a week on my own, plus unrelated camping pictures

Mikhail went on his first (of many to come) business trip last week. It was trial by fire for me: 5 full days, 4 and a half nights of doing the parenting-2-children thing on my own. Luckily for me, my sisters-in-law took Elan for one night so that I had one night and morning of only having Emry, which was quite luxurious and relaxing. I do so love living close to family!

Emry in the Ergo, camping, May

The week went pretty well on the whole. I did have the desire to cry at 6:30 A.M. a few times, but that's just par for the course whenever I'm up at 6:30. There were times when they both treated me pretty well (like the first night, when they both slept through the night). And then other times when they seemed to be ganging up on me (bedtime when Emry needed to nurse in a quiet place and Elan was bent on having me tell "a story about the letters" for the forth time that day).

Waking up in the tent, camping, May

The days were busy and long, and I made sure to clean the house up at night before I sat down, which resulted in me not sitting down till 9:30 P.M. but also meant that my house was much cleaner and more orderly than usual. I was pretty sure that keeping the house tidy would help keep me sane, since I was also juggling this new transition with 2 grantwriting clients and multiple deadlines, and I was right. Plus I needed things to be find-able for my new babysitter.

Lantern and sunset, camping, May

I knew Elan would miss Mikhail. What surprised me was that he didn't talk much about missing him; he didn't talk much about Dada period. But he did seem to be more jealous of Emry than usual ("Why do you have to keep giving him milk AGAIN?").

Brothers in the tent, camping, May

Elan was pretty challenging overall during the week. I'm sure it's related to all the change and transition going on in our lives right now. He had lots of screaming episodes. The third morning, he woke up very cranky at 6 after having been up at 4 A.M. as well (and Emry up to nurse at 5). I was not in the mood to deal with the fuss. I gave him one chance to stop, and when he didn't, without a word, I scooped him up, still in his PJs, carried him downstairs without a word, opened the front door, set him down on the patio, wrapped him in a blanket, and shut the door. He screamed the entire time; my teeth were grit so I would keep my mouth shut. I let him go at it outside while I sat on the couch inside, half wanting to sob and half laughing a little to myself about the absurdity of parenthood. He never checked to see if the door was locked (it wasn't); he just sat there in the weak morning light and yelled.

After about 90 seconds, I opened the door and said (surprisingly calmly), "Would you like to come inside and be sweet, or would you like to stay outside and yell?"

Sniff. "Come inside."

I find that, with Elan, I have to occasionally do these dramatic things to shock him into paying attention and get him out of whatever fuss he's lodged himself in. The rest of the morning wasn't a piece of cake, but it was better. I would have left him out there longer, but I did feel badly for the neighbors; I'm quite sure no one enjoyed the 6 A.M. serenade.

These boys: they are crazy and sometimes wild, and life as mother feels vast and complicated and difficult and also unbearingly sweet and tender and gorgeous.