Lilly is really sick right now (croup $#$@#@$) so we stayed in today to watch the superbowl. I bought a chocolate cake for dessert and Molly was obsessed with it. She asked me about 20 times in a 10 minute period when she could have a piece of cake. I was busy bathing Lilly, drugging her up, and putting her to bed, so I told her she would have to wait until I was done. She asked about 15 more times after that.

Finally she got on my nerves SO badly I snapped at her:

“MOLLY! If I hear you ask for that cake ONE MORE TIME, I will send you STRAIGHT to bed! Knock it off!”.

A few minutes later I felt a tap on my back and when I turned around I found this:

And that, in a nutshell, is what life with Molly is like.

The kids with their voting stickers. Poor Lilly. Kevin, his seat, and all that bundling left her barely any room!

Those of you who know me well know I am really passionate about voting. It drives me crazy how over half the world does not have the simple right to vote (even more than half of women in the world) and here in America we just laugh it off as a joke. The returns on the news last night made me so angry – everyone talking about low voter turn out, etc.. and one newscaster saying “Well its just a primary….”. UGH!!! When the women that marched through the streets demanding equality were fighting for their rights, I am pretty sure they wanted a voice in all elections – even “just primaries”.

Also – I just really like a chance to put my opinion in somewhere official! (and some could argue a primary election offers more of a chance to be heard since there is no electoral college, a smaller turnout so your vote counts more, etc.. but I digress).

Isn't he just the cutest

Okay enough of that rant. Yesterday was election day so I of course made the trek over to my polling place to put in my vote. It is really important to me to do this with the kids because I want to set an example so that they always remember going with Mommy to vote and they hopefully pick up the habit too. And if Molly saying, “UGH why wont this idiot in front of us MOVE already!?” while we were in the car the other day is any indication, the kids are definitely picking up my habits.

For some reason, I decided to walk there. I have no idea WHY I thought this would be a great thing but I did. It was 34 degrees out which is downright tropical in February, lightly snowing (no I can not explain why it snows so much when its above freezing so don’t ask), and I was crashing hard from having too much coffee in the AM and thought some fresh air would help. I spent a good ten minutes bundling us all up and preparing Kevin especially to be so protected that I think he could probably have survived nuclear fall out from ground zero. Coats, hats, mittens, snow pants, blankets etc..were applied all around and off we went. Our polling place is at Molly’s school (this is why she had the day off) and its a little less than a half mile each way.

Seriously people, I have no room.

I bought a double jogger while I was pregnant with Kevin and that thing is the best because it rides well over snow and wet. No one yesterday had shoveled their walk and the streets were all slushy and slick so it came in pretty handy. Until I got to the school to vote that is. Because my perfect stroller that I love SO much would not fit through the door!!! Stupid school! I mean how do you have an elementary school that can not accommodate a side by side double stroller!? I guess I could have taken Lilly and Kevin out and folded it up to fit through the door and then put them all back in and then repeated the process on the way out, but that would have meant unbundling the fortress I had created around Kevin and that was just TOO MUCH WORK! I was about to leave and come back after Matt got home, but then we luckily caught the attention of Molly’s gym teacher, who it turns out is our neighbor, and she offered to stay with the kids while I voted. Molly told me “don’t worry Mommy, I know this lady and I trust her to watch Lilly and Kevin.” LOL – she takes her big sister job so seriously!

Molly the good big sister. Sometimes she thinks she is their mother!

And by the way, to get TO the school I had to go up a hill to cross a pedestrain bridge and then back down a hill on the other side. So this means that Molly literally has to walk a mile (round trip), uphill BOTH ways, in the snow, to get to school. Her kids will hate me someday for making that guilt trip a reality for her to use on them

Isn't he getting so wonderfully fat??? I just LOVE HIM. And I think his little growth makes him even more handsome (well not really but its going to be here awhile so I might as well learn to love it)

So Kevin has this thing on his lip. I think I mentioned it a few posts back. It has some real name. Some medical terminology that is all official and stuff, but just like I call Lilly’s eye issue “the wonk in Lilly’s eye”, I have taken to calling Kevin’s lip issue “that thing on Kevin’s lip”. This is fun because it really irritates Molly who usually says something along the lines of, “Mommy – thats mean. Its a hemangioma and you just can’t say it right so you try to be funny.”.

