This is what it is really like to be married with three children

Evening is not our family's finest hour (neither is the morning, leaving us with a slim window of mid day in which we can be expected to behave agreeably, but that's another story). By 8pm, tempers run high on all sides. Everyone is tired. Everyone is fed up. The grown-ups in the house have been parenting since the wee hours and they really want the kids in the house to go the fuck to sleep so they can catch try to refuel physically and emotionally because guess what -- they have to do it all over again tomorrow -- but the kids really don't want to go to sleep, for reasons that are unfathomable.

Plus, there's the mess. After dinner, our living room looks like a pack of wild animals descended upon it. Really. It looks like instead of feeding children, we fed hyenas or some other kind of animal which eats by lowering its mouth into a trough or a carcass, without the use of hand or paw. It doesn't help that the baby invariably throws her food all over the room like she's an avant guard artist or a bat-shit crazy inmate. She'll overturn a bowl of yogurt, shove a few handfuls (how does one manage a handful of yogurt, you may ask? About as well as you'd imagine) then throws whatever yogurt she's managed to collect in her palm onto the wall and floor and on her siblings. I keep taking yogurt away from her -- "You're suspended from semi-solids until further notice!"  - but then she'll undertake a food strike that will scare the crap out of me, forcing me to cave,  just to get a few swallows of something in her. Blueberries, beans, wagon wheel pasta  -- whatever she's got on her high chair tray, she tosses to the ground. She does it methodically, too, one berry at a time, but fast, like she's got a deadline -- which she does, because as soon as I see what she's doing, I confiscate all food items.

The point is: at 8pm, we are up to our ankles in filth and crankiness.

Still, one must go on living, is my guess. So the other night, I decided to take a break from chasing Terza around trying to change her nasty-ass diaper, and offer a kiss to my husband, my partner in crime, my partner in punishment, who was mopping up a milk spill. I walked over and said, "Come give me a kiss."

And he said: "Blegh."

"David!" I rebuked him.

"What?" he asked, realizing the milk was cascading onto the floor from the countertop.

"I just said, 'Give me a kiss,' and you said, 'Blegh!"

"It's just -- look at this shit," he gestured to the living room, which looked like a middle school cafeteria after a food fight.

"Blegh!" I repeated, "Blegh!"

"I didn't mean the kiss!" he protested, "I meant . . .  everything else."

"We are so married with children," I said.

"That's putting it mildly." he replied.

Then he gave me a kiss, and we lived to stay married another day.

Grumpy Mommy, Guilty Mommy

Kids know your weaknesses and they exploit them. My kids, for instance, know that my Achilles heel is my extreme suspectptibility to guilt.

The other night at the tail end of bedtime (yes, bedtime is so protracted that there are various stages to it, like the life cycle of a caterpillar) I climbed up the bunk bed with my massive nine-month-pregnant belly swaying on the ladder, to sing lullabies to Primo. That sentence alone should make it clear why I was not chipper. I can't even believe I am still climbing into that damn top bunk in my gravid state. I watch myself doing it and I think, "Lady, you're nuts. Cease and desist this coddling immediately." Yet I continue. And as I continue, I grow more and more annoyed.

So I heaved my gargantuan mid-section up to the top bunk, huffing and puffing like I'd just ascended Mount Kilimanjaro, and I curled up next to Primo, very begrudgingly, and sang -- with little enthusiasm -- my usual repertoire of Ein Klein Nacht Musik, the which would be better-termed Go-The-Fuck-To-Sleep Music. Then, pierced with self-imposed guilt about my lack of enthusiasm, I told Primo that he was a good boy and I really loved him. And he, touched, and feeling similarly warm and fuzzy, issued this rejoinder:

"I love you too Mommy. But do you think you could stop being so cranky once the baby is born? Can you make it your New Year's Resolution?"

I succeeded in biting my tongue and not saying out loud, "Sure, I can stop being cranky. Just as soon as you can manage to GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP BEFORE 10 O'CLOCK AT NIGHT."

Of course, I felt guilty just for thinking it.

Catholic guilt, man. There's nothing quite as powerful.

Too Good to Be True

We've been working on bedtime lately. That's kind of misleading. The truth is, we're ALWAYS working on bedtime. Getting the kids to go to bed without a thousand curtain calls and before 10pm is basically my life's work.

But lately, we've been making an extra big effort, really trying to hammer down some sort of order into the chaos because there's going to be a baby in the house soon - a real one, with REAL, justifiable sleep issues and right now, the thought of introducing more insanity into our bedtime strikes a chord of terror into my heart.

