Wow what a rough night, what a rough morning. Red woke up at 3 AM feeling clingy, needy, and refusing to let go of my hand. I broke my rule of “no kids in bed” and asked her to come with me. Big Bro heard this and he came too. So we all had a “comfy” night together in bed. I know, this is wrong. This is hard to break. But it was 3 AM and I needed sleep. And I missed my kids since I didn’t see them the night before. So it was selfish of me, too.

I had to wake up early so I could take an 8 AM conference call in the city. I needed to take an earlier ferry. So this AM was unusual again today… and it got worse…

Highlights of the Morning and Commute:

• I woke up to Red and Big Bro. Red was in a great mood. Asking me about my clothes, my stockings, my skirt. And how she has tights, and skirts, and how her skirts have shorts underneath. And if my skirts have shorts too? How cute. She really was in a great, playful mood.
• Then I saw the Twins bouncing and bounding into the bedroom…. “Mommy!! Mommy!” Twin Crazy was so excited that she was jumping up and down and jumping like a rabbit over to me. Big hugs and kisses. Twin Husky was equally excited, but in his own subdued way.
• Chocolate Tuesday! Big kids head downstairs. I get their clothes together.
• I tried to help getting the kids breakfast and then had to pack up to catch the earlier ferry. I had coffee automatically brewed so it was easy to get my fuel for the morning.

My walk to the ferry was nice. I am going to have a busy day today. Back to back conference calls again. It is foggy. Very foggy. As I approach the dock I wonder if it is too foggy for the boat to leave. I can’t see the boat. Was it cancelled? I get there to find out that the ferry is there, but it is full. Shit. What do I do now? What do I do about the conference call, and what does my schedule look like for the rest of the day incase I take the call from home and then try to drive into the city?

I arrive at home, kids are surprised to see me. I look at my schedule and decide to have my admin cancel the 8 AM call and reschedule. I will try again for the normal ferry time to make it to the office for the rest of my meetings.

• I walk in to see Red sprawled across the benches and screaming crying. Big Bro is not dressed. Twins are upstairs with Hubby.
• I try to work hard to Red. She is very upset about something. It doesn’t look like she ate breakfast. She is clinging to me. I get her down to get her dressed. She refuses the shirt I picked out. I ask her about a different shirt. I try shirt #2. She is still bawling. I decide to take her to school and hubby take Big Bro and Twins. This puts Big Bro in a fit. He wanted me to drop them off. I promise to pick him up later today and to do scooter to school tomorrow. He didn’t get any help from me during dress time [he doesn’t need my help but he likes the attention] since I was spending so much time with Red. All of this was happening while my Admin was on speakerphone working with me to cancel/reschedule the 8 AM call. Too funny. What a collision between work and home. These collisions I always find interesting but a bit stressful.
• I try to leave with Red and it is hard with her shoes, her lunchbox, and now she is bawling about the little red reindeer stuffed animal. You’ve got to be kidding me. Big Bro is in the doorway crying about how I’m not dropping him off. I can’t do much about this now but I will try to make their evening special in some way. Plus I need to give the Twins some time too….. hmmmmm.
• Red drop off at pre-school was not easy. Clinging. Pouting. I made her laugh on several occasions but it wasn’t enough to turn her mood around. I left with her being held by her teacher, her bawling and reaching out to me, and me prying her little fingers off of my jacket. Uggggh.

So, now I’m on the ferry. It’s like groundhog day. I feel like I had two mornings. And it hasn’t gone particularly well so far. Plus I’m hungry. I had barely a dinner last night (beer and bread) so I guess I’m a bit sluggish too. Plus tired from being woken up in the middle of the night.

Work will go well today. I will have several meetings and hopefully the consultant who I enlisted to help me with my client deliverable will turn around something EXCELLENT for me. I’ve heard a lot of great things about him and how dependable he is so hopefully he gives me back something good. It will make my new work arrangement that much easier if we finally have people we can rely upon to do the heavy lifting of project work. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Highlights of My Working Day:
It was a sort-of productive day, and I felt good being in the office and interacting with people.

• I had three different 1:1 debrief conference calls for the two forums I am managing. Again, great ideas and feedback from the participants.
• I also started to think through the organization of the Spring meetings – I sent out “Save the Date” information to all of the participants from both forums…. i still need to close out loose ends from the last meeting though…. I will need to focus on that next week.
• I spent some time thinking through the client deliverable and am looking forward to getting the work from the consultant who is helping me. I will work on that draft tomorrow at home during my half-day and **hopefully** I will feel good about that first draft.

I’m on the ferry now headed home to pick up the kids. They almost feel like strangers to me since I didn’t see them last night and this morning was very fragmented and rushed. I’m looking forward to getting “re-acquainted” with them.

Dinner and Bedtime:

• Tonight went smoothly – I did the pickups and decided to pick up Red first to give her some extra alone time with me. Dinner prep was fine; the trick I find is to keep the kids occupied. Especially now that the younger ones are starting to fight with the older ones. I had Big Bro and Red put up stick-up decorations on our windows around the house. This worked well.

• I broke my rule about “one meal” at dinner tonight. Usually I have the kids eat whatever we are eating, but that meant left-over stew that I knew would not be a hit. So they had home-made mac-n-cheese. The funny part was when Twin Husky started to dive into the stew, “caveman” style.

• We then finished putting lights up along the banister which was fun but a bit daunting. It really is impossible to keep two 22 month olds away from little white lights, especially when the lights are within reach of their little hands.

• The biggest milestone of the evening was when TWIN CRAZY WENT PEE-PEE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN A LITTLE POTTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I cannot believe it. When I started to change her, I realized that her diaper was sort of dry so I figured there MUST be some pee-pee in there. I asked her if she wanted to try and she ran to the door. We all gathered in and sat with her. Red even held her hand. She switched from two different little potties and was “talking” the whole time and I didn’t even realize it but lo and behold…. I saw a bit of a discoloration… and upon further investigation I realized that YES, my little pumpkin girl, my little Twin who was born at 6 pounds 5 ounces nearly 22 months ago, ACTUALLY PUT A LITTLE TEENY TEENY bit of pee-pee in there. OMG it was great. She helped me dump it in the toilet, and she flushed herself, and we all sat there and said good-bye to it as it was flushed away. We were all cheering and clapping and excited and all of us got an ice-cream treat and also I gave her extra M&Ms for going to the potty. I told her that we are so proud of her and love her so much and if she continues to go, each time she will get a treat and an M&M. She was so proud of herself. The look on her face. She started laughing and jumping and she then DID NOT WANT ME to put a diaper on her for bedtime. OMG she is not a baby anymore. She is a girl. My little girl. Big Bro drew a picture for her because he was so proud of her.

So today was a bit dicey at first, but ended up great, and is certainly a day that I hope to never forget.

Til tomorrow –

– Mama K