Every so often, The Boy manages to completely overwhelm me. It is as if he has these emotional/ social developmental growth spurts and he has to be all plastered to my windshield for a few days before he gets used to his new abilities. I found it hard while I was getting little sleep, it was harder when I was pregnant but a three year old on your physical/mental windshield is most difficult when you also have a four month old to contend with. Especially a four month old who is teething. My brain may never be the same.

Dealing with him right now is kind of like when you are working at your desk and you knock over a glass of water. You try lifting your papers out of the way and the water runs under your monitor, and you shift the monitor and it starts dripping on the floor, and onto your lap and into your desk drawer. You are temporarily overwhelmed by the mess and it is hard to know what to deal with first.

So I end up sitting at my desk trying to write an email, while holding The Little Guy on my lap, and The Boy is trying to put his head under my arm so he can be in the crook of my elbow. And he's reaching for the keys, and the mouse and he's squishing The Little Guy's leg and my chair is on wheels...

You get the picture. My days are full of 'abenture'.

First things first*: Happy Birthday, Neece! You Rock!

The Little Guy didn't sleep well last night and now I'm having flashbacks to my long dark years of sleeplessness with The Boy.

Overall, The Little Guy sleeps well (something I feel I've earned after my efforts with The Boy) but every now and then he keeps me up all night. And every time that happens I have this cold feeling of dread, that this is the beginning of another long sleep deprived stupor.

I don't think I can do it again. Although even as I type that, I realize that it is nonsense. I will do it if I have to, if only because I have no choice.

* Has anyone in the history of everything ever said 'second things first'? What a dumb expression!

I'm not usually a wistful person, but last week when The Boy was sick I found myself regretting that a certain phase in our lives had passed.

He had a stuffy nose, and hence, he couldn't breathe easily and the medicine wasn't kicking in very quickly. He was a little hysterical and panicky, arching and kicking and whining (hmm, maybe my wistfulness is not a mystery after all, but read on...). I lay down next to him on the couch, and gently touched his cheek with my fingers and spoke softly, telling him that he just needed to breathe through his mouth and that'd being sick was no fun but he would be okay.

And for the first time in his life, me touching his face didn't soothe him at all.

I don't miss a baby version of The Boy, he was cute but, as he has gotten older, I've enjoyed each new version better than the last. I don't feel bad about the fact that he has to grow up, that's a good thing for everyone. I will, however, miss my Mombie superpowers.

I'll miss my ability to make things better with a touch. I'll miss being able to draw him into a tiny world of just me and him, where I can make everything okay again.

Someday, I'm going to have to let him out into the big, bad world and I'm not going to be able to fix everything that goes wrong.

It has to happen, I know that, but I don't have to like it.

And I reserve the right to deal harshly with anyone who hurts him.

Someone apparently thinks I am because there has been someone sick in this house since late February. It is a never -ending cycle of cranky, passing from one person to another and it is beginning to wear on me. Especially since my turn seems always to coincide with someone else's, hence I don't even get a break to be sick.

There is some suckage there (or as Jason once described it 'that is pure liquid suck'). I wish there was a way for Mommies to call in sick, some sort of agency that you could call to send someone to take over your duties until you were feeling better.

Alas, there is nothing of the sort, and as it is in my nature to keep plodding away until I literally can go no longer, I will keep pushing this damn rock up the hill until we can cast the demon cold virus out of the house once and for all.

Sadly, I fear that will require throwing open all the windows to let the sunshine in - I may be waiting for some time.

So I probably should write about Easter and chocolate and cute things my kids did but I'm not gonna.

Instead I'm going to write about Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars.

I wasn't a huge fan of Farscape when it was on, I mean, I liked it okay but I just never got into it. The Man loved it and I would sometimes watch it with him because I liked Aeryn's character (she seriously kicked ass). Long story short, the series was cancelled before its time and since it ended on a majorly weird note (two main characters annihilated right after a marriage proposal) the powers that be decided to continue and then clue up the story in a mini-series - The Peacekeeper Wars.

Anyway, the details are here if you are interested but suffice it to say that Aeryn rocked even more than usual.

A group of them were holed up in a building and she went into labour but she didn't want to put her gun down because 'shooting makes me feel better' (I could TOTALLY relate to that, except I would have been aiming at a tylenol-suggesting doctor).

Labour progressed and she had to put the gun down and concentrate on the task at hand (shocker, hey?) and the baby was born in a (rather conveniently located) fountain. I turn to The Man and say 'If only she had a good sling, she could carry the baby and keep fighting.'

