Just Wing It

The babysitter looks at me expectantly. I glance down at the schedule I’ve dashed off in hot pink felt pen on the back of a four-year-old’s crayon drawing. (Shhh, don’t tell.)

5:30: Dinner (pizza delivery)
6:45: Nolan’s bedtime (diaper, pjs, 2 books, sound machine on)
7:30: Twins’ bedtime (potty, pjs, 2 books)

It’s the bare details, of course. The pizza has already been paid for, tip and all. Nolan has special nighttime diapers since he leaks through the cheaper ones we use during the day. The twins aren’t allowed to talk in their room after they’re tucked in but can quietly page through as many books as they want in their beds. Et cetera.

I realize I’m the one who’s supposed to explain all this to her. I’m the authority figure here. The mom.

When did that happen? I mean, I know we were the ones who had these kids and all but yeesh.

“So we’ve had a bit of a rough afternoon but they’re really excited for you to be here tonight,” I start off. “Bedtime should hopefully go smoothly. If you need something to keep the twins occupied while you put Nolan down they can watch TV…”

I think back to my own days as a babysitter, which, despite three kids, almost eight years of marriage, and a mortgage, were all of yesterday. What did those parents tell me when I was the one given a schedule and standing on the other side of the counter? I think they told me to throw them in bed and instructed me on how to use the remote? Maybe? Those parents all seemed like they knew things. Self-assured. They didn’t seem as desperate to get out of the house as I do now. Did they feel the financial strain of paying for both a babysitter and a night out? These date nights drain our bank account by $100+, easily, and that’s just with the cost of a babysitter, the pizza, and a reasonably nice dinner for ourselves. The parents I babysat for didn’t seem so concerned about these things at the time. Now, on the other side, I’m not so sure.

“The pizza is paid for and should be here at 5:30 - the boys will eat sausage and Brooklyn will only eat cheese. There are oranges in the pantry, too, and please help yourself to anything you’d like. Leftovers can go in the fridge. These are their bedtimes...”

She looks at me, absorbing everything I’ve said. Either that or she’s completely disinterested. That blank face all teenagers seem to master gives away nothing. She’s been to our house before, but not to babysit. What else does she need to know? Should I give her a tour of the kids’ bedrooms? All three of them know where their own pajamas are. Should I show her how to work Nolan’s sound machine or the baby monitor? That seems like an insult to her 15-year-old, iPhone-wielding intelligence. Besides, Nolan knows how to work his own sound machine.

This situation, me on one side of the counter, her on the other with her poreless skin and her leggings and the scrunchi on her wrist, (because apparently we’re going full flashback mode here and those are back in style), seems so bizarre and formal and old. How on Earth am I the one in need of a babysitter?

I rattle off a final list of instructions as the kids run around our legs and hope I haven’t left anything out.

“Nolan needs to wear one of the Elmo diapers to bed, they’re in the top drawer - if the twins have a hard time settling down you can tell them that mommy and daddy will give them donuts in the morning if they stay in their beds quietly - the remote is here and feel free to watch Netflix or whatever once they’re all in bed and the toys are picked up - the kids can help put things away before they go down.”

I don’t need to show her exactly how to change a diaper, do I?

Nah.

Hugs and kisses all around once Tyson comes downstairs, clean-shaven and all. I grab my shoes and purse, ready to dash out the door. Nolan realizes what’s about to happen and lets out a desperate cry of “Mom-meee!” with tears in his eyes. The only way to solve that problem is to get out of sight as fast as possible. I give her one last instruction as I shove a flailing Nolan in her arms. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Just wing it! That’s all I do, anyway!”

“Okay,” she says, as she looks at me with wide eyes and a half-smile. Maybe I’ve broken the mystique of any potential authority I have as the mom by telling her to wing it. He will calm down I know, just as soon as we’re gone. That or he’ll work as an excellent form of birth control.

