Melissa Anne Cohen

I stumbled into the Attachment Parenting philosophy.  I don’t follow it slavishly, and I don’t follow a lot of the other lifestyle choices that seem to go along with it.  My kids eat cheetos and watch television.  I make them get their shots and brush their hair.  But I did pick them up all the time (to the point where my girls were both a year and a half before they started walking), I nursed on demand, and well into toddlerhood (Sam was three, Julie was closer to four before she stopped – Jessie bailed on me before she was a year old), and I co-slept with all of them.

Of my three kids – Jessie reliably sleeps every night in her own bed, and Sam has always been a haphazard sleeper.  He conks out wherever and whenever, sometimes in his room on the floor, sometimes on the dining room floor, sometimes in my bed, and very rarely – in his bed.  But he sleeps independently.  My bedtime routine has always been dependent on whoever’s needs were the most pressing – when I just had Jessie, I had this elaborate bedtime routine that involved reading and lullabies and quiet whispers until she finally drifted off.  When I had Sam, the bedtime routine shifted to getting ready to bed, trying to read to her while Sam nursed, and finally having both of them fall asleep on top of me in this huge love seat while we watched recorded episodes of George Stephanopolis.  By the time Julie came along, we had shifted over into Jessie reading to herself at night, Sam hanging with Daddy until he was really sleepy and I’d nurse Julie.  That stage lasted for years.  After having Julie, I gave up any illusions that I’d be able to stay up later than my kids.  We got a television for the bedroom when she was about a year old, and established the routine of nursing her to sleep and then just chilling out and watching television.

I had hesitated about putting her in Jessie’s bedroom.  Ever since moving into this apartment, I’ve been thinking that I’d probably be moving within the next six months or so – which made it easy to tell myself that I’d just keep her in my room until we moved.  Start fresh in a new place, have everyone get used to a new bedroom and sharing at the same time.  I got her a toddler bed, and put it in my room, because it was just easier.  I’d snuggle her to sleep and then throw her into her own bed.

The first night with the bunk beds didn’t go well at all, and the second was better, but still it took me almost two hours to get her to sleep and she was miserable.  Desperately wanted to sleep in her bed, but couldn’t get herself to settle down in her own space.  The third day, I got some construction paper and markers, and she and I made a Bedtime Book.  I wrote down every step in the get ready for bed process on a separate page and she illustrated it (and her depiction of a toilet is masterfully executed…).  And that night, we read the book, and then went thru, step by step, and she fell asleep, by herself, in her own bed and slept all night.  We’ve repeated it for the past four nights.

The best part is that now, I just put both Sam and Julie to bed at the same time.  I will reluctantly admit that Sam is sleeping on a hard plastic six foot table top (because I needed the twin mattress from the top of his loft bed, and suggested that instead of getting another mattress – because he’s got a big bed on the bottom – we just set up an art corner, where he can work on his legos, and color and get away from everyone.  A six foot folding table fit perfectly (with the legs folded up, of course), and it’s his favorite spot in the world).  I should have predicted that he’d sleep up there – but I naively thought he’d sleep on the bed as opposed to a hard plastic table… But  my point is that every night now, I tuck all three of my kids into bed (or onto a table).  Jessie goes up on the top bunk, with netflix and a book light, Julie sleeps every night in her own bed with no issues, and Sam conks out reliably up on his loft.

It took me three kids, twelve and a half years, and I’m still not sure how it worked out so well.  But all of them sleep in their own beds (or tables) and it’s blissfully easy.

It was a busy weekend (as are they all, really).  We had been talking for a while about getting Julianna into a larger bed in Jessie’s bedroom.   Talking for a lot longer than we probably should have been, and not actually doing anything about it.

