Let sleepling dogs lie

One of the things I most feared going into a second pregnancy, the thing that prevented me from even considering having a second child for almost 2 years after Taran was born, was the dreaded problem of getting a baby to fall asleep at reasonable times, for reasonable stretches (insert: longer than 25 minute naps). Even more than the fear that my 2nd child would sleep as badly as the first, was the fear that I would be the same wild-eyed, neurotic, sleep-deprived Mama I was the first time around - reading every sleep book on the shelf (all of which contradict each other at every step), and tearing my hair out about whether I was doing "the right thing" if I caved and let him take a nap on me in the Beco carrier. I knew I was perhaps turning into a truly insane person when I found myself waking my son up as he fell asleep in my arms so that I could put him down "drowsy but awake" as the books recommended, only to have him scream bloody murder and either completely skip a nap or take another 45 minutes to relax at which point he'd take his 25 minute nap, wake up exhausted and within an hour be ready to start the whole damn thing over again.

"Close my eyes? Never! I might miss something good."

On one particularly bad, nap-less, windy October day, in desperation I took him for a stroll in the park, determined that he get one decent nap, no matter where. As his eyelids began to droop, I parked the stroller to give him the motionless nap that according to one Dr. Weisbluth is absolutely essential for quality sleep. I threw a blanket over the stroller to protect him from the practically gale force wind that had now started, and sat there, hunkered on the ground, trying to keep the blanket from blowing away. Suddenly, two black dogs, off their leash, came bounding across the open field where I sat, barking madly and making a direct bee line towards Taran's stroller, their barks getting maddeningly louder as they hurtled towards us. I saw the impending doom and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. The owners strolled blissfully along, hand in hand, completely oblivious or uncaring to my plight created by their stupid dogs. Oh the anger I felt, when my child woke up hysterically crying two seconds later. For perhaps the first time in my life I truly understood the meaning of blind rage - fueled by fear, exhaustion, frustration, and a fierce motherly need to protect my own. I shot the four of them my best "Wither and die!" look and stormed home where, upon spying my husband raking leaves outside, I burst into uncontrollable, heaving sobs. Taran stared up at me bright eyed from his stroller and gave his first real laugh at the incredibly strange bellows emitting from his Mama's gaping mouth. This made me burst into hysterical laughter which made him laugh, which made me laugh some more (a somewhat stark-raving mad kind of a laugh, but laughter none-the-less).

Sorry. I digress. My point being, this was not the baby bliss I had signed up for and having gone through it once, I was reluctant to repeat the experience again. But I was reminded by many that every child comes into the world with their own personality and I might get a sleeper the second time around. And they were right. When I first started seriously trying to get the girl to sleep in her crib, I read her a short story, sung her a little song, gave her a big smooch on the top of her lovely, fuzzy head and laid her down in her crib, wide-eyed and wriggling. For a few minutes after I closed the door, I hear a few "I object" meh's, the tell-tale sign of a thumb suck, and then, blissfully, radio silence.

It's mind-blowing to me that at 16 weeks, we could put her down to sleep at 6:30 pm and she would sleep until 8 the next morning with one nursing at around 5 am. At one year old, she pretty much sleeps through the night, 12-13 hours straight. Granted, she's not super human. She has an occasional bad phase that might last a few days or a week if she's sick or teething or working out some big developmental leap. Overall though, golden.

But before you hate me too much for having a dream sleeper, let me just qualify something.... Taran is almost four years old and his sleep is consistently bad punctuated by periods of absolute wretchedness.  During a "good phase" he's prone to waking up at 3:45 am in tears because he needs chapstick and a muffin. And a good night sleep means we are able to keep him in bed until 5:30 am. When I mentioned this to a friend last week and wondered whether Taran would EVER be a good sleeper, she paused then said, "I'm afraid to tell you this, but my 10 year old still doesn't sleep through the night". So despite having one absolutely brilliant sleeper, we are still the walking dead around here.

Especially lately. His sleep is absolutely horrific. He'll run into our room every 1.5-2 hours all night long and very often have a two hour period where he's in our room every 10 minutes until I'm ready to either throw him across the room or crumple on the floor in hysterical sobbing fits. In these super bad phases, our start time is closer to 4:45 am. What this does mean though is that occasionally he's so tired, a nap slips back in during the day and this is our saving grace. Not every day. Not even every other day, but just often enough to pull us back from the brink of insanity.

