Shannon Phillips

After the first week of preschool…everyone in our family is sick. Except for Sam, he’s apparently got a more robust immune system. Probably from riding public transit.

*hack* *cough*

Meanwhile Robin doesn’t yet understand the concept of “weekend,” and is a bit anxious about when he’ll get to go back to school. Today he actually tried to assemble his lunch and get his backpack together. Hopefully we’ll be over our colds by Tuesday…

After we got home from school, Robin sacked out on the sofa. I picked him up and carried him into his room, but when I put him down on the bed he stirred a bit. “Shh, shh,” I said. “It’s okay. You can take a nap.”

“No!” he said, his eyes still closed and his voice thick with sleep. “I not take a nap. I…sit in the blankets.”

“Okay,” I said. “That sounds good too. You do that.”

Then he rolled over and went back to sleep, perfectly satisfied in having gotten his own way. He’s not taking a nap. He’s just—sitting there in the blankets. For a little while.

Robin: “What does baby Tyrannosaurus Rex eat?”
Me: “Lizards? Small animals, I guess.”
Robin: “No. Baby Tyrannosaurus eats pickles.”
Me: “Is that right, now.”
Robin: “Pickles, and watermelon, and books.”

Davy took his first steps last weekend—I only saw him take a single step before falling down, but Sam says he saw three. Won’t be long now before the baby is a toddler…

Davy spent about ten minutes kissing my toes, very determinedly, and chuckling to himself after each kiss. He’d crawl around to follow my feet when I moved them. At first I was all like “What are you doing, pervert baby?” And then I realized: oh, of course. He’s kissing my toes because that’s what I do to him.

It’s so funny the behaviors you find unexpectedly mirrored in your kids. You never know what they’re going to pick up on.

I have been meaning, Internet, to write up a post telling you all the ways in which my life has improved.

Sleep, chiefly. The sleep situation has gotten so much better. Davy never took to the crib, and he still isn’t what you would call a great sleeper, but he sleeps through the night more often than not. And the difference this makes to my daily well-being? Is enormous. I was prepared for three months of sleep-deprivation, right—when you choose to have a baby, that’s what you’re signing up for. At six months I started to feel sorry for myself. At nine months I was really reaching the end of my rope. And then, shortly after I began complaining publicly to you, dear Internet.…it broke. The baby started sleeping. And I started remembering what sanity feels like.

Given that great relief, I really shouldn’t have anything to express but simple gratitude. So let me talk a bit about the things I am grateful for.

I am grateful that I can sleep more than three hours at a stretch. It’s still a rare night where I don’t have to wake up at least once to address one child or the other, but I’m getting enough sleep that I have a handle on my own mind again. It’s amazing. Sleep, it’s a wonderful thing, and we take it so much for granted.

I am grateful for Davy. He’s such an amazing baby. When he wakes up every morning he tells me, “Hiiiii! Hiiiii!” And he gives me sloppy open-mouthed kisses, and he pats me, hard, on the shoulder and face and arm. “Hiiiii!” he says, and hits me, in the face, with great love, moments before he comes in to press his wet open mouth all over my nose. This doesn’t sound enviable but it is, it is.

Davy is a smart little guy. You can see the cogs whirring behind those agate-colored eyes. I posted about this before, with Robin, but I had forgotten how single-minded babies can be in their projects. Davy is working on walking. He works on this project with a kind of devotion that would put the most obsessed Olympic athlete to shame. He pulls himself up on every vertical surface, standing whenever he can, taking sideways steps as far as his grips will allow. When he’s put on a soft surface (like the bed) he will stand, sway, inevitably topple over, and then pull himself up to stand again, over and over and over, tirelessly. He doesn’t care how many times he falls down. He’s going to keep pulling himself up until he’s strong enough to stand on his own power. When do we lose that, that indefatigable baby drive? When do we learn a sense of defeat?

I am grateful for Robin. He’s such a good big brother. He plays beautifully with the baby—there’s nothing I like more than listening in on their games. They sing together, sometimes, or play peek-a-boo. Or sometimes Robin finds a defensible position and Davy assaults it with great gusto, while Robin shrieks.

And for the things that are hard: I am still struggling with the edits that my agent wants. I put them off, and put them off, because I knew that finding the time will be hard. And when finally I did try and carve out a day just to sit down and work on the manuscript—well, I had forgotten exactly how hard it is. There’s a good reason I’ve been putting it off so long.