We wave from the minivan as they watch us go from the window of the playroom, three little faces pressed against the window, Nolan still with tears in his eyes. Maybe I should feel bad but instead I grin at Tyson as we pull away. A 30-minute drive downtown and a kid-free dinner means freedom for a few evening hours. Here we go.

Crap. I forgot to tell her about the emergency numbers. Oh well. They'll be fine.

Life Lately (Summer edition)

We’ve been living up summer over here. Most afternoons have found us in the backyard, in the pool, the kids splashing and swimming and running off to the swingset while I occasionally get some reading done. They’re at their best outside: less inclined to fight, to exclude, to tantrum. Of course that still does happen. But not nearly as much as when we’re all cooped up.

I love our backyard. It’s shaded and somehow there’s always a breeze back there, even on the hottest of days where the branches are still everywhere else. It’s comfortable and cool and the perfect spot to summer with a book and some water and my lawn chair and the occasional (read: daily) freezee pop.

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True confessions: I wrote the above two paragraphs a couple of weeks ago. August is actually the absolute worst. I'm sure next year I'll be wishing it were longer (because KINDERGARTENNNNNNN) but, well, it's still this year and the kids have basically forgotten how to play outside and just wander around in circles whining and/or fighting. So. Yeah. I'm over it.

(And yes I realize that mere months ago I was complaining about winter but that was after a literal six months of snow. My self-awareness has grown as I've realized that my tolerance for any given season is about a two month time period (with the exception of fall) so my new proposal is an eight-month year with two months each for spring, summer, fall, and winter. Who's with me? Let's get on that.)

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We went on our annual family vacation up north in July. It was the most enjoyable year in awhile. I wasn’t breastfeeding anyone, we didn’t really care about nap schedules since it was just easier to wear them out and then put them to bed at night, we were more comfortable with the kids in the water given their recent swimming lessons and the magic of life jackets.

Brooklyn was the fishiest of fish and I’m amazed we got her out of the water at all. Caden loved any boat he could con a ride on, from the paddleboat to the pontoon to the stand-up paddleboard. Nolan gloried in being his full summer-kid self and also ate all the snacks he could get his hands on. I enjoyed more time in the surprisingly warm lake than in the past few years combined, enjoyed a drink or three, and devoted entire chunks of time to reading. It was glorious.

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NOLAN IS USING THE POTTY. The kid I thought would be in diapers forever due to all of his “I a BABY!” and “I no YIKE it!” and all that running away from the actual potty up and decided out of the blue that hey, the potty isn’t so bad, after all.

About a month ago he was pulling at the front of his pants so I asked him, as I’ve asked him one hundred million times before, “You look like you have to go potty. Do you want to go on the potty?” and instead of screaming "NOOOO" he gave me a spirited “YEAH!” and ran to the potty, where he pulled down his pants, sat down, and went like he’s been doing it all his life. (I had a slight moment of “Are you KIDDING me?” as he probably could have been potty trained six months ago, but whatever.)

So. We’re going potty. And for the first time in about 4 ½ years, I have exactly ZERO children in diapers. Praise the Lord.

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Nolan also sometimes doesn't nap. And rarely naps for more than 60 minutes. It’s the worst thing ever. Fix it, Jesus.

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Caden obsessively and compulsively saved up for a $99.99 LEGO Batman set. Specifically this LEGO Batman set or as he calls it, “The one hundred dollar Batman LEGO set that has the Batcave and Bruce Wayne and Alfred Dad and the Penguin.” Yeah. That one. Then he obsessively and compulsively carved out time each day to work on putting it together (often by himself and please just go look at that "8-14"-year old age suggestion on it again) and spent the rest of the time keeping Nolan away from it. Every night he thanks God for “my Batman LEGO set with the Batcave because it makes me so happy.” 

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Earlier this month I spent some time in Denver with my favorite group of women - a group of mamas and writers just like me. It was also the first time we met in person. Little did I know that my favorite group of people could also be ones I'd never actually "met" before, but I guess that's the Internet for ya. 