To find a small spark of beauty in all this (because at this point dear reader, you know that is my tendency), I have seen more sunrises in the past three years than I did in the previous decade before his birth. Because, you know, if I don't find the beauty in the small things, I WILL lose my mind.

And another beautiful thing, his mind, his imagination, his intense love. The child is on fire. You can almost see the sparks shooting off of him. No wonder he can't let his body rest. Today, I came to pick him up from pre-school and at a quick glance, he was nowhere in sight. Suddenly I hear this wave of sound, like all of his joy at my arrival was shot like a cannon across the room. I turned around just in time to catch him as he took a flying leap into my arms, laughing maniacally. I could feel the other parents around me looking on in perplexed amusement, but I just held him close and laughed along with him as we rubbed our noses together in eskimo kisses. He makes me feel like a conquering hero returning after months of absence.

This post is very much about Taran, because right now, the sleep deprivation is seeping into every aspect of our lives. But in two days, our Cally girl turns 1. This weekend we had a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate the amazing person she is becoming and I can't wait to share pictures and stories and catch you all up on how she is growing and what our family has become since she has come to join us on this crazy ride called life.

Here is a teaser:

"I'm like 12 or 16 or something"

Taran wants to be any age but the age he's at. I get it. It's frustrating to constantly be told that you are too young or small for the world around you. And for the boy who wants to dive into everything face first and experience it to the hilt, this is even more so. I have a friend who had her second child a year before Cally was born. She talked about a certain sadness she felt with each developmental milestone her second-born reached because she knew this was her last time experiencing these moments. And while I found Taran's babyhood so magical and amazing at times, I didn't relate. I thought about the sleep deprivation, the nursing difficulties, the black box crying jags that I had no idea how to end. 

And then I had Cally girl and I relived the radiant pleasure of the first laugh, lying down to snuggle and nurse at the morning wake-up, and the daily joy and wonder that an infant has as they experience the world and you experience it with them. And now I know on a very visceral level where she is coming from - when every precious, stunning moment of babydom with my last baby is slipping rapidly through my fingers. Suddenly it seems like they are both plummeting towards growing up so much faster than I am ready for. 

Cally will have a restless, fussy, sleepless week and then BAM, she'll wake up one morning and she can do five new things I've never seen her do before. 

And without saying a word, she's so communicative. 

I never cease to be amazed by how expressive a baby can be with not a single word, where I on the other hand find myself hardly saying anything with 500 words. But she really, really wants to talk with us and she absolutely delights when we imitate her sounds. It becomes this awesome almost jam session back and forth. 

And she's wanting so badly to crawl too. She army crawls with crazy determination, dragging her body ponderously (but every day more quickly) across the room. Suddenly, she'll pause for a moment, pop up onto her knees, and rock back and forth like a ship ready to blast into space. Then she'll lose momentum like a deflated balloon, her legs slowly sliding out behind her. Any day though now. Better get those baby gates back up.

Although Taran is far from babyhood, he has not left the developmental leaps behind him. The other day he pulled on a pair of pants in the morning that fit just fine the week before and suddenly they were visibly too small. How does that happen?! When he can hardly keep up with his growing body, or the things he's learning to do, I can understand his rush to grow. But still, I keep telling him that 3.5 is an amazing age, that he should savor every second and be happy with where he is in the moment. He just stares at me blankly. Another boring lecture from Mama.

As for me, I really do mean it, 3 is an amazing age. He is full of imagination and creativity and the boundary between fantasy and reality is [mostly] delightfully fuzzy (when he's convinced at 3 am - and 4 am - and 5 am - that the door is magical, growing bigger by the moment, and sucking him across the room, I'm less than thrilled). But overall, it's wonderful. 

Here, let me highlight...

A family friend recently sent him a little white bunny hand-puppet that we dubbed Kai. It was instant love. Not replace-K Bear love, but close. One day Taran started to make pretend crying sounds and told me that Kai was sad, when I asked why, he said that Kai missed his Mama. So we talked about her maybe being at work and said she would come home soon. After a children's book title, we named her Kira-Kira (which means "sparkly" in Japanese). So a few weeks later at a Christmas craft market when I found a large rabbit hand puppet, I knew it had to be on the Christmas present roster. As Joe led Taran away from the puppet maker's table, I stealthily payed for her and stowed her below the stroller. On the eve of the first day of December, I took a photograph of Kira-Kira.  Over the next few weeks, in a kind of travelogue advent calendar, Joe and I photoshopped her into a series of email "postcards" from around the world where Kira-Kira documented her globe hopping from Japan to the US via numerous countries along the way and described for Taran and Kai all her adventures. At the close of each letter, she let them both know she would see them on Christmas morning. When Christmas morning came, I told Taran that I had received a note from Kira-Kira that she would be arriving sometime around 9 am. As Joe distracted him, I ran out front, placed Kira-Kira on the front stoop, and then flew back in through the open garage, camera in hand. Sadly the first few shots where totally overexposed - the ones where he's walking slowly down the stairs with saucer eyes and both hands covering his o-shaped mouth in wonder. His reaction. Magic.