I’m a co-sleeper from way back.  I slept with babies all my life, from my little sister to cousins to nieces and nephews.  I loved babysitting, loved taking a kid for a weekend, and never had trouble sleeping with a little one next to me – and that was before I had my own kids.  Once I had my own, and combined nursing with sleeping – it was a no-brainer.   With Jessica, I had a crib for her (and it was lovely, pale purple and so sweet) and I diligently put her in it every night.  At her first wake up, I’d just take her back to bed with us, and eventually, stopped waking up.  With Sam – his anxiety and colic led to a boy who didn’t ever relax unless he was next to me, and he never even laid in his crib (let alone slept in it).  By the time Julie was born, I didn’t even bother.  She just slept in bed with us and it was fine.

Part of the reason that she’s been in our bed for so long has been that I keep thinking we are going to move.  It seemed like such a big transition for Jessie – to give up her own room to share it with a five year old, and I kept thinking that it’d just be easier to wait.  And I loved sleeping with our girl – she’d snuggle in between Marc and I.  I had a toddler bed in our room that I’d throw her in more often than not, and she was outgrowing it.

It was time.

So we got some hand-me-down bunk beds, and they’re perfect.  Jessie was game for bunk beds, but asked for stairs, and Marc built her some bookshelves/stairs that he attached to the beds.  I took them shopping, and bought pretty new comforters and throw pillows.  Saturday, I went thru the closets and dressers, and rearranged all of them.  Jessie got Sam’s old dresser, Julie got Jessie’s old dresser, Sam got the bonus dresser I used for extra clothes, and Julie’s old dresser became the arts/crafts dresser.  So to speak.  I don’t know, really, what I’ll do with that one…

Sunday, Marc transported and built and shopped for wood and built some more.  By Sunday night, the beds were perfect, and my little girl was ready, psyched, even to sleep in her Doc McStuffins bed.

Until she wouldn’t go to sleep.  The battle went on for three hours, with her wide awake and kicking at the wall, wiggling like a little worm, and me getting more and more frustrated.  She deteriorated into tears and I started yelling.  I ended up taking her back into my bed – she didn’t go down until after eleven.

Last night, we made books.  One called “Julianna Goes to Bed” and the other one called “Julianna Wakes Up.”  I wrote down every single step, from cleaning up to having a little snack, brushing her teeth and picking out her clothes for the next day.  We read two stories and snuggled her to sleep.  It took me an hour and forty five minutes, and she cried (because she couldn’t sleep – IT WAS HARD – and why didn’t I understand that???) but I never raised my voice, and she slept all night in her own bed.  So it counts as a victory.  Not as much as a victory as it would have been if she hadn’t sobbed, but progress.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

This is the summer of minecraft, nail painting and spending time with Grammy.  It’s also the summer of me learning that everything is a trade-off.  If I choose to do one thing, than something else that I should have been doing is going to go unfinished.  Or never get started in the first place.

My job is going wonderfully well – but there’s a lot to it.  A lot.  And I’m still on reduced hours (in a month, I’ll be doing 32 hours a week, but until then, I’m doing 20 hours in the office, and working from home when I can).  I’m grateful, so grateful, for the ability to work from home, to be able to work while my kids bike ride and play with barbies and to stop and get a snack or pour a drink.   But working from home has it’s own challenges.

Yesterday, I was feeling particularly professional.  So I worked, a lot, from home.   This morning, I’m looking around at the living room floor, covered in books and empty cups, papers and crayons and pillows and hair ties, and regretting it.  Or not regretting it, because I got a LOT done yesterday, and it needed to get done, but my house is suffering.

I think it’s mostly the house that suffers.  And my kids, a little, my husband, a little.  Because I don’t function well in a really messy house.  For my own sanity, I need a relatively clean house.  Relatively.  We went to the beach on Saturday and it was beyond fabulous.  The kids had so much fun, and I loved being in the ocean more than I can express.  But Sunday was an epic disaster, in large part, because I was so damn frustrated by the fact that I hadn’t cleaned on Saturday.  I still had dishes to do from Shabbat dinner, so much laundry to do.

I keep telling myself that it will all get better in September.  I won’t have to juggle childcare – everyone will be in school.  I won’t have to clean so much, because nobody will be home during the day.  I won’t feel guilty because I’ll be home when the kids are home.

