kick it, then it looks like tubes for Miss Em.

She probably didn't get rid of the infection on purpose because she knew more visits to the doctor meant more crack Dora stickers. She started happily screaming "Ticker! Dorda! Dorda ticker!" as we walked into the office. She even willingly ran into the exam room and sat on the table like a big girl.

Perhaps I should invest in a sleeve of these stickers for home use. I could have her loading the dishwasher and taking out the garbage in no time.

Fevered pitch

This is what a 104.1 degree temperature, coupled with a double ear infection and strep looks like.



Poor Emmie. She started acting like a lunatic on Friday afternoon. We stopped at the park after school and because she didn't have her snowpants, I told her she could only go in the swing. After about three minutes, she started protesting that she wanted out and I told her if she got out, she would go straight in the stroller and we'd have to head home.

She still wanted out, so homeward bound we were. With Emmie screaming her fool head off the entire way. She screamed the two blocks home, all the way into the house and for a solid 15 minutes after we walked in the door. I was all "What is your deal? Knock it off." I even went so far as to walk away and tell her to let me know when she was done.

Eventually she calmed down and I forgot about it. The next day, Saturday, she went swimming and to Jack's soccer class and acted fine. After Josh got her up from her nap, she was red-cheeked and clingy. I touched her neck and it was hot hot hot.

A temperature check revealed she was at a solid 103.3 degrees. Awesome. Motrin and some extra love seemed to help, but after multiple nightwakings, I suspected an ear infection. When she was a cool 104.1 the next morning, I called for an appointment. Hooray for seven-day-a-week pediatricians.

He confirmed mom's diagnosis of an ear infection -- times two -- and added that she had strep. Well isn't that just dandy? I remarked that it should be no time at all before Maeve had it, but our doctor said it's incredibly rare for babies less than a year old to contract strep. Small favors, I guess.

After a few days of antibiotics, she is almost back to normal. That means she's still screaming and crying over little things and sticking her germy face and fingers up in Maeve's grill all day.

I'm sure she'll be fine just in time for Jack to come down with it. Or me. Please God, don't let it be me.

Be mine

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there. I realize it's a day late and $15 dollars short (damn that inflation), but as you can tell from the expressions on all their faces, it was one of those days.



And yes, that was the best shot of the bunch.

Dance dance revolution

Behold the cute: my little ballerina at her very first dance class. I might have died from the adorableness of it all.

Puke-tastic

Last year, the day before her birthday, Emmie woke up from her nap covered in puke. That was really awesome. Today, almost exactly a year later, she puked her shit again, this time all over the living room area rug.

If you've never tried to clean a seven-year-old Ikea rug with a Hoover carpet cleaner, well then you've never lived. Not only does my entire house now smell like puke, it smells like wet puke. You're welcome if you just threw up in your mouth.

I was still sleeping, but word on the street from Grandpa was that one minute she was playing nicely and the next, she was yakking all over herself and the rug while Jack stood by yelling, "Emmie is growing up! Emmie is growing up!" Later we corrected him, you know, when we weren't cleaning chunks out of the rug.

My mom woke me up with the news and I came downstairs to find Emmie running around as if nothing ever happened, the rug covered in towels and Jack immersed in a play-by-play of the events of the morning.

Again, Grandpa was a trooper. The man had never changed a diaper until this year, despite having raised two daughters of his own, but this is the second time he has cleaned up after a puking grandchild. The man deserves a medal for this performance, seriously.

Emmie seemed herself most of the day, but we didn't let her eat anything except a few pretzels and a small container of applesauce. She refused to drink any Pedialyte or apple juice and since we wouldn't let her have her beloved milk, she settled begrudgingly for small amounts of water. By dinner time, she had regained her appetite and wolfed down some turkey, a bite of toast, 1.5 cereal bars and two oatmeal raisin cookies.

The most amusing part of the entire day, however, came when she accidentally slammed her fingers in the cabinet door. She was screaming bloody murder and Jack ran up the stairs and yelled in the most excited voice I have ever heard him muster, "Is Emmie throwing up again?!" Apparently, her vomiting made quite the impression on him.

When I asked him before bed tonight what his favorite part of the day was, he didn't even hesitate.

"When Emmie got sick!" he said. Perhaps we won't need to save any money for medical school, seeing as his bedside manner leaves something to be desired.

Emmie: Two years

Dear Emmie,

Happy 2nd birthday big girl! I'm pretty sure there has to be a mistake because there's no way you are actually two whole years old, but then I look back and realize yep, you really are.



I thought you changed a lot in your first year, but wow, year two was just as amazing. You started out not even being able to walk, with no teeth and no ability to communicate with us. You ended being able to run and gallop, with 10 teeth and speaking your mind on a variety of topics in two- and three-word phrases.

Your personality has grown along with your body this past year. You love baby dolls and cats and going outside. You hate being denied a request for a snack, your brother taking toys away from you and having your fingernails cut. Oh my God, the fingernail cutting -- you act like I am trying to pull them out one by one instead of simply cutting them slightly. You love to take your socks off, but love to put your shoes on.



This last year's biggest change happened when you became a big sister. While I was pregnant with Maeve, you had to become a lot more independent because I couldn't lift you up. So you learned to crawl into the stroller, the high chair and your car seat by yourself. You spent a lot of time with your grandmas and grandpas when I was out of commission with surgeries or hospital stays and you really bonded with Daddy when he took over bedtime and bath duty for a few months. After Jack, Daddy is definitely your favorite person. I call you "Mini Josh" because you look so much like him. But thankfully, despite my limitations, you never wavered in your delightful outlook on life. When Maeve finally came along, you were so excited. You loved her from the minute you saw her and learned to say "Mafe" right away. You beg me to hold her, sitting on the couch and patting your legs yelling, "Lap, Mafe! Lap, Mafe!" You run to get the pacifier whenever she cries and you love to pat her head and hands. There's an occasional eye-poke, but you like to poke everyone in the eye, so I don't think Maeve should take it personally.



Your relationship with Jack was very up and down this last year, meaning you spent a lot of time hitting the ground while looking up at him crying. You took your licks from him, but in doing so, became a tough little girl. You run around at the playground and bounce off other kids without a second thought. You stand your ground when it comes to staking out territory in the sandbox and you're not giving up a favored toy without a fight. As the year went on, and you were able to run and jump and communicate, Jack started taking more of an interest in you and actually playing with you instead of pushing you around. The two of you jump from the ottoman to the couch and laugh hysterically. You play "ship" with Daddy by pushing the toyboxes and little chairs and couches together. You love sharing a bath with Jack, splashing him and dumping water on each other. You kiss and hug each other goodnight every night. When we take Jack to school in the morning, you always look a little sad, but when we pick him up, you are genuinely excited to see him.



You are fearless when it comes to running, jumping and climbing. I can't keep up with you at the playground because you do all three of those things at once, thinking you are one of the big kids. I beg you to stay in the sandbox and then you laugh and run to the slide. You love the pool and the lake, fearlessly jumping in and under the water and riding the jet ski with Daddy.



At every meal, you request cheese and milk, which you call "num num ma," and love "okurt" (yogurt), "bockee" (broccoli) and "appasass" (applesauce). If we let you, you would shun all bread products and go on the Atkins diet. And your love for cereal bars borders on addiction -- you have one with every meal and if we don't provide you with one, you break down into a screaming mess. Needless to say, we buy them in bulk and we're going broke doing so.



Bedtime is awesomely easy and has been for just about all of the last year. You take a bath, brush your teeth, get your jammies on, read "Goodnight Moon" and we put you in your crib and you go to sleep with three fingers on your right hand in your mouth. Just like that. You play the music on crib soother, Turtle, and we don't hear from you again for the next 12 hours. Hopefully things will stay this easy for the rest of time.



While there are a lot of things you love in life, your fascination with "The Wiggles" creeps dangerously close to obsession. "Go-gee-goes," as you call the show, is the one thing we can use to get your attention. We can use it as a bribe, a reward, a promise or a calming technique. You can be throwing the world's biggest tantrum and if we offer up "The Wiggles," you stop crying, run to the couch, sit down with your legs sticking straight out and your fingers in your mouth, in rapt attention. You also enjoy "Ee-go" (Diego) and "Door-dah" (Dora), but not nearly as much as your beloved Wiggles.

I love that you are my cuddly girl. You crawl up in my lap just before lunch time almost every day and lay your head on my chest, happy to just chill for several minutes. You love to sit with us and read books, especially "School, School, School" and "Go, Train, Go." You also beg us to color at every opportunity, begging us to do it with you saying, "cuh-wer, cuh-wer, sit!"



