in the still of the night

My grandmother's china, 4 a.m.

It's 4:48 a.m. and I'm baking banana muffins.

Some weeks just go like this. We start off all shiny and new, thinking of the things large and small we're going to accomplish. On Sunday night, we either have visions of success or trepidation. Does it matter which we expect, when the end result just seems to come to fruition on its own, a product of moon phase, cycle phase, life phase, sleep phase, what?

On Monday, I was swimming laps, in my happy zone place, thinking about the cool travel journal I'm going to make for Elan for our trip to Costa Rica, when suddenly I ran into something with my head. Very hard. My teeth clacked together from the impact. As I stood up, I heard the lifeguard blowing her whistle. Then I remembered that I had indicated in hand gestures "let's split" to the guy I was sharing the lane with. That was about 45 seconds ago. Which is clearly why I forgot and continued the circle swim, pushing off the wall into his side of the lane, and bashed heads with him. 45 seconds is a long time.

That night, I was feeling victorious for pulling together a healthy, colorful dinner in 30 minutes flat, while making grilled cheese for Elan (the only things he'll eat for dinner these days are grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches). Mikhail and I sat down with full bowls at 7:02 pm, which is an astonishingly together time for adult dinner in my household. I fed Emry a spoonful, then noticed that Mikhail was only eating the sprouts that I had heaped on the side as an impromptu salad. I took a bite and we looked at each other. "That's weird, the quinoa didn't cook at all," I said. "I don't think this is quinoa," he said. Yeah. It wasn't. It was millet. Which, in case you're wondering, I don't recommend at all as a quick, healthy starch to mix with your quick, healthy veggie & meatball saute.

I guess, given that start to the week, it's not a surprise that I'm sitting at my table at 4 a.m., Tension Tamer tea at hand, typing these words. Hoping to not burn the banana muffins like I burned the grilled cheese for Elan tonight. When I went to make him another one, I realized I had no bread left. I had gone to two grocery stores in the last two days, each time with two children in tow. I sat on the steps with my head down and thought about crying, but couldn't quite summon the energy.

We were in Trader Joe's (the second shopping trip of the two days), it was 5:45 p.m., and I was feeling very short-tempered and short-fused, generally like a small bomb about to blow up, and Emry had been in the Ergo on my back for what felt like hours, alternating between sucking his thumb and pulling my hair, and Elan was in the stroller because he insisted he was too tired to walk at all, and I was doing everything in my power to keep my back from tweaking yet again and also keep my impatience from flooding out my mouth and all over the floor like greasy undercooked-millet water. Elan was trying to get my attention again, possibly for another fight over whether Gorilla Munch could be considered a healthy dinner. I squatted down beside the stroller and said, "I am paying attention to you totally and completely. What on earth do you want to tell me?" I might have even said, "whadaya want now?" I might even have growled it.

"Sometimes I just really feel like crying," said the boy with the giant brown eyes.

If you have ever felt like you've disappointed someone you love, you probably know how I felt in that moment. Deflated. A little ashamed. And also like - Yes. You nailed it kid. Sometimes you just really feel like crying.

I gave him a hug (awkwardly, leaning into the stroller, with Emry tugging at my hoodie hood). I gave him a bag of those crispy, salty fried peas, which in my house qualify as a vegetable. Half the bag and a few blocks later, he felt better.

And then after I had burned the grilled cheese and sat with my head down on the stairs and wanted to cry but didn't, because my husband was away and I was the only Grown Up in attendance and Emry was throwing bits of wonton on the floor from his high chair and the children have been like barnacles lately, and dinner-bath-bed had to be finished soon, I thought about how, in a house awash with the tears of boys, sometimes I there is no room for the tears of a mama. So instead, there is an episode of Glee on the laptop in bed after they're finally asleep, followed by a 1:30 a.m. wake-up for the big boy screaming, a 2:30 a.m. wake-up for the same, lying in bed until 4 a.m. Finally hovering on the fringes of sleep when the little boy calls out Mama Mama and then goes back to sleep, but it's done nonetheless. I'm irreparably awake. I decide to just get up. Make the muffins, write the words spiraling in my brain. Damn the consequences. Sometimes weeks just go like this.

i want to write about

Another crazy morning with 2, April 2012

I want to write about having a full plate. How my current slate of two part-time paid grantwriting jobs, one part-time volunteer job at Elan's preschool, full-time mama/wife/runner of the household, and still trying to do that other writing, that creative work that feeds my soul, is too much for me. How my 2 days of full childcare, while I still feel their luxury, are eaten up in a flash. And yet I have chosen all these things, and they are all good things, and I either don't want to or don't know how to give any of them up.

I want to write about how I feel like I am driving down a freeway, at a speed just over my comfort zone, and I keep passing these exits. They are enticing, with names like "Rest Here" and "Take a Nap in the Sun," and all I want is to get off the fast road and drive along a tree-shaded boulevard, but the car just keeps on going, and whoops, there goes another exit.

I want to write about 18 months old, how it is full-on in a different way than babyhood.

I want to write about how the sun is glinting off the glossy leaves of the camilia tree out the window behind me, and the dappled sunshine is reflecting in my computer screen.

I want to write about writing blog posts and essays all day in my head while my hands are busy with my kids, and then sitting down to the computer and choosing to work on a grant proposal or read People magazine online instead.

I want to write about the process I'm in to relaunch this blog, how scary and confronting that is. How I alternate between Do I want to write a well-read blog? Do I want to expose myself and my family to the creepy people who lurk anonymously on the Internet? to What if no one reads it? What if I put myself out there and I fail?

I want to write about wanting to lose The Last 10 Pounds. My disappointment that, despite trying hard on the exercise front, it's not happening. And yet not really being willing to give up bread or sugar, at least not for more than a week or two.

I want to write about how Cheeseboard challah, warm from the oven, spread with Clover butter, is a slice of heaven distilled.