Next scene, here comes Aeryn, baby in a sling, enormous gun in hand, kicking ass and taking names. Total warrior mother. It was majorly cool.

And yeah, I know that real women couldn't actually do that, no matter how much post-birth adrenaline they were working with. But Aeryn is Sebacean and a former Peacekeeper so I'm willing to believe she could do it.

Now I just need to find a screen capture of her in full Mother Warrior mode.

So, I have been struggling to find time to write. It is hard enough to commit to writing in the first place but when you have the excellent excuse of two kids, it is very easy to let yourself off the hook. Or at the very least, to make writing such a low priority that you rarely get to it.

Usually when I write I've done a lot of the mental work beforehand and when I sit down at the computer, I just sort of 'download' the half-cooked material and the process of typing completes the cooking. But right now, I have so many balls in the air that I can't always do the mental work beforehand (or I do the mental work and then can't sit down to work) so when I find time to write I have to do all my processing first and sitting down staring into space feels like a huge waste of time.

Lately, I have been writing a 'To Do' list for me and The Boy in the mornings so we can plan our days and make sure we get some things accomplished. And it really helps him to know that the things I've promised to do are written down so they WILL be done and it helps me to get household things done because once they are on the list The Boy thinks they are important. The first couple of days I didn't include any writing tasks on there because the list was too long already. Yesterday, I put two writing tasks on the list but because of an unexpected visit with my in-laws I didn't get to them.

Then last night, I was chatting with might-as-well-be-my-brother Mark, and in the context of a much larger conversation, he commented that I needed to make writing a higher priority if I wanted to get to it. And, as frequently happens, he was right. So, here I am, typing a weblog entry at 4pm, still in my pajamas, with the living room and kitchen in a big mess but The Little Guy is asleep and The Boy is engrossed in Rescue Heroes and writing is a higher priority than housework or getting a shower. I can shower and clean up while The Little Guy is awake - writing not so much.

So, thanks as always, Mark and may I mention once again that your weblog entry last night rocked big time?

And The Little Guy just woke up, so I am outta here (insert SNL Dennis Miller flourish here).

So I've decided to participate in Writing Friday and this week's topic is boredom.

I used to pride myself on how rarely I got bored, I always had tons of stuff to think about, I loved writing in my notebook, and I always had a book on hand.

That was before I had kids.

Leaving aside the fact that I now no longer have a lot of time for writing or reading casually (I'm sure once The Little Guy gets to be 6 months old or so, things will straighten out a bit), I have discovered new depths of boredom in motherhood.

Nothing is more mind-numbingly boring than realizing mid-diaper change that you will have to do this exact sequence of actions countless times that same day.

Or realizing that the third watching of Franklin's Blanket does not signal the end of your Franklin viewing for the day.

Or realizing that the funny voice you chose for this rendition of 'The Green Grass Grows All Around' has become the new standard and you will have to replicate it for each repetition from now on.

So I am now very familiar with boredom.

In many ways, I consider it a privilege to get to spend so much time with my kids, and it is a kind of luxury to be bored by some of the things required of me. I can afford to think about whether this is what I want to be doing, I have a choice that a lot of women don't. Sure, we aren't rolling in money but we have enough to get by and we could make our childcare decisions based on desire rather than economic need.

Unfortunately, knowing that I'm lucky doesn't keep boredom at bay. Sometimes the monotony of the routine tasks is almost too much for me. I wish it were possible to do all the diaper changes and Franklin watching in one day and free up the rest of the week for more interesting activities.

Instead, I regret to admit, the weight of the routine sometimes gets the better of me, and I trudge through the day, moving from task to task, waiting for The Man to get home so I will have some adult company.

Those are the bad days.

Of course, the bad days are countered by the good ones, the days that find me noticing how The Little Guy smiles while I change his diaper, the days that I thrill every time The Boy calls me Mommy.

I used to feel bad about having bad days, thinking that I should be enthralled by my kids all the time, that I was a jerk for not wanting to play 'ring around the rosy' again.

But then I realized that I am 32, not 3, so my entertainment requirements are a little more complex. So, I try and forgive myself for the bad days and get as much out of the good ones that I can.

Big picture, I'm having a lot of fun being home with my kids, it's the best job I've ever had.

Small picture? I could use a can of instant babysitter that I could open when my brain is numb and no one is having any fun.

And of course, I'm pretty sure that if I asked my Mom about it she'd tell me that I'll bore my kids silly when they are older so it will all even out.

I'm saving up 'well, when I was a teenager' stories already.