You are smart, loving, energetic, adorable and fun. I am so proud of the little girl you have become. You are curious and inquisitive and you learn things so quickly. I watch you play with your dolls, seeing so much of what I do in your actions. You pick your babies up and pat their backs, kissing and hugging them. You put them in the stroller and in your little sling and carry them around, kissing them on the head. You feed them and play with them -- and incidentally, you call them all "Mafe." But watching you play with them makes me so proud as I see how caring you are.

People say that the middle child gets the shaft, because you're not the oldest and not the baby. But I will always pay special attention to you, even when you're 16 and screaming about how unfair I am and how nobody ever sees anything your way. You were my first daughter, my sweet little Emmie. With your little face, your blonde hair, your tall, skinny body and your huge brown eyes, I can't imagine life without you. You have brought us such joy this last year and I know the next will be even better.



Happy birthday sweet girl -- I love you so much.

Love,
Mommy

Happy New Year!

Nothing says 2010 quite like Trader Joe's truffle brownies, so I whipped up a batch on Wednesday. And then Josh took them to a party. A party I did not go to. Instead I stayed home with a baby on my boob for three straight hours. Seriously.

Since he thefted my precious chocolaty goodness, the same chocolaty goodness I promised my babysitting-on-New-Years-Eve-out-of-the-goodness-of-their-hearts parents, I made him go buy another box of mix on Thursday so I could whip up a batch for the new year. Oh who am I kidding -- those were going to be gone before 2009 was.

I let the kids help make the second batch. They loved it.


Sorry, daddy gets to lick the spoon.


OK, that was a lie, Mommy is licking the spoon.


But I want to lick the spoon! Damn it, I am sick of breastmilk.

Then we had a little countdown with the kids before their bedtime, complete with noisemakers and party hats. Jack loved counting down and Emmie was fascinated by the noisemakers. Maeve was pissed it held up her dinner hour by a few minutes. Also, she was not a fan of her hat. But it was jaunty! A jaunty New Year's hat for our 2009 baby!


OMFG get this hat off me.


5, 4, 3, 2, 1...


Happy New Year at 7:05 p.m.!


Let's see how many times I can blow this and annoy the shit out of Mommy.


Even Daddy was excited to ring in 2010.

Happy New Years to all! I am resolving to try and not kill or injure anyone in my family in 2010. Not sure how doable that is, considering Josh is leaving me alone with three kids all week every week, but in the immortal words of Jack, "I can just try."

Exponential fun

On several occasions this fall, Emmie spent a few days by herself at one of the grandparents' houses. Not because I like outsourcing her care, but because it was easier for everyone when I was unable to lift her or when we didn't want her to contract the Swine Flu of death. And hell, it was nice to only be responsible for one kid who is gone six hours per day and can take a shower on his own.

Jack was promised his own visits with the Grandmas when he had school vacation, and this week, he cashed in on one of those promises. He was spoiled rotten while Emmie and Maeve had sister time with mommy and daddy. Emmie was pissed and missed her brother dearly, so she was pleased as punch when he returned home this afternoon.

You would think that the addition of the third child would only raise the level of craziness in the house by a third, but you would be severely underestimating that. I am pretty sure that Jack's homecoming ratcheted up the crazy by at least 150 percent.

There was screaming and laughing and crying and tantrums within the first hour, and that was just mommy. The kids were even more insane.

Poor Maeve had just gotten used to the slightly quieter atmosphere -- I say slightly because Emmie can throw a tantrum with the best of 'em -- and now it's pandemonium again.

I am too tired to come up with a witty wrap up to this post, so we'll just abruptly end there. Sort of like my sleep schedule these days.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am currently trying to recover from bathing two children while the third one screamed bloody murder. The screamer is paying me back with a non-stop nurseathon going on three hours. And yes, I typed this entire post with one hand. Anything for you my readers, anything.

Merry Christmas

I am normally not one for sappy holiday musings, but we really did get the greatest gift of all this year. Of course, I am talking about our newest tax deduction.

May you and yours be the recipients of great gifts, good cheer and easy travels.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Here, mostly

Just wanted to update the masses that the reports of my untimely demise are totally false. The children may have taken over the house, but Josh and I are still in charge. Kind of.

The grandparents packed up and went home on Saturday morning, leaving us alone with the natives for the first time. Everyone has survived thus far.

Jack is being an exemplary big brother, curious about the breastfeeding and eager to help out in any way with Maeve. Emmie is an awesome big sister, excited to give kisses and gentle touches and always on alert for crying, and she will inform us when Maeve needs our immediate attention.

Maeve has been sleeping like a champ, routinely snoozing in six-hour stretches overnight. I have now jinxed it by saying it on the Internet and she will probably wake up every hour on the hour for the rest of my life to spite me. But she is also the gassiest baby I have ever met. I think she is going to melt the polar ice caps with all the gas she is releasing every day. Poor kid.

I am sleeping like a new mom, although Josh and the grandparents have made sure I get enough rest. I get up with Gassy Girl when she needs to be fed around the clock, but I also sleep in with her in the mornings. So that works out well.

Of course, I am in no way ready for Christmas, but I figure people are lucky I even got them a gift with a two-week-old in my house, if I don't wrap the gift, too bad.

So I wanted to get a post out there to show we are all accounted for. And yes, I have a picture of Miss Maeve, the two-week-old. I know that's why you all came here anyway.

Elbow grease

The morning after we brought Maeve home from the hospital, I was in a sleep-deprived haze when I heard a knock on the bedroom door a little after 10 a.m. My mother-in-law greeted us with a phrase I really wasn't expecting to hear.

"I think Emmie needs to go the ER," she said. "I think she dislocated her elbow or her shoulder."

That certainly got my attention. I snapped awake and asked what happened. Turns out, Emmie was being almost 2 years old and decided to throw herself on the ground while Grandma was holding her hand. Ahh, the joys of noodle children.

Josh jumped up and got dressed and I went downstairs to investigate. I found her watching "The Wiggles" and eating a snack with her left hand, refusing to use her right arm at all. Grandma said she wouldn't move it and cried when she tried to check it out. She also had three large butterfly stickers affixed to each cheek and her forehead, but I didn't even think to ask why. They seemed to make her happy, so I rolled with it. Besides, I was too tired to care why she had them there.

Sure enough, she gave me a tear-filled "No" when I tried to look at it. Seeing as there was no way I was dragging three-day-old Maeve to the germ-infested Children's Memorial Hospital ER, Josh and his mom took Emmie and I stayed home.

I must really have been tired, because this all seemed very natural and I didn't worry about it at all. She was in capable hands and I was dealing with the Nursing Nipple Pain of Death, so my mind was a little cloudy.

Less than an hour later, they were home and Emmie was no worse for wear. My mother-in-law said the nurses were kind of mean, but the urgent-care people popped the elbow back in and she was good as new. Sure, there was some crying, but again, I was so tired I forgot to be overly concerned about it.

A little Motrin and a nap and you would never know she suffered. Grandma is scarred for life. Daddy was stoked about yet another great parking spot. Mommy was just glad someone was here to take her to the hospital so she didn't have to leave the house.

And of course, now she's prone to having this happen again. And again. And again. I hope Josh took notes on the proper way to pop it back into place, because there's no way I am paying the $100 co-pay for that every few weeks.

Pictionary

I have been working on a post since Friday night but can't seem to find the time to, you know, finish writing it. Something about a newborn on the boob and sleep-deprivation. Dunno, but man, it's hard to find the time to write right now.

Let me distract you with some pictures!

The whole fam-damily

Jack and Emmie met Maeve today. They were so excited they could barely contain themselves.



Maeve was the gracious newcomer, not interrupting or talking too much about herself. Emmie greeted her with inquisitiveness about her background, where she grew up and tried to shove a hat on her head after politely shaking her foot rather than her hand. Jack wholeheartedly welcomed her with kisses and handshakes before showing her who was boss with a few ill-timed, mostly harmless whacks. He blamed her for his unfortunate incarceration in his room.

There were sibling gifts exchanged, which always breaks the ice, and everyone wondered how Maeve knew Jack liked Diego and Emmie liked babies. Maeve was pleased to receive her rattle and lovey, and asked how they could have known she needed both.

We're a five-family now. Let the fun begin.

I have two other kids, too

You'd think I forgot about my two existing children with the way I have completely ignored them on this blog as of late. But oh boy, are they pissed about the lack of attention. They told me so. So I promised them I would update the world about how awesome they are.