Julie didn’t go to bed last night until after eleven.  Not that she wasn’t in bed, because she was.  I got her to bed around eight thirty.  But that’s her one-on-one time with me, and I couldn’t help feeling like I needed to just snuggle and talk and be with her.  She didn’t want to sleep – she had a lot to talk about.  So I let her, but she’ll suffer today because of it.  Marc can go in later, so he’ll let her sleep for a while, and I’ll get out at two and go pick her up.  She’ll sleep on the way home.  Or the way down to my mother’s house.

She’s having a harder time than the other kids are.  Jessie and Sam aren’t loving me being gone part of every day, but they are already used to spending that time in school.  Julie is not.  As much as I tell myself that kindergarten will be easier for her, that she needs to adjust to this anyway, this way she does it with my mother and her dad, which is so lucky for her, I still feel guilty.

It doesn’t always work out.  Sometimes, you plan the perfect family outing, and in your head, it’s going to be wonderful.  Fun family memories that will make everyone smile twenty years from now.

I’m thinking specifically about a mini-golfing trip from a week ago.  It sounded SO good.  We’d go mini-golfing, just the five of us, and it’d be fabulous.  And looking back, I do think it was fun, overall. But during the game, it was kind of craptastic.  It started raining in the middle of it, Marc was grumpy because nobody took it as seriously as he did.  Sam and Julie started a massive brawl in the middle of the the fourteenth hole, and Jessie stormed back to the car and kept firing off angry texts to me about how her fourth of July got ruined by her siblings.  Twenty years from now, we probably will look back and smile – “Hey, remember that time we went mini-golfing, and it rained, and Daddy got mad because we kept cheating and then Sam and Julie started screaming and crying and Jessie stormed off?”

But today – today really was perfect.   I work Mondays-Thursdays during the week, and Fridays are my days home alone with the kids.  Marc tries to cram a lot of work time in on Fridays, because he has to be so flexible the other days, so he left really early.  Everyone slept really late, and I worked from home a little this morning.  Jessie was in her room, repainting her nails (reinforcing why I don’t like paying for manicures – Girlfriend would rather do her own nails), and Julie and Sam were playing in his bedroom.  Around noontime, I closed the laptop, got everyone dressed and bounced off to Walmart.  We picked up Shabbat supplies, and I indulged them in crappy Lunchables.  Bought fruit and drinks and we went to a park.  We spread out the picnic blanket, ate our lunch together and then I laid in the shade, read my book and watched them play for a few hours in the sunshine.  The weather was blissful – everyone got along perfectly (I’m ignoring the five minute crying jag that Julie had half-way thru).  I even bought a $5 CD at Walmart, and got Katrina and the Waves Walking on Sunshine.  I played it super loud over and over again while we were driving.  Everyone was happy and loving each other and being outside.  It was exactly what I always want those family times to be like.

And even if I don’t always get the perfect afternoon (I’m looking at you Crystal Caves Mini-golf Course), it’s so worth it to keep planning them.  Because when it works, it’s so awesome.

I could easily compose another blog post on maternal guilt. Especially because when I’m writing, most often what comes out in this blog is whatever emotion I happen to be bubbling over with at that moment.  And working seems to make me feel guiltier than I ever anticipated – especially as it relates to Julianna.  The other two kids seem to be rocking and rolling with the new schedule.  They’re getting lots of time with my mother and their dad, and even exploring their own independence – staying home by themselves sometimes.  I spent the afternoons with them every day, we go swimming most afternoons, Sam bops all over the place on his bike.  They have adjusted to mornings and early afternoons without me effortlessly.

But my Julie – oh, my Julie.  She misses me.  She cries easily and often, and clashes with her siblings all the time.   Last night, she literally sobbed because I told her that I couldn’t read her mind, and she had to use her words to talk to me about what she wanted done with her hair.  The idea that I didn’t just KNOW intuitively what she wanted was just more than she could take.  That breaks my heart.  Intellectually, I know that she’d have to adjust to this schedule regardless – going to school in September will be so much easier for her, because she’ll be used to having part of her days without me.  But last night, she rolled over in her sleep (it took me almost an hour to get her to settle down) and wrapped her little arms around me and snuggled in as close as she could.  This is hard for her.  I hate that.