I want to write about how lucky I am - these healthy, beautiful children, this lovely little home, these wonderful friends, this loving family.

I want to write about how, once the children are asleep, I feel like I've run a marathon and the house looks like a tea storm came through and scattered the contents of my tea drawer over every surface, how I find tea bags tucked behind the couch cushions and in the baskets of clean laundry.

I want to write about how my old back injury keeps flaring up these days, about how I keep getting migraines that I don't know are migraines, how the four of us have had one cold after another since mid-February.

I want to write about how grateful I am for my health.

I want to write about how I hardly take pictures these days, except with my iPhone, because it's right there, while the camera is two feet away, behind a cabinet door and inside a case, and those appear to be fairly insurmountable obstacles.

I want to write about how Elan doesn't sleep through the night, even though we spent thousands of dollars and put all of us through the ordeal of surgery to try to fix the sleep problem.

I want to write about how maybe some things can't be fixed. Maybe my stomach muscles can't be brought back together behind my belly button, no matter how much Pilates I do. Maybe my son can't ever sleep more than one night a week without waking up screaming. How do we decide when to let go of something, and when to keep fighting toward it?

words for 2012

In what has become a yearly tradition, right around New Year's, Mikhail and I took a walk on the beach and figured out some words to express what we are hoping for this year.

I know it's March now, and I'm talking about January, but bear with me. I needed to let these words grow on me a little before I was ready to share them.

Besides, being on time isn't one of my strengths.

Once we figure out the words, we write them in the sand. Last year, we had this fabulous sunset and it was all very inspiring. This year, the fog blew in dense and cold. But we persevered, Emry in the Ergo on my back chewing on beach rocks and then making a game of throwing them at Mikhail.

Love. Because there's really no other good reason to have children in this day and age. I realize for a handful of families in this country, and for many families in other countries, kids are still a labor force. But it's not like Elan's going to be taking our herd of goats out to pasture anytime soon.

Kids cost a bunch of money, they take up all your time, and they throw food all over the carpet. But in my house, they also increase the love exponentially. Both Mikhail and I have found that when we focus on the love, it makes the craziness feel more manageable -- and less important.

Light. It just felt like a good word to me. I was looking ahead to Elan's surgery and imagining that it could be a difficult winter. So as much as the literal definition sounded good on this chilly winter afternoon -- light, warmth, coziness -- the figurative image of a guiding light, something to focus on as you're making your way through dark times, appealed to me too.

Speaking of light, it was getting quite dark by this time. Emry was fussing, we were all cold, but we still had a ways to walk back to the car, and we were hammering away at this next idea. Mikhail finally got it.

Taking the next step. Wow, does this phrase sound confronting to me. I don't know exactly why, but it really triggered me that afternoon on the beach. It sounded HARD. Like it would require a lot of courage and determination and hard work. Not that those are bad things, I just wondered - Am I ready to take the next step? Sometimes I think I am still in new baby survival mode, sleepless and with the mental fuzziness my mother-in-law calls "milk brain." And sometimes I am (though the sleeplessness is often not caused by the baby - I'm talking about you now, 5-year-old who hasn't slept through the night in 10 nights). But this is an exercise about reaching for something, so I went with it.

And it's interesting - I've already seen taking the next step play out in my life these last few months. Jumping into an opportunity to substantially increase my grantwriting workload, which increases our family's chaos level but also increases the money I bring into the family? Taking the next step. Deciding we're feeling adventurous enough to take on traveling internationally for the first time with our kids? Taking the next step. It even has a literal meaning to me these days, as I watch Emry string together his steps - 3, 5, 10 at a time.

Sometimes you have to challenge yourself.

And sometimes you have to eat Girl Scout cookies with a cold glass of milk and go to bed early.

Deciding when you're going to push yourself and when you're going to hunker down with the cookies? I believe that's called being a grown-up.

post-op: 1 month

Part of me wants to write an in-depth post about the tonsillectomy recovery, with all my suggestions for how to survive it, in case any of you have to go through your own 10-14 days of Parenting Hell.

And part of me wants to never think about it again.

Basically, we survived through gritting our teeth and reassuring ourselves (and him) that IT WOULD END. Because it's hard to remember that when you're in pain, even for us grown-ups. And we gave Motrin. Lots and lots of Motrin. So much that we had to write it down. We had a very sophisticated tracking system.

Post-its on the bathroom mirror, January 2012

That's how much Motrin Elan had over the course of his 12 days of awfulness. We threw a little Tylenol and Tylenol with codeine into the mix some days, but in general, he didn't like the taste of these (I've heard the codeine feels burning on the raw throat), so he would scream and refuse and we would have to hold him down, one of us pinning his arms, one of us holding his head, shoot the medicine into the side-back of his throat, and pinch his nose until he had no choice but to swallow. Now THAT'S fun for the whole family!

Unfortunately, we had to force him to take his Motrin sometimes too, especially in the night and early morning, when he would not willingly swallow anything. And if we slacked off, the pain would get worse, and the resistance would get worse, and the screaming would get worse.... You get the idea.

Sometime in the middle of the chaos - I can't even remember which day it was because they all blend together in my mind - I called the ENT, who didn't call me back very quickly, and I went into hysterical mom mode and called my pediatrician, and said something like "I'm not usually a hysterical mom but I'm getting kind of hysterical right now." My pediatrician then called the ENT, who called me back and said, "Everything you're describing is normal. Really." And then she gave me a few tricks, like how to squirt the medicine in so that he can't just shoot it out all over you and the bed with his tongue (holding the nose and squirting deep into the throat are the key). She told me it was fine to hold him down to give him the medicine, that I was doing what's best for him, even though it felt rather like waterboarding my own child. She reassured me that his gurgling cough wouldn't make the scabs come off too soon and have him bleed and then we'd be back having emergency cauterization of the wounds and have to go through all this again. Basically, she reassured me. My father is a pediatrician, and I was in constant communication with him on the phone even after he left 3 days post-op. And even with that support, I needed more reassurance.