Busted

Anyways, this morning we had an appointment with a pediatric dermatologist to have it evaluated. We had this appointment at Children’s Memorial Hospital which felt very official and kind of scary but it turned out to be a really nice place with lots of really fun toys for Lilly to play with while we waited. And considering they booked me in on top of two other patients, we did a lot of waiting. It was nice of them to do that for us though so I won’t complain even though the room they had us wait in was about 90 degrees and I am not exaggerating. I was really stressed out about having all three kids with me for this, knowing there would be a wait, but I am happy to report that they were all PERFECT. Molly and Lilly were really pulling out all the stops to be good. I mean I kept looking at them and thinking. “I can NOT believe those are MY kids!”. The nurses and the specialist all remarked that they were EXCELLENT and so well behaved. I guess they are just really wonderful, adorable, good-listening children!

Oh alright. I bribed them.

With donuts on the way there.

And the promise of a new littlest pet shop each if they were SILENT.

oh okay fine – And a happy meal.

(yes donuts and a happy meal in one day but it worked so sue me).

I am serious - they did this the whole time! I guess they REALLY wanted those littlest pet shops! Bonus: They played with the new toys all afternoon very quietly. I kind of feel like I should buy a lottery ticket or something because its too good to be true!

It was kind of funny because we saw two nurses and one doctor before the specialist even came in. The room really was kept at what felt like 90 degrees which I think they do for the poor little naked babies of course, but after waiting 90 minutes you should have seen how pink Molly (who has today off), Lilly and I were! Kevin was sweating even though he had just a diaper on and I had a hard time holding on to him while he nursed. And then (as I was completely exposed while feeding him of course) in breezed the specialist with not even a knock and she spent all of about 5 minutes with us. She was TOTALLY the QUEEN BEE of Chicagoland pediatric dermatology Y’all. She snapped her fingers at one point and her assistant literally jumped up to fetch her something. She then breezed on out with a hand waving towards another nurse to run and fetch something else and that was it. I am not even sure she ever made eye contact with me. It was not really as obnoxious at it sounds though – she was very nice – but she was a bit intimidating!!!

Anyways, the good news is that Kevin is obviously eating just fine, it won’t interfere with his speech, and in some areas its even starting to fade already, though he will most likely have it until he is 2 years of age. The bad news is that there is definitely an internal component to it that we can not see that is starting to grow and distort his lip. I don’t mean just on the inside of his mouth (it is big behind his lip – its quite wide and goes all the way back to his gums), but actually under his skin. The tumor, if left to grow, can cause permanent disfigurement by stretching his lip so he will have to have it shrunk at some point, the earlier the better. Its not a bad procedure – they do it with a needle that injects a medication directly into the tumor to shrink it but we have to wait until it is a certain size to do that. He goes back in a month to chart its growth and possibly start treatment. I have to admit I had kind of thought this appointment was overcautious and would be a waste of time. I thought we would just hear, “Its just a mark and will go away on its own in a few years”, so it turns out its a good thing we went in. Its all cosmetic though, so really we are lucky. Seriously – Google “Hemangioma of the Lip” and see what comes up. We really did get off easy comparatively!

And on a lighter note (har har – pun intended!), Kevin weighed in at 15 lbs 4 oz today. He is such a tank and I can hardly believe how fast he is growing! He now wears size 3 diapers and I put him in Lilly’s size 4 diapers at night. I really think he may end up passing her in weight in his first year. He is only 11 weeks old and is only about 9 pounds lighter than her.

Right after she read the last page. She was so proud!!

Today, I was amazed yet again by Molly and her seemingly endless thirst for all things to do with books and reading. I really fear these posts are starting to get annoying and come across as shameless bragging and I apologize if they are, but I am just blown away by her! And I am ridiculously (and maybe annoyingly?) proud of her!

This morning, during the usual Sunday morning rush – Me getting ready for a meeting at church, Matt getting laundry done, Kevin begging to be fed as usual, and Lilly just walking around throwing herself on the ground with pointless tantrums – Molly decided to escape (who can blame her) and sat down on the couch with a book. It was a chapter book I had gotten her from the library that I have been promising her I will sit down and read to her for about two weeks now. Time. Never enough time. She has asked me pretty much every day.

TANGENT ALERT: I hate saying no when they ask me to read!!! There was a time when I had the luxury of having the policy that I NEVER said no to a book request. If Molly walked up while I was cooking dinner with a book in her hand I would literally sit right down on the floor of the kitchen and read it to her. Eventually we had to revise this rule to “Mommy will never say no to a book unless she is driving”, because of course miss smarty pants tried to take full advantage. Anyways, nowadays I do not have that luxury and it really gets to me. I still find time to read a lot to Lilly during the day (especially while I am nursing Kevin), but Molly gets home from school only an hour before I have to make dinner and the time I do have is taken up by her assignment which is to read aloud to ME so I don’t get to read to her as much as I really wish I could. And I really actually LIKE reading to them – i enjoy the books (Molly’s now especially because they are real stories). I am eagerly looking forward to the next Magic Tree House installment in fact!