But this isn’t a blog about guilt.  It’s about summer 2015.  It’s about trips to Dairy Queen and how fast Sam can go on his bike.  It’s about Jessie learning to cook and meal plan, and about Julie cleaning the dining room.  Because there’s a lot more going on this summer than me feeling guilty and Julie feeling neglected.

Marc and I are adjusting to being a two working parent family.  His schedule has a certain amount of flexibility, and mine involves fewer hours but probably more structure.  We still rely pretty heavily on my mother for childcare, especially with Julie, but this week, while she’s in Maine, we’ve been tag teaming, one of us here all the time, and it’s working.  I might even carve out time for a date night this weekend.  Maybe.

Sam is still playing far more minecraft than I’d like, but he does a lot of it with Marc.  One of the things about Sam that can be challenging is that he really prefers to appear utterly competent to his dad.  Marc’s always looking for an activity that they can do together, and I suggested that he learn to play with Sam.  Because Sam knows a lot about it, and it’s something that he feels really confident doing.  Which means that he’s a lot more open to doing it with Marc, and it’s still his preferred method of playing it.  He does it WITH Daddy, which means that they get a lot more one-on-one time to connect.

Jessie is still adjusting to her very short haircut.  She’s bitter about it, still, and will probably never get her hair cut ever again.  She’s working on summer reading, rearranging her room all the time, and watching too much Netflix.  But I think it’s been a good summer, so far, for her. She’s growing up – on her phone more and more, and growing ever more confident and gorgeous.   More importantly, she’s kind, interested in the world around her and how it works – and I love that.

It’s been a busy week or two around here at the Cohen house.  I’m working part-time, four days a week, and when I’m not working, I’m frantically trying to cram summer joy into the time I have left in the day.  The guilt, oh, the guilt over not being home full time with them this summer… We’ve gone swimming several times, hit the playground and gone out for ice cream, lemonade stands are a regular occurrence.  But the XBOX and Netflix are still being used far more than I’d like.  I should take a page out of Marc’s book and blithely tell myself that they could have gone to camp, but were adamant that they didn’t want to – so I shouldn’t feel guilty about not providing a non-stop, activity filled fun summer. Maybe I should have forced camp on them.  But it would have been ugly, at least for Sam, and Jessie was pretty convinced that she didn’t want to even contemplate it.

Julie is the one that seems to be struggling the most – even though she’s loving spending so much time with my mother (she’s happy to go, blissful when she’s there), but she’s a hot mess when she’s home.  Fussy and argumentative with her siblings and her dad, dramatic and sobbing when she’s with me.  It’s a big adjustment, moving from being the little one who got tons and tons of one-on-one time alone with me.  Maybe it’s good – this way, kindergarten won’t be as much of a shock to her system in the fall.  She’ll be used to spending part of her day without me around.  This is me, trying to justify turning my little girl into a sobbing mess.   It’s vaguely comforting that everyone tells me that she’s happy without me, but when I’m around, more than likely, she’s crying.  I know it’s normal, I know it’s just that she’s adjusting to this new routine and new schedule.  And I know damn well that she has fun when I’m not around, she’s not inconsolable, she’s content and chatty and proud of herself and her accomplishments, but it’s still hard, on everyone.

We’re managing, day by day, figuring out child care on the fly, relying on a Daddy who kind of makes his own hours, a Mama who is only working five hours a day, a Grammy who is wonderful beyond measure and aunts and cousins and stepsisters who step in and help.

I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to school starting so much, if only because once school starts, all my childcare agonizing goes away.   The reality is that they are still having a pretty good summer, we’ve had Glennys down for a week, Lilli and Sarah have spent several nights here.  Julie is learning about gardening and squirrels and baking and shopping with my mother.  We’ve had long days running around David and Aviva’s pool, trips to the drive-in, and they get to sleep in and stay up too late at night.