They were smart, fierce, funny, passionate, wonderful, lovely, extraordinary women. We may start our own commune just so we don't have to hop on a plane in order to see each other and can help each other take care of babies and make meals and give each other time off to go write for days at a time. Okay, probably not, but we can dream. It was perfect and wonderful (besides a four-hour flight delay on my way out of town) and I can't wait to do it again.

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Upon my (very, very late at night) return from Denver, Tyson told me, "If anything is too hard today, don't do it." I took that as my cue to procure Happy Meals for lunch.

Please note that nobody complained about this situation.

I'm also taking it as my motto for the rest of summer. We've summered and now we are surviving. I'm resting, reading, and yelling instructions or corrections from my chair. This is where we're at, people.

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Some toddler and preschooler-isms I'm loving lately:

• "Oosp" (oops). Nolan always mixes up the last two letters. It's ridiculously endearing and part of the reason I want to read Blue Hat, Green Hat with him every. single. day. It also sounds like it should be a thing from IKEA. The Oosp floor lamp or something.
• "Sun scream" (sunscreen). Those "m"s and those "n"s, man. They're tough.
• "Nusic" (music). See above.
• "Fly splatter" (fly swatter). You know their version is better.
• "Constructions" (instructions). Like the booklets of instructions that come with all those LEGO sets. Another preschooler-ism that I'm convinced is better than the original.
• "The day before this day" and "the day after this one". Because no matter how much we remind them, those four-year olds have a tough time remembering the words "yesterday" and "tomorrow" but can string their own set of words together pretty well to get the point across.

Counting Motherhood

I keep a lot of numbers in my head.

One is the number of pink lines I was expecting. I was ready for that disappointment. But first one and then another appeared as I watched the white stick on the counter, surprising me after all.

Two has been a big number for us. Because those two pink lines represented not one, but two little babies. They were born just two minutes apart, first brother, then sister. Then they turned two only two days before our youngest was born. A brother. Number three.

Three takes up a lot of space in our home right now. It’s the number of toddler beds, mini Pottery Barn chairs, three-wheeled scooters, and balance bikes you’ll find around here. Three plates and three spoons and three half-full cups of milk. Three sets of shoes (out of the so many more), three jackets, and three little backpacks to put on and take off.

Four is the number of years I’ve been doing this stay-at-home mom gig. Four years since those twins were born. Those four years have involved some bigger numbers. I’m sure I’ve changed about 12,482 diapers in that time. I must have done upwards of 2000 loads of laundry. I’ve served up approximately 3408 snacks and stepped on 324 Goldfish (probably).

Read the rest over on the Twin Cities Moms Blog!

Slow Decorating

Recently, I bought stools for our kitchen island. I started with two but quickly added another, since one kid always felt left out. (You’d think I’d have learned by now.) During our Month of Two Stools there were too many fights to count and I cursed even buying them in the first place. (Sometimes I still regret buying stools because my two-year old thinks he has full access to everything on the island at any given time, but that’s another story.)

We’ve lived in our house for almost three years. I didn’t care much about stools at first during the chaos of moving and adding another baby and having twin two-year old climbers who didn’t need any more temptations. But after awhile the island looked kind of lonely and empty to me. It was time. I searched and I researched and compared prices. I found some. Now I love having our simple kitchen stools. The kids have easy access to help me bake, I often sit there for breakfast or to work on a project, cold brew or craft brew by my side. The three little Williamses often sit three across for breakfast or lunch or an afternoon snack.

But I had to find the right stools first.

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It was the same in our bedroom. All this open space, what to do with it? A (very first world) problem I had never had before. Our previous apartment barely had room for a bed, two nightstands, a dresser, and space to walk around them all without bumping into something.

