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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Rainy Days

I'm doing something unusual right now in the sense that I'm writing while both girls are in the room with me. It's been a tough day and I'm hoping right now that when it ends, I'll feel energized by the fact that we managed to have a good day. We don't have any real problems at the moment, no horrific stomach flus or injuries that would make today a really tough day. Just the typical, nasty rainy day blues.

Elena has been sick for over a month now. I don't know if it's one cold that will never leave her or a series of cold, one right after the other but Eliza has nicknamed her "Run Run." She's had an ocean of snot in various colors draining from her nose since late February. Two doctor visits and a 10 day antibiotic have helped, but not eliminated the problem. Throughout much of this, she has maintained her sunny disposition so that's helped me maintain my sanity.

Today she is protesting more than usual but right now she's calm and enjoying playing with Eliza's magic markers. Eliza and I did an arts and crafts project today, making ducks, flowers and Easter baskets from cut-out pieces of construction paper. The six ducks are now taped to the window over their blue construction paper pond. This little art project managed to keep Eliza pretty happy for close to two hours now. And the happiness continues for the moment as she happily names her little ducks "Sarah, Lara, Vonn and Tina." The poor little baby ducks are not only legless but apparently not worthy of names either but they don't seem to mind.

The playroom is a mess and Eliza just tramped on something and now screams like she's enduring an injection.

"I have to clean up this messy room," she screeches, then promptly sits down. Now she's back on her feet marching and the room remains a mess. I could push it, yes, but you should have heard the tongue lashing I got when I asked her to take her plate from the table to the counter. She spewed forth everything from "I don't wanna" to "You don't like me" to "I'm not a very nice girl." Never mind the fact that I tell her it would be very nice of her to clean up her plate, she'd much rather cry and hop on the poor self-esteem bandwagon by wallowing in the bad self-image that comes with selfishness instead of performing a simple act that might correct this poor picture of herself. Sometimes it's not worth the fight but I do find it interesting how early they learn to manipulate by claiming to feel unloved in order to get out of helping around the house.

It's 12:40 now so I'm less than halfway through this day that started with Eliza's bloody nose. As the baby cried, I stripped the bed and I have to say Eliza was very good about cleaning up her face and the bathroom door. I'd just gotten her bedding blood-free and back on her bed when I scooped Elena out of her crib and realized she'd apparently crapped during her nap. And oh yeah, that Huggie leaked.

So laundry machine's going (thank goodness I have one after 15 years of living in New York City and laundromats) Eliza just tossed a stuffed bear wearing an "I heart Israel" sweater at me and Elena tries to write on a plastic storage bin with a twistable crayon. It's all good here, right now, I swear. Tonight when I sit down to watch "Lost" that show better be worthy of the day I survived. It better be the best television episode that ever was, the kind of TV to rival "Who Shot JR" that people talk about for years to come.

But it won't be. Oh well.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Spring

I haven't written about my girls for a while so I'll start with something Eliza said in the bathtub last night. Both girls were bathing together and Eliza presses her little 4-year-old butt to Elena's 11month old butt and says "Look, we're touching tushies, like a tushie high-five." For the rest of the bath, she continued to roll her butt towards Elena's and say "High Five!"

It was a lovely, funny moment in a lifetime of funny moments. We enjoyed a wonderful spell of fine weather last week. Oh Elena's been sick with oceans of snot running down her face but we enjoyed a playground at the beach, the local playground at the lake, two get-togethers with Eliza's school friends and a picnic in the park that was crashed by a squirrel. Throughout her sickness, Elena has proven to be an absolute joy, the kind of baby one dreams of having but doesn't usually exist. When she spiked a fever, she was unsmiling and needy for all of 24 hours. But even now, as I type this, she is crawling on the floor happily playing with an empty snack bag (bad mama) and a plastic circle of fake peas or grapes or some kind of play food.

Eliza has grown more challenging. She wants constant attention and entertainment and for a single mother, this is difficult. I do not relish plopping her in front of the TV for hours (what do you think she's doing right now) but it has become necessary. She wants constant companionship and while she does seem quite capable of playing on her own, lately she has protested doing so. She misses the cutoff for Kindergarten here next year, a small detail that has filled me with a lot of anxiety. Could I afford New York, she'd be registered for Kindergarten next year. Because I can't, she is set to attend a local preK program that only lasts for 2 and a half hours a day. It will be her third year of preschool and a big step down for her but I've fought with both the local public school and even the privates on this issue and they won't budge. If they're going to stick to a date on the calendar so it's the allmighty, it shouldn't vary from state-to-state. It's a much harder pill to swallow when I know all I have to do is move back to NY and she'd start school when I think she should.

I even thought about relinquishing her to C but the thing is, he doesn't really want her. When I tried to talk to him about the subject, he simply said "That's the way it is" and didn't offer any guidance. I am glad he knows he's not capable of being a full-time anything, but I can't force a situation he does not want just so she'll start school on time. So instead I obsess about it and I'm thinking of moving to Connecticut where I also have family. But it's very expensive and I can't do it without a job.

So I've spent a lot of time looking and applying for jobs. Since I started my job search last fall I've only received two rejections and one confirmation that they received my application. That's it. I've applied for something like 50 jobs and this is all I have to show for it. Yes, it's disheartening, especially when I add that my savings runs out and I won't be able to stay in this apartment or any apartment when that happens. So I'm hoping to find a job before my savings runs out. I am growing less optimistic as the days pass.

But still my girls are lovely. Elena turns 11 months on Sunday! Only one more month before she hits a year! It is sad and wonderful at the same time. I will cry as I bid adieu to her babyhood but I know we have so many more wonderful moments and milestones together. This is only beginning.