So, after OD'ing on research (polling ParkSlopeParents for advice, re-skimming my sleep books, visiting Soho Parenting, the sleep gurus of NYC) I basically realized there's no simple solution, more a war of attrition. But the Soho Parenting people did make one very useful suggestion, which was that we start the whole bedtime earlier. 8pm is a perfectly nice bedtime if your kids go to sleep, oh within an half hour or so of hitting the hay, but when it takes them 2 stinking hours to "wind down", well, 8pm might as well be the stroke of midnight.

So we pushed bedtime back about 30-60 minutes and now - miracle of miracles - the kids are usually conked out by 9:30pm. Believe it or not, that's a major improvement for us. That's reason for a ticker tape parade. Sec especially has responded well to the early bedtime, sometimes falling asleep by 9pm, which makes us feel so extraordinarily fortunate, we don't even SPEAK of it when it happens.

One night, the unthinkable happened. At 8:45, I went into the kids' bedroom to fulfill some demand of Primo's -- more milk or I need a new pen to create my comic book masterpiece or I finished this book can I have another one? -- and I saw Sec was asleep. I told Primo I'd come back in 15 minutes to turn off his book light and sing him some songs, thinking maybe I could have them BOTH asleep by a conventional bedtime.

At 9pm, I creeped into the bedroom, and climbed the first few steps of the ladder to Primo's top bunk. But I stopped short. Because my son was sleeping. SLEEPING.

"Good God," I thought, "he's fallen asleep reading his book, like a kid in a freaking MOVIE. I guess that shit really DOES happen. "

I immediately sucked my whispering back into my throat and creeped like a pregnant ninja down the ladder, slipping out of the room without a sound.

"David," I said, "You are not going to believe what I'm about to say. Primo is asleep."

"Its 9pm," he replied, confused.

"I know," I said.

We exchanged proud glances, not even daring to jinx our good fortune by speaking out loud what we were thinking, and that was, "Its working. Our massive effort is paying off. We are good parents and this is the proof. By God, we've done it."

And then, the door to the kids' room swung open and Primo darted out laughing his head off meniacally.

"I tricked you Mommy!!!" he chortled, "You thought i was asleep! But I was only pretending!"

Which made a lot more sense.

A big house just makes us louder

We spent the weekend at my parents’ place in New Jersey where I realized something. A big house does not solve all our problems. In fact, it creates some brand-new ones. For instance, the bigger the house we inhabit, the louder we are.

“MOOOOOOOOOMMMY!!!” comes Sec’s voice from somewhere below.

“WHAAAAT?” I bellow back.

“WIIIIIIIIPE MEEEEEEEEE!”

“WHAAAAAAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“I SAAAAAID, WIIIIIIIIIPE ME!”

“WIPE YOU? YOU WANT ME TO WIPE YOU?”

“YEEEEEEES!”

All that to discover my daughter took a dump. Good God, it’s exhausting.

It also makes bedtime even worse than usual, because every curtain call requires us ascending and descending the stairs. I don’t enjoy dropping everything to attend to their bedtime needs under the best of circumstances and I like it considerably less when it requires me activating my tired, ineffectual glutes.

“DAAAAAADDY! I’m THIIIIIIIIRSTY!”

David gets up from the couch to fill the water cup. But just as he’s opening the fridge, the call comes again, because Primo doesn’t think anyone’s heard him. Primo is not accustomed to sending soundwaves across distances which exceed ten feet.

“DAAAAADDDDY!!”

“HOLD ON!”

“WHAAAAAAT?

“I SAID, HOOOOOOOLD ONNNN!”

“Stop yelling!” I chastise David.

“He can’t hear me! Nobody can hear each other in this house!”

By the time he fills up the cup and gets up the stairs Primo has panicked and is screaming his head off -- emergency screams now rather than run-of-the-mill screams.

“DADDY! MOMMY! DADDY! WHERE ARE YOU? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME”

It’s like a three-ring circus. But I have to say, it does make me appreciate our tiny apartment where you never have to walk the floors in search of a family member, because they are always within your field of vision.

You know what they said? Mo’ rooms, mo’ problems.

Strong Mouth

My daughter is terrifically talented at a great many things but the kid can't fall asleep for shit. I don't know how to break the process down any more clearly for her, more than to say there are two steps:

A. Lie still
B. Be quiet

I repeat this continually all night long, from about 8pm til about 10. Lie still. Be quiet. Lie still., Be quiet.

Last night, after Primo conked out by 9:30, Sec was singing a remix of "Kiss the Girl" at Hollywood-Bowl decibel-levels.

