Wake up time this morning, a major legal holiday?

AM: 6:24. That was after some middle of the night negotiation (read: temper tantrum) about where he was going to sleep and whether or not he was going to nurse at that time.

Miss M: 6:45.

I mean, it’s like every other day of our lives,* but STILL. One of these days I am going to teach Miss M how to use the TV remote, just for times like this.

I hope everyone with little ones gets to grab a nap this weekend.

* Taxman goes to a 7:00 minyan on Shabbat morning. We used to go together, on time; now he goes by himself, 20 minutes late. But he still has to be vertical at approximately 7:00 am. So American holidays are truly the only chance to “sleep in.”

Our four year old computer is having problems connecting to the Internet. Taxman is at the dentist so I am using his computer. I should be working on a freelance assignment I meant to finish last weekend, but see aforementioned computer problem. This is my excuse if I have not been around as usual.

But this week has been fabulous, mostly because Miss M is having a super fantastic time at camp. From last year’s camp disaster to lots of rough emotional stuff at school this year, it is such a relief to drop her off in the morning and have her immediately engaged and sending me off with a casual wave as she starts coloring or playing with blocks. It’s not fancy, but there is such love in this place.

Love is the one thing–everything!–that was missing at school. So much so that when I picked her up from camp the first day, the teacher in charge of her “bunk” handed her over and said, “She had an amazing first day. She’s such a pleasure,” I almost started to cry. The counselors took pictures that day and made an Internet album–there is one of Miss M that, I promise you, could be a Kodak ad because she looks so joyful, her hands over her mouth in a gesture of happy surprise.

Every day since has been a good report. I wish it were summer all year long.

Four years and six days, and we are finally weaned.

I spent much of the spring conflicted about it. On the one hand, I was so ready. Her demand to nurse every morning, sometimes before I opened my eyes, just seemed the first link in an endless chain of petulant daily requests. I never got thanked. It caused strife between the kids at six-frakking-thirty. It was something that Taxman could never handle, no matter how tired, sick, or cranky I was.

But she seemed so attached. Out of emotional need, jealousy of AM,* OCD-like habituation to routine, or all of the above. (Will she even remember? Will she ever realize what it meant to her? To me?)

So I did back off when things were getting crazy, but at the end of May, as the June boxes on the calendar were being filled in with “last day of school,” “Miss M’s birthday,” “first day of camp,” I plopped the open page in front of her and told her to pick a day. She knows her numbers and probably would have gone for the highest, but the shared days at the end of the month (22/29 and 23/30) probably threw her. She picked June 24th.

I studded the week prior with gentle reminders that her last day to nurse was coming. We made encouraging noises about how big she was, she had her birthday, her family dinner, and her outing with friends. She encountered a small avalanche of gifts and some end of school excitement.

That last morning I had intended to let her nurse as long as she wanted. AM, by the grace of some kindly spirit, was still sleeping in his own bed when she awoke. I stroked her messy curls as we lay together nursing for the last time. But the magic spell had been broken months before. Her latch had become lazy (for her) and uncomfortable (for me); I had never corrected it because she was only nursing for 10-20-30 seconds a day. Only two or three minutes into that final session, I couldn’t take the discomfort any more and counted to 10, our signal to stop.

And it was over.

The next day, I had gone to the gym and was in the shower when she woke up. She asked to nurse; Taxman reminded her of the New World Order. She cried, but she was crying anyway over her scratchy throat and croupy cough.

The day after that, she asked and was again reminded that she had had her last time to nurse on Tuesday. “Oh,” she said, and happily recited what she wanted for breakfast.

Today, she didn’t ask.

Breastfeeding Miss M has been unlike anything else I have done in my life. I was lucky from the start; (over)educated on the mechanics; emotionally and physically supported; blessed with a full-term, capable, nearly textbook nurser and a excessively tolerant partner. It was our rosh pina, our cornerstone and foundation. Nursing into toddlerhood wasn’t necessarily something I anticipated, but as the months marched on it seemed the obvious choice, particularly when we uncovered a dairy sensitivity and removed it from her diet from 11-18 months. AM’s surprise conception didn’t put a damper on things, and I was determined to let her get her full 2 years, if she wanted them. Along the way, there have been boundary negotiations and re-negotiations, gentle pushing and pulling, laughs and tears.

