I’m still here, but Daphne is at a stage where she needs constant interaction.  This makes sitting at the computer and typing nearly impossible.  I sat down and had a little talk with myself about how she is only this age once and I need to soak in the times that she wants to sit on my lap and shut the dryer door for me while I’m in the middle of doing laundry and sit on the counter next to me while I cook.  But the pep talk didn’t work and I continued to get frustrated over the fact that I couldn’t sit by myself and type one line of an email before a certain Baby Chickadee was sitting on my lap and commandeering the keyboard.  Then I prayed about it and my heart was changed.  Now Daphne and I giggle while she pours canned peas over the eggs that I’m frying on the stove.  Messy yes, but pretty hilarious.  And Daphne was awfully proud of herself for helping Mama cook.

I do still write for the Gazette most every week.  They pay me.  And aside from Christmas break and a few sick days, every week I write for them.  Last week I wrote about my time at the gym: The conscious effort to politely ignore.  The week before I wrote about my new reading plan with my husband: Yes, I’d love to analyze the particulars with you.

So I’m still around, just not on the computer as much as I once was.  Daphne and I are eating eggs and spilling peas on the counter and laughing the whole time.

Sometimes you forget that your baby is just a baby, and instead believe her to be a genius stuck in the teeny body of a toddler; the only reason she does not wow you with her erudite thoughts on philosophy and theology is because her large command of language gets thwarted by her tongue that is still working to form the words.  Otherwise, WOW, you two would have profoundly important conversations during the day.

But then she motions to put on her brother’s (clean!) Spider-Man underwear over her pants and BAM! you remember, nope, she is just a baby.

Pretty fly.

In Saturday’s column I mentioned that somewhere an easy solution exists to our morning troubles but right now the answer continues to allude [edit: elude me.  why did nobody yell at me over this?  sometimes you're allowed to call me out.] me.  For the past two school mornings I’ve let them watch the clock; they know what time breakfast needs to be over and what time we need to walk out the door.  Friday we were early to school but today they were late.  My husband is worried that they’ll get used to being late and it will no longer be an issue, but right now I don’t care.  I’m tackling one obstacle at a time and the current obstacle is trying not to gripe at my children while they’re griping at each other.  I just want everyone to be serene on the way out the door.  Shiny and happy would be extra nice.

Here’s Saturday’s column, where I tell you about my solution–that really can only happen once in a very rare while–to the morning frustrations: playing hooky.

Lately Miss Daphne has been a bit unpleasant.  She gets up and whines, walks around the house and whines, gets mad at me when the door only opens so far because THE WALL IS RIGHT THERE, and how dare it be in her way when she wants to push the door in a full circle.

I feel like I’m constantly on edge, my body always full of adrenaline in preparation for a fight with her, a fight where she yells and I calmly try to distract her or I walk away.  This stage is hard.

Yesterday after we picked up Gideon and Mia from school we were headed into the house when Daphne ran into the yard.  She didn’t have on a coat or anything covering her legs, but I let her run around anyway.  AND SHE WAS SO STINKIN’ HAPPY.  Giggling and playing with her sister, then her brother and sister, and just running around and being the happy baby I know she is.

She saw me and ran up to me to give me a hug.  She might not have done that for weeks.  I snuggled her and kissed her baby neck and told her how much I love her.  Then I set her down as soon as the wiggles set in and she was off, playing with brother and sister again.

The mailman came up, who we always chat with when we’re outside at the same time.  As he said goodbye Mia gave him a hug, because she is a hugger and loves everyone who is kind to her, and then Daphne gave him a hug.  I have never seen her hug a semi-stranger like that.  But the fresh air and the sunshine poured love into her little body and she couldn’t contain it.  It was just bursting out of her little self.

Then Daddy got home and it was a happy love fest.

I don’t know if it’s my residual high from seeing my baby and my kids loving each other and giggling and just generally being sweet or if she really is different, but I feel like Daphne is a changed baby.  This morning she only threw one tantrum, but she got up happy, she giggled with her brother and sister and didn’t gripe at them when they talked to her.  Even her facial expressions are different.  The scowl has been limited today.

That sunshine is an interesting thing.  And it tells me that this winter I’ll be bundling each of us up in five layers a piece so that we can go outside in the sunshine, even when it’s 20 degrees outside.  I’ll do anything to keep this baby happy.