I am going to throttle with my bare hands the next person who asks, “Oh, so you stay home? But what do you do?” I frickin’ take care of two preschoolers, that’s what I do. It’s not that I don’t have any other interests or ambitions. It’s that it’s completely impossible to concentrate on anything for more than fifteen minutes at a time when you’re looking after two small boys. It’s actually pretty easy to find a lot of those fifteen-minute increments throughout the day, so sometimes I feel I’m just being lazy, because in a typical day I do spend a lot of time on the computer. But it’s constantly interrupted, constantly dropped and picked up again. I mean–I do read to them every day, take them outside every day, play with them every day, but I actually feel strongly that it’s also important for children to have independent time, to be at their own devices for a portion of every day. But even in those times I’m always available and I’m always solving various low-level crises: someone needs a drink, someone needs a change of pants, there’s a fight brewing over the play silks (or whatever particular toy). The kind of deep concentration I’d need to really work just isn’t possible, not in the normal course of events.

And by the end of the day, once the kids have finally dropped off to sleep, I’m just exhausted. Even though Davy’s sleeping better now, that hasn’t changed. The difference is that most days I feel pretty sane and able to manage, instead of barely holding it together with a lot of caffeine. So—I’m doing better, a lot better. But am I “not working”? Not hardly.

Robin in the AM: “No! No potty training! I’m NOT a big boy! I won’t sit on the potty!”

Robin in the PM: “Mommy, you a beautiful lady.”

Parenting, it has its ups and downs.

For Father’s Day, Sam decided he wanted to drive down the Sacramento Delta and check out some of the cute little towns along the way—Isleton, Walnut Grove, and Locke. All of these small towns have done a great job of preserving their historic main streets, but the most interesting one is Locke, a town founded in 1915 by Chinese immigrants. It’s both interesting and picturesque—Sam took pictures, so I’ll post them when he gets them online.

I think Sam had a nice Father’s Day. He got a fancy Xoom tablet, which both of the boys are keenly interested in: “My computer!” Robin ventured, to which Sam answered with a snappy “I don’t think so.” Then Robin went around saying “I don’t think so!” for the rest of the day. But it was also interspersed with the occasional “happy Father’s Day, Daddy,” so that was sweet.

Also, it’s pretty clear that Davy knows Dada as an actual word now. Frustratingly enough, he doesn’t seem to feel the need to call for Mama when he knows that a piercing shriek will grab my attention perfectly well!

Appropriately enough, it’s “Hi.” He’s said it several times now in the appropriate context, so I’m pretty sure it’s a real word (unlike the “mama” and “dada” we sometimes get, which are probably still just babble).

We said goodbye to Nanita and Markie today (hope they have a good trip back home!) and are preparing to relax a bit after all the visiting we’ve done in the last few weeks. Robin also had his second observation day at the school today. He loved it, again. “Thank you for school, mommy,” he said as we left. He really is a sweet little guy.

We took Robin for his first visit to the dentist yesterday. Unfortunately, despite what I thought was a pretty good toothbrushing routine, he has cavities in each of his molars—and since these are teeth that he’ll keep until he’s ten to twelve, the cavities need to be filled. So that’ll be…not fun.

The pediatric dentist that we found is very geared to making the whole experience tolerable for small kids. Robin was scared of the chair at first, but he sat in my lap for the examination, and the dentist made a game of counting his teeth that won him over. He was ultimately very good and cooperative, and then we stayed for a little bit so he could play with the toys they had there. He left thinking that the dentist was pretty awesome. Of course, the actual process of filling his teeth will be a lot more challenging. Their plan is to give him nitrous and local anesthesia, and, if necessary, to restrain him using what they call a “papoose” (kind of like a straightjacket, actually). Ugh. Basically Robin has no fear of his next visit, but I’m dreading it.

On a more positive note, we’ve been seeing a lot of family lately. Last weekend was Sam’s grandfather’s birthday, and we hosted the boys’ Pappy and Aunt Betsy while they were in town for the event. This weekend we’re driving up to Carson City for a “celebration of life” memorializing Sam’s grandmother Elsie. And next weekend my mother and Mark are coming out for a visit. So that’s real nice for the kids.