I had heard from many parents that Day 10 was the turn-around point for their kids, so I was hoping that would be the case for us. On Day 9, I wrote an email to another mom saying, "It just seems to keep getting worse" and she said she could have written the same email on Day 9 of her child's recovery. So that gave me hope.

On Days 10 and 11, Elan was still deeply entrenched in funk. He was obviously still in pain, but even more than that, he just seemed so incredibly out of sorts - frustrated and exhausted, he had no interest in seeing friends or playing. We were all in a very bad mood.

On Day 12, I forced him to go to school. He didn't want to go, which is very unlike him, so I told him he didn't have to stay long, but he did have to go. And he went, and he smiled, and he stayed. That week was still really rough, but at least he was remembering who he is, that he has friends, and that life is basically good. Mikhail had to go out of town for work, so my mother-in-law came to help me since Elan was still up a fair amount at night.

At 3 weeks post-op, his throat was pretty much completely healed, but he got a cold. Which did not help with the recovery, the fussiness, or the sleep.

At 3.5 weeks post-op, I hit a wall of exhaustion and hopelessness. I had been sleeping in Elan's room for 5 out of the previous 6 nights, and he was so restless in his sleep that his frequent rolling around and half-moans were keeping me up even when he wasn't completely awake and crying. (For the first 2 weeks, we had Elan sleeping on a sleeping pad in our bedroom, we call it his "nest.") I knew that I should give it more time, but I was really feeling like the surgery hadn't worked. Mikhail and I had decided that we wouldn't make any real assessments until March. We knew that Elan's sleep problems were not cut-and-dry, that he had behavioral issues as well as the sleep apnea, that the apnea itself wasn't obvious or easy to assess without a bunch of wires attached to our child and machines. And yet, I went there. I made pronouncements. I felt hopeless. We always knew it was possible the surgery wouldn't work, but of course I didn't want to believe that was the case, after all we had just gone through! So I put Mikhail in charge of nights, and got some sleep, and felt a little more human again, despite getting the kids' cold.

And then something happened. Mikhail and I started sleeping in our bedroom. Elan started sleeping in his room. (Emry kept sleeping in the tiny port-a-crib in the office, poor baby.) Elan started sleeping THROUGH THE NIGHT. And now he's slept well for about a week. He's still a little crabby in the morning, but he's not screaming and carrying on for an hour every morning like he was a week or two ago.

In the park, February 2012

Is it possible? Could it really be working?

I've realized I'm afraid to talk about Elan's sleep when it's going well. I'm afraid I'm going to jinx it. Like I should channel my Eastern European ancestors and spit over my shoulder while I acknowledge it: Elan slept through the night last night -- puh, puh!

But I've also realized that I need to acknowledge it when things go well, too. Otherwise, I'm only talking about the negative. I risk seeming like, and possibly becoming, a very pessimistic person. And when there's a positive development, even though I fear it won't stick, that it's just a blip of good sleep in the sea of wakefulness, I need to share it. I want to shout it from the rooftops: ELAN HAS SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT FIVE OUT OF THE LAST SIX NIGHTS! Maybe I'm more of an optimist than I sometimes fear.

today's confessions

I confess that...

Sometimes the baby gets chocolate bread for breakfast.

Emry, 14 months, January 2012

And he really likes it.

(Notice the gummy smile - Emry's first tooth has broken through so he's toothless no more!)

Both my children drink bottles. Occasionally while watching TV.

December 2011

In the hours between 5 and 7 a.m., I frequently want to curse. Sometimes I do. Early morning is not my finest hour.

I found more amazement, pleasure and simple joy in Elan's Magical Crystal Garden than he did. I felt 7 years old again.

Magic Garden, January 2012

Smiles make everything better. It's such a relief that Elan's back to himself again. I am so glad that those 12 days of parenting hell are over.

Post-bath with Grandma Karen, January 2012

I spend a lot of time in cafes, since I work best away from the distractions of children, laundry and dishes at my house. But I've never heard singing in a cafe like the nine women clustered around a table across from me are doing right now. It's gorgeous, and it feels soulfully appropriate today. Today is my dad's birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). And it's also the day we learned about the passing of a beloved preschool teacher at Elan's school after a long illness. I led a yoga session for Elan's class this morning, breathing and stretching with the kids after a difficult morning dealing with Elan's 5:00 a.m. restless and overtired crankiness, and my own frustration and worry about this ongoing sleep struggle, even post-T&A. So I think it's a day to FEEL. To feel the sad, the joy, the frustration, the gratefulness, and the messy combinations of emotion that make up being alive.

Water and cousins in the driveway, January 2012

not for the faint of heart

Botanical garden, Berkeley, January 2012

Let me tell you, having your kid get their tonsils out really sucks.

I'm really hoping this is worth it, because last night, when I was awake with a screaming, thrashing, kicking child who refuses to take his medicine in the night, from roughly midnight to 4 a.m., with breaks when he'd fall asleep, then wake up twenty minutes later, hysterical once more, and I felt so helpless and bad for him, and also so frustrated that he wouldn't just swallow the medicine, this simple thing to help himself, I had that thought I knew I would have at least once in the recovery process: This was a really bad idea.

A friend of mine recently posted this quote:

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.

-Buddhist proverb

I am hoping that we are facing in the right direction.

mil gracias

Botanical gardens, Berkeley, January 2012

I want to say thank you for the text messages, emails, phone calls, voicemails, old-fashioned cards, and telepathic messages that have been sent our way over the past week. It's been so nice to feel the support of our community as we deal with this, our first real medical situation with one of our children. (And how lucky we felt, at Children's Hospital, where there are some very sick children, that this was our first -- and still an elective procedure.) (Though don't tell Elan we elected it. Poor guy would be quite peeved at us if he realized that.)

