DITL, May 16, 2008

olive poked head butted me awake around 7. i tried to induce a coma by nursing her but it was futile, she had already tasted the day and was ready and rearing to go. i try to quietly sneak downstairs but augustine is also roused and so the day begins.

here i will interject an observation. two night ago olive woke up to nurse as usual and i was really tired and instead of nursing her i just put her pacifier back in her mouth and guided her head back down. POOF went back to sleep without so much as a peep of protest. this is the first time she has gone a night without waking up to nurse in her whole life! in part i feel responsible for this, as with more effort she probably would be sleeping through the night consistently. here's the observation - i like night wakings. i remember thumbing through the no cry sleep solution book many times when auggie was a baby and i felt so desperate to get him to sleep on his own and through the night. in hindsight i had the typical first time mother approach of rushing him through all kinds of things, no doubt in an effort to fit him inside my world. also typical, the second time around im much more relaxed and patient (though im still a horribly impatient person) and i enjoy the steps immensely more. perhaps i've given up trying to place a child inside an adult world? anyways i enjoy her waking at night because it's quiet and it's just she and i in the stillness of the night. it's one of the few, if not only, moments in my day where i feel totally present.

breakfast was without fanfare. raisin bran and an apple for auggie & i, cheerios & a tub of yogurt for olive (why in the world can't they make large tubs of baby yogurt? i am repulsed by all the waste generated)

i start my morning routine while they are eating, which is to do the mountain of dishes that have accumulated since yesterday morning's dish washing session



burn some incense



water the plants if rain isn't expected

and clear room somewhere in the thumbnail i call my kitchen counter space and get coffee going. see, this is why i have to do the dishes first. doing dishes = counter space = COFFEE. small kitchens are expected in this era of apartment though so no complaints. oh and i eat my breakfast standing up while doing all of this. such is the life of a mother. then i release the kids from breakfast and they watch cartoons, play, auggie pretends to read books. he's really into this series of books and will sit quietly and thumb through them for upwards of 25 minutes sometimes.

10:00
augustine helps me make coffee. he loves doing this. olive is just adorable, hanging around the kitchen pulling things off the bakers rack, doing some of my sudoku, etc.






!!VICTORY!!

10:15
impromptu dance party. this lasts three songs (ramones - beat on the brat, a song from the darjeeling limited soundtrack - aka "the tip, tip, tip song", and vampire weekend - a-punk)

10:30-11:00 am
i shoo the kids upstairs to play in auggie's room while i play around online and drink my coffee. at the end of the play time it becomes eerily quiet upstairs and i go up there to find that he had crawled into our bed and was nearly asleep. WHA?



11 am
lay olive down for her daily nap. if you lay her down any earlier she is a bear before bedtime rolls around, any later and she will take upwards of an hour to go down for bed. notice my secret stash of pacifiers under my pillow. this comes in handy in the middle of the night.





11:25 am
augustine and i play two rounds of hi ho cherry-o. i won both times and he is okay with that.



lunch for me - chicken salad on whole wheat bread, peas. they had organic whole grain bread on sale at the store the other day for $1.19. i cleaned them out and froze them :) aug had mac n cheese with peas mixed in. our family policy is that you can have mac n cheese frequently but it always has to have vegetables stirred in. today i didn't and he practically shrieked at me to pour peas in it. haha



12:06 pm
i may or may not have been waiting by the window for the fedex delivery person to drop off our new macbook. 'sall i'm saying.



my dad shows up at this point and i forget to document his time spent here, which was about 15-20 minutes. he was dropping off a necklace i wanted to borrow to maybe wear to the wedding tonight. (i dont end up wearing it though) augustine lays down for a nap and there is about a 30 minute window of silence for me to enjoy all by myself. i spend this time on the internet and cleaning.

2:30 pm
olive wakes up and is CRANKY. i forget she hasn't had lunch yet for a few minutes while she freaks and i can't figure out what she wants. lunch pacifies her, she loves loves loves to eat. while she eats i wash the floor (ps, how do you clean your floors? with a mop? by hand? something else?)





also while i was in the kitchen i saw my neighbor walk by crying, i really wanted to pop my head out and say hello, see what was going on but it felt too nosey. i regret it now.

olive then "helps" me fold some clothes and i play with my new macbook until auggie wakes up





the kids play around while i start getting ready for our evening out to attend the wedding of our friends tara and jimmy. it was only 4:00 when i started getting ready but well... i've got to carve out time when i can. with two little ones the traditional schedule for such things is thrown out the window.

(before)






5:30 pm
david comes home and the kids, as always, rush into his arms with squeals of delight. mom is an ol' hat, no one to get excited about ever. wah wah wah.


i make pizzas while we wait for davids parents to arrive and watch the kids for the evening.


6:15 pm
in laws arrive, i finish getting ready and we're out the door by quarter to 7.



the wedding starts at 7:30 so we're just early enough to mingle with friends before the ceremony starts. my friend michelle is there and we talked for a few minutes about grammar (which is hilarious considering this new entry on Stuff White People Like) before mutually complimenting one another's dress. so i get this idea and suggest we go switch dresses/entire outfits right down to shoes and accessories in the bathroom. decidedly it was a mutual improvement



the wedding was spectacular short of a seeming eternity between when the opening music ended and the mothers were supposed to walk down the aisle. it was probably less than 2 minutes but it dragged and dragged and at one point i felt like i was going to be overcome with the urge to scream. jimmy and tara are so in love, it's so great to see people like that. there was a LOT of sufjan stevens played during the wedding and reception every other song i couldnt resist saying how much i liked this or that song to whomever would listen. the reception was all chocolate and coffee. i was a jittery, sugary pile of goo before we left. i really wanted a hot cup of tea as it was pretty cool last night. they had only hot starbucks coffee and cold tea. somehow i got it in my head that a good medium would be one cup of hot coffee and and another of cold tea. it made sense at the time. pretty much half of our friends were there and i was so happy that we got to sit with the chapins. i love them love them love them. also there were maggie & austin, rachel, lorah & brian, colin & michelle as i already mentioned, nick, angie & chris, kyle & kirsta, meredith & nathan, brett & heather, etc. etc. and how much do i love jimmy and tara for changing their last names to arcade? (which has been jimmy's nickname since childhood)




maggie, me, michelle chapin

the night ended at around midnight with me wiping off my makeup, nursing olive, and falling asleep in one minute