6:48am Christmas morning, the house still quiet, babies and husband sleeping. I sip my warm strong coffee as I look out at the winter sky. I needed this time to be alone, to be clear from the brambles of domesticity and dicussions. To have some distance, if only for thirty minutes from dirty pans and my constant nagging to my husband, “don’t leave out the tinfoil, it has a sharpe edge, is that you water glass? The babies are going to knock it over. ” I want to stop, stop trying to control everything, make sure everythings picked up, let things get spilt, but the moment I do, as the clutter starts to pile up on the kitchen counter, as the stink starts to fill, as the dirty diapers start to overflow and the smell of shit permeates my nose , My want to just let things go collides with my disgust and unease with the mess. So I have to clean, wash dishes, pick up toys constantly. I keep telling Jack and Fiona, ” if you didn’t throw all this food on the floor I could be hanging out with you right now” But they don’t understand. They pull at my legs to pick them up or cry from the other side of the baby gate. This week has been exceptionally difficult. Jack started the week off with a vicious diaper rash, screaming everytime he had a poop, and yesterday Fiona got it. She felt awful, her high pitched wailing went on and off all day. It was really difficult, with conversations Alan wanted to have while the babies were crying, I’m trying to get food in the babies bellies. I’ve burnt dinner every night this week.
Now it’s Christmas morning. There’s no tree with pretty lights or presents in a pile from Santa. I feel bad because I know it’s not the scene Alan wants for his kids. But I tried. We gave the babies each one toy yesterday, Jack a super cool car ramp and Fiona a doll house. They loved them, although Fiona felt so crappy she couldn’t really enjoy much. But Jack is on the mend, he played with his new toy for hours. He got so wound up as the cars wound down the twists and turns of the ramp. He would be perfectly content with that toy and that toy alone for the next several months.
I’m not going on about this again, but they have too many toys!
So Wednesday night When I took The babies down to bed, Jack showed me how he could climb out of his crib. He was so proud! So when Alan got home from work he converted the cribs to toddler beds! Fiona didn’t think much, maybe because she’s been sick, she just went straight to bed. Jack on the other hand was so excited by this he had a hard time going to bed both nights. He keeps getting out of his bed, walking over to Fiona’s bed, “ona, ona” walking to the camera “mama mama” and getting back in bed. Or climing and standing on the half rail.
Wow, the sky
It’s beautiful! It’s 7:20 and I hear Jack waking. I’ve done something really bad this week, I had left their sippy cups in the car and was too lazy to go get them so we regressed into bottles in the morning. It’s so easy! But I better go back to sippy cups this morning!
Hello Christmas Day! Alan is awake now and I need to go get babies. Good bye beautiful solice of the dark quiet morning, hello brambles of dishes, shit, piss, toys, nagging, and crying. Hello also to hopefully a few smiles and Joys! I’m feeling healthy and good at least!
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 