He made a break for it when we got into the pre-op receiving area, and who can blame him? Most anyone would feel the same urge, even if adults wouldn't act on it. They gave him an oral sedative and an iPad with Uzu, a sort of hypnotic fireworks game, on it. Mikhail carried him down the hall to an antechamber to the operating room, where he got the anaesthesia via a mask. Once he was unconscious, we stepped out into the hallway and I burst into tears. "90 percent of parents cry," the very nice Child Life Specialist told us, as I tried to pull myself together, away from the image of my little boy lying on a gurney.

But I digress. What I want to say is that we have an arbor of holiday cards adorning our big front picture window. It's nice to look up and see friends and family looking down at me. I think I'll leave them up there till spring.

post-op: days 1-2

Elan doing his impression of a giant-eyed wood elf, January 2012

First off, Elan's T&A surgery went fine. The surgeon told us afterwards that his adenoids were big, and that she thinks the surgery will correct the sleep apnea. So that's the good news, and it was a big relief to hear after what was, for me, the worst part - the time during the actual surgery. I have an overactive imagination, and I've watched a lot of Grey's Anatomy episodes.

The bad news is that the recovery is rough. We knew this would be the case. Every parent who had been through it told us that it's awful while you're going through it, even as they celebrated the results. At the end of Day 1, Elan was doing better than we expected. He tucked into several bowls of pasta with an enthusiasm we rarely see him show for any food.

Night 1 was a parenting comedy of errors, one of those nights we'll look back at some day when our kids are grown, while we're sipping pina coladas on some tropical beach and reminiscing about the diaper days, and laugh. Mikhail put Elan to sleep in our bed while I was out at a kindergarten information night. That was our plan, so one of us could keep an eye (albeit closed) on him while we slept and to keep him further from Emry so that hopefully we wouldn't have them both up screaming at us at the same time.

Getting into bed, I knocked over the humidifier next to the bed and spilled water all over the floor. After cleaning that up, I got into bed, careful to not wake Elan, and pulled the sheet up. The sopping wet sheet. In my exhausted state, I couldn't figure out how I had managed to spill humidifier water into the middle of the bed. Then I realized my son had wet the bed. FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Really. Mr. Iron Bladder was laid low by a combination of IV fluid, the anaesthesia still in his system, and the morphine the hospital gave him before we left that afternoon.

I notified Mikhail, who was just getting into bed in Elan's room, that the plan had to change. Screaming commenced, as we woke Elan by taking off his wet PJ bottoms and moved him into his room. Then, while Mikhail tried to soothe Elan back down, and Emry, woken by his brother's yelling, cried in his crib, I quickly stripped the bed, mopped up the pee from our expensive latex mattress topper with cloth diapers, sprayed BioKleen (love that stuff), laid down every beach towel in the house, remade the bed, nursed Emry back to sleep, and then collapsed on the half-size camping pad next to Elan's bed. For a half hour. Until Elan woke up again, pee-soaked in his bed (also with no mattress cover - when will I learn?). We did the whole thing again, with Elan back to sleep in our bed (after insisting on a bathroom stop - I do learn some things).

Then during Day 2, he really stopped eating or drinking pretty much anything except his medicine. It's painful to swallow, that's clear, but we also saw him click into a war of wills mode, where he just seemed determined to stick to his guns, even as he felt worse and worse from a combo of hunger, dehydration, and worsening of his throat from not drinking. We made it very clear that, come Day 3, if he wasn't drinking, he'd have to go to the hospital and get an IV. You know that big needle that was in your hand when you woke up from your operation? That, for four hours! But still he refused.

Parenting (and grandparenting, from my very brave parents) skills worn out, we put him to bed. He came around in the middle of the night, after quite a long time of screaming and carrying on, and finally we got him eating and drinking.

Jello and Odwalla party - our bed - 3 a.m.

a diagnosis and a decision

Elan, nearly 5 years old, November 2011

Back in October, we took Elan to the Stanford Sleep Clinic. The doctors there examined him and then took a complete history, which translated into an hour and a half of us talking, trying to explain exactly how it is that our child doesn't sleep. That's an exaggeration. He does sleep, obviously, otherwise I would have sold him on Craigslist by now, or checked myself into a mental institution. But he sleeps fitfully, with frequent wakings, regular bouts of flinging himself around, and much screaming. I hardly even know what it's like to sleep an entire night without being jolted awake by sudden screaming. It's happened a few times in the last five years, but not much.

Shortly after our initial appointment, I took Elan back to the Sleep Clinic for an overnight sleep study, otherwise known as a "sleepover." He sat in a swivel office chair watching movies, patiently doing his best to ignore the technician covering his body and scalp with electrodes glued to his skin and attached to wires. We joked about how he was turning into a robot, and I snapped a few pictures, but truthfully, it was a little disturbing to me to see him hooked up like that, and when he looked at the pictures, he didn't like them. I think he found it disturbing too.

Drugged by slow-paced children's movies, he finally fell asleep. I slept on the "parent surfboard," mounded with blankets to soften the hard surface. He had quite a few episodes that night, screaming and carrying on in that way he does, when Mikhail and I can't figure out if he's awake or asleep. In the morning, we packed up our stuff, got the glue off him as best as we could, and went to Hobee's, a local chain restaurant I have fond memories of from my time at Stanford. But the BDBIT (Best Darn Breakfast in Town) wasn't as good as I remembered and Elan didn't touch his pancakes.

Being impish

A few days later, we got the results of the sleep study. Obstructive sleep apnea, a mild to moderate case. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard that. Breathing problems were the one sleep-related ailment we felt sure he didn't have. The classic noisy snoring and audible stop-breathing episodes that define sleep apnea -- we've never heard them in Elan. He has a much more subtle case, with more hypopnea (reduced breathing) episodes than actual apnea (stop-breathing) ones, and a very quiet snore (I learned that, at least in children, audible breathing counts as snoring - who knew?). But there it was, in black and white in front of me: an API (Apnea-Hypopnea Index) score of 12. Which means that approximately 12 times an hour, Elan's blood oxygen level drops substantially enough that his brain wakes his body up to stir, change position, and enable him to breathe better.

