The Fatigue Factor

March 07, 2014 by Kate Felton in think

O: Will you just stay and rub and jostle me for a few more hours? Just a few more hours and that's it.

When you first have a baby, everyone asks how you are sleeping. Is he or she making it through the night? How often are you getting up for feedings? No one talks about how nearly four years later, you still might be sleeping in two to three hour stretches. How, unless you live in Bruce Wayne's manor house, tiny human #1 is inevitably waking up tinier human #2 and visa versa, like some never-ending ouroboros, consuming its own tail.

We are so exhausted, we regularly have text conversations like the one below, usually while one of us is patting a tiny tushy. WARNING: the text below contains content that is not rated for some viewers. It not only uses foul language, but it also makes a passing reference to the act that got us into this mess. Scroll at your own risk.

Nobody talks about what happens to your brain somewhere around year three, how you forget things, basic things, like how old you are (I've added an extra year to my age for nearly all of the last calendar year), how you will count five hours where you don't get out of bed as a "good night," how even when everything else is really pretty wonderful, it can start to feel like nothing is working.

I'm here to tell you, the fatigue factor is a real thing. It is hard. It is unreasonable. It can feel untenable. Starting your day on two and a half hours of sleep and ending it lying in bed filled with anxiety about when the next wake-up will be, is not a recipe for a good night.

Someday, we will sleep until we feel like getting up. Someday, we will be dragging their cranky teenaged butts out of bed to do something enriching, whether they like it or not. Someday, we will be well rested. Today is not that day. To all of the other sleep-deprived parents out there, I salute you. Keep your chin up, your pillow fluffed, and your back to the door, because maybe, this time, they'll go back to sleep on their own. Maybe.

Conversations With My Daughter

March 06, 2014 by Kate Felton in think

O: Mommy, I don't love you.

And she is three, but someday she will be 13 and 33 and on and on and on. This tiny person who is a mirror I hold up to my heart every day, says things to me that I have said to myself, in the dark and quiet spaces of my mind, where I sometimes hide. She says it frankly and with no malice, some kind of test, or she says it while hurling herself at the ground, her body hot with anger and her face red, wet, and salty. She is a tiny sponge sopping up all of the sweat and tears I have left behind. It takes my breath away, like a punch to the gut.

K: That's ok, bug. I love you enough for both of us.

O: Mommy, you have a soft, squishy belly.

And she is right. The folds of my skin have multiplied over time. Where there was once a firm stretch of smooth, tan skin pulled taunt over organs and muscle, there is now a soft, doughy pad, a pillow for the downy heads that find their way to me on the couch. Their tiny hands and impossibly perfect feet have clawed and kicked the vanity out of me, leaving me content with my own softness. It is because my human form was stretched and I expanded, responding to the needs of the people I have made. It has left its mark on my soul. It would be shameful if it had not also left its mark on my body.

K: I love my soft, squishy belly, because I got it when I made you.

O: Mommy, did you know that I am strong and brave?

And she is. My heart swells. In a world so big, in a body so small, she tackles new things daily with a voracity and passion that I envy, but I worry that this is simply the patter that we have filled her head with, words with no meaning, repeated for effect. I worry that my attempt to replace the voices of strangers has backfired; that the words of the woman in the grocery store, who pats her head and tells her she is pretty, or the voices of the parents at the park, who call her “princess,” will still echo in her ears, and that I have merely left her confused, still seeking the approval I want so badly for her not to need.

K: It doesn't matter what I know, my darling. All that matters is that you know.

O: Mommy, I love you.

And she does. But this is after 9:00pm, long after bath and stories and lullabies and cuddles. This is the hundredth time she has been out of her bed tonight, popping up like a jack-in-the-box at the same moment I sit down on the sofa and attempt to shut off the noise in my head by switching on the television. She has been out for water, colder water, trips to the bathroom, a pajama switch, because the ones she picked at bedtime became too itchy. She has had her back scratched, rubbed and tickled. And yet, here she stands, back-lit by the hall light, dragging her quilt behind her. She crawls into my lap. Somehow, the top of her head still smells like sunshine and the fire from our camping trip over a month ago. I breathe her in. Even though she should have been asleep hours ago, even though I have never been more tired in my life, even though I'm not sure how today ends, I put my lips close to her ear, like I’m sharing a secret meant only for her.

K: I love you too.

You are raising Angelenos if...

March 05, 2014 by Kate Felton in think

O: We are on Pico! (this is said regardless of our actual location, but every time we pass a fire house)

You are raising Angelenos if...

1. They think a heavy mist is weather, and warrants an umbrella, a pair of sweet rain boots, and some serious swagger.

2. Someone, somewhere, has told you your kids should be in commercials.

3. You have a real love/hate relationship with sand. You love the sand at the beach and you hate the sand in your car, which makes you start to hate the sand at the beach in a way you never thought possible when you were in your early 20's and lived in a bikini, but I digress.

4. They call this a quesadilla cutter.

5. You have them tested, and find that they are 90% avocado, and that half of those avocados came from someone's backyard.

6. They have had sushi, pho, carnitas, beignets, dim sum, tom kah kai, saag paneer, and bibimpap all before their second birthday, but they might make it to college before they know the joy of Lucky Charms.