I thought I hated the tan walls (It's grey that's in, not tan!) but despised all that painting would entail. Then I saw an image, burned into my brain now, of a bedroom full of tans and whites and creams and walnut and it looked so beautiful, so serene. That picture became my inspiration. A cream-textured bed with nailheads, white and walnut dresser, cozy chair in the corner. I’m not done yet. But it took me at least a year of living there to realize I even liked the space I had to work with. To realize I could mold and transform and even love it.

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I’m wary of buying any pieces I don’t love. Afraid that if I just buy something to fill the space, it will become normal, I’ll get used to it, I’ll never update. Until recently, our ottoman was a $79.99 faux leather (Does "vegan leather" sound fancier? Let's go with that.) dark brown piece with storage from Target that desperately needed replacing. The hinges didn’t quite work after four years of kids using it for everything from a boat to a hiding spot. There were a couple of rips in the “vegan leather” on the corner. But it worked. It held my feet up. It was easy to set it and forget it and not worry about upgrading.

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I’m a big fan of slow decorating. I think you have to live in a space before you know how you want it to feel, how you want it to look, how it will function best for you and your family. I know many people buy houses and immediately go about their renovations and binge on furniture purchases. I’m a bit more tortoise-like, quieter. I often don’t have an idea about a space until — suddenly — I do. It often comes to me, in a flash, and then I can’t tackle a project fast enough.

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I guess we’ve never really had the budget for major renovations or a plethora of furniture purchases to begin with. The lean days of our early married years made even a $79.99 ottoman purchase an investment for us. It amazed me that after putting a down payment on a house anyone had any money left to buy furniture to fill it with. In a way, we’ve been forced into slow.

But I do love the slow accumulation, over time, of pieces that speak to me, of pieces that are just right, of a corner I had no idea how to use until suddenly the exact right, perfect idea pops into my head - ah ha! So that’s what to do with you.

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That ottoman has been replaced now. A bigger piece, one more suited to the size of our space. Without hinges because now I know those will just get broken again. With a cream fabric that will probably get stained but since it was a steal at $169.99 it’s a risk I can take for something that’s more my style, something I like, something that feels like me. (It's still from Target, though. Some things never change.)

I’ve been eyeing some nightstands for our bedroom, a couple of chairs for our living room, still have no idea what to do with the long wall in our entryway. Maybe I won't for another three years, five years, eight. This house will probably never be "done", not finished in the way I see on Pinterest or in the pages of Dwell. And that's alright.

I'm okay with taking it slow.

An Unfair Question

“We were gone last week. How have you been?” a friend asked at our parent-child class. Not friend exactly, really more of an acquaintance, but we’ve overlapped in so many of these weekly classes over the past two years that we both thrill at seeing a familiar face and the chance for some adult conversation.

I froze. There’s no other way to describe it. I stood there at least six seconds too long, well past the time required by social norms to give a reasonable answer. My mind raced. .

We haven’t seen each other in two weeks. How have I been? “Fine” doesn’t exactly sum it all up. Or maybe it does. Let’s see, Monday I mostly yelled, as I dealt with everything from negotiations over getting ready in the morning to cleaning crayon off the walls. Tuesday my devils turned into angels who remembered how to play together nicely and got dressed without prompting them 482 times. We’re doing okay so far today. I mean, it’s only 9:00 and we made it on time. But that’s this week. What did we even do last week? Did we do things? Well, I did completely forget about my own dentist appointment. Like it just didn’t even register that I was supposed to go. That was a low moment. I feel like we did something over the weekend, though. Didn’t we? Why can’t I even think of something — anything — we did just three days ago?

She laughed. Apparently she recognized the look of confusion as I tried to harness my swirling thoughts. “Sorry!” she laughed in sympathy, “That’s not really a fair question for a parent!”