Hubby is out with his friends, “out” meaning hanging at our friends’ house (sans wives, of course) to watch a new 3-D TV.  The boys get together at night, without spouses or children, and the girls get together during the day, without husbands but WITH children.  And when the boys go out at night without the kids, we still have the kids.  I’m not complaining because the husbands are good about letting us girls go out together at night, but we never do.  The last time was maybe February or March?  So basically never.  Again, I’m not stomping my foot and pouting “That’s not fair,” just saying maybe us girls should change it up sometimes. [edit: Of course, they are at Mr. Y's house while his kids are upstairs, but I'm betting MRS. Y is the one taking care of the kiddos as they wake up and need a drink of water.]

So I made chocolate mug cake, topped it with ice cream and walnuts, and watched “Harold and Maude.”  Now, that movie has been on our Netflix queue for quite a while, probably even before I went out with my girlfriends sans children (Which, now that I think about it, has been well over a year.  One of us keeps having a nursing baby that we have to bring along.), but I’ve never watched it.  I’ve always been too worried about the creepy factor.  Just how far would they push the romance of a young (college age?) boy and a 79-year-old woman?  There were some creepy parts, but I think for the most part it was a sweet movie.  In case you ever decide to watch it, let me know, and I’ll warn you about the parts you should skip through.

Now I’m googling pictures of Alexa Chung because I want to copy her wavy messy hair.  If you look at my most-used board on Pinterest you’ll see lots and lots of bobs, as in haircuts.  Bob haircuts.  And they all look pretty much the same.  I just want my haircut to not look like the hair of a 30-year-old mom who gave up, you know?  So I’ve been staring at people’s hair and trying to decide how to make mine match theirs.  Once, after our weekly date at the bakery (with kids, of course), I came home and cut swoopy bangs to look like Chrissa’s.  But my hair still doesn’t look like hers.  Hers is shinier and try as I might, I cannot get my double-processed, bleached hair to shine like hers.  I’d like to do the blunt bangs of Ellen Barkin or Scarlett Johansson or Katie Holmes, but that’s scary.  Jayme cut them on her long hair and I can’t wait to see them.  Anyway, Alexa Chung has blunt bangs, so I’ve been looking at the pictures that some people creepier than me have put on their blogs that are totally devoted to her.

Every time I hear Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” I think of Estella from Great Expectations and I’m sad for her.  Then I want to read more Dickens.  Have you guys read Great Expectations yet?  Do.  It is such a wonderful book.  If you’re not laughing out loud in the first chapter then put it down, get yourself a cup of coffee and a clear head, then sit down and try it again.  If you’re still not laughing out loud in the first chapter then you’re reading it wrong.  That’s okay, because I did the first time, too.  But Dickens is so incredible at making you laugh while feeling the fear of a six-year-old boy all at once.  Then you grow up with Pip and love him and you love Joe and that whole world and then, 496 pages later it’s suddenly finished and you have to find another book that will be as satisfying to spend your time on.  Probably I should try Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol but I fear it’s too late in the Christmas season for the latter and I don’t want to be sad with the previous.

Speaking of Joe Gargery, let’s name some of our favorite characters from literature.  Off the top of my head: Joe Gargery from Great Expectations, John Jarndyce from Bleak House (I’ve never read the book but did see the BBC Miniseries with the adorable Carey Mulligan, and I love John Jarndyce)(also, Bleak House is another Dickens novel, so of course I’d love it if I read it), and John Ames from Gilead.  Now, my favorites are stacked with characters from books I’ve just read, but I think it goes along with the fact that I refuse to read anything that’s not encouraging.  I want to have the love and forgiveness these characters have.  Also, I love the narrator in Sonny’s Blues.  Not that he’s as altruistic as the others, but that short story has been one of my favorites since I discovered short stories, so I should probably name him as a favorite character in literature.

Who is your favorite person from the Bible?  You are not allowed to say Jesus.  Mine is Peter because that man was a mess.  He was impulsive and lost his faith as quickly as he got it, spoke out of turn and was heartily reprimanded but still stayed close to Jesus, denied his Lord three times during his precious friend’s greatest need, and yet Jesus built His church upon him.  Through all his weakness he loved Jesus.  Really, really, really loved Him.  I can get behind that.  Paul is too sure of himself; that is nothing like me.  I think if we hung out he would look at me sideways and call me out on my stuff.  Daniel would be interesting.  He was a smarty and I admire his resolve.

[Another edit, for you guys who are up at 11:08 on a Saturday night and reading my blog as quickly as it posts: that guy from Cracked appears to have been totally right about the next Batman.  Behold.]

Okay, I’m going to wrap it up now.  I’m going to re-read Sonny’s Blues and continue listening to the “erin’s faves” playlist on our iTunes.  You guys have a good night.