(If you're here for a pregnancy update, still pregnant, still contracting on an irregular basis but nothing that seems to be causing cervical change and still complaining all over the damn place about being nine-plus months pregnant and how unfair it is I have to do things like get out of bed in the morning and go grocery shopping. Josh is not swayed by arguments about these injustices. In fact, he laughs at me and tries to mimic my whining. Whatever.)

Let's start with Miss Emily Jean. This weekend she was trying to get my attention while I was surfing the Internet saving orphans in India and when I didn't snap to attention in 2.5 seconds, she started screaming, "Mom-MY, mom-MY!" And just like that, I went from Mama to Mommy. Of course that got my attention and resulted in tons of positive reinforcement like smiles and clapping on my part, so now she just screams "MOM-MYYYYYY" when she wants something. That's so many kinds of awesome I can't even describe it.

Emmie also caught an awesome cold this weekend, so she's snotting all over the place and leaving a trail of mucus in her wake. When she's not running away from me and my weapon of mass destruction (Kleenex), she's waking up in the middle of the night because she can't breathe. I really hope this keeps up because if there's one thing I don't need when I'm nine-plus months pregnant, it's a full night's sleep.

She also enjoyed her Thanksgiving. She really enjoyed her second helping of air and her third serving of whole milk. The turkey, stuffing, potatoes and broccoli she spit out and threw on the ground? Don't even mention it. No big deal.

Jackson, however, was a pure delight at the holiday table. Seriously. He sat in a regular chair (no booster) and ate politely, asked for more of everything, participated in conversation and cleaned up after himself. I have never seen a better-behaved almost-4-year-old. I complimented him numerous times and told him what a big boy he was. It was so enjoyable. Too bad his sister screamed "Oooouuuuuutttttttt" for 20 minutes at the top of her lungs.

He also attended his first circus this weekend with Josh and another friend and her dad, and a good time was had by all. He came home with a toy four-wheeler and stories about elephants and tigers and a magician. Josh came home with tales of $10 lemonades. Needless to say, Jack drank a beverage from home.

Jack returned to school today, fresh off his four-day break, excited to see his friends and teachers. When he scrambled into the car and started telling me about his day, he recounted what must have been a highlight, considering it made it into the first five minutes of the recap.

"Mommy, I went poop on the potty at school today," he said.

"Wow, that's... great? Did anyone help you?" I asked tentatively.

"No. I wiped myself," he said. "I did a good job."

"Well that's good," I said.

"I checked with my finger after. It was all clean."

Well then. Awesome. I asked if he washed his hands and he told me he used hand sanitizer. Sweet lord, I really hope he was just forgetting the part about using soap and water.

In other holiday news, Mr. Helpful Jack also assisted in the assembly and decoration of the Christmas tree this weekend. He found all the color-coded pieces and handed them to me in the correct order, which was all kinds of awesome because Mommy can't bend over and this made it so much easier. He helped Josh with the lights, but was disappointed when I told him we couldn't put ornaments on because I have a no-ornament policy with an almost 2-year-old in the house. But he was excited to see his handiwork completed when the tree was lit up in the darkened living room.

All in all, it was an enlightening weekend.

Trick or germs

We take a break from our regularly scheduled swine flu update to bring you this special Halloween Report. But before we get to that, wanted to update everyone that Jack has joined me in the world of pork and came down with the H1N1 early this morning. Fever of 101, hacking cough and complaints that his chest and throat hurt bought him a stay-home-from-school pass that came with his very own day o' TV. I watched eight hours of kids' TV today. Eight hours that kept him quiet on the couch and me happy next to him with my laptop.

He was holding steady at 102 degrees tonight before bed, so we're looking at another day home tomorrow followed by a scheduled day off of school on Friday, making this a five-day weekend. Whoo-hoo?

Anyway, back to our special report.

Trick or Treat, or shall I say Trick or Germs, was awesome for both kids this year. Jack was an old pro and Emmie picked it up very quickly. After the second house, she realized people would give her shiny wrapped objects if she said the magic words, so she started saying, "tick teet" without being prompted and "tank you" about 50 percent of the time. Jack took charge, boldly going up to the houses and would have probably done the whole street by himself if we let him.

It was freezing, but everyone had a great time. Daddy was offered beer at one house and Mommy pilfered a full-size Twix from Emmie's bag. All in all, a solid outing once again.


Happy Halloween!


We met up with some friends from the neighborhood. Notice Emmie has her eye on their candy.


No, I don't WANT a sucker. I want M 'n Ms.


My parents never let me have candy. Just wait til they find out I am planning to eat all of it.


Jesus Mommy, you are so embarrassing making me hold your hand. Can't you just stand over there so I can pretend I don't know you?


People, I am a DRAGON. Not a dinosaur. Have you ever seen a dinosaur with wings? Stop being stupid.


Nooooo, not the Three Musketeers, Emmie! Don't you know you always go straight for the Milky Ways?


OMG, who stuffed a pumpkin under that woman's shirt? Oh wait. That's actually Mommy's belly. Nevermind.

Pumpkin fun

As in years past, I was once again solely in charge of the pumpkin carving at Chez Snarky. I told Josh recently he only wants to benefit from holidays, not participate in them. Case in point: he doesn't carve pumpkins, but he eats all the kids' trick-or-treat candy. He doesn't help put up the Christmas tree, but he damn sure wants the presents under it.

But whatever. I like to do this kind of stuff and someone needs to make memories for these children, damn it, so I take on that role. Josh scoffs and says they're too little to remember, but someday when Jack reminds him that daddy painted outside instead of helping him carve a pumpkin the year before he turned 4, I can say I told you so. And that's one of my very favorite sayings.

But today was pumpkin day and everybody had a grand time. In previous years, Jack didn't want anything to do with touching the innards of the gourd and there was no way I was letting him anywhere near a knife. But this year he attacked the task with great gusto and Emmie got into the act as well. I still didn't let him near the knife, but apparently it was myself I should have worried about when it came to that.

Damn that $5 pumpkin carving kit from Walgreens. There I was, sawing along on pumpkin No. 1 when out of nowhere the stupid thing breaks off from the handle and tears across my fingers. There wasn't any frost on the pumpkin tonight, but there was sure a lot of blood on it. Jack asked why Mommy yelled and I said it was nothing, quickly wiping the evidence away with multiple paper towels.

I was carving out the mouth/teeth portion of his pumpkin at the time, so now I am worried there was some weird vampire thing going on and I will be the subject of the next installment of the Twilight series.

So anyway, here's the photographic evidence of Pumpkin Carving 2009, Now With Spurting Blood.


Mommy, this is fun! Can I have the knife now?


This is squishy. I am going to throw it at my brother and see what happens.


It doesn't look nearly as bad as it was. I could have bled out right there in the dining room. Seriously.


Hey why are we outside in the dark? And no, we won't smile. We're going to egg the house later, so watch out.

Belly up to the bar

My daughter -- my formerly laid-back, easy-going, eat-anything daughter -- has started to assert her will. She even had her first timeout recently, something her brother had gotten three months earlier than she did. Of course, it was for hitting. She learns by example and he's certainly set a fine one when it comes to violence.

This new independence is really testing my patience when it comes to mealtimes. Emmie has decided she no longer likes anything. This is the girl who used to happily eat Indian food and salmon and all kinds of veggies and fruit. Now, she looks at the plate, takes one bite of whatever it is, picks it up, places it precariously on the edge of her tray and starts saying, "Nooo. Nooo. Bar! Bar!"

If you don't give her highness a cereal bar, and I mean give it to her rightthissecondorIwillkillyou, then you run the risk of The Tantrum. The Tantrum is not to be trifled with. It starts with screaming, progresses to turning beet red, really gets going with a rash breaking out all over her face and winds up with tears streaming down her face. I react to this with great diplomacy, telling her I feel bad for her, but that she has to eat her sandwich before she can have a bar. This news is met with great enthusiasm, as you can imagine.

This is repeated three times a day. She refuses to eat, I withhold the bar until she does, The Tantrum rears its ugly head and she ends up having to leave the table because she can't keep her shit together. Then I feel bad, so I give in and give her the damn bar and she smiles and screams, "OH WOW!" and all is well with the world. Until the next meal, when we lather, rinse and repeat.

Seeing as I have been through this before with Jack, I remembered the sage advice of Ms. Ellyn Satter, author of "Getting Your Child to Eat, But Not Too Much," and launched a new offensive yesterday. Emmie gets all of her meal, including the damn cereal bar, presented on her plate at once. She chooses what to eat and in which order and I try not to let my eyelid twitch when she eats the bar and nothing else.