Today, after multiple opinions and conversations and visits to two local pediatric ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctors, I called to schedule a tonsillectomy and adenoid removal for him. Given the specifics of his case, the decision to do the surgery has not been an easy one. It might be an extremely common surgery, but it's still surgery, and Mikhail and I had to feel sure that it was the right decision. Now it's made, and I'm hoping and praying that it works. (And that the procedure goes fine, and that the recovery's not too bad.)

I keep trying to write about this - the diagnosis, the decision-making process, the entire convoluted universe that is sleep in our household. But I keep getting caught up in the details, unable to see the whole picture, and, ultimately brought down by the anger and sadness I harbor about how exhaustion has so defined both Elan's childhood and my experience of motherhood to date.

I'm really mightily pissed about it, you see. And, even as I write that, I feel the burn of tears just below the surface. So many times, I have wondered Why. Why can't he sleep? Why won't he sleep? Why doesn't he sleep? And How. How do we get him to sleep? How do we survive the ongoing struggle around sleep? How do we make sure that chronic exhaustion doesn't too negatively affect not just Elan, but also both Mikhail and me in our everyday lives, in our marriage, and in our family as a whole?

There are many reasons that lack of sleep is a form of torture. I could sure make a long list myself. But the main one, the one that's on my mind right now, is how being tired makes you unable to deal with adversity. I see that effect played out in Elan's behavior day after day, some worse than others, depending on how he did the nights before. Sometimes, I'm caught up in the symptoms of sleep deprivation right along with him, rallying against how his sleeplessness screws up my life. Other times, I can stand outside and watch with compassion as he struggles to learn how to control his own emotions, a trying process for all preschoolers, but especially those who never get a good night's sleep.

Whistling, kind of

So what I want to ask for, as we enter the holiday season, is a little hope sent our way. I'm not one to ask for prayers. I generally feel uncomfortable with the whole notion of talking about prayer, while I do sometimes do it myself, and I feel doubly uncomfortable asking others to pray on behalf of something in my life which, while difficult, is thankfully not serious in a life- or limb-threatening kind of way. But we sure could use some hope. Good vibes. Love and luck sent our way. The first surgeon we saw made sure to lower our expectations, telling us that given the particulars of Elan's case, he couldn't be sure that the T&A would fix the problem. The second surgeon was more optimistic and said she doesn't see why it wouldn't fix the problem. Today I called the second surgeon. I need some optimism around this, some hope that putting all my eggs in the tonsillectomy basket won't leave me with nothing more than hands full of broken shells and slime pooling around my feet.

I want my kiddo to know what it feels like to be well-rested. To wake up happy, ready to greet the day, not lying in bed crying and moaning in the dark morning hours because he's awake but still tired. I want him to experience the normal struggles of growing up without the dark lens of exhaustion which fogs even the simplest of tasks. I want to feel well-rested too. I want my husband and me to be able to sleep in the same bed without screaming jerking us awake, one of us sprinting down the hall, then falling asleep in Elan's bed because we know he'll just be up again. I want Emry to sleep without being woken up by his brother's yells, and then developing his own bad sleep habits because it doesn't seem fair to have him cry it out when he's startled awake like that, and because I can't let him resettle on his own with a little crying for fear he'll keep Elan up.

I want, I want.

I hope, I hope.

Let's just say good sleep would be the best darn Hanukkah (and New Year's, and birthday, and Mother's Day, and anniversary) gift I could ever hope to get.

boys in sleepers

November 2011

They might not always sleep a lot, but they always spend a lot of time in their sleepers.

to-do list from the deep end

Comfort food in progress, October 2011

1. When all else fails, cook a brisket. With lots of roasted carrots and potatoes to soak in the briskety juices. Do not expect your 4-going-on-5-year-old, the source of The Trouble, to touch it, but the baby, who still has no teeth yet loves chicken sausage and pesto pasta, might gobble it up.

2. Do not allow your husband, plumbing novice, to try to replace the garbage disposal, even though you asked him to do it just last night. Understand that this project will take up half of Sunday's waking hours because there's no way for it not to while juggling an insane 4-year-old who hasn't slept in a week, who started the morning off dizzy from the mild sedative you gave him at 2 a.m., careening into the bookcase in his room at 6 a.m., and a crawling baby who will, through the course of the day, be found sucking on the following objects:

a) the end of a hammer;

b) a rubber band;

c) leaves;

d) the pointy end of the hammer;

e) every Cheerio he earlier threw on the floor from his highchair, thereby saving them for a snack later; and

f) his Mama's flip flop.

3. When the 4-year-old, who has bags under his half-mast eyes, throws yet another tantrum over nothing except what's in the air around him: Disciple, comfort, repeat.

4. Discipline, comfort, repeat.

5. Discipline, comfort, repeat.

6. You get the idea.

7. Go out to the driveway for a breath of fresh air. Be happy it's not raining today, like it did all last week when the 4-year-old decided to stop sleeping. Be happy your husband is here, under your kitchen sink, rather than in Toronto, where he was all last week, while you were here, trying to keep your sanity, sleepless in the rain. Decide to have the 4-year-old do sidewalk chalk in the driveway, since you can't muster the energy to fight him into going to the park quite yet. Realize there is a flattened and desiccated salamander in the driveway. Notice, sadly, that this salamander looks an awful lot like the "Dada one" in the salamander family of four that lives under a planter in your back yard. Ask your husband to come out from under the sink to deal with the dead salamander.

8. Later, when the 4-year-old is drawing sidewalk chalk goblins and ghosts in the driveway, notice that he keeps saying the Dada goblin and the Dada ghost are dead, even though you did not let him see or tell him about the salamander. Wonder if this is an uncanny ability to hear the unsaid, his way of expressing emotion over your husband traveling for work, or just part of his general obsession about death right now.

