Matt has the habit of squeezing my tush as a gesture of affection. It is sometimes endearing, sometimes annoying; kind of like Matt himself... I'm just kidding, honey! ;)
Recently, Sasha decided to take up the habit herself. Particularly when I am not yet dressed in the morning. Yes, I'm sure you can all picture it. Please wipe the coffee off your screen now, thanks.
As a natural and inevitable result, Matt is no longer allowed to do this while Sasha is awake and there is any chance he will be observed. Ah, the sacrifices one must make to be a good parent.
My kitchen is: Most of the way there. Another long, miserable day in a long, miserable month. I need a vacation.
We had it made. Sasha was going to bed nicely, sleeping clean through to nearly 7am, every single night. No more 4am night nursing. No more Ferber. And then the inevitable happened: I finally had to take a business trip.
I found out on a Wednesday that I'd have to go to Colorado Springs the next Tuesday. It would've been Monday, but I put my foot down and said no for once. Still, three business days' notice for travel is... upsetting, at best. But that's another blog entry entirely.
We did our best to warn Sasha ahead of time. "Mommy is going to go away for a while, but daddy will take good care of you. And mommy will come back soon!" We even told her that I'd be gone before she woke up the morning I left (6am flight, I got my cab at 4:15). Only fair, we figured, to let her know what to expect.
The night before I left, she seemed to understand, and seemed OK, until I put her to bed. Then she remembered: Mommy wouldn't be there in the morning. She totally flipped out. Her logic, and sound it was, seemed to be that mommy couldn't possibly go anyplace if mommy stayed in her room. After over a half hour, I gave up at placating her and simply let her cry. Heartbreaking, but not a lot else to do. She fell asleep before too long, and that was that.
The trip itself was the typical comedy of errors that every site install is. Nothing too harrowing. I met a lot of nice people, and I got to admire the mountains for a bit. It really is beautiful out there. The mountains are sudden, like somebody just dropped them in the middle of a plain and forgot to clean them up again; and everything is so far apart. The sky yawns over everything, much bigger than it is back on the East Coast.
After a shaky start, Sasha did admirably without me for three days. She asked about me, but was OK with daddy's explanations; at daycare, she was prone to crying more easily than usual, and wanted to snuggle Roro more, but considering the circumstances, she was a real trooper. I met the two of them at the airport, and she was absolutely thrilled! Mommy home, yay! And since it was a bit past her bedtime, she fell asleep in the car on the way home. This gave me some small hope that three days was a good lead-in to total weaning. A short-lived hope.
Friday morning, we went right back into the swing of things as though nothing had happened. Sasha was a little extra giddy, because I was home, I think; but it was a wonderful relief to know that everything had gone so well in my absence.
Friday night, the other shoe dropped. Sasha went to bed, pretty much on schedule. And then, at around 11pm, she woke up. She hadn't done that in months. A fluke, I thought; she must still be off-kilter from missing me. I went in and gave her some snuggles, and with some difficulty, got her to bed again.
Saturday night, she was up by 10:30, and simply would not let me out of her sight again. She wanted to sleep in our room, with us. After much cajoling, she would agree to sleep in her crib, but only as long as I was standing there patting her tushy. Three times, she woke up again and started crying all over within a minute of my creeping away. After two hours of this, we let her come in and sleep with us ("but no snack," I warned her; I really want the night-weaning to stick).
And so here I am, Sunday night, waiting for the witching hour. It's pretty obvious to me that Sasha is petrified that mommy is going to run off again in the middle of the night, and she's doing her level best to keep me here. I feel pretty awful. And oh, do I miss those days when Sasha went to bed at 8 and slept for a solid 11 hours. It was only a week ago.
My kitchen is: Well, it's a little on the messy side. But I do have some good news to report! We're going on four or five weeks since we let go of the cleaners, and if anything, the house is staying cleaner than it used to. I didn't have time early last week to finish my weeklies, and then Matt and the baby were home alone, so things naturally moved a little to the messy side. But it only took me about an hour on Friday to get everything presentable again. Not spotless squeaky-clean, mind you, but I wouldn't fall all over myself apologizing to anyone who stopped by, either. (I love you, FlyLady!)
I learned something very important this week. When you call the tech support guy, and he says "Well, the supported way is to totally reinstall, and that's what I'm putting in your call notes... but there is also an unsupported way to fix it by changing a bunch of registry keys..." JUST DO THE TOTAL REINSTALL.
A fitting end to a thoroughly miserable week.
Every now and again, over the last few years, my grandpa has come up in conversation, and I would often make the same remark: "My grandpa," I would say with a naughty smile, "is little and cute and pink. He's so adorable." Now, some of you may think this is disrespectful. Maybe a little too flip. That may even be true.
My grandfather passed away about two weeks ago, now, and I've been thinking long and hard ever since about what to write. The truth will do, I think, and nothing else. This in no way denigrates the esteem in which I hold my grandfather. Love takes a lot of forms, and my memory of my grandfather as a crotchety pink teddy bear is my truth about someone that I love very much.
For all practical purposes, I've only ever had one grandpa. There were obviously two at one point, but my mom's dad died long before I started forming coherent memories. My dad's dad, though, was always a quiet force in my life. He always had a joke to crack and a life lesson to teach you. He wasn't always next door to me, but like all of my Michigan family, I knew he was out there, ready to leap in if I ever needed him.
I remember him forever tinkering in the garage, always building or fixing or helping. One of my most treasured possessions is a white wooden cradle that he made for me with his own hands, (along with the doll, mattress and quilt to go in it that my grandma made). I've kept them with me through easily dozens of moves since the day I got them; that was well over twenty years ago.
I remember my grandpa coming to my rescue when my car died in the freezing cold because my gas line froze up. He explained to me the mechanics of gasoline in cold weather, and I've never let my tank get too empty in the winter since.
I remember grandpa chasing Sasha and playing peek-a-boo with her at our family party in November. They obviously loved each other so much, and I am so grateful that they got to spend that time together. Sasha is too young to remember him, but so long as I remember them playing together, then I can tell her someday. I think this memory may very well be the one I treasure most.
It wasn't until my grandfather's funeral, though, when I heard what everyone else had to say, that I started to really understand how much influence he has had on my life. Some time ago, I read a very powerful piece of advice. Decide what kind of people you wish there were more of in the world; then go out and be that person.
Well, the person I want to be is an awful lot like my grandfather. I try to work hard and do every job the right way, the first time. I try to help people in whatever capacity I can. I try to always make my family my absolute top priority in life.
So: little and cute and pink? My grandfather was certainly not a tall man. And I absolutely adored him. As for pink, that's absolutely indisputable. It's not a solemn description. But grandpa was never really a solemn man, and it would be a discredit to remember him other than how he was.
I really miss him.