I kid just a little about that last part, because she has indeed started eating better. She does eat the bar first, but she also goes back and eats some sandwich and some fruits and veggies. So apparently, she likes to control the situation. But so do I. So this is a meeting of the minds. And because I have also done that before, I know better than to challenge an almost 2-year-old. They win every time. Hands down.

So we're trying this for now. If you have any better advice, please do share.

In sickness and in health

Most people associate the phrase "in sickness and in health" with marriage vows, but I assure you, it is much more applicable to your relationship with your children. If your spouse gets sick, well that blows, but it doesn't suck the soul out of your heart and cause sleep deprivation the likes of which has only been used as a torture device by the CIA.

When your spouse gets sick, you feel kind of bad and then get really scared you're going to get it next and then finally are just all kinds of annoyed because HELLO, it's a sore throat, deal. But when your young children get sick, they neeeeeed you. In the middle of the night. Multiple times. And when both your children get sick at the same time? You might as well just camp out in the hallway because you're not getting any sleep in your own bed, that's for sure.

Last night Jack went to sleep at his normal time with a bit of a cough. He quieted down pretty quickly, so I figured he would be fine. Emmie went to bed at her normal time with nothing but a few sneezing fits throughout the day. Emmie sneezing repeatedly can only mean one thing and it's that she's getting sick. I tried to pretend it was just construction dust and ignored it. She awoke screaming at the top of her lungs at 8:40 p.m. For a kid who has been sleeping through the night for almost a year now, that was not a welcome deviation from the norm.

She didn't have a fever, but she was covered in snot and generally unhappy about life. We dosed her up with Motrin and Josh rocked her for a few minutes. She protested when he put her back in her crib, but she was conked out in a few minutes.

Predicting doom to Josh, I should have gone to bed right then. But I didn't. I stayed up voting for myself in the "Best Mommy Blog" contest and painting baseboards for the new bedroom. Josh shooed me to bed at 11 p.m. and the next thing I knew, I was awoken by a cat coughing up a hairball three rooms away.

Except we don't have cats anymore. I struggled to place the sound coming out of the monitor and realized it was Jack, hacking up a lung. This continued for several minutes, so I got up and got him some water to see if that would help. The time read 1:37 a.m. on my clock. Awesome. Jack, surprisingly, wasn't woken by his lungs exiting his body. So I woke him up to give him some water and Motrin and he promptly went back to sleep. And back to coughing.

He coughed non-stop for the next four hours. He coughed until he woke up for the day at 4:40 a.m. Who voluntarily gets up before 5 a.m.? How is this child even related to me? And more importantly, what did I ever do to deserve this sleep deprivation? Because when Jack wakes up at 4:40 a.m., so does Mommy.

In the meantime, Sleeping Beauty (aka Josh) hadn't missed a single wink and was snoring on his side of the bed, buried under the covers. I have never been more annoyed by him as much as I was at that moment. Here I was working on about two hours of sleep, all stolen in 15-minute increments when Jack's coughing slowed down, and now I was going to be awake for the day at 4:45 a.m.

Emmie wanted to get the band back together, so she joined the fun at 5:15 a.m. when I first heard her playing with the crib soother. I bit my own lip to stifle the scream coming out of my mouth and turned the monitors down a bit. Josh thinks I keep them at "jet-engine level" anyway, so turning them down just made the yelling quieter, it didn't silence it completely.

I laid there listening to the singing/coughing from Jack and the whining/lullabye music from Emmie for a little while and when Emmie went from whining to screaming at 6 a.m., I snapped.

"JOSH," I hissed. "I can't. I just can't. I know you have to work but you have to get up with them. I haven't slept all night. Literally, all night. I am pregnant. I am exhausted. I. Can't. Do. It."

He asked me what I wanted him to do and I cried in exasperation that I didn't care and I just wanted to sleep for an hour. Sixty measly minutes. I grabbed a pillow, stuffed it over my head, and found a comfortable position for my fat, pregnant ass. I don't know what he did or how he did it, but I woke up an hour later when he brought a happy Emmie in to our bedroom, joyfully yelling, "Momma! Momma!"

Jack didn't have a fever, so I sent him off to school. That's where he got this damn cough of doom anyway, so they could deal with it. I think the lack of sleep finally got to him, however, because he finally took a nap at school. I think his teacher almost fell over when she saw he really went to sleep, but he did. He came out to the car a little dazed, and cried that he wasn't feeling well, but perked up once we got home and he had a snack.

Emmie spent the day plowing through a box of Kleenex, clinging to me and generally acting like someone who will be seeing the doctor for an ear check in about two days if this keeps up. After he ultra-early wakeup, she took an awesome (insert eye-roll here) one-hour nap and woke up supremely cranky. Because she was sick, I let her have a cereal bar at each meal, therefor negating all the progress we have made in just saying no to cereal bars in the last two days. I am a sucker.

I spent the day wondering if it was naptime yet and trying to peel Emmie off my leg so I could use the bathroom alone. When I left her with my sister-in-law so I could run to Home Depot and pick Jack up from school, I think my ear drum ruptured from the screams she emitted. Thank goodness for my sister-in-law because thanks to her playing with the kids, I got to take a short power nap and woke up feeling slightly less like death was near.

I am guessing tonight is going to be much like last night and I am prepared to play the pregnancy card if I have to. Josh is working from home tomorrow and he is so doing the early-morning duty. My sanity depends on it.

In plane sight

In the last week Emmie has become obsessed with airplanes. I am pretty sure if she was around during WWII she would have been hired immediately as a trained spotter, even at the young age of 21 months. This kid can spot planes farther away than air traffic control at O'Hare.

Living in the city, we usually end up under the flight path for arriving planes a few days each week. Which gives her ample opportunity to practice scaring the living shit out of me by screaming, "A-pay! A-pay! A-PAAAAY!" at the top of her lungs while I am driving. My apologies to the driver I almost sideswiped on Fullerton Avenue today, please know I did not expect to have my daughter scream "A-pay" while I was sipping a hot chocolate, causing me to burn the hell out of my mouth and veer slightly into your lane. I know, I know, no drinking and driving. I get it now.

I also learned this afternoon that you can see the airplanes from our dining room windows. One minute I am watching Emmie eat some mac-n-cheese and the next, she's flinging her fork skyward and excitedly pointing out the window screaming, "A-pay!" at the top of her lungs. I didn't believe her, so I had to look, and sure as celebrities name their babies weird things like Sparrow, there was an airplane. She's got a knack, this one.

After it was out of sight, she returned to eating, looked at me with desperation on her face, and lamented, "A-pay, ahh goo." Yes, I know, airplane all gone. I am so sorry. But if you wait three minutes, I'm sure you'll see another.

Based on her love of aviation, I have come up with a great TV idea. You know how they have those weird cable channels that you can leave on for your cats all day? Well they should make one that's all airplanes taking off and landing. That's it. Who wouldn't watch that for a few hours? I mean I imagine it could create a national security issue if they used live footage of an actual airport, but maybe we could get something on a tape-delay system? Can you imagine the amount of blogs and celebrity gossip I could read in a day with access to that channel for my kid? Please, someone make this happen!

Uncontrolled chaos

This morning started off much like every other morning of my life for the last five months with Jack yelling, "Mooooommmmyyyyyyyy I have to go pee on the poooootttttyyyyyyy" at 5:45 a.m. You know what it's like to be awoken out of a sound sleep like that? I'll tell you. It's like a garbage truck slamming into your car head-on. One minute you're driving along minding your own business and the next, you're covered in airbag dust and old banana peels wondering what in the hell just happened.

I stumbled out of bed, helped him to the bathroom and told him to summon me when he was ready to go back to bed. As soon as I got my pregnant ass settled in a somewhat acceptable position, Jack stuck his head in the doorway and stage-whispered, "Mommy? Do I have drama class today?" Because I wasn't prepared for that kind of thinking at 5:45 in the a.m., I asked him to repeat himself and after realizing he wanted to know what he was doing at school today, I mumbled something abut gym class and drama being what we were doing right then. I escorted him back to his room and re-settled myself into bed again.

Not even three minutes later, I heard, "Moooooommmmmmyyyyyyy, I have to go pooooooop on the pooootttttyyyyyyy." Seriously? You couldn't have done that three minutes ago when you were already in there? Seeing as I had been up approximately 57 times since midnight to pee, complain my back hurt, ask Josh to rub my back, pee again, heave my body all over the bed trying to turn over and take some medicine for contractions, all I wanted was some decent rest for another hour. Josh sensed my need for sleep (well, he sensed it because I was huffing and bitching a blue streak about how this is such BULLSHIT that our kid gets up so damn early and doesn't get enough rest and we're all doomed because he's going to turn out stupid from lack of sleep, it says so right there in "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby.") and offered to take one for the team and handle this bathroom expedition.