A few months back he gave up naps, unless he's deeply exhausted. I still do a very short "rest" period, for both of our sanities, but this usually constitutes him snuggling up in bed with some books and music for thirty minutes until I come get him for afternoon snack. Last week, after having woken up three times in the middle of the night crying because it wasn't morning yet and time to play, he was cooked (have I mentioned that Cally is about 10x more likely to sleep through the night than her older brother?!). Fifteen minutes into his rest period, he suddenly got radio silent on the monitor. You'd think I'd be thrilled, but honestly, his wake-ups from naps are so rough they aren't even worth it. He gets very disoriented, starts to sob, and sometimes doesn't really stop for as long as two hours. So after 45 minutes of sleep, I went to check on him. With the sunlight streaming through the window, Pete Seeger singing in the background, and his buddies piled all around him, he was passed out cold. I couldn't resist. I ran downstairs to grab my camera. And despite getting closer, and closer, and closer, with the camera clicking away loudly the whole time, he never woke up. He looked so small and beautiful to me and my whole chest almost siezed with an enormous feeling of tenderness and love. I know I can't stop the clock, but at least with my camera, I can help etch this moment into my brain. 

I know, here I am again, lamenting the rapid passage of time. But before you think I am a Sartre-following existentialist, let me in my defense say that I am also so excited for where they are heading in their growth.

As I watch them grow... wonder where they'll go.... I see the potential for deep friendship, deep connection, deep love. 

I wonder how their mutual affection might push each other to morph into ever more radiant and refined versions of themselves and what they might conquer together. This beautiful "what if "makes me less afraid to hurtle forward with them. To be along for the journey. And I don't know about Cally girl yet, but I hope in Taran's rush to eat life up, he doesn't get to the end of the plate before having relished every mouthful. My son. He has passion enough to pass around to ignite the whole family, and maybe that is a gift he can offer Cally girl as she grows. 

And I bet my little eating machine of a girl will remind him to chew on the fat a little more. And savor the moment at 3, at 12, at 16, at 66. 

And everyday, both my children remind me this most beautiful lesson of all, as so eloquently put by Marshall Davis Jones: "Two hearts were never meant to beat alone, and it is when we are connected that we are most alive". (I couldn't attach the video here, so you'll have to click on his name to view. Grrr)

Dancing Man

When you really love someone, there's nothing better in the world than watching them do something they are good at and love. I could watch him for hours. He is so beautiful he takes my breath away.

Better than ever

Do you ever go to share something from your childhood with your kids that you thought was absolutely amazing and upon viewing it with adult eyes, you are left feeling like all the color was just drained from your rosy memory? Kind of a bummer.

But other things totally stand the test of time and, in fact, are even more wonder-ful with the maturity and experience to recognize what was truly being offered. One such shining example... Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. That man was brilliant with children, deeply respectful of their feelings, decades ahead of his time in understanding that the best learning for little ones comes through play, and a fantastic jazz pianist to boot!

But don't just take it from me. Here he is convincing a bunch of stuffy politicians to save PBS back in 1969.

While we are generally pretty strict about TV and video watching around here (I know, we're THOSE kind of parents), Mr. Roger's is a whole other category of entertainment. I have as dopey a grin on my face as Taran when Fred does his little shoe-toss trick at the beginning of each episode and Taran and I gleefully shout back to the screen "Howdy, neighbor!"

So I was kind of tickled when Taran started rummaging through his drawers this afternoon in search of a cardigan, which luck would have it, we had. After he had zipped it up to the top and then, carefully, 1/3 of the way back down, he informed me that the outfit was not complete without a tie. I told him that I had no idea how to tie one, but he ran to the closet and handed one over saying, "Think about it, Mama". Clearly I have some practice to do, but he was more than satisfied and felt quite dapper. I know he's my kid and all, but I'm inclined to agree. Perfect outfit for whipping up some gingerbread men. Don't you agree?