In other news… we’re heading to Maine tomorrow for my step-sister’s wedding and then Monday will be Sammy’s birthday.  My baby boy is going to be nine years old.  I feel like nine is right on the cusp of adolescence, and it struck me last night that I’m woefully unprepared for having an adolescent boy.  Jessie didn’t throw me all that much – I was prepared for her to get bigger.  Lilli and Sarah were just a few years ahead, and I had been a pre-teen girl myself.  So I knew the signs, I was prepared for the worst and delightfully surprised to find that the tween years were filled with so many new discoveries about my daughter.  It might be one of my favorite parts of parenthood- the drama slowed down (note I didn’t say disappeared…), but it got calmer.  She settled into being herself, and I love this stage.

But what does a pre-teen boy go thru?  What is that whole thing like?  No idea.  Absolutely none.  I think back to my brothers, and draw a blank.  I don’t have any friends with older boys.  I’m used to little boys.  I’m GOOD at little boys.  I’m good at Sam, specifically.  I know that little guy inside and out – and the idea that he’s not a little guy anymore throws me off.  I’m not at all ready for my little boy to grow up, and I am going to pretend, for just a little bit longer, that nine years old isn’t a year away from ten, and half way to eighteen.

This is the end of my first week working four days a week, and the start of summer vacation.  I’ve got six kids bopping around my house, giggling and fighting and eating and making a mess and giggling some more.  This is what summer vacation always looks like at my house, a mad house of children running around everywhere.  Only this year, they’ll only be doing it in the afternoons and on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  Because I’m going to be working the rest of the time.

Working is wonderful, and I really, really love my job.  It’s challenging and rewarding and I wish I had more time do it.  Similar to being at home with the kids – I’m constantly feeling as though I’m not putting in enough time anywhere.  There’s work that gets undone, and work that gets crammed into home time, and there’s child care woes and worry that my babies are missing out on time with me.   And that’s before I start to think about the housework – oh, the housework.  The laundry, the shopping, the dishes.  Did I mention the laundry?  Because the pile of clean laundry waiting to be folded is starting to scare me, and I’m now always behind in washing/drying as well now.

That being said – so far, so good.  The kids have adjusted fairly well to my working -although Julie is having a lot more temper tantrums as of late. Of course, that could have more to do with the fact that it’s summer and light out forever now, so she’s up later and not sleeping anywhere near enough.  Let’s blame that – and not me.  Because the truth is that blaming myself, and my schedule, has become second nature.  I blamed myself because Jessie had to wear shoes that were too tight and had to walk home from school yesterday.  Not that either was technically my fault (Jessie hates shoe shopping and refuses to go, and lost her pair of shoes that fit her well.  And it was a gorgeous day, we live less than a mile from her school, and both her dad and I were working).  But let’s be honest, I felt like it was my fault.

It’s a major shift in self-identification for me.  A shift in how the kids identify me.  I’m not endlessly available anymore – but I’m learning to forgive myself for the lapses in mama-time.  To be grateful for the time I have with them, which is still a lot more than most working parents get.  I’m grateful for working – because it turns out that I like working.  A lot.  I like doing well, I like organizing and managing and getting stuff done, and working is so much easier in many ways to staying home.  Nobody wants me to get a drink for them, and my co-workers don’t randomly start screaming and chasing each other around the room.

And it’s summer vacation – and even though I’m working, I still have days like this.  When six kids are running around and screaming and giggling.  When my five year old will curl up in my lap and my nine year old will show me his drawings and my twelve year old disappears into this tween world that fits her so perfectly.  When stepdaughters and friends make themselves at home, because my house is home for them.   Being a working mom isn’t all that different from being a stay at home one, at least not for me.  But I’m so grateful that I get to blend the two – and as happy as I am to be home today, I’ll be equally happy to dance off to work on Monday morning.

So many things happening!  Not even sure where to start…

Marc has been working as a full-time insurance guy since the beginning of the month.  I really do think he loves it, but he’s got a tendency to throw himself into a new job, especially where there isn’t any set hours.  I worry about that, he’s running, running, running all the time from appointment to appointment into the office back out for another appointment, and it’s not at all unusual for him to leave the house at eight and not come home for another twelve or thirteen hours.   There is some flexibility in his schedule – which is fantastic, but not as much as I’d like.