I read a lot of books about mothering and a lot of blogs about mothering and often people will mention mother anger and how incredibly furious they can get at their children for being impossible.

That doesn't happen to me.

And this isn't a case of superiority or denial, and it certainly isn't a matter of parenting philosophy, it's a case of melodrama.

I get the white hot flashes of anger but blaming my kid isn't the solution for me, I blame the universe.

It's me and my kid(s) cruelly buffeted about by fate, by a cruel social design that leaves one woman totally responsible for responding to the whims of two irrational beings for long hours every day, often after responding to their needs all night.

So when things get crazy and go south, I rail against the forces of the universe. I might cry, I might remove myself to the other room, I might let out a gutteral shriek but I don't end up angry at my kids themselves.

I just end up hating the universe.

A case in point, this Sunday*, I tried bargaining with the universe for more sleep. I got up, made breakfast for The Man and The Boy, nursed The Little Guy, made my own breakfast ( I like to wait until after I feed TLG so I can eat in peace) and ate it, and then nursed TLG again and bounced him on my lap in the vain hope of getting him to go to sleep so I could go lie down. I figured that all that breakfast making and baby soothing would appease the powers that be and make TLG go to sleep so I could too.

After about an hour of trying to settle Mr. McCranky, I muttered to myself 'goddamn universe'. And The Boy started dancing around the living room singing 'goddamn universe, goddamn universe'.

Clearly the universe hates me too.

On the upside, once The Man finished watching his show, I handed The Little Guy over to him and went upstairs for two and a half hours of baby-free sleep. I don't normally recommend a nap at 10:30am but sometimes it works out just fine.

* a note here, The Man watches Coronation Street on Sunday mornings and he likes to have a little peace while he does that. He gets up on Saturday mornings with the two kids so I can sleep and on Sundays he'll entertain them as long as they are keeping things to a dull roar but if they are putting the place up it becomes a two parent situation and I don't get a second sleep in that weekend.

And in other news:

Happy Birthday, Danielle! You rock!

Happy Birthday Shirley, best MIL ever!

I have coined what I feel is the perfect description of my life these days:

My life is a circus: it's fun, a little overwhelming and there is too much poop involved.

And in the centre ring today we had Little Guy, the crankiest baby to ever crank in cranktown. There was no settling him. Nursing didn't help, rocking didn't help, singing didn't help (if you've ever heard me sing this would not surprise you), holding him and pretending I had nothing invested in him calming down did nothing.

To make matters worse, I had to collect a midstream urine sample from the poor kid today (nothing serious, some follow up tests to make sure his prematurity didn't cause any problems), so he had to be chilly and diaperless for quite some time. (note to moms - let the kid fall asleep, then take the diaper off, the pee will come. the kid may wake up, but the pee will come.)

So by the end of the day, my brain was full of baby whining, and preschooler chatter, and my shoulders ached from carrying Little Guy and the house was a mess because you can't clean up while holding a baby and supper wasn't ready because you can't make tacos while holding a baby.

At 6, The Man came home and held Little Guy so I could have a few minutes to myself and then make supper.

And then, shortly after supper, he smiled and gurgled at me and then fell asleep.

And the whole challenge of babycare was erased.

I knew I'd had a hard day, and that I'd felt overwhelmed but looking at him, I felt good. Instantly my shoulders felt better and my brain felt clear, and I just wanted to see him smile at me again.

They can be 12lbs of challenge for 8 hours straight but they fall asleep for 5 minutes and they're angelic.

This mothering thing is crazy.

I'm surprised at how few people know that March 8 is International Women's Day - not to criticize them, because it is not exactly a Hallmark marketed 'holiday'.

I don't know when I first found out about it but I have marked it in a small way for a very long time and it is just part of my mental calendar, like someone's birthday. I don't make a huge deal of it, (although I usually have a dessert party for my female friends and relatives - but that's more of an excuse for the party than a commemoration) but I do make some time to think about women who are discriminated against for being women, and I think about other mothers and the struggles they face as they try to protect their children without being overprotective.

I'm not much of an activist, I usually keep my battles small, helping people directly around me rather than seeking a big cause - the whole 'charity begins at home' thing - but I am aware of the problem in the big picture and I hope that my efforts in the small picture can help in some way.

I feel I should sign off in some grand way - keep up the fight, sisters! or something of that sort but that is so not me. Instead, I will quote some pretend Latin:

Illegitimi non carborundum

(don't let the bastards wear you down)

and that can apply to anyone struggling with the challenges life is presenting.