TANGENT OVER. promise.

So the thing that was great about Molly picking this book up (book one of the Mercy the Pig series which came highly recommended to me from a mom in Lilly’s storytime class), is that it is a REAL chapter book. It has 12 chapters, with pictures every other page or so, and while I know Molly had the tools to do it she seemed pretty intimidated to try it on her own. She owns lots of other chapter books that we have read together – Magic Treehouse, Junie b Jones, American Girl stories,etc.. but she will usually read a page or two and then give up or ask me to finish out the chapter for her, etc…I assumed when she finally dove into a chapter book for real, she would probably do it one chapter at a time. Maybe two.

So you can imagine my surprise when she blew through the first 4 chapters in 25 minutes. She would pause occasionally to ask our help with certain words and she was laughing hilariously while she read (and she was reading out loud so I can confirm that it WAS a really funny book). And then I was further amazed when she came home this afternoon after being my errand buddy all day and sat down and FINISHED THE WHOLE BOOK. All 12 chapters in ONE DAY! (editors note: to put this in perspective, a “chapter” is only about 4 or 5 pages).

I peeked around the corner and saw this and it really made me smile. Of course Lilly wants to be JUST LIKE MOLLY in every way. Lets hope this part really does rub off!

Well she was just SO DARN proud of herself when she finished the last page that she was jumping up and down. We took the picture at the top of this post to commemorate the big achievement and she said something that only a TRUE reader can really appreciate:

“Mommy, I am so excited that I just read a whole chapter book by myself, but I am kind of sad too because that was a really good book and I kind of miss it now.”

What an old soul lives in that kid, eh?

So people keep telling me that Kevin is the spitting image of Lilly. And I see that – he makes similar expressions to her and has many of the same facial features. But to be honest, I find him to be more similar in appearance to Molly at this age. Maybe it is because he reminds me so much of Molly in general as he is much more like her personality wise. He is quite serious (though he can smile – just doesn’t very often), quiet, will take a bottle, and is absurdly mellow, etc..

Yes thats right – I said his mellowness reminds me of Molly.

Stop laughing I am serious! While it might be hard to believe now, there was a time – long long LONG ago – when Molly was mellow. In fact she was a ridiculously easy baby.

Which Karma has paid us back for with years 1.5 – our current age.

So anyways, to prove my case, I decided to post some comparison photos of the three of them as newborns during bath time. Enjoy!

Miss Molly at about 4 weeks of age:

Molly during bath time. THe block of knives are actually much further than they appear from her - just FYI (thats always bugged me about this picture!)

Miss Lilly at about 8 weeks of age:

This was her first time in the big bath tub with Molly and she loved it (you can totally tell how excited she is right?)

And Mr. Man himself – Kevin at 9 weeks of age:

Certain areas "pixelated" for baby's modesty

So go ahead and look at Molly and add about 2 pounds of chub (a fuller face and belly) to how she looked at 4 weeks above, and you will see what I mean – they are a lot alike! I am sorry I don’t have a pic of Molly at 9 weeks to share, but you see, I lost the first 4 months of Molly’s life when our computer crashed in January of 2005. All I have are the photos in my album of her to scan in. I am still completely and totally heart broken and sick about it. Seriously it makes me want to throw up if I think too much about it so I will stop talking now.

I have to dig up their newborn pics next because its seriously creepy. I feel like I gave birth to the same baby 3 times.

Kevin on his 2 month birthday

So Kevin turned two months old this last week! Can you believe its been two months since he was born!? I am amazed by how fast it has gone by. I think it really is a testament to how much a mother loves her child, that even when you are awake 20 hours of each day (with the 4 resting hours being non-consecutive), you can actually say that time is going by quickly. I live on coffee and adrenaline, but I could care less. He is pretty delicious.

Now that said, don’t feel too bad for me because this last week he also started pulling a 6 hour stretch at night. He sleeps from about 10pm to 4am. I go to bed about 11, so believe it or not, I am getting 5 consecutive hours for the first time in a few years actually. Lilly was late to sleep through the night and by the time she finally did, I was pregnant again and suffered from severe pregnancy insomnia the entire time. I swear to you I feel like a different person these last few days. I can only hope he keeps it up!

(but I admit there is a small part of me that is greatly saddened that he is doing this because it means he is getting older and its just one more step away from having what may be my last newborn to care for.)

"Check me out y'all! I totally just barfed on my Mommy!"