It was sometimes the magic bullet to cure everything. Except my personality. I wish that breastfeeding had made me a better mother, more patient, gentle, and understanding. Less prone to exasperation and yelling. On the other hand–maybe it has. Maybe I would have been less [fill in the blank] without it.

I am relieved that weaning is done, because I’ve been dreading it for so long. Any emotional impact for me has surely been lessened by the fact that not only is AM still nursing, but he also appears to be cutting molars, so no rest for the weary breasts and “Again? You want to nurse again? You just did!”

Will I give him the same opportunity? To age four? I wish I knew. I want to say yes. But I am still so very tired.

* I have to imagine that were it not for him nursing she would have lost interest before–or I would have had more of a justification for stopping her earlier. There have been times in the past two months when she’s skipped a day or two, always when I was already out of bed and busy in the kitchen and he was still asleep when she came padding in to demand breakfast. 

Family dinner last night; paint your own pottery fest this afternoon. (Don’t worry, only Miss M and three of her friends–all sweet four-year-old girls whose families we know well.)

I have a cold, and Miss M has a croupy cough and sounds like Darth Vader. At least she’s sleeping; that makes one of us.

Highlight of dinner? If you have the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, open to page 414. Caramel layer cake.

OMG.

So good.

Totally my Paula Deen moment. My mother-in-law said, “Wait, you had half-and-half and butter in the house? At the same time?” Yes. And yes. And both were included. Whoa. So much for my rationale that if it’s in Moosewood it’s healthy.* My weight-conscious (though not dessert-skipping) stepmom had two pieces, even though she has a broken ankle and will not be able to exercise for another three weeks. Yeah. It was that good.

If I could breathe I so would have been at the gym this morning.

* Overall I think that’s a pretty true statement. Maybe not way back to the Enchanted Broccoli Forest (not the revised edition), which is liberally sprinkled with cheese. But taken as a whole.

This magical little girl has given me, given Taxman, a full term in office. Four years.

Of course, we weren’t elected. She didn’t choose us. And heaven help us, this regime is nothing close to a democracy; as the years have progressed the balance of power has shifted from her being entirely the boss (when she didn’t know the power she had) to something more traditional for a preschooler (she has limited power; she knows it; and it distresses her mightily). I like to believe that we are willing to hear objections, ignore said objections when they get too vociferous, give in when appropriate, and try to reach workable solutions that are in everyone’s best interest.

It doesn’t always happen. There is a lot of yelling. There are a lot of tears, tantrums, lost treats, skipped television viewings, and, when things get really bad, the cancelling of bedtime stories.

This year has been a challenge, starting from the desperate potty dispatches from last June 18th. That actually went remarkably well, overall, but I am not at all sorry that we have targeted next week, rather than today, as The Final Frontier in Nursing. No reason to have her birthday be traumatic two years in a row.

The challenges of “three years old” have been mostly of the mental and emotional variety.

Preschool this year hasn’t been the unicorns and rainbows and bubbles that I had hoped it would be. She’s had as much trouble following rules and listening to instructions there as at home. “Red flags” were mentioned regarding her attention span and her ability (desire?) to take direction, along with “you should have her evaluated for…something, I don’t know what.” As recently as two days ago she made a scene at dropoff. Some of the girls are cliquey. Some of the boys are outrageously wild. It’s made me, by turns, angry, sad, and frustrated.

The question remains: How I can love someone so much and at the same time want to lock her in her room until she’s 22, because maybe by then she will say please without being prompted. (Oddly, she always says thank you; it’s usually spontaneous and usually hilariously overwrought and breathless.) And stop with the tantrums, because, dude, I have had enough.

