Vanilla minty freshness.

I love getting new things, anything, be it hair gel, or shampoo, or towels, or shoelaces.  Once I get home, I rip open the packaging and obsess over my new item, and look forward to using it immediately.

Like, I'll have to take a shower RIGHT THEN to use my new shampoo.  Or, I'll invent a reason to wear shoes just so I can wear my new socks.

So you can imagine what happened when, a week ago, I bought new toothpaste.

Okay, but it's not just the "OhmygodIhavesomethingnewlet'sbrushourteethuntilourgumsfalloff" syndrome.  It's also, I think, latent Catholic-type guilt for having poor, terrible, little pretty much no oral hygiene routine.  As an adult, I realized that teeth brushing wasn't imperative.  So, I was very lax about it.  Like, really really lax about it.

In order to get myself excited about brushing, I bought a new kind of toothpaste.  It's vanilla mint, and it promises to freshen, whiten, and strengthen the enamel of my teeth. I honestly really don't give a crap about all that.  It's just the right color and consistency (and tastes good enough) to drizzle over brownies, so HELL YEAH I'll brush my teeth.  Plus, you know, it's BRAND NEW, so I inherently love the crap out of it.

I've brushed my teeth 3 times a day for the past week.  I've flossed once a day.  My teeth look clean and pretty.  My breath smells fresh and nice.  I've started a household trend, and now the kids BEG ME to brush their teeth.  The new game is to grab a toothbrush and run around the house yelling, "I'm brushing my teeth!  LOOK!"

Oral hygiene.  It's the new black.

Holy Crap, it's a post! And it's NEW!

Well, I'm not dead, and I didn't run all far away (yet), so I thought I'd take a break from sweating, cleaning corn chips off the floor, and ungodly amounts of laundry, to post.

Actually, I wrote a post a few days ago, and it was almost finished when the whirlwind that is Phoebe came and deleted it.  I would say it's a shame that the best post ever written got deleted, but that wouldn't be true.  It was only like, the 3rd or 4th best. 

I remember, back when Phoebe was barely mobile, and Charlie was just a twinkle in my eye, I used to have a life.  I used to be able to sit on the computer for 5 uninterrupted minutes, and I used to be able to pee in peace.  I used to be able to set things down on the table, and come back to them undisturbed.

My life now involves multiple children screaming at me from multiple rooms, while I hide in the closet.  If I set anything down on the table, it's pulverized in 2.3 seconds.  If I come to sit at the computer, I have a small child pestering me (like right now, Phoebe came up, inspected my hair, screamed, "That's so CUTE!" at my barette [which happens to be very close to my ear] and then pulled the bun out of my hair.  She's now trying to remove my barette, and it hurts.  As I was typing that last sentence, she sneezed on my face.  Now she has a felt-tipped pen, and is using it to color her fingernails.  I'm not going to stop her.)... do you see the problem here?

There isn't actually much going on, but my life is crazy.  Charlie is mobile.  Phoebe is loud.  Marissa gets BORED now, and I mean bored in that 8-year-old-follow-me-around-the-house-until-I-entertain-her bored.

So, I have to go, Charlie is hollering for me, and Phoebe won't stop molesting my head.  It's not that my life sucks, and it's not I'm miserable... it's just that with every passing day I'm trying to adjust to the changes, but I can't keep up.

I'll try to post more often.  It would help if I could find a straight-jacket in two-year-old size.  Wish me luck!

Fever.

Last night Phoebe had her first non-teething related fever.  It was unsettling.

Phoebe never, ever gets sick (*knock on wood*).  She never has.  To date, neither has Charlie.  Marissa was a whole 'nother story, but my guess is if she had been breastfed she wouldn't have gotten sick.  As an older child, she doesn't get sick, either.

We're generally pretty sick-free around these parts.  When people say, "Oh, I'm not feeling well, I don't want to come over and get the girls sick" I always laugh and tell them to BRING IT.  They underestimate our immune systems.

Anywho, Phoebe was burning up last night, and she had a temp of 102.5.  After I took her temp, Bryan and I looked at each other with wide eyes, and we both said, "We don't want to take her to the doctor."  I explained to him what a fever is, and what it does, and that she's not actually sick, and that if her temp went too much higher I'd have to medicate her, and yadda yadda yadda.  I thought it was interesting, though, that neither one of us wanted to take her in.

Had this been 6 years ago, and had it been Marissa, I probably would've taken her in to the doctor, lickety split.  It's amazing how a few years and some really bad experiences will completely change your take on the medical field.

Phoebe's fine this morning, however.  Know how I can tell?  She ran into the kitchen, opened the 'fridge, got out a box of donuts, and started chowing down.  I laughed, and asked her if she felt better.  She smiled, nodded, and yelled, "YUP!", while spraying the floor with donut dust.

That's my girl.