So of course at the 2 month mark, we experience the dreaded 2 month appointment. Dreaded because this appointment includes the first vaccinations – 3 shots to the thighs and one oral vaccine. The oral vaccine went VERY well. The shots to the legs however, did NOT go so well.

As a general rule, and save for a few episodes of fussiness, Kevin does not cry very often. He is a super mellow little thing and tends to be more of a whiner when he wants something (but seriously – its an AWFUL wussy whine. I will have to get it on video). So I have never really heard him scream before this appointment and I have to say I was impressed. About 4 seconds after she put that needle into his leg he turned the most violent shade of red/purple I have ever seen and then he let out a ear piercing scream I did not even know he was capable of. Oh my goodness was he MAD!! It was partly cute, and mostly heart breaking and as with all the kids at their first vaccinations, it made me cry.

Daddy with his favorite little rookie

But the good news is that he is a very healthy “little” guy. He weighed in at a gluttonous 14 lbs, 10oz (above 95th percentile)!! He was in the 50th percentile for height, and the 25th for head size, though I think she may have measured it wrong because that noggin looks pretty huge to me. He is also incredibly strong for his age. He can roll from front to back (with a lot of effort) and he can curl up into a ball on his side from his back. He holds his head up and is already trying to sit up and hold himself steady while sitting. He does not get as much tummy time as he should, but when he does get it he can push up slightly on his forearms which is pretty neat! Yesterday he started sucking on his hands, and today I noticed him bringing his two hands together in front of him which is a really huge milestone – it means that the left and right sides of his brain are communicating with each other. Pretty exciting stuff! He does have a hemangioma on his lip, which is kind of funky looking, and we are going to see a specialist just to have it checked out and to make sure it is not interfering with his ability to eat (ha! thats pretty obviously NOT an issue). But it will most likely go away in a few years on its own if we just leave it alone.

Kevin (r), made his first friend at Lilly's playgroup the other day! His name is Wyatt and he is 4 months old and weighs 5 pounds less than Kevin ha ha ha!

And since everyone asks me, as far as how its going having a boy I would say I love it 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time I am dealing with that “part”.

You know the one.

I am going on record right now people. I do NOT like that thing – it is nothing but a nuisance. I mean, I really thought after my girls and all their various “yeast issues” (sorry if that is TMI) that a boy would be very low maintenance, but I am finding that the opposite is true. First of all, its like that fountain at the mall that jumps and shoots water all over the place when you least expect it. It just goes off whenever it wants to (most usually while I am bathing him, changing him, or somewhere very public), and it is totally uncontrollable. Second of all, we had him circumcised (sorry again if this is TMI) and we have had all sorts of issues with the foreskin re-attaching. I have to put all kinds of creams on it and do things I won’t go into greater detail about to help the adhesions let go. Really I think Matt should be the one that has to deal with this because I have NO IDEA what I am doing! After everything I have been through with both genders now, I am starting to consider myself an expert on private parts and what can go wrong with them and I am seriously considering writing a book. It shall be called: “Privates: A Caretakers Manual” and it will hopefully save some poor tired parents from learning some of this the hard way like I have. UGH.

And so that is the update on the little man whom we have taken to calling “Kev-dog”, “K-dogg”, or any variation thereof. My favorite is “Kev-doggy-dog” and I happen to think he agrees because he smiles at me whenever I call him that. And of course, as with his sisters before him, he has wiggled his way right into my heart and it is now completely impossible for me to really remember what life was like around here without him. Such a little miracle – and worth every bit of hard work

"Yeah! She called me Kev-doggy-dogg! I love that!"

PS: Grammatically, this is not my best post. Its filled with typos and sentences I would love to sit and restructure if I had time, but I don’t. Maybe I will come down in the middle of the night and change it if its really bugging me but for now, I am headed to bed!

I struggled with whether to mention Haiti here. Its just that EVERYONE is talking about Haiti right now and it can come across ingenuine and I don’t want to seem like someone jumping on the bandwagon to make myself look better.

“look at me! I care about poor people!!!”. Sorry if that seems really crabby and pessimistic, but I just have an issue with people who use charity to make themselves look better. I have had experience with these kinds of people SO MANY TIMES in my life and have been burned (aka: left standing alone with a soup ladel and 200 mouths to feed by myself) by people who promised to come, but really only wanted to be overheard talking about it. I am guilty also, of playing this card more than once in my past and it haunts me.

Celebrities especially kind of make me squirm on this subject. I mean yes – use your popularity to support a good cause, but really its more self serving than anything because they come off looking more “everyman” and that translates to higher box office returns and they totally know that. When Paris Hilton mentioned the earthquake at her new perfume launch last week (and pronounced Haiti wrong), I was really annoyed.