9. When your husband, plumbing novice, manages through the chaos to successfully replace the garbage disposal, as well as fix the P-trap, which became very leaky in the course of replacing the garbage disposal, give him a big kiss and serve him up a whopping plate of brisket. He deserves it.

10. As soon as the garbage disposal is finished, leave the house alone. Go exercise. If you're me, swim laps. If you're lucky, the water will clear the fog just enough to glimpse the realization that this can't be intentional, that your child probably is not trying to ruin your life, even if it feels like that on this difficult day, at the end of this difficult week. Reaffirm, as your arms cut through the water, that you are strong and capable, and that you have it in you to be your child's rock in the stormy seas in which he is currently struggling.

11. Sleep in your 4-year-old's bed tonight, with him on a pad on the floor beside you, to try to help him sleep as much as you can. When he is asleep, drink in the sight of his beautiful face, for the moment restful, wishing you could make it all better, for everyone's sake, wishing you knew how.

more on the "how does she do it?" question

Dandelion, Washington, August 2011

Some of my favorite friends-who-also-happen-to-be-bloggers have written recently on this question I was exploring yesterday, the how does she do it? question we women tend to ask ourselves about other women who seem to effortlessly and perfectly juggle the balls that we ourselves feel we might currently be dropping.

(Yes, I know there's a Sarah Jessica Parker movie with almost that title, but no, I haven't seen it. Movie theaters are not part of my current reality.)

I said that I liked to share stories of Real Life, with those messy moments, because I believe we will all have them and sharing them makes me feel less alone. But I fear that sometimes that makes my blog - and me - come off as whiny, not grateful for all my many blessings, overly obsessed with sleep (okay, I am overly obsessed with sleep, but if you had Elan for a kid, you probably would be too).

Here's my friend Andrea grappling with this question:

"In telling a story, especially for public consumption, I am always aware I have a choice. Do I tell you the gory details? or stick to what I loved most about it? Do I talk about how crabby I was? how the kids wouldn’t stop whining? how Matt and I were ready to wring each others’ necks? or how majestic the redwoods were?"

Kristina, whose blog often highlights lovely creative & culinary projects, says:

"And for the record, because I get a fair share of emails and comments asking how I find the time to do it all… here’s a little secret. I don’t. I just only take pictures of the things in my life that are pretty and possibly interesting to other people. But there is plenty that goes undone, plenty of I wishes and if onlys. Maybe I will start to write about that stuff more, just to be fair."

And here's another interesting post from a blogger who I don't know, and who I've never read before this post, but maybe I will read more now. I like these lines:

"It’s true: I have high ideals. But they are backed by merely human resources."

things to wonder over

Ocean and sunlight, San Diego, July 2011

*A friend who had been on dialysis got a new kidney from a living donor, a woman who is a friend of a friend but not someone she had ever met before the transplant process began. Recipient and donor, both young women, are doing well post-surgery. I am blown away by the generosity.

*Emry can crawl.

*Elan can read.

*Both my children slept until 6 a.m. this morning, drank some milk, and went back to sleep until after 7:30.

*I went to sleep at 10 p.m. last night (a minor miracle in itself), so I actually had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

*Fall weather in the Bay Area is glorious.

*And a story: One of Elan's new favorite toys is a set of 4 Boon odd ducks (think mod rubber duckies - we had to toss our old rubber ducks after they tested positive for lead, yum). These ducks come with names: Jane, Bob, Slim and Squash. Or is it Squish? I can never remember. Anyway, the ducks have been going to preschool with Elan daily to his new Pre-K class. On our way home one day last week, I decided to stop at the new Local Butcher Shop. This is the kind of local, sustainable foodie place Berkeley-ians love. They are all about using the whole animal (nose to tail eating as it's called), so they had lots of whole animals in the case. Elan peered in at them, curious and not as squeamish as I expected him to be, reading the signs: chicken (he noted they still had their heads), rabbit (thankfully without theirs), squab (they were out, and I didn't know till I looked it up online that this is pigeon), duck. He looked at them casually, got preoccupied for a while by the butchery charts, then suddenly ran over to the stroller and stuffed the pink rubber duck behind a blanket. "Mama, we have to go!" he squealed. "Jane saw the ducks, and she's very worried!"

musical beds

Drayton Harbor, Washington, visiting my in-laws, August 2011

I've been writing a lot of blog posts in my head in the middle of the night.

That's because I haven't been doing a lot of sleeping in the middle of the night.

Back when Emry was still a work-in-progress, the thing I was most nervous about when it came to expanding the family was sleep. Elan has always been a bad sleeper, mediocre in his best stretches, and so I was justifiably nervous that I would end up with two children who didn't like to sleep and then go completely crazy. I had to adopt a position of THAT COULD NEVER HAPPEN because otherwise, I never would have been able to maintain the necessary optimism throughout my pregnancy. "This baby will be a better sleeper than his brother," I'd say. And then I'd add, "He has to be," putting my hand on my bulging tummy, praying that my words were sinking deep into the baby's forming psyche.

And for the first six-plus months of Emry's life, it seemed like my denial assertions were right on. He rocked the sleeping early on, and my morning reports about the hour he slept until before crying were routinely given in a surprised voice. As in: "He slept till 4 before he wanted to nurse!" I felt vindicated (it's NOT my fault Elan's such a bad sleeper) and lucky. And surprisingly well-rested.