SHA LA LA LA LA LA, MY OH MY
LOOK LIKE THE BOY TOO SHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I walked in for the four hundredth time that night.

"Seconda, you need to go to sleep now. Lie still and be quiet."

"I want to but the thing is, my mouth isn't strong enough."

Somehow, I don't think that's the problem.

Overheard at bedtime

Last night I overheard the following exchange in my children's bedroom:

Sec: “AHHHHH! I just stepped on something! I hate this! I hate this whole world! I hate my bed! My foot hurts! Primo, can you heal it?"

Primo: "Let me see . . well, your body is pumping blood into your skin, to form a scab, which is a band-aid your body makes. Maybe it will have princesses on it."

“My scab will have princesses on it?”

“I am only joking about the princesses.”

“Hey, let’s pretend I am Sleeping Beauty and I touch the spindle and when I do you make a big noise and then I DIE!”

“No, no, lets do the original one when you dance so fast you melt!”

“NO NO NO! What do you think this is – Snow WHITE? I am SLEEPING BEAUTY and I touch the spindle and THEN I DIE!”

“Whatever you want.”

I have three thoughts:

A. You wouldn't have stepped on anything if you were lying down, like you're supposed to.

B. What a wise man my son is becoming to learn so early the power of "whatever you say."

C. Sorry, I was under the impression that this was BEDTIME, which entailed soothing activities like counting sheep, not changing into dress-up and launching elaborate and thrilling pretend play scenarios. My mistake.

Kids shouldn't share imaginary friends

My kids will fight about anything. Now they’re fighting over what their imaginary friend is doing.

A few weeks ago, I was putting Primo to bed and he told me to tell him that the Airman was coming,

“What?”

The Airman is not a character I've ever heard about before -- not from a movie, not from a book, not from any prior narratives emerging from Primo's amazing mind.

“It makes me feel better if you tell me that the Airman is coming,” he informed me, “It makes me feel like there are more people in the room.”

“Ok,” I said, “The Airman is coming.”

Who am I to argue?

So, after hearing us announce the arrival of the Airman every night for a few weeks, Seconda decided she wanted to get in on the action.

“The Airman is coming and he is going to sleep in MY BED!” she shouted.

“NO HE IS NOT!” Primo yelled, “MOMMY!!!! Tell Seconda that the Airman is going to sleep with me!”

“Too late! Too late! He is in my bed now and he says he won’t go with you!” Sec yelled.

“MOOOOMMMY!!!!” Primo wailed.

“Honey,” I said as I walked in, “You know that Airman is not real, right?”

“I know,” Primo said.

“Then he can be doing whatever you want him to,” I said, “And besides, Sec doesn’t even know what he looks like.”

That consoled him.

To Sec I suggested, “You now, since imaginary friends are free, you don’t have to share with your brother. You can make one up for yourself.”

I'm just bracing myself for the arguments that Airman will have with Sec's imaginary friend. Good times.

Bedtime noises

Thanks to the incredibly small size of our home, I can hear everything that goes on in my kids’ room at bedtime. It doesn’t matter where I am – the living room, the kitchen or my bedroom -- it all comes through crystal-clear. And here is what I’ve learned:

You don’t want to hear the kids laughing at bedtime. Because laughing always leads to crying.

Crying, however, never leads to laughing

And the absolute worst thing to hear coming out of the bedroom is silence. Silence equals a big damn mess.

Lately when Seconda is silent, it means she is torturing the pets – two amiable goldfish names Goldy and Whitey (look, I didn’t name them that – it was Primo’s bright idea and how could I explain that calling creatures “Whitey" isn’t really done?). Goldy and Whitey reside in a tank with no lid, on a very high dresser next to the kids’ bed and lately Sec has made it a habit of climbing right on up and dropping crap like dirty socks, stray Legos and discarded foot items into the tank. Those poor creatures must shudder when they see Seconda’s big blue eyes approach.

So, the only thing I like to hear coming out of that bedroom is low-level bickering, the kind unlikely to spur the children to action, and babydolls being disciplined.

“Snow White, I told you a million times, you CAN’T put your face in the fishtank! You leave those fishes alone! You are driving me CRAZY!”

May not lead to sleep but it won’t lead to crying either. Perfect.