My job is wonderful.  I really do love it, and more than that, I really want to do it well.  I increased my hours up to 20 hours a week until mid-August (and then I’ll be at 32 hours)- which makes so much sense.  Organizationally, financially – it’s totally the right thing.  But I got off the phone with my boss and had a minor panic attack, because going from being at home full-time with my kids to being a working mom (even a part time working mom, because 20 hours really isn’t the same thing as working full time) is such a big transition for me and I worry so much about how it’ll impact the kids.

My mother is wonderful – and Julie has adjusted to having Grammy Days so well.  It’s a big change for my little girl, and she loves it.  My mother will be around all summer long (except for a few weeks, when she’s insisting on going on vacation with her husband), and she’ll be there to pick up the slack when I’m not around.   When Marc isn’t around.   The summer will be a little challenging – but my hours are mainly morning thru early afternoon, and Marc is going to work at home as much as he can, and he’ll drop off with my mother when he can’t.  And there are playdates and older siblings (I knew having teenage stepdaughters would come in handy), and aunts and friends, and we’ll get thru it.  The kids are adamant that they don’t want to go to camp, so we’re going to try and cobble together coverage to get us through until September.  Once September comes, all my childcare woes disappear, as my hours will coincide perfectly with the hours of school.

Jessie is almost done with sixth grade.  I am so grateful for Goddard Scholars Academy, because it completely changed my little girl’s relationship with school – and she loves it there.  But if she was still at Flagg, we’d get to have a GRADUATION.  She essentially left elementary school last year, and there was no fanfare.  I miss that.  She accidentally got all her hair cut off earlier this week (she had wanted it to be brushing her shoulders, but it curled and bounced up – so she actually ended up with a chin-length bob).  She went to the car and sobbed… but there’s no way to glue the hair back on (because I considered it).  Thirty five dollars later, we had a whole bunch of new headbands, clips and barrettes and I think we’re getting used to it.  She’s gorgeous – which makes any haircut a lot easier to deal with – but she’ll probably never get it cut again.

Sam is in that middle-stage of childhood.  Where he’s just bopping along, ending second grade and moving happily enough into third grade.  He’s lost in mine craft much of the time, these days, but it’s mostly a social activity for him, his favorite activity is to do it with his friends or his dad.  He’s always happiest with a friend over – and very much looking forward to getting an XBOX for his birthday this year.

Julianna is my child who’s probably been impacted the most by me going back to work.  The older two haven’t really noticed it, other than Jessie taking the bus in the mornings more, it hasn’t impacted their lives at all.  But Julie’s whole world changed when I started, because suddenly she didn’t have those days at home with Mama anymore.  She’s up and out of the house with the rest of us – and she’s handled it SO well.  I would have anticipated more challenges, but other than the occasional temper tantrum, she’s adjusted beautifully.

Next week is the last week of school, Glennys is coming down on Tuesday, and our summer is officially starting.  After what feels like the longest school year ever, I’m ready for it to end.  I’m ready for kids sleeping late, and afternoons at the beach.  Weekend camping trips and nights staying up too late going to the drive-in and stargazing on the way home.  Ice cream trucks, watermelon all the time, and constantly yelling “did you put on sunscreen yet??”  Here’s to Summer 2015!

I know that something is going to get dropped.

Oh, I love my job.  I really do.  I know that it’s all manageable and that we’ll adjust.  I know that.  I know that all the chaos is simply a result of having no experience with it.  The running around, you pick up this kid here and I’ll get that one there.  I even know that that it’ll get substantially easier once September comes, because I’ll be working five days a week but all three kids will be in school full time too.

But right now, we’re a hot mess.

Completely forgot about the bat mitzvah lesson, for the second week running.  Marc and I have taken to having calendar clearance meetings every couple of days, reviewing who’ll be home, and when.  Who can pick up or drop off, and whether anyone will be home to cook dinner on any particular night.

