Poor Kevin. He’s having a rough week.

For the last month, Kev has been on swing shift. This means his quality Leina time has come in the mornings. He gets her from her crib and watches a little PBS with her, then has a little breakfast and relaxes on the sofa while she wakes up. Leina is such fun in the morning. She’s energetic and happy and a real charmer. So even though swing is hard, it does have it’s perks.

But this week, Kevin returned to normal working hours. Now, he only has a few minutes with Leina in the morning before he heads to work. The bulk of his Leina time falls in the evening when he gets home. And let me tell you, he’s out of shape.

On Monday, he came home and I set them up in the living room while I went into the kitchen to try and clean up after dinner. I was just starting to load the dishwasher when I felt something pulling at my leg saying, “up mamma, up!” Sure enough, there was munchkin. I shooed her back to Kevin but a few moments later she was back. This time with a book asking me to “weed it.” Again, I firmly directed her back to the living room with the instructions that “dada do it.” The next time she returned, I decided to investigate. I went over and spied Kevin, lying on his back in the middle of the living room. His eyes were closed and in between big yawns he was vaguely patting the ground next to him mumbling, “come play by daddy Leina….(yawn)…come play nappy with daddy…”

Yeah, that looked like a bundle of laughs. No wonder my small child was begging me to rescue her from daddy “play time.”

Then, last night, I noticed a disturbing trend. I left Kevin to get Leina into her PJ’s while I went to scrub the toilets. (Trying to scrub toilets with Leina around is like trying to roll up a ball of yarn infront of a kitten. Impossible.)

I finished up and noticed it was very, very quiet in the house. Curious, I walked over to Leina’s room. I looked inside and found Kevin lying on his back, napping on the floor. Leina was no where in sight. I checked the crib, behind the chair, and in the closet. Nothing.

“Hey, Kev, where’s Leina?” I asked.

“Huh? What?” Kevin mumbled and lifted his head to look at me.

I decided further questioning to be futile and instead began searching for the child. I found her standing in our room in the dark looking quite lost and confused. Apparently watching daddy nap and lost it’s luster and she had wandered off in search of something a tad more adventurous. Once located, I placed child and father on the bed. Kevin launched right into a game of “daddy sleeping” and I quickly realized that the adjustment period from swing to days might be a tad longer than I thought.

Poor Kevin. I think he’s going to need some time to slowly build himself back up to night time play. After a long day at work and a good meal, he’s ready for an evening doze on the sofa. Leina, however, is coming off of her afternoon nap and ready for some serious playing. We’ll see how tonight goes. Hopefully, Kevin will be up for more than playing “tuck in daddy on the sofa” because I have laundry to fold and Leina’s favorite game is take-the-folded-clothes-out-of-the-basket-as-soon-as-mom-puts-them-in. Yup, she’s a wild one!

Every night at bed time is a battle in our house, but it’s not what you are thinking. Oh no, Leina heads off to bed like a little angel and talks herself to sleep while snuggling with Elmo. No, it’s her little sister who is putting up a fight.

Every night, baby sister and I duke it out. Every night, I toss and turn until the wee hours of the morning because this unborn child I am carrying is a horrible sleeper. This does not bode well.

For those not familiar with the “joys” of pregnancy, one thing your OB will tell you is that you have to change your sleeping habits. You can not longer sleep on your belly (but this is a no-brainer really). More importantly, as you progress in your pregnancy, you are no longer allowed to sleep on your back. I guess the weight of the kid, et al, is so great that it will squish your organs and cut off circulation to your lower extremities. I don’t know about the organ squishing but I can vouch for the circulation cut off. After about 15 minutes on my back, I begin to loose feeling in my legs and toes. It isn’t very pleasant.