DISCLAIMER: This is not in any way to say that there are not THOUSANDS of genuine and caring people out there. Even celebrities – there are SO MANY doing awesome work to help others. I am just saying that the ones who have to yell about how genuine and caring they are, usually aren’t in my experience.

And THAT is why I almost did not mention Haiti here. I just wanted it not to be something people rolled their eyes at or thought was coming from the wrong place.

But then today I was watching Fox News against my will (Lilly changed the channel and ran off with the remote while I was nursing Kevin), and I watched in horror as a panel of people sat there talking about how annoying it is that “America has to bail out someone else’s problems” because the impoverished “always have the chance to change themselves for the better and are lazy and don’t do anything about their situation and then expect us to help” and blah blah blah blah. In my opinion it was a giant diatribe about how people should not feel guilty for not giving more.

But this begs the ultimate question: WHO CARES HOW THESE PEOPLE GOT INTO THE SITUATION THEY ARE IN!???

Last night I saw a baby on the news. He was 2 months old and had been pulled out of some rubble. He had a crushed rib cage and was gurgling and sputtering blood.

Kevin is 2 months old.

I wonder if they were born the same day? Were his mom and I in labor at the same time? Did she laugh/cry at the joy of him and call all her friends and family in the middle of the night to tell them her great news? Were those friends and family as excited for her as you all were for me the night of Kevin’s birth?

Does she stare at him in complete wonder each time she nurses him like I do when I nurse Kevin (yes even at 3am)?

and, will she ever get the opportunity to nurse him again?

But more importantly – does it matter how he got into the situation he is in right now? Is it his fault that he was born into a cycle of poverty? Is it his fault his government is corrupt or did not listen to the “expert” on Fox News who was a part of some panel of geologists that warned Haiti years ago that this could happen?

NO. I am sorry but NO. It does not matter – NONE of it matters. I am just so furious that people are even focusing on that right now that I can not even see straight. Before we are Americans, before we are “Christians” (and I put that in quotes because I think some of these nay sayers need to re-read their bibles), we are HUMAN BEINGS. And we are connected to one another in the most wonderful ways. And those people in Haiti are our brothers and sisters in God’s eyes and they are living in a level of hell that we can not even imagine right now. And how anyone can look at a helpless baby spitting up blood and honestly say “well he deserves this so I am not spending one penny to help him” is beyond me.

Look, this is not a guilt trip I promise. I do not want to make anyone feel bad. And in all fairness there were plenty of people urging people to donate on Fox News today too. I am just saying that I am a stay at home mom. We have one income that needs to feed, clothe, house and entertain 5 people. My kids wear nothing on their backs that is not pre-loved or bought on super clearance. I bought 80% of their Christmas presents at resales or with gift certificates. I own 3 bras. I mean like total – 3 bras! I recently added a third “meatless” night to the Clemm family weekly menu to make room in our budget for a second kid in diapers. Our budget is TIGHT AS CAN BE.

So if even I could find $50 to donate to help, than anyone can. Because we have to – those of us who are human – to make up for the idiots on Fox News today and the millions more like them.

So please, if you can spare anything – please donate money to the relief efforts. You all know where you can do it and how you can do it – I will spare you all the “donate to this charity – NO! this charity!” stuff and just say: donate.

Thank you and sorry if I offended anyone. I just sit watching the footage on my nice warm couch and stuffing my face with all the plentiful food around here and I kind of want to claw my own skin off because not being able to do more for these people is so maddening. So if this convinces even one person to throw $5 their way, I will consider that at least my success at doing more than I was able to do alone.

Kevin the smiling 2 month old thanks you also:

SIGH. I had a rough morning.

Mornings are a challenge in general because I have to get all three kids ready and out the door so we can drop Molly off at school. Those of you who have me on facebook know how much I love the #$&*(%& drop off process at that school, and specifically the parking lot lady (who I recently found out is the school social worker – what a lovely person to have chosen to tangle with). Its not my favorite time of day.

Molly all ready to go in her Daisy uniform! I had to iron on the patches and of course I did it wrong the first time.

I do have neighbors that have offered to help me by taking Molly in the mornings, but I kind of like the structure that having a goal time to be out the door provides to us. Otherwise I think Lilly, Kevin and I would flounder around in our pajamas, starving, and without aim for most of the day. This way we get dressed and out the door and have the mornings open to meet up with friends, run errands, etc.. until we need to come home for lunch and naps.

I also like to get a coffee after drop off.

(“Mommy Juice” as Lilly calls it.)