I thanked him profusely and waited for the inevitable wail I knew I would hear from Jack's room when he saw Daddy and not Mommy come in. He is not a fan of Daddy handling the early-morning wakeups and will protest if presented with that option. Sure enough, within miliseconds I heard Jack crying, "But I want Mommy!" Josh is a veteran of this nonsense, however, so he knows now that Jack won't stop whining and also won't stop complaining he has to use the bathroom, so he just picked Jack up and carried him into the bathroom and eventually, he stopped complaining and just got down to business.

Jack continued to voice his displeasure in the only way a 3.5-year-old can, and that's to say at the top of his lungs, while I tried to ignore the sounds coming through the wall. I knew that if I could hear him loud and clear, Emmie could also hear him through the other side of the wall. And 6 a.m. is no time for Emmie to make her appearance for the day. Josh finally got him to quiet down somehow and I relaxed a little. Until Jack somehow stubbed his toe walking out of the bathroom.

The shrill screaming started right outside Emmie's room and resulted in the immediate interruption of poor Emmie's sleep. Poor Emmie who normally sleeps until close to 7 a.m. Poor Emmie who was woken out of a sound sleep by a screaming banshee, which caused her to start screaming in the same manner.

So at 6 a.m., Josh and I were in bed listening to two hysterical children scream their faces off. I can't think of a better way to start my day. While I went to calm Jack down and tend to the toe of death, Josh got Emmie and brought her into our room to hang out between us while we pretended she was actually going to go back to sleep. She behaved for a little while before sitting up and poking me in the eye repeatedly while asking hopefully for milk and a Diego video. Again, just the way I like to start my morning. Maybe tomorrow we can do it all again!

If you're looking for me, I'll be the one in bed at 7:30 p.m. tonight. Of course, it won't be restful considering I can't sleep comfortably for more than an hour at a time (see: third-trimester of pregnancy), but damn it, I will at least try to pretend I am enjoying it.

Suckitude, Part the First

As usual yesterday morning, things were a little chaotic around the house. Josh was up and out before 7 a.m., Jack woke at the ass-crack of 5:45 a.m. (after waking me up TWICE to go potty during the night) and Emmie was screaming in her crib at 6:40 a.m.

Can't we ever just start the day on a nice relaxing note? Why isn't my life like a Folger's commercial where I am awakened by the smell of brewing coffee in my crisp, clean 1,000-thread-count sheets with a breeze gently blowing the curtains back to reveal a glorious sunrise? I mean I don't drink coffee, my sheets aren't exactly crisp, we can't sleep with the windows open because we live on a busy street and I hate light in the room when I am trying to sleep, but other than those minor details, I would love to wake up like that just once.

I dragged my tired ass through the getting ready-breakfastmaking-lunchmaking-getting kids dressed routine and noticed Emmie was a little whiny. But I don't have time for drama in the morning when we have three people who need to be out the door by 8:25 a.m. for the brisk walk to school.

As I picked out clothes for Jack, she followed me around his room screaming. I calmly peeled her off my leg as I headed for her bedroom. As we walked in, she backed away from me, looked up and puked all over the rug. Oh for God's sake. I don't have time to clean up puke on this tight schedule, much less figure out how to take a puking 20-month-old along to drop her brother off at school.

Just as I was staring at the rug and trying to calm Emmie down, keep her away from the puddle of vomit and answer eleventy billion questions from Jack about why Emmie threw up, Josh called to tell me he needed me to read him something from a Post-it in his office two floors away or he could not function at work. That would be when my head exploded and my brains scattered all over the walls of Emmie's room.

After depositing Emmie in her crib so I could clean the rug, I shooed Jack into his room to continue getting dressed and ran downstairs to get the Post-it note info. I ran back upstairs, phone to ear, where I got Emmie dressed and corralled both kids downstairs to put on shoes and get everyone and the Hummer-sized stroller outside. We were running only three minutes behind, a feat of epic proportions considering what I went through moments before.

Emmie and I went about the rest of our day, grocery shopping and making a trip to Target. I figured her being in a stoller and not a cart would contain her pestilence somewhat and I really didn't care about other people's feelings because I really needed some organic turkey, damn it, and I wasn't going without my new favorite lunch -- grilled turkey and cheese.

Just as I was sitting down and blogging about my day, Jack's school phone number appeared on the caller ID. Was this Jack's mom? He had an accident.

CLIFFHANGER!

(More on this tomorrow, right now, I need to head out to an event involving adult beverages and no children. Plus, everyone likes a two-part blog post, right?)

Hodgepodge

You know what we haven't seen the likes of on this blog lately? A nice bullety list of random goodness. Let's rectify that, shall we?

* I am officially in the third trimester now at 28 weeks. Wow. This is just flying by isn't it? Let's all pretend I am not giving birth in about 10 weeks. Because if I don't pretend that, I might freak out and have a pregnancy panic attack because OH MY HOLY HELL I AM GOING TO HAVE THREE CHILDREN UNDER FOUR.

* Speaking of three children, my mom told me today that she picked the kids up some Christmas jammies this weekend. She was going on about how cute they were and how they were matchy-matchy and I asked if she got three pairs. She said no, why would she get three? I had to remind her WeeBey would be here for Christmas and she shrieked and said she forgot. This is my fear about daily life in December: I will leave the baby behind someplace because I forget I have three of them. But with three, I guess I'll always have a spare so it will all work out.

* Jack slept until 7:30 this morning, making it three consecutive days he has slept past 7 a.m. If you have arrived at this blog using the Google search, "What to do when my 3.5-year-old won't sleep past 5:15 in the morning and I want to shoot myself" then I have your answer: Put the child to bed at 6:30 p.m. and put the gun back in the locked storage box in the closet. I am living proof it works. I now finally believe everyone who told me that once their kid gave up naps, they started sleeping longer at night. Oh it was a battle to get him there, what with the horrible months of 5:15 wakeups, but we've maybe kinda sorta possibly figured out what works. And I am sure it will change tomorrow just because I told the Internet and everyone knows when you do that, it comes back to bite you in the ass.

* We're having blown-in insulation blown into the house today. This involves them removing a course of siding, drilling holes into the outside of the house, then oozing some liquid foam into the spaces between the whattya-call-the-2x4s-that-hold-up-the-floors. This will save us approximately $75,421.38 in heating costs each month. No lie. It was like we would turn the heat on and open the front door and all the windows every winter. Not to mention the pipes that would freeze every single time the temperature dropped below 15 degrees. There's nothing quite like the look of panic on Josh's face and watching him run downstairs in his boxers with a blowdryer in one hand and a space heater in the other after I throw open the bedroom door at 7 a.m. on a Sunday and scream, "The pipes! The pipes! Shit!"

* Part of the whole "popsicle pipe" problem is that there is a hole between the inside of our kitchen cabinet and the outside of the house. It's covered by the siding, but there's just a big ole' gaping hole there for no reason at all. As the guys were blowing the goo in there today, I thought to remind them about the hole. Good thing -- because now there's three inches of white foam covering all my cleaning products. I'm sure they'll clean that right up.

* Emmie, Queen of Doing It Myself and Duchess of No I Don't Want To Hold Your Hand Mommy, held court in Whole Foods this morning. I needed to grab a tube of toothpaste for the kids after she attended a little music class there and figured I could just run over to the health and beauty section and run on out. Clearly, I have never been a parent before. She threw herself on the floor, rolled around, screeched and refused to get up after I told her she most definitely could NOT take all the bottles of lotion off the shelf. Seeing as I am not allowed to lift her, other than in and out of her crib at naptime, I was at a loss. Didn't have the stroller with me (because I am a DUMBASS) so after 10 minutes of this nonsense, I picked her up and carried her out. Contractions within minutes, but they stopped when I got home and sat down. I guess they're not kidding when they told me not to carry her around with my cerclage in place.

* Remember when I said I was never doing construction on this house again? I am such a lying liar. Also, a glutton for punishment. In true Snarky Family style, I am pregnant again and we're starting another remodeling project again. While I am pregnant. Did I mention I was pregnant and we're remodeling? I am screaming silently right now. I look just like that famous painting. It's quite frightening, I assure you. But the project is necessary for all the important people in this house (that would be me and Josh) to maintain our sanity with the impending arrival of our bundle of joy. We currently have three bedrooms upstairs, plus a sunroom. The sunroom is a piece-of-shit, uninsulated, sloping-floored catchall for all the crap we need to store someplace. During the summer, it's usally 714 degrees and in the winter it's 45 degrees below 0. It currently holds tools of all make, model and size, holiday decorations, baby gear, a steam cleaner, St. Louis Cardinals lawn chairs, cans of paint, old toys and this safe that says "Property of Al Capone" on the outside. It will soon contain our Emmie and her things, as we are gutting it and making it a fully-functioning bedroom. That makes this a five-bedroom (plus office that could be a sixth bedroom) house and hopefully completes any more goddamn remodeling we have to do. Other than the upstairs bathroom. But that can wait. You know, until the bathtub falls through the floor.

