this week

I’ve accomplished very little this week. But I’ve told myself I’m still adjusting to having three children so I don’t feel bad about it. But this week is especially impressive because BOTH sets of grandparents are out of town and daddy is gone too! Four days alone with three kids under four years old—I am magic. (I realize tons of women do this and more but it was a first for me.)

The hardest part is bedtime. The girls love their nighttime routine with daddy. He’s so patient and sweet, taking the time to read multiple books and cuddle them. I’m usually just eager to get them in bed so I can get back to the baby or just have the house a little quieter after a long and chaotic day. The first night, Ladybug snuck out of her room and came upstairs four times before actually going to bed. Tuesday night was a new record of NINE times. The first three times were looking for her “beebug”—a ladybug stuffed animal that I couldn’t find. After trying to give her replacement toys and put her back in bed three times, she suddenly appeared in the hallway holding it (despite my having torn the house apart looking for it) and wouldn’t tell me where it had been. I think it was a stall tactic all along. But bedtime jailbreaks number 4-9 all involved searching or crying for daddy.

Butterfly misses him too. Fortunately when she asks for him, she accepts my answer that he’s working and will be home in a few days. But my favorite was when I picked Butterfly up from school today and she asked “mom, can we go to the beach? It’s hot there and I like it. Can daddy take me to the beach?” Personally, I’m all for this idea but I had to truthfully tell her the beach is far away, maybe we can go to the pool instead this weekend.

Other miscellaneous thoughts: Butterfly is loving her gymnastics class. She loves getting dressed in her “special ‘nastics” clothes (leotards and legwarmers made by my aunt) and asks me to put her hair in a ponytail “so its not in my face”. And then she comes home and demonstrates her jumping, skipping, stretching, backbends and somersaults.

Ladybug loves to sing. She sings to me and the baby all day long without prompting. Her favorites are “ABCs”, “Twinkle Twinkle”, “popcorn on the apricot tree”, “I’m a Child of God” and anything from the movie Tangled. In fact, she came up to me, patted the bottom of my chin and quoting the movie, she sang “getting kind of chubby!” (REALLY??!!)

Ladybug has always had her own unique way of getting from place to place. She had her own way of crawling, up on her hands and feet like a spider, and has had sort of a lilt to her gait when walking. But this week she she’s chosen to trot everywhere. Or she uses a leisurely skip/gallop when she needs to hurry. But my favorite is that today she has abandoned walking completely and hops.

Today I realized that our shower in the master bathroom truly is unnecessarily large. The event that made me acknowledge this was when my two little girls had a tea party in it, complete with goldfish cracker as their snacks, blankets spread on the floor and their dollies attending as their guests.

The baby continues her boycott of daytime sleeping. She does pretty great at night actually, as long as I let her sleep next to me. I lay her reclining against daddy’s pillow and she sleeps three (sometimes even four) hours at a time. Last night I watched her, fascinated by the way she actually wiggles and nuzzles her way closer to me in her sleep! Once she’s awake in the morning, she sleeps very little. She drifts off when nursing or in the car but never deep or long enough. Once I put the big girls down for a nap I can give all my attention to the baby. She gets her medicine and a bottle and a long cuddle. This combination finally allows her to settle into a deep sleep and nap for a few hours. But throughout the evening she will be awake again, content to nestle into my arm and watch the world around her with big serious eyes. Her face shows very little reaction to anything but I can see her beautiful eyes focus.

On Monday my sister in law was induced with her third baby. Our baby smiled frequently throughout the evening and then close to bedtime, Butterfly watched the baby stare off in the distance and announced “She’s looking for her new friend! She wants her new friend!”

Tuesday night I left Butterfly and Ladybug with a babysitter. And when the babysitter arrived, I realized that the girls might appreciate this even more than I do. They squealed, jumped up and down and showered her with hugs. Butterfly said “I thought you forgot me, I missed you so much!” and Ladybug pushed her beloved “yellow” (favorite blanket) into the sitter’s hands. It was almost as good as the night Butterfly pushed away saying “okay mom, can you go away now so I can play with my friend?” So I went out, taking the baby with me and had a great evening while the girls played with their sitter and had a blast. It was a wonderful evening for all.

Last night, as a special treat, I took the girls to McDonalds. They were bored, had already watched too much tv for one day and were climbing the walls. So I told them we could go to McDonalds (“oh thank you mommy! Thank you so much!”) and as we pulled into the parking lot, Ladybug was literally bouncing in her seat “Ol Donalds! Go to Ol Donalds!” We got our food, they ate in record time and ran into the playplace while I cuddled my wide eyed baby who was content to snuggle and stare at all the bright colors. The girls raced to the top of the play place where they stopped and decided to play pretend. I heard Butterfly ask, “okay, do you want to watch Nemo or Tangled?” Ladybug answered “uh, Nemo!” Butterfly pretended to put the movie into the wall and then they both sat down and pretended to watch tv! So much for getting them out of the house. Fortunately more kids arrived soon and they were thrilled to have playmates.

The worst moment of the week (and possibly of motherhood so far) was during the middle of the night last night. It was almost 4 am and I just finished nursing the baby and was putting her back to bed when I heard Ladybug’s whimper. This usually means she’s shuffling down the hallway hoping to sleep in my bed. I went out to meet her in the hall and take her back to her own bedroom but as I came into the hall, expecting to see her clutching her blankets and timidly approaching me, I was surprised that she wasn’t there. Nor was she on the stairs or in the hallway going to her room. I peeked into her room and then my heart promptly stopped when I realized she wasn’t in her bed. I checked her closet and under the bed (where she likes to hide), then checked her sister’s room but couldn’t find her. Thinking she must be in my room already and I missed her, I went back to my room. Still not finding her, I grabbed my cell phone and ran to her room to search it again. Now panicking, I called daddy, needing him to help me calm down and think of her favorite hiding spots. I told myself the alarm was set so she couldn’t have left the house without the alarm going off. It was the longest four minutes of my life as I searched the house for my daughter but was unable to find her. It was dark, I was disoriented and fearing one of my worst nightmares had come true when daddy suggested checking his closet. Hidden in the corner, behind two suitcases and below his hanging dress clothes was my little Ladybug, curled up on her two favorite blankets and sound asleep. I sat on the floor holding her hand for several minutes while I calmed down. Since she was sleeping so contentedly and I would have had to make too much noise trying to get her out of her tiny hiding spot, I finally left her there and went back to bed. An hour later I was still awake when she came and climbed into bed with me. Despite telling myself it was silly for me to overreact, I cuddled her close and kept her there until morning, so grateful for the precious gift she is to me.