SO anyways, I hate myself today because I really lost it on Molly this morning and I am feeling just TERRIBLE about it. See, we are having a heat wave here (sarcasm) and its in the mid 30’s this week. So the kids are just having a BLAST at recess playing in the snow pack that is still frozen on the ground, while the air temperature is so pleasant.

Pleasant anyways, in comparison to when those poor kids have to go out to recess when its 5 degrees – yes 5 degrees – and they pretty much just stand in a huddle until they unlock the doors and let them back in.

So anyways, to be allowed to play in the snow the children have to have snow pants and boots in addition to the daily requirements of hats and gloves. And this new snow play is where we run into problems with the gloves. I do not have waterproof gloves that fit Molly because by the time I got out of the hospital and was up and around after having Kevin, they were sold out EVERYWHERE and they don’t tend to restock them much for reasons I will never understand. I mean its cold here until MAY for goodness sakes. Doesn’t anyone ever need gloves beyond December!??? At this point I will have to go to REI and spend $30 or something ridiculous like that but I just have not had the time to get out there with 2 babies in tow, so I have been telling Molly to double up on knit gloves while playing in the snow until we can get her a good pair of snow gloves.

Okay, so now, with that explanation out of the way, I will get to the meat of my story.

Molly -vs- her seatbelt is a rivalry of epic proportions. Every day she struggles to strap herself in and I honestly do not know why. She is so very smart in general but just loses it when she has to buckle in. It has been this way for almost 2 years now – ever since she moved to a booster seat. In the winter, this process is complicated even further due to heavy jackets, hats covering our eyes, and of course gloves. I refuse to buckle it for her because; A) she is 5 and B) I am not crawling over two babies to get to the back row of the van.

So this morning I sat patiently waiting for her as she had her daily struggle with her belt. This was already after a pretty rough morning of her being defiant about what she wore, how long it took to brush her teeth, what order we all get into the van, etc…After about 6 minutes of her crying, whining, and making this frustrated growl that is one of the most irritating noises ever created on earth and immediately raises my blood pressure even on a good day, I suggested she might want to take her gloves off and try buckling herself in with just her hands. I got back: “NO! They are too hard to get back on! And don’t talk to me!”. Lovely. I was at my boiling point.

So 4 more minutes pass and I say to her (again patiently I SWEAR), “Molly honey, we are already late for school so you have to just get it done please”. At which point she took that buckle and FLUNG it as far in my direction as it would go until it reached the end of its tether (a terrifying 4 inches away from Kevin’s sweet little head in the seat in front of her) and whipped back and hit her in the face. Then she made that growl noise again.

UGH THAT NOISE!

Well I just lost it. I mean I REALLY LOST IT! In general I think I am doing really well with the adjustment to three – and to having 2 kids under 2, but times like this is when the snap happens. This is where the cracks in the foundation show. I can only hold my sanity for SO LONG on such little sleep.

I jumped out of the car, slammed the van door open, STOMPED into the van and into the back and I ripped her gloves off of her hands for her. When I realized she was wearing the other pair of gloves that is supposed to be for recess UNDER the top pair, I SAW RED (I had already told her NOT to wear both pairs except at recess because she is not able to zip her jacket with both pairs on and I already have to zip Kevin and Lilly and refuse to zip up a 5 year old too). I then leaned over and just buckled the buckle for her while I YELLED very loud at her for not listening to me. She started wailing.

Then I very maturely stomped out of the van and got back in the drivers side, slamming both doors in the process.

Yes that is right people – I punished my 5 year old for reacting with all that frustration, whining, and tantruming when things didn’t go her way, by throwing a tantrum of my own because things were not going my way.

I am awesome.

And then as I started to reverse out of the driveway she said the most horrible thing ever:

“Ow Mommy! that hurt!”

Oh crap. HOLY CRAP. I seriously wanted to DIE. I kept it together until she got out of the car and then I cried all the way to Lilly’s playgroup, and now, hours later I STILL feel like the lowest of the low.

The thing is, I am carrying some guilt around lately because Molly is really the one bearing the brunt of this new baby and its REALLY bothering me how mean I seem to be towards her lately. I just have no patience for her dramatics. See, I can not yell at two babies all day, and Matt is never here because of his work schedule right now (and when he is here he is just a top of a head we see from behind his lap top screen), so I tend to take out my frustration on her the most and usually for doing things that are age appropriate, even if they are naughty. I need help and I need another adult around here and I unfairly get angry at her for not filling that role. She comes home from school with so much energy and I am so tired by that point in the day. And of course she wants attention that I do not currently have the bandwidth to give her so she looks for it by pushing my buttons and testing limits and I snap. But this was a bad snap this morning, and while her behavior was not acceptable, it did not deserve my reaction. Mommy behaved horribly and has no idea how to handle it or assuage this guilt. When I dropped her off at school her little chin was still quivering from crying.