Unfortunately, Emry's sleep has been going downhill the last few months. I couldn't really tell you exactly when it started, but the trend is unmistakeable {sigh}. He'll get a cold, and wake up more, but then the wakings will continue even once he's feeling better. I remember this kind of thing well from Elan. We called it the dreaded backslide, and it would send chills through my spine. This time, I tried to keep a positive attitude. Emry actually likes to sleep, I'd remind myself. He is a very different personality from Elan, I'd reassure myself. Finally, Mikhail and I decided I was turning a bit too zombie-mommy for my taste (or his), and we embarked on some sleep training with Emry to cut out his newly developed midnight/1 a.m. waking. Despite my PTSD from repeated who-can-hold-out-the-longest scream-a-thons with Elan, Emry cried for 10 minutes max, and then went back to sleep till 3:30 a.m. Relief!

But lately, our house at night resembles a large-scale game of musical beds. I am gripping tenuously at the last threads of my sense of humor about the rotating bed situation: Mikhail in the office, me in our bed with Emry, Elan in his room; Mikhail squished into Elan's single bed with him in his room, Emry in his crib in the office, me up four times a night with Emry, nursing in an office chair... In one unfortunately memorable night, Mikhail slept in every bed in our house, except Emry's crib, and including the couch.

The last two weeks, we've been traveling again, and Elan has slept in a room with an adult every night. Maybe it's just coincidence and him being more relaxed because he wasn't in preschool, but his sleep - and ours - improved over that period. Sleeping inches from one of us, he quickly resettles when he screams in his sleep, which happens twice a night or more most nights. But when he's in his own room, he fully wakes up before one of us gets to him, he's afraid of being left alone again and won't go quickly back to sleep, our adrenaline is pumping from the sprint down the hallway -- the whole process results in everyone having to wake up more thoroughly. I actually find myself wondering if we should just set up a little bed for him in our room, even though he hasn't regularly shared a room with us for four years, and this from a woman who is not a fan of the family bed. In fact, if I had a large bedroom, I probably already would have given him his own corner. But I don't - I have a little bedroom, and I would really prefer to not have every member of the family sleeping in it.

We've been hoping that once Emry can share Elan's room, Elan will sleep better having him in the room, but that won't work with Emry engaging in the midnight screaming sessions he has become fond of as his latest cold works its way through (we are on Day 10 and yes, I'm counting). Ems, my baby, you're supposed to be Mama's good sleeper -- we had a deal, remember?

UPDATE, since I never got around to posting this when I wrote it a week ago: Victory! Emry's sleeping is back on track, and I'm very happy about it. Now if only we could figure out a way to get Elan to sleep better that didn't include Mikhail squeezing himself into Elan's bed and getting pummeled by a thrashing child every night. Ah, parenthood.

paying for sleep

Mama, I don't know WHAT you're talking about... Emry eating yogurt, July 2011

The children have been mean at night lately. One night, Emry's up every hour and a half. The next night, Elan's up several times. Last night, Mikhail was away for Night 3 of his business trip, and they split the night: Elan took the first half (1 a.m., 3 a.m.) and Emry took the second half (4 a.m., 5:30 a.m.). See, it works better that way. Neither of them get too tired when they split it like that.

Of course, I was a raving lunatic. This kind of "let's gang up on Mama" night was my worst fear when Mikhail took his new job which requires business travel. At 3:30 a.m., after he had been up for a half-hour for the second time that night, including a stint of Sleeping With Mama otherwise known as throwing his body against me repeatedly while actually asleep, until I gave up and went to sleep in his bed, I dropped the f-bomb on Elan. As in "What is your f@#*$* problem?" Look, I won a bad parenting award. But honestly, I think anyone would have been tempted, given the situation. I'm hoping that Elan was too half-asleep himself to remember the word and throw it back at me in the future.

Last night, I slept in 3 different beds. If it would have helped me get more sleep, I would have slept in 4, but Emry's crib has a weight limit that I exceed.

And then, at 7 a.m., we got up. I say "got up" because "woke up" isn't really appropriate when you've been up most of the night. I had a very bad headache. I've been getting these lately. Maybe they're migranes, because no combination or amount of water, Advil, or caffeine dims the pounding. They often come on in the middle of the night. This one came on at 3 a.m., which probably partly explains the use of f*$&.

I took a not-very-clear-eyed look at my situation and decided that the only way to maintain sanity was to pay for sleep. I fed and changed everyone, took Elan to school, came home, talked to the contractor who's still working on our deck, put Emry down for his nap, called my babysitter and told her that I hid the key for her and she should let herself in and that I would be asleep. I have never done this before. Sometimes while pregnant, I napped while Elan was at nursery school. But I have never had a babysitter at my house and slept. Usually, no matter how tired I am, the list of things to do provides enough momentum that I just keep on keeping on. And between my desire to exercise, to get my work done, and to have a little time to myself, babysitter time is a precious commodity. But I was desperate, and my body, in the form of my head, was rebelling.

I put in earplugs, laid down, and said a little prayer that no one would wake me. Actually, I said: God help the person who wakes me. Maybe I roared it, internally. Anyway, next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door. I took my earplugs out. Was that really a knock? It was bright and sunny through the cracks of the mini blinds. I'm sure this is really important, I thought. And when the knock came again, I said Si? My babysitter's 12-year-old daughter poked her head in. I'm sorry, but my mom wanted me to come and tell you it's 3 o'clock and do you want us to stay?

3:00. It was 10:30 when I got into bed. I just slept through my babysitting, plus another half-hour.

I think you could say that I was pretty f@*#*%& tired.

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.

my new favorite kitchen accessory & quick peanut sauce for dinner

We just got an electric kettle, and I'm smitten.

Suddenly, I'm drinking herbal tea regularly, instead of just thinking that I should (sweetened herbal tea helps to satiate my 4 p.m. sweet/caffeine craving, without ODing on sugar or staying up all night cause I drank coffee after noon). And I no longer have that annoying situation where I turn the kettle on and by the time it's whistling its heart out on the stove, I'm upstairs elbow-deep in a poopy diaper. Or ensconced in my rocking chair, nursing the baby. Or wrangling Elan, who's throwing a fit, while trying not to wake Emry, who's napping.

