Irish Lassie

As a child, comparisons between my sister and I hurt, my cousin (who is 15 years olders) were frequent and created a sickening ache in my stomach. And honestly I vowed never, ever, to do them to my own children. Now I realize I should have never said NEVER…

Now I have two daughters and I find the comparisons are frequent from strangers. In fact, most strangers that meet them think they are twins. They do look similar, but they are 19 months apart and I am often saying that out loud to people. Their differing personalities remind me of twins in a lot of ways. Shane is an identical twin and could not be any more different from his twin. So they remind me of them in a lot of ways.

Kelsey is bold, rambunctious, sweet, and caring. She is so full of life, a perfectionist, loves to be around people so she can put on her “A” game and very competitive. I say all of these things with love and a realistic expectation that her personality is ever changing as she grows and experiences new things.

Kylie on the other hand has always had very mellow temperament and has most often “gone with the flow”. She has always been very verbal, but is slow to warm up to new people. Her temperment has been soft and sensitive. Having said this, there has been a recent change and we do see the two year old attitude come out. We have had “attitude” about potty training and her clothes. She wants to choose what she wears, but she is so indecisive it takes her sooooo long to decide and then she changes her mind multiple times. It takes her so long to decide, everyone else is usually dressed and out the door already. As with Kelsey, I know Kylie will continue to grow and change and her personality will continue to morphe into a new being and I look forward to seeing the changes happen in both of them.

So now, the thing I vowed I would never do is happening. I say it mostly in my head, but sometimes outloud, “Why are they so different?” “Why can’t potty training be easier like it was with Kelsey?” “Why can’t Kylie just figure out what she wants to wear, Kelsey has never cared what she wears and is delighted by whatever I set out.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love their differences! But it makes parenting difficult when each child comes with their own set of sensitivities, rules, and really should come with a handbook on how to work through their unique challenges.

I am usually driven by challenges and even enjoy working through them, but I find that these challenges seem to take so much energy that I run out of steam and find myself impatient, and demanding with them. I turn into a mean mommy.

ME: “Come on Kylie, everyone is out the door already, just pick something out already!”

Kylie: “Mommy, are you mad at me.”

ME: “No, but we need to get you dressed, NOW.”

Kylie (now crying): “OK”

ME (feeling guilty that I made her cry): “Come on sweetie, I love you, and want you to be able to make the choice about outfits, but we have time constraints in the morning and we really need to get going.”

Kylie: “What are time ’straints?”

ME (now walking on eggshells): “It means we need to leave, now.”

Kylie: “OK.”

The unthinkable could happen between two people.

Individuals kill eachother on the street, adult predators hurt children every day, some of it goes unnoticed, some individuals are caught. We see and hear about terrible things in the news…I suppose most of us believe it is happening to someone else.

My mind cannot completely wrap around the violence. But the everyday ugliness in our society- now that is news worthy!

Does it make our presumptions true enough to call someone out on the table?

Is it unthinkable to take a daily walk with your friend to coffee? Apparently it is if the wrong person sees you.

As this day ends (yes its St. Patty’s Day and I will soon turn in for the night), I feel a sense of peace that my servitude as a daughter may have struck a high point, hopefully…

We (Shane and I) began a major clean-up and finished our portion, completed our stink as a rehab/ respite center, and attempted to pass the reigns to my elder sister (tag your it and by the way no backs!).

My mom’s surgery went quite well and since she has decreased some of the intake of pain meds, she seems to be able to be on her own. So we gave her some independence back today and allowed her to go home (pine sol fresh!). I don’t expect to hear from her for a few days. I think she had enough of us, despite her unending love for us and the kids, enough is enough and she likes her quiet.

And so do I.

When will my quiet start?

For those who celebrate the day, whether it is for the corned beef and cabbage, the green beer, or you just need a reason to celebrate, St. Patty himself was quite an interesting guy.

Apparently, folklore says he rose people form the dead and drove away snakes from Ireland. He was also imprisoned many times and each time escaped.

For those of you celebrating the day or the whole weekend long, may you enjoy the most joyous holiday of the year!