Hmmmm, this is disappointing. I had really hoped that by sitting down and writing this out I would have some sort of epiphany about how to make the situation between her and I lately better. That happens a lot while I write about something that is bothering me. But here I am at the end of my story (which got really really longwinded in its first draft and I promise I have edited down) and no epiphany has come.

I guess I just have to treat tomorrow like the fresh day it is and try even harder. And I did apologize to her for ripping her gloves off. She apologized to me for not listening better and then told me she has a new boyfriend. So she is over it.

But I’m not.

Also, she just came home from school and dropped this nugget of loveliness:

“Mommy, I do not like the mirror. I do not like what I see when I look at it. There is something wrong with me and I don’t like how I look”.

I need a drink.

Or five.

My friend Jen recently posted something on her blog that I am totally going to copy. Its a list of 12 areas/rooms in your house that you want to work on over the upcoming year (the goal being one per month). I figured if I post my list here, that I might actually feel motivated to accomplish some of them and feel accountable since I made it public.

These are NOT in the order that I plan to tackle them. In fact I plan to put #1 off as long as possible.

1. Basement (REPAINT and organize toys – create at work from home area for Matt)
2. Family Room (to rearrange or not to rearrange – that is the question)
3. Nursery (this project is a bit hampered by the fact that Lilly is still in the crib in another room and that we have to keep the double bed in there until after my mother in law visits next month. Kevin will be in with us for probably at least 2 more months, so I guess we have time)
4. Girls Room (new bedding, rearrange furniture, UNBUNK brand new expensive bunk beds because the top bunk has been deemed “too scary”, decorate, etc..)
5. Right Side Yard
6. Garage Door (clean off rust, paint trim around it)
7. Kids Craft Area (any organization or change here has to be better than what we already have)
8. Master Bathroom (paint, decorate)
9. Garage (better organization)
10. Kitchen Counters (reduce amount of clutter)
11. My desk (SIGH)
12. Toy Room (this will be done close to Kevin’s first birthday when its time to make room for his stuff in there)

And now that I have taken the time to lay out these wonderful goals, let me share some recent pictures of why I will never get to them…..

"wait - where did Lilly just go? I just gave her a snack and now she is not at the table and neither is that yogurt..." (ps: alternate caption: "WOW! This Activia really works!")

Kevin hanging out in the very boppy that spends an average of 8 hours a day wrapped around me. And you can tell by the look he is giving me here that he is letting me know its just about time to get that boppy back on...."

Lilly demonstrating that she has been paying attention to another thing I spend a great deal of time doing...

"What do you mean Molly's boots were in the kitchen because they were all muddy? Is it bad that I just walked through the carpeted toy room and living room in them then?"

Poor Matt just trying to get some laundry done. He did this for them once a few months ago, and now they sit in there and wait for him.

So besides the fact that I will now have to wash that blanket and mimi because of this (and find the poor cold baby a new blankie and mimi) the most maddening thing about this photo is that Lilly NEVER TOOK A PACIFIER when we WANTED her too. Now we can not keep Kevin's out of her mouth!

Like anyone would want to go clean out the garage after calming this madness down.

"If I hide here under this blanket in the baby's swing, maybe my mommy will not find me and wash the rest of my cupcake off of me..."

And last but not least, its just not easy to concentrate on your to do list when the absurdity of every day life is so distracting

But, shhhhhhhh, I have a little secret…. I don’t mind the distractions so much Maybe one project per month is pretty reasonable and doable. I am really hoping it is, but we will see. In the end, if these things don’t get done because I am busy nursing Kevin and chasing his precious hellion sisters around, I think I still come out ahead

Does this look like someone who could ever get into trouble???

So today’s post (only three days after the last post! I’m on a roll people!) is about Molly, who does not get much blog time these days between the antics of her toddler sister and the excitement of her new baby brother. But she is still here – and full of her usual creepy deep-souled foresight into things way beyond her years. In some ways she is so adult it kind of freaks me out. For example, one way in which I think she is very mature for her age is that she is VERY goal driven. When she sets a goal she is downright OBSESSIVE about sticking to it. Any deviation from the path that will lead her to that goal is nothing short of catastrophic for her. Molly does nothing with half a heart let me tell you.

(She is a type A for sure.)

So you can imagine my mix of pride and concern when she came home on the very first day of school and announced the following:

“Mommy, I have set a goal. I will NOT ever be on anything but green for the entire school year. Actually – for my whole life mommy. Never yellow. Never red. Only green because I am a good girl.”