Mornings are the worst time of day for me, and by extension, for my kids.  It’s not that I expect Gideon, Mia and I to skip out the door singing Disney songs on our way to school, but I could seriously do without all the, “Quit playing, you need to be eating/brushing your teeth/putting on your shoes.”

We wake up in plenty of time, but the kids will sit at the breakfast and laugh instead of eating.  How long should it take to eat half an apple and one Pop-Tart?  Not twenty minutes, I tell you.

The other morning we were moving along at a good clip when all the sudden we were about to be late and Mia had on a skirt with no shorts underneath.  So I told her to go upstairs and grab the shorts SHE’D WORN THE VERY NIGHT BEFORE while trick or treating and put those on underneath her skirt.  She hollered from upstairs that she couldn’t find them.  But that would be difficult to not be able to find shorts that she’d worn a MERE 11 HOURS EARLIER.  Especially when she’d spent ten of those hours sleeping.  Did she look on top of the dirty clothes?  Cuz they couldn’t have been buried that deep.

Frustrated, I hurried up the stairs to find her in front of her vanity–which houses no clothes–PUSHING THE DRAWER CLOSED WITH HER TEETH.  When we were about to be late.  When she was supposed to throw on a pair of shorts for modesty on the playground.  I looked at her and asked, “Are you kidding me with this?” then rushed past her to her closet.

She was surprised by my frustration.  That girl had honestly forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.  With apologetic eyes she took off her skirt to put on the pants I was handing to her (because she hates pants and I was giving her a consequence for disobeying me) and tried to mime to me if putting that skirt in the basket next to the door was okay.  It was her way of saying, “Sorry,” trying to do just what I wanted her to do.  But the annoyance at being late plus having to complete a simple task for her clouded my brain plus reacting harshly to her playtime prevented an appropriate response from me in that moment; it wasn’t until I’d brushed her off with a, “Yeah, whatever,”  that I even realized she was trying to make-up to me.

In the truck on the way to school I tried be sweet and give them good kisses with encouraging words before they into school.  “Remember Mommy loves you!  Don’t go the whole day thinking your Mommy is mad at you!”

I’ve thought about us waking up earlier, but dragging Mia out of bed at 7 a.m. is already difficult enough, and the kids go to bed at 7:30 at night.  I don’t want to eat into our evening together any more than I already do.  The past two nights they’ve had to lay out everything they’re wearing the next day–down to their socks–before they go to bed, but this morning Mia didn’t hear my rule that they had to wear pants and so she stomped up the stairs when I told her to go put on some long pants underneath her skirt.  She came back down the stairs wearing a pink and sparkly Hannah Montana shirt, a purple Hawaiian skirt, and blue/pink/green butterfly leggings with her light-up tennis shoes.  Not a thing on that outfit coordinated with another item, but I let her go to school in it.  Usually I would have tenderly convinced her to wear pink leggings, because then at least two items would have semi-matched, but this morning I just let it go.  She looked crazy but at least she was happy.

What I’m definitely going to do is copy my friend Chrissa, who bought a cheap analog clock from Wal-Mart and shaded the clock with the different things her daughter should be doing at different times.  Say, from 7:00-7:10 you’re getting dressed, then from 7:10-7:25 you’re eating breakfast, etc, culminating with at 7:45 backpacks, coats and shoes are on and we’re ready to leave.  I want to take my bossiness out of the equation and let the clock rule their morning.

I get them for a precious few hours a day.  I don’t need those hours filled with frustration.

Today, for the second time in a week, my husband will come home from work and have the opportunity to ask me if I’m wearing the same pants I slept in.

I will look at him and, for the second time in a week, say, “Yep.”

A few years ago I read a book that explained if we’d lived our ENTIRE LIVES with people excitedly saying, “Hello baby!” every time we looked at them or running to get us food at our tiniest whimper, the day we stopped getting our way EVERY SINGLE TIME we might throw ourselves on the floor and scream, too.  Screaming and crying is an understandable response to getting the rug yanked out from under you.

After finishing the book I looked at my children and thought, Yeah, the twos were kind of rough for you, weren’t they?

So now as Daphne enters her Twos (No, she is not two.  Not even one-and-a-half.  But her sister started with the tantrums at ten-months-old, so I’m grateful Daphne waited a full seven more months before beginning her fits of anger.) I think back on that book and try to be understanding.  I just need to teach her that I understand her response but it is in no way appropriate.

Yesterday afternoon she was upset over something minor.  Before she could throw herself onto the hard tile in the entryway I moved her onto the carpeted floor of our living room to let her cry it out.  But Gideon was close by playing video games and he begged me to help her so that she wouldn’t scream anymore.  “Remember, Mommy, when she cried so much that it made me cry?”

