babies · colic · daughters · kindergarten · summer

Songs for Sale (from the Momplex Blog archives)

If you’re not a regular reader, I hope you found this blog entry by Googling “high-needs baby” or “shrill cry.” This is what one of those babies can be like when she gets to be about six:

It’s a new kind of shrill, no question. But I swear I’d do labor, colic, and eight sleepless months all over again for her.

motherhood · speed-posts · summer

Our First Official Day of Summer Break (from the Momplex Blog archives)

We woke up at the crack of dawn and had oatmeal from packets and played with Legos and changed the wet laundry into the dryer before playing in the car and losing the garage-door opener and before driving 20 minutes to see a friend in a triathlon, only to find that there were about one million other people trying to see a friend in a triathlon, so we decided to go out for breakfast instead but when we got to the restaurant, I noticed my wallet was missing, so we headed back home to retrieve my wallet which was lost under winter coats (which we can’t put away yet, being that it was 58 degrees in our house last night) and then drove south 15 minutes to have pancakes with chocolate chips and whipped cream, just before we came home to watch Spongebob (yes, I admit) and then play in the car some more before I put the little one down for a so-called nap which, of course, was “quiet time” but really more like kick-the-wall-and-yell-mamamamamamamama time, but so what, because after an hour we got up and went to Animart to hold puppies and kittens, which almost didn’t happen because little guy fell asleep just as we were pulling into the parking lot, but I didn’t let that stop us, because we had so much day left to kill, and at Animart we filled our free-popcorn bags for the drive to the grocery store, where we bought yogurt-covered pretzels and new toothpaste that tastes like bubblegum, but when we got home the toothpaste (which had to be sampled right away) tasted “too spicy,” but that was soon forgotten because we got out the bike and the scooter, and it rained on us, but we didn’t care because we knew that bathtime with water-crayons was about to start, which it did, and now Thomas is on TV while I cook dinner, and bedtime begins in just 15 minutes, and goddamnit, I made it!

Take that, Summer Break.

To which Summer Break replies, “No, YOU take that, stay-at-home mom. Sucka!”