Ain't That America

Small town America doesn't get much better than festivals centered around agricultural events.  Our local festival is a wheat harvest festival in a nearby village.  The main event is supposed to be the horse-drawn machine that harvests the wheat field on the grounds of the historical society, but it has grown over the years into something much more.

We had never taken Cubby to this festival, and A. was determined to make it this year.  So this morning we loaded up the whole family and arrived just in time for the parade.  By sheer luck, we happened upon a spot in the shade that was right where the parade participants turned off the street and onto the grounds of the festival.  There were also no other small kids in the vicinity, which meant that when the parade people threw candy at Cubby, he got it all without a bunch of older kids with candy bags scurrying around and grabbing it all up.

Not that he knew what the hell was going on with the candy throwing.  Especially since the first elderly gentleman on a tractor that tossed him some candy accidentally beaned him in the head.  Whoopsy.

But no matter!  Nothing could detract from the excitement of that parade.  A veritable army of antique tractors, horse-drawn wagons, old cars, fire trucks with sirens wailing . . . in short, Cubby's idea of heaven.

After the parade, Cubby and A. set off to see everything up close.  Charlie had been sleeping all this time and didn't appear inclined to wake up, so I put him on a blanket in the shady grass and sat there in a lawn chair for an hour while he napped.

After A. and Cubby rejoined us, we all set off to find some lunch and watch the horse-drawn harvester in action.  Charlie slept some more.

By 1 p.m. it was 90 degrees and Cubby was the approximate shade of a ripe tomato, so I decreed it was time to go home.  We got in the car and he looked like he was going to pass out in short order. I spent the ten-minute drive home talking to him, trying to keep him awake.  Then we got home, A. brought him upstairs for his nap, and the pounding commenced.  All I could hear from upstairs were the sounds of Cubby running back and forth from his room to ours.  Whatever he was doing up there, it was definitely not sleeping.

And so here we are at 2:30 in the afternoon, still not sleeping.  Amazing.  Not even the wheat-harvest-festival-induced exhaustion could overcome his stubborn refusal to fall asleep.  Dammit.

Edited to add: It is now 3:45 p.m.  Cubby is asleep on the couch.  A. is asleep upstairs.  Charlie is asleep in the bassinet.   Bedtime is going to be fun around here tonight.

Please Indulge the Maudlin

There are a lot of babies around lately.  My own, obviously, who will be three weeks old tomorrow and is so far an absolute delight in all respects, but also my brother and his wife had their second daughter yesterday (YAY FOR COUSINS!).  And A.'s brother and his wife have a five-month-old daughter.

Point is, we're currently in the Young Parents stage of life, along with many of our family members.  And I found myself thinking yesterday, in the midst of the toddler screaming and the newborn nursing and the changing of diapers and the embattled potty visits and everything else that this stage entails, that . . . I kind of miss it already.

I know.  Perhaps I am certifiable.  Perhaps I am totally delusional from lack of sleep.  Perhaps Cubby's shrieking has pierced to my very brain and rendered me senseless, but, well, I anticipate this will be the last newborn I will ever have.  And so I can see now that all of these stages, they are finite.  They all end.  Both the good and the bad.

There are many things that I will emphatically not miss.  Like the aforementioned shrieking.  But the shrieking is prompted by the fact that my older son depends on me so much, loves me so much, trusts me so much to keep loving him despite the atrocious behavior.  And I know that will change.  Just as I know that Charlie will change, that he will never again be three weeks old and making the absolutely hilarious faces that newborns make when they want to eat.

I can't stop the change, but I can remind myself that even on the very worst days, I wouldn't trade any of this for anything.

I'm Seeing a Pattern Here

It is currently 2:05 in the afternoon.  Approximately thirty minutes ago, Cubby and I had this conversation:

Me: You're looking pretty sleepy there, baby doll.


Him:  NO!  Not looking sleepy!


And now?

Who saw this one coming? 

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the duration of the meltdown that will occur when he awakes from this unplanned slumber?

Actually, let's not guess.  Let's not even think about it.  Instead let's focus on the positive: Mr. Jason is even now on our beach fishing for carp again, which means when A. gets home from court he can take that stubborn little sleeper up there down to the beach for some man time.  I hope.

In the meantime, I'll be counting the minutes until the 7 p.m. bedtime and crossing every digit I have that there are no dramatics for that.

One More Straw and This Camel Will Be Broke

So hey!  You know that ever-so-charming demon that is now inhabiting my older son's body?  Well, apparently, he's decided that naps are no longer a good idea.  He informed me of this loudly and at length today when I dared to leave his room at naptime.  His eyes were practically rolling back in his head from exhaustion, but . . . "NO!  Don't WANT to sleep!"

Right.  I didn't fight it, as my insistence yesterday when he told me the same thing resulted in 45 minutes of tears and screaming and he didn't end up sleeping anyway.  So I let him come downstairs today and told him he could choose not to sleep, but I wasn't going to read him any books or play with him until his naptime was over.  So he played with his Legos and told himself stories while I read about cabbages in Mother Earth News.

Shortly thereafter the amiable period ended and in order to stave off yet another meltdown that I was not emotionally prepared to handle, I told him I had a very special treat for him and turned on The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, his favorite movie in the entire world.  Also the only movie he's ever seen, but whatever.


Twenty minutes later . . .

Don't want to sleep, huh?  LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE.

He slept about half an hour, then woke up and promptly had the meltdown I had been trying to avoid.

At least while he was asleep, so was the other one.

And no lying dramatics with this one, either.

Cubby has not yet refused his actual bedtime, although I am pessimistically anticipating that that will be the next step.  And then you'll find me sobbing outside his bedroom door at 9 p.m. with a bottle of gin while he capers about, rejoicing in the fact that he has finally broken his mother.

Okay, maybe not the gin, but the sobbing might not be too far off base.

Readjusting

I've been wearing one pair of my non-maternity jeans on days when it's not a thousand degrees with a million percent humidity (please allow for slight exaggeration in all weather-related comments) and boy, those buttons and zippers and all certainly are time consuming.  As opposed to the pull-on nature of maternity wear, I mean.

Maybe I should just switch to all elastic-waisted pants.  That'd be good for my look, I'm sure.  It would save me precious seconds in my frantically rushed bathroom visits, however.

When He Grows Up

It seems impossible that this little grub could grow up to be as big as this man:

Although, considering how much the little grub eats, maybe not that impossible after all.