So as a fat pregnant woman, I am stuck with sleeping on either my right or left side. No big deal really, I’ve always been a side sleeper. But the problem isn’t me, the problem is the kid. She *hates* to be smushed. When I roll onto my side she erupts with violence. Kicking, punching, hitting, pinching, and even (I believe) biting me in her unborn fury. She goes “open loop” when I lie on my side. And so, there I am, trying to fall asleep while a mini tasmanian devil lets loose on my innards. After 20 minutes or so I cave and roll onto my back. The small black belt in my belly immediately subsides her protest and drifts off into calm sleep. 20 minutes later, I’ve lost feeling below my knees and my bladder is near bursting from the pressure of the sumo wrestler in my belly so I roll to my other side. This, of course, is like ringing the bell between boxing rounds and my mini-Ali leaps from her fetal stool into action attacking me with a fury only the unborn possess.

And so it goes. Side. Punches. Back. Numbness. Side. Punches. Back. Numbess. Eventually, around 2am, I’m so exhausted that even being mauled from inside no longer keeps me awake and I fall into a fitful doze. I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep without being pummled. It’s some freaky form of maternal abuse that has yet to be recognized by the legal system.

Kevin, in his infinate compassion, has forbidden me from lying too close to his back. He says feeling the baby kicking in my belly keeps him up. Heaven forbid!

So here I am, tired and ready to sleep, but knowing that ahead of me lies a battle I simply cannot win. I figure this is not a good sign. Baby sister isn’t even born and already she’s kicking my belly. Literally! Ack!

One of the best things I did after moving was joining a Mom’s Club. Why I didn’t do this early is beyond me. It has made the world of a stay-at-home-mom so much easier and enjoyable. I look back over Leina’s first year and it was so difficult and stressful and lonely. Kevin was working long hours with a long commute and there were days when it was literally just me and Leina all day long.

Looking back, I realize this is not healthy.

You need to distract and engage children and moms need the reassurance that only other moms can give. Now that I’m in a very active Mom’s Club, life is so different. Every week I have a whole host of options awaiting me. Each mom has different ideas and secrets. What stores offer story time, which coffee shops have play rooms, off the beaten path parks and indoor play areas and even trips to local farms or petting zoos. It’s amazing what’s out there if you know where to look. Even better is my play group. We have four moms and a total of six girls all together. We rotate homes and ideas each week and it’s such fun to make new friends. Especially friends with kids.

It’s funny how your friends change through life. After colllege, I went on to law school and my friends who jumped right into the work force, well, we slowly drifted apart. Different schedules, different priorities, different life styles. After I left school, I found myself on the other side of the fence. It was hard to find time for my friends still in school. They were sleeping in late and studying all night while I was up early every morning heading to work and completely free all evening with no papers or exams looming over my head. I should have known that having a child would trigger another change in friendships.

Suddenly, I’m on a kid friendly schedule. We eat dinner at 5:30 and have lights out at 8pm. I can no longer meet at a resturant at 7pm or catch a movie that starts at 9pm. I have to laugh when I get a call at 10am asking if I want to go to breakfast. 10am?!?!? I’ve been up since 7am and breakfast has come and gone. So it’s wonderful to have a new group of friends who are on the same wave length. Girls I can call at 9am on a Sat and know that not only are they up but they are probably also fed, showered, and heading out the door to do something with their kids.

As we get to know each other, we’ve started sharing our grips about husbands, kids, being home all day, and the drudgery that child-rearing can often be. All of us used to be full time workers and we wonder what it would be like to put our kids in day care and hit the work force again. To have someone else worry about naps, and changing diapers, and eating enough at lunch, and keeping busy minds entertained. We’ve thought long and hard about the “working out of home” vs “working in home divide” and decided that being home is the right choice for us. It isn’t an easy decision and it’s so nice to be surrounded by women who support and validate you.

Playgroup has also mellowed me out big time. Before playgoup, Leina got sick about once every six months or so and when she did, it was minor trauma time. I was worried every time her nose began to run or her eyes water. Now, after circulating germs around playgroup, I’m the most laid back mom. Runny nose, no problem. If Leina doesn’t mind, neither do I. No longer do I cancel all appointments and sit about the house waiting for her to recoup. Oh no, we just jam some kleenex in the diaper bag and head out the door. And I must say, it’s much easier to deal with a distracted kid with a cold than a bored kid with a cold. And so, about two days after playgroup, Leina comes down with a cold like clockwork. Nothing serious. No fever or vomiting. Just a runny nose, watery eyes, and a mild cough. By the time the next playgroup comes around, we’re hearty and healthly and ready for the next batch of germs. You’d thing, eventually, we’d run out of cold strains but no, there’s always another variation looming on the horizon.