By the numbers

Taran has been really into numbers lately. Throughout the day he'll hold up some fingers and ask how many there are, or ask "what's 3 + 4?", "what's 5 + 5 + 5 + 5?", "what's one dresser + one dresser?". Or he'll ask questions like "is 5 a big number?" and I'll say something like, "that depends. If you were talking about elephants in your bedroom, than five would be a huge number, but if you were talking about m & m's in your hand, I suppose you'd think it was pretty small". (He's really into m & m's thanks to Halloween).

Today in the midst of some such sequence of questions, he asked "What's two?", and in the vein of all the addition we'd just been doing, I replied, well, you have to add another number to it to get a new number. With hardly a beat, he shot back (almost snidely), "well, what's 2 + 0?". Hmmm. I stand corrected. I guess teaching him about zero wasn't too esoteric of a concept after all.

Taran: 1, Mama: 0

A matter of life and death

Ok, so not really dead. Just a little tired. Especially after last night's clock shift. Whomever schemed up that evil plan did not have children in the household under five. Because you know what? Their awake time is invariant. Regardless of when you put them to bed. So remind me next year not to try to put them down an hour later to bed hoping that will shift them. All it does is get them one hour less sleep, and in the case of my son, who's usual 5:30 am wake time was now shifted to 4:30 am, this was just brutal. For everyone. OK, 'nuf grumblin'.

Speaking of the dead... this week marked Cally's first Halloween. Taran wanted to go as a white rabbit and seeing that we happened to have a hand-me-down pink bunny coat for Cally girl, we just made a whole theme out of it.

Even more importantly, we have arrived at Cally girl's 6 month mark (!!) - the duration of which I had braced myself for, having gone through it once with Taran. And yes, we certainly have had our rough moment or two (or five), but I'm also amazed at how much more smoothly it went then I anticipated. Maybe as second parents we just know to take things more in stride, that the phrase, "this too shall pass" is so apt when it comes to the lows (and the highs) of those first few months, when a baby's brain and body seem to be exploding in every direction like a touch-me-not seed pod.

With that six month mark has come rolling over from back to belly in either direction,


but no rolling from belly to back. This means we have become human pancake flippers around here, as she is super enthusiastic about rolling to her tummy but significantly less enthusiastic about consequently getting stuck there. And for weeks before this skill was mastered, in fact before we ever saw any outward sign that it was being worked on at all, her sleep went absolutely to hell. But now that she can at least roll one way, and has also learned to sleep in that position, things are starting to settle and a few long naps are creeping back in.

She's also sitting up. For at least a minute or two on her own until something distracts her, or her unaccustomed muscles peter out. And then she lists towards the floor in any manner of unpredictable ways and directions. We just try to keep the path clear of hard objects along the perimeter and usually have our legs around her in a protective cage.

Most excitingly, eating has begun! Not surprisingly, she is an enthusiastic eater of everything - pumpkin, carrots, beets, oats, apples, vanilla bean pears. Well almost everything. Cinnamon sweet potatoes were intermittently spit out but I'm suspecting the lumpy texture was the culprit. As a family that relishes good food, it's gratifying to be able to share this slowly with her, even in the tiny increments that we have been able to thus far. This has been especially true when I found her swooning over the carrot-beet puree made from veggies which I grew myself in our own backyard.

As my father said when he saw a recent picture of her giving one of her patent earnest stares at my camera lens, "She's IN the world". That she is. Joe and I were talking about her budding personality the other day and we're still figuring it all out, but one thing we know for sure, being next to her is like soaking in the warmth and comfort of a slow-burning fire.

Taran has been no less rapid in growing and learning in his own way. There are the awesome things that just fill me up with pride and amusement - his imagination that pours forth in the stories that trickle over his lips in a semi-sensical babbling stream;

 his continuing consuming passion of music (he goes absolutely nuts for Glenn Gould's Goldberg variations);

his unrestrained physical expression of joy in movement when he hears that or any other music or when the song is some silent reverie in his own head;

 his increasing competence in the strength of his own body and what he can accomplish with focus and determination...