Be kind, unwind

When you have a baby and you read the Baby Whisperer and Dr. Sears and Weissbluth, you find that all these experts spend a great deal of time talking about the importance of creating a soothing bedtime ritual. This ritual is supposed to help your child transition from the stimulation of daytime to the tranquil peace of sleep. I am neurotic and overachieving and always try to do what experts say, so by four months of age, Primo was being bathed at the same time every night, massaged after bath to promote body-mind wellness, read to in the rocking chair, and placed in his crib awake, while the cool chords of Coltrane’s Ballads played on a little CD player in the corner. Same sequence, same time, same place, every night.

Fat lot of good it did us. The Sandman himself couldn’t get this kid to sleep without a struggle. Since he was a baby, he’s had a tough time settling down, and we have tried everything. Everything.

Including, most recently, allowing him to take David’s old Ipod shuffle to bed with him.. Since nightlights and stuffed animals, and good-dream-stories and bribes and threats didn’t work, we figured we’d try letting him relax to his favorite music.

We found however that it is somewhat difficult for a child to unwind whilst his two year-old sister hurls plastic babydolls at his prone form.

I knew something was up when, instead of the usual defiant but jovial yelling, I heard Primo wail. I ran in to find him hysterical and his sister jumping and down in her crib, beside herself with delight at what a terrible ruckus she’s caused.

“She hiiiiiiit me,” he sobbed, “In the heeeeeeead! With her BABYDOOOOOOOOLLS!”

And there you have it, the distillation of my kids’ relationship. Seconda beats Primo down, despite being half his age and less than half his size.

She’s tough as nails, that baby, and ruthless, too. At the playground yesterday, when these 6 year-old boys were chasing Primo around, he ran up to her and pleaded, “Go get those bad kids.” And she did, kicking them hard with her pink Converse high-tops and squawking, “GO AWAY! PRIMO IS MY BOY!” Whenever there’s a kiddie throw-down, I put my money on my daughter and man, does she deliver. But when she turns on her brother, well, action must be taken.

So I had to confiscate her babydolls and move her into the Pack N Play in our bedroom. I mean, Primo was afraid to fall asleep with her there.

Two minutes later, I heard him sobbing again. Back to the bedroom I went.

“What is it now?” I asked.

“I just keep crying,” he sobbed, “and the tears are going into my ears and making my ipod headphones sliiiip oooout.”

Seriously.

“Then just stop crying,” I offered. I mean, its not rocket science.

So, the next time you’re heading into a major pity-fest, and about to stew in your sorry state, just console yourself with the thought that at least your baby sister didn’t beat you up and give you tears in the ears. It should help.

It is a good thing that little kids are cute.

Particularly my little kids. Because if they weren’t, I would have definitely off-loaded them to gypsies somewhere for a modest sum.

Primo is going through an unpleasant phase of life, which you will know if you read my post about the f@#king fours. Things are so bad with him at present that I may well send a plea to Supernanny. Although, as David observed, “If the Supernanny met our kids, she’d retire. She can’t handle this shit.”

When the kids are really awful, I like to deceive myself into thinking that they are just this way with me and David, and that they are very well-behaved when not in our care.

The bubble of my self-deception was punctured last week when my cousin, Alanna, who baby-sits the kids pretty regularly, said this:

“Your kids are bad, Nicole, like bratty, wild kid characters in Disney movies which are meant to be cautionary tales. Seriously.”

Oh, how I love hearing such confidence-boosting praise for my mothering!

Alanna gave me this feedback after she, along with my grandmother, watched the kids at night. David and I had a date with destiny at the Brooklyn Blogfest, where a bloggin’ good time was had, including blog dogs with mustard. But the point here is not what how much I can sound like Diablo Cody or what an impressive power couple David and I are, but that my children are disabled when it comes to going to sleep. Putting them to bed is like receiving electroshock therapy, and that is why we never ever force babysitters to endure it. But on this particular occasion, there was no avoiding it, and, we figured, there was not one but two capable caregivers on the job.

As far as I can tell, Primo just gave his usual bedtime performance which includes acting as though he just did a mammoth amount of speed as soon as the last page of the bedtime book has been read. He then does pike jumps and cannonballs off the bed, races around the apartment, hides in my closet, throws my clothes and shoes wildly to and fro, and scream with evil joy. This, of course, gets Seconda all pumped up, and soon both of them are wrestling on the floor, knocking shit over, banging their heads on furniture, wailing and yelling “I AM NOT GOING TO GO TO SLEEP -- EVER!”

My cousin and grandmother were horrified.

When I asked Primo the next morning about how bedtime went, he very calmly offered this explanation:

“I had to have a fit because Alanna told me to lie down but she didn’t say please, and the consequence of that is, you don’t get what you want.”

Like I said, it’s a good thing these kids are cute.