7. When getting in the car, they ask, "Are we going on the freeway?" If the answer is yes, they act as though you have stuck hot pokers in their eyes.

8. They have a vegan friend, a vegetarian friend, a paleo friend, and a friend who eats KFC on the reg.

9. Dealing with a film crew in the parking lot of preschool is a normal occurrence.

10. You have uttered the sentence, "If you want to go play in the fountain at the park before yoga, we are going to have to hurry," in a Starbucks, in December, more than once.

Little Sister

March 04, 2014 by Kate Felton in think

O: Mom, when is she going to be able to do stuff?

K: Someday.

Somehow, over the past few weeks, that someday is upon us. Tiny P isn't so tiny anymore. She sings, tells jokes, and dances. She has a real thing for shoes, hers and everyone else's. She would eat a hand of bananas a day if you let her. She wants to walk everywhere, except when she doesn't, and then she wants to be carried like a monkey, snuggled high on my hip with an arm hooked around my neck. She exerts her will, loudly, with a noise canceling pitch that Jim and I both find remarkable. She runs after O everywhere she goes, flapping her arms and tweeting like a baby bird. Look out O, P can do stuff.

Rainy Day at the Huntington Library

March 03, 2014 by Kate Felton in go

K: We are going in. Do you remember the two rules about museums?

O: Quiet talking and no touching.

K: Right.

O: But those are the two hardest things in the whole widest world. I know, if I feel like feeling a painting, I'll just touch my nose instead.

I've been in rehearsal for Much Ado at the Long Beach Playhouse for the past month and family time has been hard to come by. We used our first day off after opening to go to the Huntington Library. It was drizzly and glorious, and I had a new camera.

P had about 6 wardrobe changes due to excessive puddle jumping

We stayed outside for nearly our entire visit. The children's garden was a huge hit.

Pink bear really got into the microscopes

Then, we attempted the main house.

After a pep talk about museum etiquette and promises of cookies, we visited several galleries and touched our noses a lot. O thought that The Blue Boy looked very sad because he didn't have any one to play with. I agree. I wonder what she'll think of the Gutenberg Bible. Maybe next time.

We took selfies in the bathroom (babies and buttons), had a subpar lunch at the cafe (packing a picnic next time), and had, by all accounts, a stellar day.

The camellias were all in bloom and it was nice to forget we live in a city for a minute, and even nicer to be back in that city when we were were done.

Can't recommend enough, a thirty minute drive and a world away.

Where do you escape to when you only have an afternoon?

Our New Veeventure

March 02, 2014 by Kate Felton in think

O: I know! We'll put on our puddle splashing boots and go on a veeventure!

There are a handful of markers that help you track the passing of time when your kids are little: how quickly they grow out of their shoes, where their head falls when they lean against you (O, hip bone and P, crotch), and those magical mispronunciations. O has been losing about a special word a day. As her diction becomes clearer and her vocabulary expands, I have embarked on a mission to halt the passing of time. We have embraced some of her early pronunciations into our framily lexicon. A living creature is an aminal. The stuff you put on your lips to make them shiny is glip glops. You go to the dentist when you have a gabitiy. On really special days, read everyday, we go on veeventures.

This blog is really just that, an attempt to slow down the passing of time by documenting it and a fresh new veeventure. To that end, I got a shiny new toy. You can't defeat the passage of time with poor image quality after all. If anybody out there in the ether can show me how to work it, I'd be forever in your debt.

French Fry Party

March 01, 2014 by Kate Felton in eat

O: Momma, my brain bone hurts.

K: Maybe you should rest when we get home.

O: No, that won’t help. The only thing that will fix my brain bone is a French Fry party.

In order to share this with you I have to confess some things first, some dark secret things about my parenting. My kids don’t always eat organic. I don’t personally prepare every morsel that enters their sweet tiny mouths. They have eaten boxed mutant orange macaroni and cheese, sodium-laden canned soup, and a shade of pink not-found-in-nature bubblegum ice cream. They have had refined sugar, GMO produce, and gluten. We eat at restaurants. We order take-out. And, wait for it, we sometimes drive thru and get, gasp, fast food. There. I said it. I feel better.

The reason we drive through, however, is a special one. After an especially long day, we will on occasion have a French Fry party. The best thing about a French Fry party, other than the delicious golden crispy goodness of drive thru french fries, is the spontaneity. We don’t plan it. We can have one regardless of the weather, the time of day, or the number of tantrums. I guess, if I’m being honest, I also like that it feels a little bad, that we have to hide that fast food bag at the bottom of the trash or make sure that none of the other preschool moms see the detritus in the car.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a French Fry Party looks like

Someone will suggest it. We’ll all get a conspiratorial smile. We sing the French Fry party song. We find a drive thru. We do have our preferences, but I’m not going to start a french fry debate here. French Fry parties are about love. One medium french fry, please. I am instantly the conquering hero. My strengths and abilities at procuring this delicious treat are lauded at top volume. P would eat them all in the car. O, the planner, wants to save each and every one until we reach our destination and we can really enjoy them. I wield the power, the greasy bag riding shotgun on the seat beside me. I love French Fry party days.

Do you have anything you’d like to confess?

What’s your family’s version of the French Fry party?