And then there are the more emotionally nuanced developmental leaps. Now that he is 3, and in preschool three morning a week, the making and maintaining of friendships has taken center stage, and all the parental heartbreak that goes with that territory. On one of the first days of school, while nesting under a blanket surrounded by his animal buddies he asked me

Taran: Mama, who are my friends
Me: Well, K Bear and Belinda, B Dog and Laohu.... [you get the picture]
Taran: No Mama, who are my REAL friends

Gulp. I think I need to be making more effort for play dates. This is hard when, as an extreme introvert verging on anti-social, reaching out to others on any sort of regular basis is not my style. Don't get my wrong, there are many people I love and am over-joyed to see. Once in a while. But most of the time, I'd rather not talk if I don't have to. This can pose incredible difficulties when you have a chatty three year old. By the time I get to his bedtime, I feel like I have spent every last ounce of social energy I have during the day being as engaged with him as possible. When Joe sits down next to me when we are finally alone, to chat about our day, it's all I can do not to give him the stink eye. Seriously, how do marriages ever survive the first five years of having children?!

Here's another snippet of conversation that kind of slayed me:
Me: How was school today
Taran: Fine
Me: Did you enjoy playing with anyone today?
Taran: I played with Andrew for a little bit but then he needed his spaces.

Taran is enormously warm, loving, friendly, enthusiastic.... and a bit of a personal space invader.

So THIS is what happens when I cross through the personal space bubble

So we've spent a lot of time talking about personal space bubbles - who is in the nearest bubble (family and very close friends), how to recognize when you are in someone else's bubble (if you reach out an arm can you touch them)? and how to kindly ask someone to give you space ("ok Cally girl, now you can stop touching my hair").

There is one developmental milestone that I've been fearing having to confront, his realization that I will someday die. And so will he. We've been circling this one for a while, like a plane waiting to land at the Philly airport. Some of his exposure to death has been in small instances that create only the tiniest of ripples in his emotional tide pool (the tomato plants didn't survive the hard frost, but we'll have more next year). Other moments, as in the recent and unexpected death of Joe's uncle, have left him with questions much harder to answer and answers much harder for him to comprehend. In this instance, he needed to ask again and again, what happened to Yu-sheng? Where is he? Why did he die? I'd like to say I had ready and reassuring answers to these questions. I did not. It's been a long time since I myself could find any welcome alleviation from fear of death through the belief in heaven or reincarnation. But as in all major life questions that Taran faces, I'd like to give him room to find his own answers without imposing my beliefs, or lack thereof. But I think it only leads to confusion to let a child know that "some people believe in heaven and some people believe that the soul comes back in another way and some people believe that the energy that is in your body returns to the earth to help other things to grow". Too many answers, none of them definitive and therefor satisfying to him. When he asked (again and again) why Yu-sheng had died, I said, "because nothing lasts for ever, darling".

And then a couple weeks later, it came. The question that I think I dread above all others. When he asked, it was like you could see the dark realization of it slowly seeping across his body, wrapping him in the thick, sticky, awfulness of it all.... "Mama.... will you die?" And because I had known that the concentric circles leading to this defining moment had been growing smaller and smaller, I could say with calm clarity, "Yes darlin', I will die. But I hope not for a long time." Then several days later he asked again. This time at bath time with Joe present. When Joe heard the question, I could almost feel his intake of breath. This time it was followed with, "Mama, will I die too someday?". Slowly. "Yes sweetie, you will die too someday. Nothing lasts for ever." I looked up at Joe, the sick pooling in the back of my throat, and saw the tears well up in his eyes. I have often been amazed by the willingness of humans to love what they will inevitably lose, but never have I been so incredibly filled with the enormous insanity of it all as I was in this moment. And so deeply, deeply in love.

You are so in a rush little one - to be older, to grow faster. Every day you exclaim, "today I'm 4", "today I'm 7". But your Papa and I, we are clinging to these moments fiercely. Because we know that life if fleeting and this crazy, intimate, entwined-every-moment-of-the-day time with you is all too brief.

The brightmas and the darkmas

Are there some things your kid mispronounces and you wish they would never ever stop? I'll be just a little heartbroken when Taran realizes that he is replacing the "ness" in any number of adjectives with "mas". (The concept of lighter and darker seems particularly interesting to him now. As we head out to various places, an oft asked question is "will it be dimmer there?" I don't know why exactly, but this question both slays and perplexes me. One of the many questions that he asks that I have no ready answer for.)

Anyway, I've been thinking about his "brightmas and darkmas" lately because it so perfectly sums up our daily existence. This is what it means to live with a 3-something year old. Every day is filled with both the wretched and the wonderful, following in rapid succession from one minute to the next. By the end of the day, I have emotional whiplash. The other morning he walked with me hand-in-hand to the coffee shop for scones and conversation, pointing out the wisps of clouds flushed pink by the rising sun. We smelled the flowers and talked about the different bird songs we heard and stopped to look at the garden beds behind The Seasoned Farmhouse. We peeked through the windows, admiring the pristine, expansive kitchen, fantasized it was ours and schemed about taking a cooking class together.