(I should probably pause here and explain to those of you without school age children that they no longer put names on the board. It was probably deemed bad for self esteem or something so now we have a stop light disciplinary system used in almost every classroom in the U.S.: Green means good, Yellow means you have been warned and better watch it, and red is the highest echelon of depravity that a Kindergartner can ever reach *cue demonic music*)

So of course I was proud to hear that Molly was taking the rules so seriously and planned with all intention to follow them, but I was concerned because even the best of kids have a bad day or get hyper or forget a rule now and again and I knew her goal was not really achievable. And when Molly Clemm does not achieve a goal, well, lets just say its best she achieves her goals okay?

So the day before Winter break I was pacing anxiously in front of the living room window like I do every day starting at 3:40pm (while reassuring myself that I am not unhealthily obsessed with my children), and saw Molly wearily tripping out of the car of our neighbor who drives her home every day and dragging herself, shoulders hunched, up the walk to the front door. When I opened the door to say hello and give her a hug, I noticed she was ASH GRAY. I mean like stomach flu gray. I worried about this as I ran out to thank our neighbor, and when I came walking back up to the door Molly began to crumble. There really is no other word for it. The child seemed to just implode from within and crumble inward on herself while the most inhuman of sobs came raging forth. Let me tell you, Molly is a drama queen, but even all her past tirades and tragedies taken into consideration, I had never heard a noise like this come form her before. I can only describe it as complete and utter devastation.

For a moment I thought she was throwing up right there in the hallway, but then I realized she was actually saying something between sobs:

“I AM SO SORRY!!!! *sob hiccup* SHE GAVE ME NO WARNING! *sob sob sob* Mrs Straughn is SERIOUS momma she is SO SERIOUS! *hiccup swoon* NO WARNING! RED RED RED RED RED RED RED! RED MOMMA! RED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” *sob sob sob pass out* (Well not really with the passing out but I was actually concerned for a moment that she might).

When I put this pic on facebook she told me to make sure I put in the caption that it was just juice so no one would think she was drinking wine "which is illegal until you are 27". See how law abiding she is!?

I took her over to the couch to calm her down and I thought for a minute I might have to slap her, but eventually she stopped hyperventilating and proceeded to tell me that she had been put on red that day. The SHAME! OH THE SHAME in her face!!! I was DYING! Trying to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing. The poor little thing was taking it SO seriously and she was truly wrecked by this. It was very hard not to laugh.

Especially when I found out why she got in trouble.

Apparently Molly’s friend Alexis said “race you to the garbage can!” so they could throw away their wrappers from snack time. Molly chased her all the way there and Mrs. Straughn, who I imagine has told those kids about 4 milllion times NOT to run in the classroom, lost it and put them both immediately on red. No warning, no yellow, just right to the big stuff. RED.

Gone in that instant were molly’s dreams of a redless school year. Of spending her childhood on green. Of getting into Harvard and going to “cop school” in Paris (I have not the heart to tell her there is no such thing. Hopefully she just outgrows the desire for this so I never have to.).

Just kidding, but that was how she was acting.

I called Matt to get his input on how she should be punished and he only said “This is HILARIOUS!”. Thanks honey – very helpful.

I have no witty caption for this photo, I just think its really cute She really loves Kevin so much!

So of course I have to support her teacher and drill respect for her into Molly’s head. I explained to her that just like at home there must be certain rules at school that her teacher has a no tolerance policy for and that will result in immediate punishment. I explained that at this point in the school year she really should know better than to run inside. I explained how she could get hurt or hurt another student, etc… and then I made her write an apology note to her teacher as punishment.

But between you and me, I was a bit irked by this. I mean really. You can’t just throw a term like “RED” at a kid like Molly. She takes this stuff SO seriously! She was completely wrecked by this experience and while I PROMISE I am not one of those parents that refuses to admit that my kid does anything wrong (quite the opposite actually – I don’t give her enough credit for being good), I just don’t understand how she could be given the same punishment for running 10 steps inside, that the kid who spit on her and karate chopped her neck got earlier this school year. He left a mark for goodness sakes. I think Yellow would have more than sufficed for Molly.

And I am beginning to worry that my world has become too small when I spend time mulling over the differences between yellow and red.

But I guess all is well that ends well. Molly tells me that she is never going to run inside the classroom ever again and today she told me she wants to invite Mrs. Straughn to her birthday party so I guess she has forgiven her.

But, again between just you and me, I did not get Mrs. Straughn a Christmas gift and I don’t lose any sleep about it. It should have been yellow. Not that I am unhealthily obsessed with my children….