* You might ask why we don't make two of the kids share a room to save some money, don't you people know there is a recession and you are a SAHM, you selfish whores of consumption? The answer is because Josh and I would go insane if our children all got up at 5:30 a.m. every day. Although Jack has been sleeping well for three whole days, we know better and realize it won't last. Rather than have him share his passion for torturing his parents at 5:30 a.m. with a sibling, we elected to have a room for everyone and everyone in his/her room on the third floor. This leaves a guest room free for guests (read: grandparents who are gracious enough to get up with the children when they sleep over) and an office in which Josh can hide from the kids in the basement. It also means everyone will sleep on the same level of the house and I won't have to clomp up and down the stairs to deal with nighttime wanderings, midnight feedings or requests for glasses of water.

* Apologies for the shit I just spewed forth. Tune in tomorrow for All Ultrasound Pictures, All The Time. Subtitle: "I Finally Found A Flashdrive So I Could Scan The Damn Things In A Month Later."

Reliving his good old days

Let me give you parents of more than one child a little advice: it might seem like a good idea to send one of your children off to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days so you can give one of your other children some undivided attention. That would actually be a HORRIBLE idea.

Don't get me wrong, while you only have the one child, you will have life so easy you would encourage the grandparents to keep the other child a little longer. You will relax at the playground instead of hyperventilating because you have lost sight of a child -- you only have one to watch, how could you possibly take your eyes off him? You will let the child in your care choose the activities and meals and just about everything else because there's no one to fight with over who does what and when.

But then the other child will come home. And you will be overjoyed to have the other child home. Except you will be the only one who feels that way. The child who spent the last few days reliving his only-child past will be pissed. Very, very pissed.

The behavior in my house this last 36 hours has been off-the-charts horrible. Pushing, shoving, hitting, tantrums and fits. Poor Emmie. Welcome home sister dear, let me show you how much I missed you with a shove to the ground where you hit your head on the hardwood floor and cry for 10 solid minutes.

School starts Monday. Oh thank you all that is right with the world, school starts on Monday. Emmie shares my views. She'll just be the one sporting her bike helmet for the rest of the weekend in case Jack gets any urges to introduce her to the floor again.

Psuedo only child

Much like Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, this is Mommy and Jack Week in the Snarky family. We're spending some quality time together before he starts school next week and Emmie is having quality time with Grandma and Grandpa in Wisconsin before she starts All-Mommy, All-The-Time 14 Weeks next week. That will be followed by New Baby Invasion Weeks in December. I am sure she'll love it.

When I first found out our neighborhood school offered a full-day, five-day-per-week Montessori program, I hesitated for about 2.5 nanoseconds. Full-day school? For free? Where do I sign?

But now as it's getting closer, I am starting to have some pangs about sending my little boy off with strangers for six hours every day. I mean he's going to play outside on a playground without my direct supervision to make sure he doesn't fall off the monkey bars and break his arm. He's going to eat lunch without my direct supervision to make sure he eats his spinach before he gets his dessert. He's going to have to wipe himself after he goes to the bathroom. The pressure, I tell you.

Not to mention the fact he will be in a class of 26 kids with only two teachers. That's 13 kids per adult! I can't even hang out with 13 people at once and keep track of what everyone is doing. How can they possibly watch 13 young children without losing one? These kids are shifty, they can sneak away in a second. Or something. Something terrible.

But next Monday, we'll send him off to school and I'll probably spend the days wishing he was here torturing Emmie and running away from me. I had doubts about Emmie's ability to exist without her brother stealing all the attention. She's always had someone else to play with. Now she's probably going to make me be her playmate. But when he was off at camp several mornings per week this summer, she relished the time alone and enjoyed playing with the train table with no one screaming, "NO EMMIE I AM PLAYING RIGHT NOW," grabbing the trains out of her hot little hands and throwing her to the ground. So I think she'll be just fine.

To celebrate his last week at home, we've been doing fun stuff. Monday we went to the playground and the water park and out for pizza. Tuesday we took the El downtown, went to the Planetarium, had lunch and dinner out and played at the park some more. Today we hit the farmer's market and the park and had pizza for dinner again, followed by ice cream cones. Tomorrow, we have the Children's Museum on the agenda as well as a reunion with his sister.

I know he'll never remember this week in the grand scheme of things, but I hope he's had fun having me all to himself and doing fun things that he loves. I've had a lot of fun with him. I found myself getting teary tonight as he licked his cone at Dairy Queen and smiled at me with ice cream all over his face. That sweet little face will be the one greeting me every day at 2:45 p.m. and I am so looking forward to that part of school -- the part where he runs to me and hugs me with that mega-watt smile on his face and we talk all about his day on the way home. Makes the six-hour separation more than worth it.

Eating it up

Parenting amnesia really sucks ass.

I know nature intended for us to forget the bad stuff, because we would never procreate again if we remembered the pain and suffering. Take for instance, the teeth-gnashing that comes along with the care and feeding of a 19.5-month-old.

Oh I forgot about this stage with Jack and now I am reliving it again with Emmie. And it's just as much fun the second time around. And when I say just as much fun, I mean as fun as piercing your eyelid with a screwdriver and then inserting a nail and calling it an "eye ring."

Today Emmie refused to eat oatmeal, cantaloupe, turkey, cheese, bread, squash, chicken, tikka masala, rice, naan and applesauce. Things she did eat? Milk, pumpkin bread, milk, a single pea, milk, more milk, almond butter off a spoon and a smoothie. Also, air.

The items she refused to eat all ended up on the floor at various times during various meals. And before people point out she might be drinking too much milk and filling up on that, we give her milk with meals and a small amount mid-morning and mid-afternoon. By late afternoon, she will scream bloody murder if we don't give it to her. And that's fun for exactly no one in this family or anyone walking by outside, for that matter, so we would give in and get the damn cup of "NUM NUM MAAAAAAAA" for her. But starting yesterday, I don't give in anymore. She needs to learn she won't get everything she screams for at some point. Better now with milk than later with Coach purses.

Tonight, she happily started in on the chicken tikka masala I lovingly made for my family (sauce from a jar, but still) and then took the plate and flung it at my feet after one bite. It is important to note she has eaten this dinner at least once a week since she was about nine months old and used to love it. Now, not so much. You can imagine I handled that plate-flinging with great diplomacy.

I did notice she's cutting two new teeth on the bottom, for a grand total of six bottom teeth (four new ones), so maybe that's bothering her. But whatever it is, it's bothering me. And if it bothers Mommy, it bothers EVERYONE because Mommy makes sure everyone knows about how hard she has it.

Hi there

All of a sudden, Emmie is the Walmart greeter of our family.

She says "hi" to Josh and I in the morning. She says "hi" to people on the phone. She says "hi" to people when she pretends to talk on the phone. She says "hi" to people she sees in stores. She says "hi" to homeless people she sees on the street. She yells "hi" and bangs on the window when she sees people walking by the house, which is approximately every 30 seconds.

It's awesome. She has this little tiny voice and it comes out as a clipped, "hi!"

She also likes to bid people a fond farewell with an equally tiny-voiced "bye!" Tonight when we put her to bed, we shut the door and heard her yell, "bye" behind the closed door.

The mimicry is really taking off lately and she at least tries to repeat back everything we say to her. Mama and dada are still her all-time favorites, but she's working in more each day. Strong candidates for soon-to-be-favorites include car, El and Go Diego Go. The latter making me fall down laughing every time I hear it. There's no sheltering the second child from the television.

Yesterday she started her music class for the fall. She took the same class (different teacher) last spring, but we took the summer off so I think she forgot all about it. She wore a new dress and was really excited to be going somewhere with just Mommy, but when we got into the room, she plunked herself down on my lap and wouldn't move. It took her a song to warm up, but then she was standing in the middle of the circle, moving and grooving, singing along and doing all the hand movements to "Wheels on the Bus."

She was even more excited about the blueberry muffin at Starbucks afterward. She knows where it's at.