Charming EVERYONE at the coffee shop

But, lest I get too complacent about the sweet state of affairs, within an hour, all hell broke loose. As we were playing outside, he insisted on peeing in the yard. Trying to dissuade this practice as a general rule, I tried to make light of it, scooping him up to run inside to the potty. Not liking to be deterred from his scheme, he thought it would be amusing to pee on me instead. It wasn't. Which I let him know very firmly. For which I received a smack. Off to his room he was sent until he could calm himself down, but after 60 seconds of screaming, a joyful proclamation burst forth from the other side of the door "Maaaaama, I peed!". And there he was, proud as a peacock amid his pee-soaked bedclothes. Luckily for me, Belinda Bear was accidentally among the wreckage. I have to say, I love natural consequences brought on by his own doing. It saves me the trouble of coming up with a context-appropriate consequence myself. The soiling of Belinda bear was particularly convenient because she can't be machine washed (she wasn't machine made) which meant I had to hand wash her, wring her out, and leave her to air dry. Of course, this also meant I spent an hour stitching all her semi-detached limbs back on whose seams don't hold up well to washing. But, it also meant that he didn't have her for 2 naps and a bedtime and thus, this form of retaliation has not repeated itself for the last few days. I'm not holding my breath it won't happen again, but at least we've been granted a small reprieve.

Sometimes I feel like I have Jekyll/Hyde living in the house and I'm not sure whether it's him or me. There are certain things (purposeful peeing, hitting Cally, throwing his plate of food) that make me positively apoplectic with rage and I find myself stuttering and confused, my mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish, with no clue what to say or do. And then I utter one of the most inane sentences ever spoken by an overwhelmed parent.... "Why did you do that?!" Half the time (hell, 80%) he has no idea, so this line of questioning gets us nowhere.

And then when I feel at the end of my tether, he does something, so hilarious, so sweet, so tender that I'm hopelessly in love. Yesterday morning we sat in our front yard on a blanket watching people making their way to/from the farmer's market. As one friendly-looking couple were returning home with their loot of fruits and vegetables, Taran went running over to greet them. He informed them that he was trying to climb a tree, then dragged the woman by the hand towards our front stoop insisting he had to show her something inside. She gently told him she had to get her heavy bag of apples home.
"Don't worry, I'll carry them for you" he sweetly replied, to which he was rewarded with a honeycrisp. "She's my good friend" he announced to no one in particular as he watched her travel on up the street.

"Hello, Hello!"

While naps have always been a bit of a crap shoot, as of late, they seem to be completely out the window. Over the monitor we hear crying, wheedling, cajoling, all manner of excuses and exclamations in his attempt to avoid his nap
"Mom, I neeeed you."
"Actually, it's daytime."
"Hello, I'm all alone up here."
"The daytime bunny is on, Mommeeeee, the daytime bunny is on (it isn't by the way)
"I poooooped!"

and my personal favorite of the week:

"Mommy, I made some nice bread dough for you. Come try it"

Sigh. Trust me, the lack of sleep is doing absolutely nothing to improve either his or my behavior/mood come 5 pm at night. Hence the food throwing at dinnertime. As my husband keeps reminding me, It's a marathon. We just have to keep running this marathon. A good friend once told me that the key to a good marriage is a short memory and a good sense of humor. This is easily also the key to parenting a pre-schooler.

As for Cally. At least for now, she's all brightmas. She sleeps about 14 hours at night with one wake-up after about 10-12 hours. Wakes up smiling and squealing with delight at the sight of us. Looks around with an earnest expression and the occasional gummy grin for about 50 minutes and then back to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. And those cheeks! I'm obsessed. I can't stop kissing her cheeks. With Taran, it was this little warm, sweet, swirly spot of deliciousness on the back of his head, dubbed  "the eye of hurricane Taran" which I couldn't get enough of. But with Cally, definitely the cheeks.

I know she'll have her moments too - those, pull-my-hair, end-of-my-rope, shoot-me-now kind of days. But for now, I'm basking in the sunshine.



And for me and my many failed-parenting days..... As Anne Shirley was always wont to say "Tomorrow is a whole new day with no mistakes in it yet."