It sounds like he was trying to guilt me, but really he was just reminding me of a time that she had a rough case of diaper rash and it hurt her terribly when I wiped her bottom and changed her diaper.  His approach was less Guilt and more Let’s Remember So It Doesn’t Repeat Itself Right Now.

So I picked up the baby, put in her pacifier and soothed her.

This morning she FREAKED OUT over nothing.  It was something important to her, but I still am not sure what set her off.  I figured it was nap time, so I took her upstairs and laid her in her crib.  After 10 minutes of wailing–which is uncommon to her bedtime M.O.–I went upstairs to get her and brought her downstairs to play with me and Wes (my friend’s son whom I babysit a couple of days a week), but she didn’t want that, either.  So she threw herself on the floor and screamed.  I picked her up, she screamed.

Right then Melissa came to get her son.  She knows that babies cry, but I don’t like her getting the impression that her son is left in a house with a screaming baby.

After they left I turned on the Wii to watch the first-ever episode of Felicity.  Daphne laid her head on my lap, I stroked her hair, and that calmed her down.  A good teen drama never hurt anyone.

Back in July I got the idea to take a picture of my kids every single day for a year and then post it on a blog.  Not this blog, mind you, because I don’t want to presume that you have the burning desire to see my kids as much as I do (and as much as my sister and the grandparents).  So I started a Tumblr blog, because all the cool kids have Tumblr blogs, and I desperately cling to the idea that one day I might be a cool kid, too.

For a week the picture-a-day, blog-post-a-day plan worked great, but then my camera broke.  Finally in September I got a new one.  I picked right back up with the picture-a-day part of the plan but I didn’t start posting again until today.  Right now I’m caught up to the end of September.  Sometime soon I’ll get posts up for October.

So if you wanna see pictures of my sweet babies you can check them out here: The Year of the Foxes.

The middle of last week Hubby asked me if I minded him taking a guys’ night Saturday night.  He figured that if I was at a ladies’ retreat all day and he was home with the kids then he might like to hang out with his friends after that.  I didn’t mind so he set the plan in motion.

Friday night our friends Matt and Chrissa stopped by for a little while after watching a movie at the theatre down the street.  I told them how funny it was to me that Hubby would need a chance to unwind after a day at home with his kids, because being with his kids is just so stinkin’ hard.

Hubby quickly spoke up.  “Now I never said that.”  Which he didn’t.  But I like to read between the lines.

Matt jumped to Hubby’s defense, and really to the defense of fathers everywhere.  “You see, you girls do it all the time and so you KNOW what you’re doing.  We don’t do it as often and so we’re just not as good at it as you are.”  To which Chrissa and I laughed and rolled our eyes and congratulated him on his attempt to butter us up.

Saturday morning came and I rushed to get out the door.  At the same time I was leaving, the rest of my family was also leaving, they for Gideon’s flag football game.  I saw poor little Daphne being carried to the car in the exact same clothes she’d worn the entire day before and then slept in.  But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to have to change her.  And really, pick your battles.  The little dirty baby was at least being loved on.

The retreat was supposed to end at 5 but ended ahead of schedule at 4:15.  The other girls at my table  and I  sat and chatted for a while.  Then a lady there giggled and pointed out that it was all the young moms who were staying around til 5 when the rest of the moms had scattered.  I looked around and she was right.  But by golly, we all had until 5 before our husbands expected us to leave, and why rush home to dirty noses and dirty bottoms and being hung all over when we could sit and drink coffee in our own personal space, surrounded by good conversation?

I walked in the door of my house at 5:05 and found the toys cleaned up in the living room, the clean dishes put away and the dirty ones in the dishwasher, dinner cooking in the Crock-Pot, the floor swept.  Upstairs I found Mia and Daphne’s bedroom rearranged (After we got the big kids’ loft beds I rearranged Gideon’s room completely but only the girls’ room to a point.  I was stuck with where to place their furniture, and as a result their room was constantly dirty.  Poor girls.), cleaned, and decorated.

My husband had a Rock Star Day.

Hubby, Gideon, Mia and Daphne came home about ten minutes after I did, happily holding Sonic drinks in hand and telling me about riding bikes at the park.  Yes, Hubby’s Rock Star Day did not end at home, but he trudged three kids and two bikes to the park after the football game, showers, cleaning and cooking.

But Daphne was in hour 36 of wearing the same clothes, so he’s not perfect.  Just close to it.