Throwdown at the library

For the second day in a row, I ventured out on my own with the two kids in search of a fun and enriching activity. Also, something FREE because, well, you know the economy is still kind of in the shitter and I like to make Josh happy by at least giving off the appearance of staying within my budget.

This morning seemed like a perfect time to try the local library once again. Emmie had never been there before (unless you count her going as a wee infant, which I don't) and Jack had not been there in over year. It's not that I don't like the library, but he just wasn't able to control himself very well and I hated setting him up for failure.

I had high hopes today, thinking he had matured and come a long way from the days of running away from the kids' section, yelling and screaming and generally annoying everyone there for real library business. You know, the people there for the free newspapers and access to online porn.

Oh but some things never change do they?

Today it was Emmie who enjoyed the running away and screaming. Jack, for the most part, sat and looked at books. Which was awesome. Until The International Incident.

I had gone to retrieve the stroller so I could strap Emmie down and prevent her from running through the stacks like a mad woman when Jack came running up to me with The Look on his face. All parents know The Look. It's the one that they give you when they've done something wrong and don't know any better than to try and hide it from you. In the distance, I hear plaintive wailing.

"What did you do?" I asked suspiciously.

"Nofing! (Nothing) he said.

I asked again what happened in the kids' room.

"Mommy, I just hit that big boy with a book," he crowed with delight.

My blood pressure skyrocketed and I am quite sure I would have been considered a candidate for pre-eclampsia in that moment considering what the reading might have been and I hauled him over to the room where I heard the crying.

I entered to find an elderly Asian man shooting me daggers, yelling in what I can only assume was Chinese, a boy about Jack's age looking scared and a boy about 6, holding his had over his eye and crying.

"Did you hit him? Did he hit you?" I asked them both, trying to get the story out of them. Jack told me proudly, "Yes, Mommy, I threw a book and I hit that big boy." The boy kept crying, holding his eye, and nodded in the affirmative. The grandfather kept yelling in Chinese.

I really wanted him to stop yelling at me in a foreign language because I was getting flustered and seriously dude, I get it, you're pissed at my kid. But let's calm down a little here. As far as I could tell, no blood had been shed so I was pretty sure no one lost an eye.

After forcing an apology out of Jack, I announced we were leaving, which was met with great dissatisfaction in the SnarkyFamily camp. As we turned to leave, the grandfather was still freaking yelling in Chinese. OK, OK. I get it. Just shut your pie hole already.

Again, I left in defeat. Library, you win. I won't be back anytime soon.

Painting panic

I have never been accused of being laid-back when it comes to the condition of my home. We spent a lot of time and money rehabbing this house when we moved in. The hardships I endured for this damn kitchen are numerous -- I lived without a stove and had only a college dorm fridge for FIVE MONTHS when we ripped the first floor apart. Not to mention, I was on strict bedrest at the time and wasn't allowed to leave the house to eat a proper meal in a civilized setting.

And I like to think we have grown-up taste with grown-up furnishings, despite having two children in the house. Our dining room table, at which we eat all of our meals, is made of dark wood. The chairs are covered with a light tan suede-like surface. The floors are hardwood. The furniture is microsuede and in surprisingly good condition.

But keeping things this way requires a certain amount of vigilance on my part. The dining room is gated off and the kids are only allowed in during mealtimes or when we exit or enter the house from our parking spot. It's not a playroom, it's for eating and looking nice. The kitchen isn't very much fun for them, other than one cabinet I let them have free reign over. The living room has an ottoman filled with toys, but the main playroom is downstairs since we converted the house last summer.

One of the reasons we are able to keep it looking pretty good is that I do not allow craft projects in the house. There, I have said it. I am the worst mother ever because I prize my crayon-free walls over my children's creativity. But you know what? They take art classes where they can paint all over the room and I let them play with sidewalk chalk whenever they want. Also? Magnadoodles are totally awesome and totally mess-free -- you just erase it and start over! And I do let them have the Color Wonder markers downstairs because while they say they don't leave marks except on the special paper, I heard they DO leave marks on leather and suede. So they're banished to the downstairs, but are definitely allowed in the house.

A few weeks ago, I gave them an oversized pad of paper and some crayons to go crazy with downstairs on the rug. I figured with supervision, all would be fine. Except Jack got a little aggressive with his abstract art and scribbled through the paper. Guess what -- green crayon will indeed leave a mark on cream carpeting. I hyperventilated, took the crayons away immediately and was able to get the green out by blotting. But I was scarred. Also, vindicated because I knew I should never have allowed crayons down there in the first place.

But desperate times called for desperate measures this morning. It rained and was generally gross outside and there was no way anyone was going to be excited about playing inside the house with Mommy for more than an hour. So I asked Jack if he wanted to go to Pump It Up and he practically flew the door to get his shoes on.

I arrived at the building housing the empire of bounce houses and couldn't see the forest for the trees. There were nannies and mothers and kids EVERYWHERE. They came in twos and threes and gaggles. I did a drive-by and the entire lobby was full of kids waiting to get their jump on, so many there was an overflow group waiting in line outside.

Note to self: next time it rains, just go to the damn mall because everybody and their brother is going to head for Pump It Up. After profusely apologizing to Jack for not being able to go, I asked him if we could just do something else. He skeptically asked me what could POSSIBLY be as much fun as jumping around like a maniac, it popped into my head that stashed away in the bowels of the closet was a set of fingerpaints someone had given Jack for a birthday gift like two years ago. A gift that caused me to question that person -- a mother no less -- and her sanity. I mean who lets kids FINGERPAINT in their house?

So I offered up the fingerpaints as my plea agreement and he accepted it with excitement. OK! Let's take a deep breath and do it. I briefly considered having them do it outside on the driveway, but figured that would be more trouble than it was worth when it came to trying to keep Emmie out of trouble. Instead I bit the bullet and draped a sheet over the dining room table and stripped Emmie down to her diaper, covering her high chair with a large piece of paper.

I poured the paints into an old egg carton -- you'd think I was Martha Stewart with that little trick -- and let them go crazy. Jack took fingerpainting to mean handpainting and proceeded to mush both hands in the paint and smear them around. What the hell did I pay preschool tuition for last year? The kid doesn't even know how to fingerpaint. Emmie was much more demure, using just the tips of her petite fingers and not mixing any paint colors. She likes her primary colors pure, thankyouverymuch.

I managed to not lose my shit and after they tired of craft time, quickly washed everybody up and surveyed the damages. The room was fine. The table was fine. The chair cushions were fine. The kids were fine. I might just be able to do this again. Not anytime soon, but again, definitely.


It's yellow, but it sure doesn't look like any egg I have ever seen...


I shall use my finger now, but I am not content with that as my medium.


Not exactly what you think of when you hear "nude painting" now is it?


I take my art verrry seriously.


Go ahead, pull my finger. I know it's green, just do it...


This is from my Impressionist period. It's going to be worth millions.


The masters, hard at work.

That would explain it

For the last week or so, Emily has been, to put it mildly, a total cranky-butt. She was whiny and clingy, drooling like a dog and constantly had her fingers in her mouth. Not the best hygiene, but what can you do with an 18-month-old who won't stop screaming if she takes her fingers out of her mouth? At least it kept her quiet for a few minutes.

Trying to look in her mouth was like trying to pry open a clamshell. She would clamp down and shake her head from side to side while trying to slide out of my grasp and run away. It was really fun for everyone involved.

Seeing as she only has four teeth -- two top front, two bottom front -- I figured I would see little white shark teeth any day. Except that never happened. It was decidedly annoying.

Finally this weekend I sat on her legs and pinned her arms down (I kid! I actually tickled her! Nothing to see here child social workers, go away) and somehow got my fingers into her mouth and past her front line of defense. To my surprise, I felt one of those sharp little bastards in the BACK of her mouth. What the hell? Aren't toddlers supposed to get teeth starting in the front and move their way back toward the molars? I felt around to the other side of her mouth and was greeted by two more pointy friends, one on the top and one on the bottom,again towards the back.

As she bit down on my finger and ground my poor digit to a pulp, I laughed and asked her why she didn't just tell us she was getting three teeth. Jack was really confused and said, "Mommy, she can't even talk yet. She could not tell us any-fwing!"

Thank you, Jack. Clearly I need to teach him the finer points of sarcasm in conversational English. If he's going to survive in this family, he's going to need to get up to speed quickly.

That makes a grand total of seven teeth for Emmie and she hadn't gotten any for the last four months. At this rate, she's going to be losing baby teeth before she gets them all in her mouth.

Big love

The children had to dress up today and I used this opportunity to snap a little sibling picture. When did they get so big?