So while the daily grind can be hair-raising and lengthy and full of explanations–”But why?” was big this year–at the same time, she is a wonder. Her exuberance. Her readiness to dance, to spin, to jump at every opportunity. Her creative spirit. Her capriciousness in sibling relations, which you all tell me is normal; one minute hair-pulling and hitting, the next minute reading together in the glider, or taking AM’s dictation, one letter at a time, in chalk at the playground. And that hair. Still.

I can’t even imagine where the next four years will take us. It should be quite an adventure.

June 2004

May 2008

(I hope whoever dreamed up shorts sewn into skirts is making a killing from girls like mine, who want to wear dresses–skirts are actually always second best–but have a penchant for swinging high, turning upside down, and “unladylike” maneuvers. As I often say, “There’s no reason for everyone at the park to know what color underpants you have on.”)

Lined up for strawberries. It wasn’t always so orderly.

 
We left because the kids wouldn’t stop eating berries. Their shirts were a mess. They looked like vampires with strawberry juice running down their chins and arms. (Also: afraid of gastric consequences.)

I hope we managed to wrest enough from them to make a pie–or else the rhubarb we bought is totally going to go to waste. (Click to see stealing in progress.)

I mentioned to Miss M that I had to get a birthday present for her friend Y, who is also turning four. “Are you going to get her a toy, Ema?”

(Knowing that Y’s mom is drowning in a four-year-long flood of toys for both Y and her sister–and a third baby soon–I ran gift ideas by her ahead of time.)

“No, I’m going to get a book for her.”*

“I would like a toy for my birthday.”

“Hmm, really. You know, you already have lots of toys, and you don’t seem to like playing with them all that much.”

“I think I would like a toy for a present.”

“Well, I’ve already bought your birthday presents.”

And it’s three books, all of which were hard for her to return to the library in the past.

It’s funny how the books around here are constantly spilling–and being spilled–off the shelves, but somehow there never seem to be too many.

* I did buy a book, which I immediately wrapped, because Miss M has encountered it in the past and really liked it and would covet it to no end.

AM woke up Monday morning and started calling Taxman Abba, just as I predicted, and it’s adorable and funny and shows progress and it’s great news–did I mention he’s also got words for baby and berries and apple and birdie? and we’re still on break from speech therapy–but holy crap he really isn’t a baby any more and someday he will really be talking and everyone will understand how cute and smart and riotous he is and where did my little baby (babies, if we’re being honest; Miss M is turning four!) go?

Paula Deen.

I get her vibe, I do. She’s sweet and sassy and cooks like the Southern mama you never had.

But if I ate like she cooked for even two weeks I’d probably be dead. Or on my way to a quadruple bypass at a minimum. (Bad genes in the cholesterol department.)

We joined our local Y, Taxman and I, for the Fitness Center. We both need to be active, for different reasons, but the unifying theme is no excuses. So we’ve got a pretty inexpensive, nicely equipped, weatherproof gym that’s close to the house and on Taxman’s way home from work.

Anyway, I was at the gym today, doing intervals on the treadmill (GAH!) and watching Paula fry things all over the Food Network. Again, I am not against frying as a whole. I don’t think I have ever turned down any kind of fried potato in my life.

But at the end of the show she took a cheesecake out of her fridge, cut a slab from it, wrapped the slab in a wonton skin, and fried it. Then dusted it in powdered sugar. Then halved it, put it on a plate, drizzled chocolate sauce and raspberry sauce over it, sprinkled more powdered sugar, and finally added an enormous dollop of whipped cream and a mint leaf.

Really, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I would, however, probably step on some toes to get a taste of it.

Preface: Miss M has never been to Florida, but many of her classmates have relatives there or go for vacation. So she’s heard of it.

Miss M: “I want to go to Miami.” to Taxman: ”Have you been to Miami?”

One Tired Ema: “I don’t know if Abba’s ever been to Miami.”

Taxman: “I’ve been to Miami.”

Miss M: “I want to go to my own Ami.”

Hysterics ensue.

One Tired Ema: “Where’s the computer?”