TheMommyBlog

Thursday, September 11, 2003 Familybits

Dylan hates going to preschool. Dreads it. Stays in bed, refusing to get up, and when finally carried into the kitchen for breakfast, embarks on a ferverent campaign to be allowed instead to watch a movie curled up in a blanket on the couch with goldfish and juice. After a while, it starts to sound good even to me, and I have to shake myself out of it and help him get dressed. The most heartbreaking thing is that at 3, he is able to describe things vividly.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go to school, because if I go to school, I will be sad. I want to stay here in Mommy and Daddy’s house, in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. I want to stay home, because home is very great.”

You try and take him to Preschool Hell after that.  He definitely will benefit in the long run, and needs the extra structure and stimulation. It’s too tempting to spend the day watching cartoons and begging for popsicles, at least when Daphne is napping and the park or pool is not an option, and we basically want him to play quietly. He doesn’t want to read for hours, or even pretend to be part of a dinosaur herd, like Logan did. He likes to draw and climb and paint, but if someone isn’t next to him every second, he starts either vegging in front of the VCR or embarking on some elaborate, destructive, or dangerous quest, like tearing Play Dough into miniscule particles and scattering them over the house, or climbing to the top of the highest shelf in the bookcase, or peeling all the crayons. Or trying to lie across Daphne in such a way that every inch of her is covered by him, giggling all the while at her protests.

How are we supposed to puzzle all of this out, and still make it to work by 9, and spend the day figuring out how to tell grantees that W’s sanctions are going to force us to freeze their grant funds until we get a license to do charitable work that’s been going on for years? They’ll have to close clinics, and thousands of women will have to go without family planning and support and care. How many will get sick, or have complications, or resort to illegal, unsafe options because W has tied our hands???

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Ugh, someone put me in a hole and fill it up quick. I can’t decide between hiding under the dirt, or finding George W and giving him a good kick in the shins for all of the sticky and senseless complexity he has wrought on our lives. Between the new OFAC regulations and the 1441 rules and now the executive order imposing sanctions on Myanmar, I can’t turn around in my chair without facing some truly frightening international compliance challenges. Bleh bleh bleh.

On the other hand, I have NY to look forward to next week. Realizing that a heads-up for my children would be considerate at this late date, I explained that Mommy would be getting on a plane to NY and spending a few days at a meeting, talking about work and teaching others a little about what we do. I don’t think Logan heard anything after the word “plane,” because his face immediately crinkled up and he began to beg me not to go.

“But honey, I just have to work there for a few days, and I haven’t gone anywhere without you in a looong time, and I can teach you all about NY and bring you a really neat present when I get back.”

[whispered] “You mean like a bromfmffhhhhhh?”

[louder] “What’s that, honey?”

“You mean like a brownie, or a donut, or something?”

“Oh no, something much better than that!”

[thoughtful pause] “But there’s nothing better than that.”

Monday, September 08, 2003

This morning, we all slept in. Small wonder--we painted the house yesterday. Anyway, Logan for some reason wanted to be warm, but I was done drying my hair--wait--there’s a connection--and Gil was telling him there wasn’t time. I finally understood that he wanted me to blow warm air on him to get him ready, so I did (eyes rolling), and then turned off the hair dryer. He ran out of the room, and came back a second later.

“Hey, Mommy, aren’t you going to dry my tears, too?”

Saturday, September 06, 2003

What did I tell you? It’s the end of a looooong day.

Saturday, September 06, 2003

It was just one of those days. A Saturday. Chores. Go down the list. Trim the hedges. Water the plants. Do the laundry. Power wash the house. Prep it for painting. Go to Home Depot. Buy the 7th and 8th quarts of paint in an effort to pick a @#$^&* accent color for the doors. Tear out the junipers. Oh, and take care of the children.

By the end of the day, after evaluating the mess inside and outside the house, and determining that no matter how much we both wanted to get the hell out of dodge and eat almost any where else, we just could not survive a restaurant meal with three dirty, napless children. So I cooked. Most of the time with Daphne in a puddle on the floor, sobbing and clutching my ankles. Dylan ran around the house, naked from the waist down, coated with a veneer of glossy sugar and dye from the gobstopper/gumball he fished out of god knows what drawer. Logan sulked at even having to sit near us at dinnertime.

I feel like a jerk for even sitting here. Gil has the 80’s music channel blaring out of our TV, and Dylan is screaming, Daphne is trying to wriggle off the changing table and out of her jammies, Logan is avoiding the toothbrush, and we are both losing spinal matter by the minute. There’s a fine sort of hell shaping up at the Roberts home.

Upside down and round and round--Upside down, boy you turn me, inside out and round and round