Totally random.

I've been writing post after post, and not publishing them.  I feel this insane (self-imposed) pressure to write meaningful, thought provoking, or funny and witty posts.

Sometimes I just don't feel very thought provoking, or funny and witty.

Sometimes, I just have a migraine and don't feel like doing much of anything.  Sometimes I want to blog about the mundane details, but I don't want to come across as bitchy or whining or complaining all the time (who wants to read a downer blog?).  Sometimes I have to remind myself that I don't have to be the best at everything.  I don't have to be the best seamstress, or the best blogger, or the best person in the whole world.

On the online forum that I visit most frequently, a woman started a thread where everyone listed what they're most proud of for the day, week, month, whatever.  She said that women don't really do that.... say what it is they're proud of themselves for doing, and that we *should* do it. 

The last reply on that thread was a woman who was proud of herself for keeping it together during her son's meltdowns, and for handling him with love, even though she was frustrated.  It brought tears to my eyes because I'm having similar issues right now with Phoebe, and I can totally relate.

Another woman had a signature that really resonated with me.  It's a picture of her two kids, jumping off of a rock against a beautiful sky, and underneath the picture is a quote from the Dalai Lama:

"My religion is very simple.  My religion is kindness."

Reading that thread about the woman and her son, and then seeing the picture with the quote really touched me.

I don't even really know what I'm trying to say.  I guess I just don't have very much focus or motivation lately, and I need to get it back.  I just need to be comfortable being me, being mediocre at most things, and learning to accept that.  I need to have a little more love, and a little more kindness, and a little more patience.  I need to be proud of myself for something.

I'm just going to knock their heads together.

Okay, so here's the thing.  Charlie and Bryan hate each other.

No, really.

You think I'm kidding?  Let me paint you a picture:

Small child sleeping in the bedroom, wakes up and cries.  Mother is otherwise indisposed at the moment (shower, outside watering the plants, talking on the phone, make something up).  Father enters the bedroom to pick up said child, and the crying child INSTANTLY transforms itself into a screaming banshee.  Father shushes and reassures the banshee, changes the banshee's diaper, and walks the banshee around the bedroom.  Banshee AGAIN transforms itself into a roaring wildebeast.

Father controls the urge to whack the wildebeast upside the head, and instead sets the wildebeast down, calls for the wildebeast's mother, and then goes into the living room to pull out his hair (all the while cursing the wildebeast's existence and simulatenous hatred of its father).

He demonstrated that when he holds her, she will not touch him.  Charlie will put her hand on my shoulder, and hold my hand with her other hand.  She will sometimes lay her head down on my chest, or grab my shirt, or hair, or brastrap.  She will raise her arms over her head, and arch her back when Bryan holds her (and he has shown me this over and over like a science experiment).

It's not about the boobs.  Our room mate can hold her.  My mother can hold her.  My best friend and my sister can hold her.  (note:  no other males have been brave enough to attempt to hold her.)  Seemingly anyone can hold her..... except her father.

I, however, remember when Phoebe was this age.  Bryan was solely in charge of changing each and every one of Phoebe's diapers, and that was their bonding time.  Phoebe preferred Bryan's company to mine, and we were both equally successful at calming her down.  Bryan would pop her in the sling, and take her outside, any time of day or night.  That man would move mountains to calm her down, and would only hand her off to me if he was CONVINCED that she was hungry and needed some boobage.

With Charlie, though, he'll make his perfunctory round of the bedroom while holding her, make the obligatory shushing noises, and then plunk her down and tell me, "She just doesn't want me.  She cries no matter what I do.  She wants you."

REALLY?  Seriously?

I am at my wit's end.  I feel like I am a single mother to this child.  I feed her, milk, baby food, what have you.  I change her diapers.  He gives her baths sometimes, but more often than not I bathe her.  I dress her.  I play with her most of the time.  He will occasionally hold her after she's been fed, or play with her for a bit on the floor or hold her on the couch, but not very often.

And never, EVER, when she's crying.

It's not that I necessarily think that he's doing anything wrong, but I think that he uses me as his "out", so he doesn't have to put forth that effort.  He doesn't have to really try, because he doesn't HAVE to.  He can chalk it up to the fact that she's screaming and crying, and that's not good for her, so just give her what she wants.  He doesn't want to go the extra mile because he's convinced that it won't make a difference.

I think he's wrong, and I'm getting pissed off and annoyed.  What to do?  Liquor her up and foist her upon him, saying, "Look!  She loves you so much she's DRUNK!"  Duct tape them to each other and force them to get along?  Make him wear one of my shirts that smells all ripe with my B.O.?

I have already decided that based on what's happening between the two of them right now, this will be our last child.  I just can't take it anymore.  A fight between a 6 month old and a grown man, a grudge match to the death.

I just.  don't.  get it.