It’ll get easier once the kids are out of school, and probably even easier once school starts back up.  June is always a really  time of year for us – all of the concerts, and activities.  Adding in Marc working 12-15 hours a day, and me starting working.  But for the next few weeks, I think I’m going to be feeling like a chicken with my head cut off most of the time.

On the upside, the day is beautiful, and the kids are all healthy.  Marc is loving his new job and seems to be doing really well.  My job is so much fun, and I kind of wish that I could put in more hours now.  But I’ve got a glorious summer stretching out in front of me, and so much to look forward to – as long as I don’t end up forgetting to pick up a kid somewhere.

– I skipped nearly everything this weekend at the synagogue.  Normally, I love going, and kids are usually enthusiastic too.  But this week, we could (conceivably) been there Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday morning as well.  Instead, we skipped the first two, and I think that Sunday went a lot better for everyone because we had taken that time to chill out and recover after a chaotic week.

– Marc started his new job, and so did I, this week.  So we were both a little extra stressed, and it was complicated because we both came down with a cold mid-week.  Marc’s was worse, and complicated by back spasms.  By Friday afternoon, we had to be really careful and conscious about not snapping and sniping at each other, just because we were both a little overwhelmed with the new hours/responsibilities.

– Sam came home sick on Tuesday and Wednesday with an upset stomach.  He only threw up once, but felt cruddy for a couple of days.

– We learned the hard way that, for Marc, working from home really isn’t an option.  It’s hard for anyone, obviously, but the way Marc functions is definitely not conducive to multi-tasking.  He tried on Tuesday and is now convinced that it won’t work at all going forward.   I don’t think anyone likes it, but he’s sort of especially bad at it.  Lovely at all sorts of things, but being able to keep an eye on a five year old and working at the same time – not so much.

– On the upside, we also learned that Julie really loves the one-on-one time with her Grammy.  And I’m especially grateful to my mom, because without her helping us out this month, there’s absolutely no way we’d be able to pull this off.

– I really love my new job.  It’s only been two days, but it’s really so lovely to be working.  I love having entire conversations where I don’t mention my kids once.  And hours upon hours when I don’t have to do a dish, or get someone a drink, or referee a fight.

– Friday night Shabbat dinners are utter chaos.  I mean, they always have been, but the older the kids get, the more I think it’s going to settle down, and we’ll start sitting down quietly and calmly and having these peaceful, relaxing dinners.  They aren’t.  They’re loud and crazy and I both love and dread them at the same time.

– The only person I know who hates shopping more than me is my daughter Jessica.   She really hates it.  Hates everything that I hate about it, and has less patience and tolerance for dealing with it.  I can usually grit my teeth, suck it up and get thru the trip without snarling.  But I’ve got a lot more experience with it.  We actually tackled shoe shopping (which is impossible) this weekend.  Turns out that Jessie’s feet are a full size apart, so one foot is happy and the other one is either squeezed impossibly tight or in a shoe that’s way too big.  She’s also got narrow feet, except for her toes, which are oddly wide.  We went with flip flops that are too big for her (because of her toes), and heel inserts to make the smaller foot happy.

– Sunday, both Lilli and Sam were feeling a little off, and Marc was exhausted.  So I dropped Lilli at home, and then brought Sam and Marc home.  Marc slept, Sam spent the afternoon playing legos and I took Sarah, Jessie and Julie off on tour of playgrounds.  The three of them played great together, until the very end, when poor Julie got mad.  It was actually kind of funny, because she stormed away from her older sisters and headed back to the car.  The entire time she was ranting and yelling at them, but they were back on the playground, so she looked slighted deranged as she approached the car.  Was quickly mollified with a cold drink and some triscuits. I had a lovely afternoon because I had a book I was trying to finish, and ended up reading in the car while they played.

– I still really like my mornings home while the kids are at school.  Even though I’ve actually got two of them home with me today (Sam’s stomach is still fragile, and he had diarrhea this morning – since he threw up all over the classroom last week, didn’t want to push my luck this morning).  But they’re both quiet and coloring, and I’ve got laundry, and dishes and baking and blogging and reading my Access 2010 manual done this morning.