In other news, I am also getting big. I am now 22 weeks along and while I have all the energy in the world, I also feel like I am as large as the world. I also forget that I am far enough along that I should not even look at my regular clothes and try to wear pre-pregnancy items and then collapse in a little heap on the floor crying because nothing fits.

Case in point: this weekend it was 7,285 degrees and we went to Lollapalooza. You know, an OUTDOOR music festival. In the outdoors. Where it was 7,285 degrees. I was trying to be cute and thought a little skirt and tank top combo would look fabulous. Fabulous about five months ago, yes. Now? I thought the skirt was way too tight, the tank was stretching the limits of acceptable and I wondered why I even tried to be cute.

I asked Josh what he thought of my outfit and he paused for a second, then pronounced it fine. But if it was really fine, then why did he pause? Clearly it was hideous and five kinds of awful. He tried to assure me that no, it was fine, but I was already stripping it off and bitching about how disgusting I looked. In the end, I wore a pair of maternity capris and a T-shirt and managed to pass for somewhat stylish.

This is just one facet of The Crazy that takes over when I am pregnant. For some reason, I refuse to accept that I should just stick to actual maternity clothes, instead engaging in some battle of bizarre wills with my regular clothes. I implore them to fit, they don't because I can't button them over the belly, and then I get pissed because they don't fit.

And I wonder why my husband is telling the interwebs he has Prepartum Depression...

Someday she will kill me for this post

Yesterday was like any normal day at Chez Snarky -- kids hitting each other, mommy sighing, general whiny-ness on everyone's part -- so I didn't even notice that Emmie was a little crabbier than normal. That and the fact my mom was on Granny Nanny duty, so really, I might have been zoning out a little and trying to pretend I couldn't hear the children whining at me.

We went to the park in the afternoon and tag-teamed the kids running around like maniacs. As an aside, let me tell you that a 3.5-year-old and an 18-month-old will never, ever want to do the same thing at the same time at the park. So you have three choices: 1. You leave someone unattended and possibly lose sight of him for more than 20 seconds, giving yourself a heart attack on several occcasions until you spot the back of his head; 2. You take them to a smaller park where they are contained and within sight at all times, but bored out of their minds because there are only three swings and some ride-on toys; or 3. You enlist help and bring another adult to the big park, hopefully sticking the other person with the attention-span-of-a-gnat 18-month-old who spends the whole time running from one side of the park to the other. Yesterday I went with door No. 3. While at the park, Emmie spent most of her time climbing, running, falling and sliding, so I chose wisely.

Emmie and Grandma went home slightly earlier than Jack and I, and when we came into the house, my mom told me she thought Emmie needed to go to the doctor because she thought she might have a bladder infection. I asked what in her extensive medical training led her to believe this and she said she had just witnessed Emmie bend over and start screaming while grabbing her diaper. When she went to change her, there was blood in it. As the needle screeched off the record in my mind, I switched into Super Mom mode and called the pediatrician. They felt very bad, but couldn't get us in until 8 p.m. In the meantime, they recommended cranberry juice, a bath and Motrin. As Emmie won't drink anything but milk (num-num, in Emmie-speak) I figured we might have a tough sell. But I was undeterred in my quest to provide pure cranberry juice for my poor little baby. I hopped in the car and sped down the street to Whole Foods, emerging $8 lighter after purchasing 32 ounces of 100-percent pure cranberry juice. No high fructose corn syrup for this child, and god DAMN, that shit is pricey. I could buy heroin cheaper.

I came home, poured her three parts juice to one part water, and handed her the cup with a huge fake smile on my face. "Emmie, have some juice! It's yummy! Mmmmmmm!" as I took a drink myself and tried to stifle the pucker that was forming. She took one drink and looked at me with contempt. She then refused to drink another drop. Great, and I couldn't even re-purpose it myself with some vodka and lime later.

My mom took her upstairs and plopped her in the bathtub just as the doctor's office was calling back. They wanted to see her early because they could get a urine sample and squeeze us in. Fabulous, I said, because frankly, this kid pees a lot and I couldn't imagine living through three hours of the screaming every time she needed to tinkle. We quickly dressed her, packed a sandwich and a banana and left the house. I inexplicably brought the stupid cranberry juice, thinking she would drink it. That earned me a withering look from Josh, who had arrived home just in time to head to the doctor's office with us. Once we arrived at the doctor's office, which is just a few blocks away, he turned around and came right back home to get her some milk. Which is what I should have just done in the first place, but didn't as I was aiming to please the nice nurse and prove I could follow directions.

They got her all set up with a urine collection bag taped underneath her diaper and had us wait a few minutes for her to pee. She was having a grand time running around the waiting room, shoving bites of almond butter sandwich in her mouth and waving to the the staff before they put us in a room. We weren't even in there two minutes before she stood still and started screaming a sound I have never heard before. I grabbed her, hugging and rocking her while she screamed and screamed. "Well, I guess she peed," I said to Josh, who looked stricken by this turn of events.

The doctor walked in at that very moment, witnessing the sweaty, snotty, screaming mess that was my sweet Emmie. She listened to the symptoms and agreed it was likely a urinary tract infection based on all the evidence. She had the nurse take the bag out of her diaper and we could all SEE the blood in it. While I attempted to calm Emmie down, with little success, the nurse ran the quick test and came back in to the room looking puzzled. She said there was a lot of blood in the urine, but no signs of infection at all. Now it was the doctor who looked puzzled. I, of course, was thinking she had some rare, invasive disease and ohmygod what the hell is wrong with my baaaabyyyyyy?

The doctor said she was going to take a quick look, just to make sure the bleeding wasn't coming from anywhere else and as soon as she got a good look at her lady bits, she said, "Oh yeah, that's it. She's got a tear right there." She pointed out an angry-looking red line right where you really don't want an angry-looking red line. And I was promptly horrified. The doctor said it's actually really common in little girls with all the climbing and falling and general uncoordination. They fall and the skin just doesn't have enough give to it. Based on the number of times Emmie tripped and fell yesterday at the park and at home, in addition to falling right on to a toy lawn mower after tripping over another toy on the floor, I am not surprised at all.

As someone who has birthed two children, and has had stitches in that very same area, I can attest to the fact that peeing BURNS LIKE ACID ON THAT WOUND. It is nothing I want my daughter to experience and I assure you her reaction to the pain upon peeing was completely appropriate. I may have done the same thing myself once or twice postpartum. So I completely empathize with the poor girl.

The doctor said we should slather her with A&D at all diaper changes to create a moisture barrier, cutting down on the sting, and use Bacitracin twice a day to avoid infection. The area in question heals quickly, as I can also attest to, so she should be good as new in a few days.

I was expecting bad times last night, but the A&D and Motrin must have done the trick because we didn't hear a peep out of her. Today we were blessed with pain-free peeing and a happy child. Hopefully that means she is already on the mend. Someday she will read this and be horrified that I discussed such a personal injury on the internet, FORGODSSAKEMOTHER, but I was traumatized by this and what better place to overshare such personal details?

Big hairy deal

Recently, I realized Emmie was looking too much like Pat Benatar for my tastes. Her mullet was out of control and I was feeling bad. I mean she was still totally cute, but she was definitely looking like a baby "before" picture. And she was desperately in need of the "after" look.

I balked at cutting her hair because, wah, she's a little girl and she's supposed to have long, beautiful hair pulled back in ribbons and ponytails. The reality was her hair was about three inches longer in the back than anyplace else and the minute I put a bow in her hair, she yanked it out.

It's not like I am raising Crystal Gayle here, so what was I afraid of? I said to myself, "Self, there are tons of little girls with damn cute bobs out there, and by god, Emmie is going to be one of them." She didn't need any bangs, as her hair naturally sweeps to the side quite easily, but the party in the back had to go.

Before I could change my mind, I had her in the stroller and with camera in hand, we were off to the fun kiddie haircut place down the street. Little did she know there would be sharp objects involved, but she knew she was going out with Mommy and Jack wasn't coming, so this was an outing to be excited about.

Let me show you some "before" shots:

The pensive mullet, contemplating the view outside.


Cute kid, straggly hair.

After waiting for an hour (yes, I waited an hour with my toddler) she was in the chair. Coincidentally, the same chair her brother got his first haircut in. Sob.


Here we go...


Snip, snip. As the hair falls to the floor, I find it hard to swallow. Emmie is oblivious, fascinated by driving the car.


What the...? Where is all my hair?

I couldn't be more pleased with the final result. Her little bob is super-cute and looks so healthy. And now it will grow out evenly and look better on an everyday basis. There is some concern she might look like a boy, but I'll just dress her in pink and we'll be fine.


Who IS that girl?


Stylish!