Top five ways to keep the she-law quiet:

1. During movies and tv shows, don’t ackowledge questions and comments.

2. At the Mall of America, walk quickly several times around the Mall without stopping, this works well to tire out youngsters as well.

3. Bring her to a loud, inaudible restaurant.

4. Make several excuses to leave and get groceries during her visit.

5. Leave “Your child’s first book about sex” on the counter for her arrival, her expression was priceless and speechless (thank you Vikki).

My head is above water for a few moments, so I decided to write a delayed update, with more to follow later.

I survived the she-law visit over the weekend. My mind was truly not present, which was probably why it went so well.

My mom’s surgery last Thursday went well, and she seemed to be doing splendidly with PT in the hospital, but I had grave concerns when she almost tripped getting her coat on when she was discharging on Monday. She has been at my home since and she is only marginally needy, although I feel like all my energy is going into her and everything. Between cooking, cleaning, running to the store for yet more ingredients and health care equipment, and helping with the Ted hose/ shoes, keeping Teddy from jumping on her and caring for my kids, I am exhausted and crashed after dinner tonight for about 1 hour.

I do believe there will be an end to this chaos, call me crazy.

Alittle play on words never hurt anybody right?

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Tomorrow, my beloved monster in law comes into town. We have a little bit of a love/ hate deal going on… she for the most part loves me and I wouldn’t go so far as say the “h” word, but my feelings are alittle more shaky for her. As far as in-laws go, my padre-in-law was a beautiful person. There are good things about the she-law too, but she gets on my nerves a bit. Let’s just say, my dentist said I should get a mouth guard and wear it when she comes into town. I haven’t seen her since Christmas, so we have had a healthy break, and I am gearing up for tomorrow and trying to have a positive, excellent hostess attitude!

The (sand)’wich part of the title has more to do with my mom’s surgery this Friday. This is the week of the hip replacement. So I am feeling a little squished between the two slices of wheat bread, having just recovered from Kylie’s illness and soon to be caregiver again. I am not jumping for joy, but I have agreed to have my mom come stay with us next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I feel the obligation of a daughter (since my sister did not jump at the opportunity) and my mom helps us ALOT. So here goes, into a long weekend/ week, and I am looking forward to it (being over).

There is nothing like storming out of your house to the gas station for expensive gas and a car wash (to finally wash the van-truck) to allow a person a healthy amount of expression and escape from the chaos called life.

Day #5 of Kylie puking has found me in a place of escape. The puking appears to be more of a bulimic release, my only explanation as a sort of toddler power and control at this point. If I am wrong I will eat my words, my mom believes something is seriously wrong. It seems to start as a scream, then a cry, then coughing, and finally the grand finale is the vomitus mess. It is definitely no longer the innocent stomach flu.

To top off Kylie’s “episodes”, Teddy woke me up at 4 am puking too. I am sooo done with cleaning up puke!

This afternoon’s episode happened at dinner-time, it was ‘oh so appetizing’, so after I gave Kylie a bath for the um-teenth time…I left the children in the most capable hands of Shane. I just said, “I have to go now”. I had lofty thoughts of driving to Las Vegas, by myself, but then I just decided to splurge on gas and a car wash down the street.

I will hopefully never have another moment that I need to escape immediately, but if I do I will have to plan a better escape route.

I need a vacation…really…this time its for real! It doesn’t even have to be Hawaii, Orlando or Mexico for that matter.

I will certainly not win the “mother of the year award” for this, but I need a vacation from my family.

Dealing with the vomitous mess of yesterday and the blizzard that won’t end has driven me to the brink of insanity. My only hope for sanity is that I do not catch the stomach flu, norovirus, or whatever the venomous poison was that surged through Kylie’s veins yesterday morning, afternoon and late evening.

I am tired.

And I am suppose to be working at home today. However, my work today has involved scrubbing every surface that Kylie, I or Shane touched yesterday. Washing every towel, sheet or piece of clothes that was touched or puked on. Vacuuming the dust, dirt and grime off of every surface that could be tainted by the poison.

To top off the nastiness of it all, my little dear Kelsey was on a self-destructive path last night and purposely licked every toy Kylie had touched, because she said she wanted to “catch the sickness”.

On the upside, Kylie is feeling better and polished off 3 bowls of cereal this morning.