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The same frozen response happens when Tyson comes downstairs, done with work for the day. He’s learned not to ask such general questions as, “How was today?” or “What did you do today?” or even “Did you have a good day?” The first elicits either a muttered “fine” or a torrent of emotions, the second fries my brain (What did we do today?!? For the love!), and the third can find me just as tongue-tied. I mean, define “good.” Everyone was fed, I didn’t completely fly off the handle, and nobody landed in the ER (except the one time they did), so that counts as “good”, right?

These questions seem simple but become frustratingly complicated while I struggle to answer anything beyond the unsatisfactory “fine”.  Even short amounts of time during my day can lead to a flood of emotions for us all. Snuggling on the couch reading stories with the twins was wonderful, but it was ruined in a matter of minutes by a little brother dive-bombing us, which resulted in tears on all three sides (one from being injured, another from the interruption of the story-reading, the third from being physically restrained) plus a frazzled mama, so the TV came to the rescue while I folded laundry, which was peaceful if mundane.

I have the same jumble of emotions when I realize a four-year old has outgrown all their pants yet again (disbelief mingled with creativity in the wardrobe department), a friend cancels our evening plans (disappointment combined with relief from my introverted side), or lunch is thrown to the floor, rejected by the one in the high chair (anger and...wait, actually, two out of three eating their lunch in peace ain’t bad).

Maybe my emotions lately are taking their cue from the majority rule in our house — that is, toddlers — as they seem to run the gamut from joy to anger to frustration to love in the span of your average temper tantrum.

I often feel everything all at the same time, just like my toddlers and their own outbursts. I am absolutely the most frustrated that you hit your brother but I also feel the urge to kiss your pink toddler cheeks. IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.

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I don’t remember what exact response I gave that day. I’m sure we laughed it off and moved on to other things or chased after our corresponding two-year olds. I surprised myself at my own reaction. Why couldn’t I just say something, anything at all? Maybe because I sensed in this fellow mom the potential for true friendship. “We’ve been good” doesn’t quite move the conversation, the relationship, forward. At this stage in my life I don’t want to build friendships on “good”. It’s made me think through what other response I could have given besides my apparently default one of freeze.

What I wanted to say is my days are ALL the things. Every last one of them. Our past two weeks involved a little of everything, a grab bag full of frustration and fights but also patience and love. Someone was sick, another was healthy, one practiced kindness while the other practiced throwing their toys at every possible opportunity.

I do know the easy, acceptable answers of “good” and “fine” aren’t enough for me. My life can’t be packaged up so simply. It feels almost like lying, like I’m sharing something that’s blatantly untrue. I haven’t been just “fine” — at the very least do you remember the part where I forgot my own dentist appointment?

Is it so socially unacceptable for me to brain dump my response at her feet — the feet of a friendly, fellow mom, one who acknowledges the unfairness of her own question — to tell her I really don’t know how I’ve been the past couple of weeks, but I have done everything on the spectrum from screaming to smothering them with love?

Maybe I should start sharing my own truth a bit easier. That I’ve been exhausted and overwhelmed and completely over all of these kids and also thinking about running away so does she want to look up flights to Cabo with me? The diapering and the one billion snacks and the cleaning up the floor from said snacks and the dealing with the whining (So. Much. Whining.) from three separate children really is too much.

But immediately following all of that, I would share my disbelief that my twins are now real, live actual four year olds and how did that happen? I can’t run away. Kindergarten is just around the corner and then my babies will be off, out into the world. I need to stay here before they all grow up too quickly, snuggle them on the couch, read all their books, kiss their little cheeks some more and feed them all another round of Goldfish while I still can.

At worst, she’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end. And maybe I have. Maybe I am a bit crazy and maybe I have succumbed to the multitude of emotions that run through our house on any given day. She might be uncomfortable with my surge of thoughts, surprised I didn’t follow basic social norms.

But at best, she’ll have a knowing gleam in her eye as I ramble on. I’ll be one step closer to gaining a new friend as she laughs, nods, smiles in agreement, and says, “Me too.”