This way, after the water's boiled, the kettle just turns itself off. I need more things in my life that turn themselves off automatically. Like the Internet, nightly at 9 p.m. How much sleep I would get if my Internet went off at 9 p.m. Does anyone know how to make it do that (except for special situations like working at night, or writing important blog posts about kitchen gadgets)?

The kettle produces warm water nearly instantly, much faster than running the water in the sink, and without feeling guilty cause you're wasting water (nearly-native Californian that I am). Faster than heating water in the microwave, which always just strikes me as wrong. Mikhail's been using it to help him warm a bottle for Emry in the middle of the night, as we're tapering the baby off his midnight to 3 a.m. feed. Tonight he'll get a half-ounce of breastmilk with an ounce or so of water, out of a bottle. Is it really worth waking up for that, kid, when if you sleep past 3 a.m. you get a nice full meal out of a nice warm, decently well-rested Mama?

I notice that it's past 9 p.m. and I'm getting a little punchy, a signal I should be getting ready for bed and not on my computer. Internet-auto-shutter-offer, where are you?

Anyway, I used the kettle tonight to warm water for my favorite quick peanut sauce. I don't put a lot of recipes on this site - after all, there is the whole food blogosphere out there, with beautifully styled food photos and inspiring true recipe tales. But lately I've been enjoying cooking so much more again, and besides, who doesn't need another idea for an easy dinner?

Quick Peanut Sauce - my go-to sauce to serve with fried tofu, rice or soba noodles, and stir-fried veggies.

3 T unsweetened peanut butter

2 T rice wine vinegar

1 T chopped cilantro (I never put this in, cilantro non-lover that I am)

1 plump garlic clove, minced or put through a press

2 t soy sauce or to taste

1 t brown sugar

1/2 t chile oil

salt (if needed)

Combine all the ingredients except the salt, adding 2-4 T warm water (from an electric kettle!) to make it the consistency you wish. Add additional soy sauce or salt as needed.

Recipe from Deborah Madison's excellent Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

naplets

February, on BART, when Emry was much littler (and a better napper)

Oh, the 45-minute nap, how you foil Mama's attempts to get any work done!

a first

Making "soup" in his "soup-making machine."

We ran Elan around a lot in San Diego. Even with a few days of rain and some chilly wind, he spent a lot of time outdoors - at the pool, the beach, the zoo, riding bikes and playing with friends. And the result was: no bedtime battles. With all the sleep-related struggles we've had with Elan, and there have been many, going to sleep at night hadn't generally been one of them until recently. Sometimes when it's taking an hour for him to fall asleep at night and I'm coming back for the fifth time to check on him, in order to try to keep him in his bed, I think: Really? We need another sleep issue? Come on. So Mikhail and I were really loving having him fall promptly and soundly asleep after the end of another full day.

Perhaps he was even a little too tired by the end of the week. On our last night in San Diego, we were having dinner with some friends and Elan was playing with their daughter when suddenly he looked up at me and said words that I have never heard before and can't imagine hearing again anytime soon: "Mama, can I go to bed now?"

Let's hear it for sheer exhaustion.

before breakfast

Before breakfast:

I nursed Emry at 3 a.m., 4:30 a.m., and 6 a.m. By 6:20 a.m., his cheeks were the size of small cantaloupes.

Also at 6:20, Emry started working on perfecting his teradacytle shriek. The happy kind.

I waited for my mom to wake up so that I could hand off the adorable, shrieking-with-delight baby to her and go back to sleep.

I cursed the light streaming into the bedroom, cueing the baby's brain that he should start waking up at 6:00. What happened to 7 a.m., my dear babykins? On that note, what happened to sleeping in more than 1.25 hour stretches?

I waited for Elan, who was sleeping in my mom's room on a mattress on the floor, to wake up, so that he would wake up my mom and I could pass off the adorable baby and go back to sleep.

Elan woke up. My mom woke up.

Elan went into my room and pulled a blanket over the baby's face. I saw his guilty look and immediately went in, pulled the blanket back, smiled at the adorable baby (who was not at all fazed by having had the blanket over his face for 20 seconds) and tried to rein in the immediate fury I felt. Elan loves to push my "fury" button, so it's kind of like giving him a big fat chocolate sundae with a cherry on top if I get really angry. Except it also kind of scares him, so it works a little in that way. I'm trying to reserve fury for only a few very select moments. I decided this wasn't one of those moments. And Elan doesn't like cherries. I probably couldn't even get him to try a marashino.

I sang the "Uh-oh" song (more on that another time) and put Elan in his room for some "private time."

I vented to my mom. This is what happens when I don't show fury to Elan. I have to show it to someone else. Not the best side effect.

I played with the adorable baby. Still not traumatized. I'm starting to see how different life is for first versus second kids.

I went back to sleep.

With eye shades on.

And ear plugs in.

Ah, blessed eye shades. Ah, blessed ear plugs. Ah, blessed unconsciousness, when you're not on duty... finally.

I woke up. What was that - 20 minutes? 2 hours? Wow. I could sleep all day, for several days in a row. Fantasizing about sleep is new mom porn.

I put the baby down for his nap.

I dealt with Elan spilling my full water bottle on the carpet.

My mom left for her haircut.

I fixed the broken sippy cup.

I made pancakes with the batter my mom left. I poured coffee.

I went sprinting upstairs at the sound of Elan crying, before he could wake the baby, after having bumped his head.

I comforted Elan. I helped him find what he was looking for. I moved the hide-a-bed frame he pumped his head on.

I told Elan: If Mama doesn't eat very soon, she is going to get very cranky.

I went back downstairs, trailing Elan in his new dinosaur pjs. ("There's dinosaurs even on the pants!")

I reheated my coffee. Note to self: Just use the travel mug. Even when you think you're about to sit down. You're most likely not.

I poured the syrup and ignored my dinosaur-pj-clad son for a full five minutes.

Open mouth, insert bite.

Uh, huh. That's what I'm talking about.