Before Leina, if I saw a mom in the store with a kid whose nose is dripping and is coughing away, I’d think to myself, “what a bad mom, she should keep her kid at home if he’s sick and nurse him back to health.” I’ve now learned that if one followed this advice, you’d never be able to leave the house because childhood is one runny nose after another. The best you and do is teach your kid to use a kleenex and cover her mouth when she coughs. The rest, well, the rest is just part of being a child.

Every now and then Leina likes to eat breakfast with her good buddy Elmo…

Some people just like sittin’ on the poddy…

I know, I know, I already blogged but this house is just a barrel full of laughs and I’m afraid if I try and wait till tomorrow, I’ll forget and then…bammo…the moment will be gone. So for today, two posts.

Leina will only take one nap a day. Why is this important? Because it is literally true. She will only fall asleep once each day. As I have learned, a five minute snooze in the car seat is the equivalent of a three hour crib nap. Take your pick. Same with a two second head nod in the stroller or a ten minute snuggle snooze on the sofa. Once she has closed her eyes, that’s it folks. See you tomorrow. What you are left with is a kid who has had way too much fun and not enough sleep. And so, I am very vigilant about where Leina sleeps.

I am the master of the Oh-Dear-Lord-We-Are-Five-Minutes-From-Home-Don’t-Let-Her-Doze-Off-Now technique. This involves reaching behind my seat while driving and pinching her toes, throwing food behind my head in the vain home that she’ll catch and eat it (or, at the very least, it will hit her in the face and keep her awake) and the hysterical singing of every children’s song I know. Kevin has witnessed my power and is in awe.

So today, we had a free morning and Kevin offered to take the Munchie to Costco to pick up supplies. I hemmed and hawed. A Costco trip is very dangerous. Munchie does fine on the way to Costco, she has a blast shopping at Costco, but getting her home awake takes every last iota of my Oh-Dear-Lord-We-Are-Five-Minutes-From-Home-Don’t-Let-Her-Doze-Off-Now power.

I almost didn’t let them go until Kevin said, “come on, how hard can it be to keep her awake?”

Ten minutes later I was waving them good-bye as Kevin drove off with my child, my checkbook, and the list.

Two hours later, I watched them return. Kevin had this panicked look on his face and he jumped out of the car so fast I figured his bladder must be about to burst. But instead of rushing into the house, he open the back car door and pulled Leina out of her car seat.

“Hurry, hurry,” he cried, “you have to help me! I think she’s about to fall asleep! We have to get her moving STAT!” (OK, he didn’t say stat but I wanted to convey to you the urgency in his voice.)

Sure enough, Leina loved the trip over, she loved shopping, and elicited cries of “how cute” and “what beautiful eyes” from complete strangers. Kevin later admitted that he was secretly thinking, “pashaw, that Chrissie, what an exaggerator. This is a piece of cake.”

And then they headed home. They had only gone five minutes out of the twenty minute car ride when Kevin saw her head start to bob. Somehow, he managed to keep her awake. I suspect he used the throw food behind the seat technique because Munchie was covered in pizza sauce. But even though he fought the good fight, she managed to nod off.

How do I know this? Because at 2pm today, when my child should have been cuddling her blanket and asking for “nappie” she was, instead, screaming “HOP! HOP! HOP!” and bouncing after the cat. When Wicks wisely decided to head out the cat door, Leina began screaming and running in circles around the kitchen island in a game of imaginary chase.

“Well, look at the time,” Kevin exclaimed as he slapped on his pager and grabbed his badge. “Gotta go to work. Good luck with that nap, hon,” he snickered as he headed out the door.

The bum.

But this tale has a happy ending. Calling forth my Oh-Dear-Lord-It’s-Past-2pm-And-Leina-Is-On-Fire power I managed to slowly amp her down and get her into bed. Probably not for long but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right?