Why do we do these things?

Today was a "why me?" kind of day, which is especially ridiculous when my problems only involved feeling a bit overwhelmed by work, children who won't sleep, and expensive and frustrating pool repairs, yet in the last 24 hours one friend of mine has had a stroke she may not recover from, another started chemo, and a colleague who runs the largest and longest-running event similar to mine stepped down in disgust after malicious rumors started circulating about him being a Nazi. So, yeah. I actually had a pretty good day, relatively speaking. 

Still I had a moment of zen today, thinking first about being a homeowner, then about being a parent. After I had a pool repair guy back to the house for a third time today ($500 and counting) to fix the issue of the pool overflowing and wasting hundreds of gallons of water which has been ongoing on and off for years, he told me "that's pools for ya," meaning, endless repairs. I have probably sunk $20,000 into this thing in maintenance and repairs over a ten year period. Then I started thinking about the probably $100,000 I've spent over thirteen years in home improvements and maintenance of this house, not to mention an additional $100,000 squandered in home equity I now have to spend my life paying back after an ill-fated attempt at real estate investing. Which kind of brings me to the point - is it worth it? Is it worth it to be a homeowner, when I'd be a lot better off financially if I'd just lived in a rental all this time? The tax credits I've gotten over the years couldn't possibly add up to the debt I've incurred. So why do it?

Because I would never have been satisfied if I hadn't. Because I would have spent my life saving up for a down payment, sacrificed everything to make it happen. Because being in my 40s and living in some marginal 1 bedroom apartment would not have been ok with me. 

The same issue comes up about the kids, and how expensive they are, and how much better off I'd be - maybe even happier, more well rested for sure - if I were just on my own. But I never would have been satisfied with that. I just wouldn't have stopped until I had two kids. Why? Who knows? Do I regret it? Of course not, never. I love that I conjured these two beings. My bank account doesn't, but I do.

Would I rather be 42 and childless in a low-maintenance small apartment with a nice fat 401K? No. So there it is.

Still there was a moment today that gave me a real feeling of pride and satisfaction with my lot, sleepless nights and stress be damned.

Today the pool repair guy's wife, a woman who spoke little English, asked as best she could if the father of the boys had "left". I wasn't comfortable talking about this with her (mainly because of the graphic image of a bleeding Christ pulling a cross as part of their business logo on their truck), but she forced my hand, so I said no, I used a sperm donor.

I held up my beautiful second-born baby boy like a plate of cupcakes and with a big smile, said, "I made them myself!"

The quest for sleep

So last night I got completely fed up with my shitty sleep and let Theo cry it out. Occasionally we get a decent night's sleep - still woken up a lot, but at least not that I would remember it - but mostly it's Theo up just about every hour or two, mangling my nipples. It's awful and I can't take it any more. So for lack of any other kind of plan, I have taken to just letting him scream/fuss/whatever. Last night I thought it was reasonable to feed him halfway through the night at midnight  - but other than that, forget it. In the wee hours I went and slept on the couch.

He is currently screaming his head off in his crib while I watch on the baby monitor. I have been in to comfort him three times. He's just going to have to figure it out now. 

I do this with no plan, no malice, and no real sense of purpose. All I know is I am exhausted, he has nothing wrong with him, and I don't know what else to do. I am not in a position to work with him through this sleep regression or whatever-the-fuck because I have another child to care for and a mountain of work to get through.

I also would really like to establish better sleep habits before my event in six weeks. Being woken up all night and then up at the crack of dawn with a two-year-old, then enduring the intensity of the stress that goes on at my event...no sir. That's a recipe for a disaster right there. So this child simply must start sleeping better before then. Plenty of other babies his age give their mothers good sleep at this point. Let's get with the program, kiddo.

Home again

We're home. Yesterday I woke up profoundly depressed, feeling so bummed that yet another trip to gorgeous Kauai was so awful (my last trip in 2010, my aunt died in Connecticut while I was gone, spurring my Smc plans). I also wondered if I was doing the right thing by leaving - but a quick check of the weather confirmed it; stormy and rainy yesterday, today, and Tuesday. Can you imagine not even being able to drive to a beach for three days??? Oh my God! 

So of course the flight back was torture but we survived. I suppose people have flown on their own with two + kids before...but I wouldn't recommend it. You really do have to be an octopus. It verges on the physically impossible, and reminds me again of the Jim Gaffigan joke about what it's like having four kids - "imagine you're drowning, then someone hands you a baby."

My host called as I was at the airport, having gotten wind of my departure. He said he was mortified - I would have been, too - but I think I convinced him it wasn't their fault. Sure, it would have been better had our families spent time together going to beaches. But I still would have had to contend with the stressful room situation with no baby proofing and juggling the two while trying to cook, shower, etc. And with three days of rain, ugh! 

I guess what I learned from this trip is you must travel door to door with someone who's sole purpose is to help you - either a dedicated friend, family member, or paid sitter. They need to fly with you, help haul crap, help with the kids as a group, and even take the kids entirely so you can have a moment to yourself. Otherwise it's just not worth it.

Last night I got the kids to bed and made a little dinner and watched TV for about an hour before crashing myself. It was the first second alone I'd had since last Tuesday. It was divine. I don't know how people - especially stay at home moms - handle toddlers and babies that stay up as late as they do, so there's never a moment to yourself. I would lose my mind!!! Thank God for early bedtimes, separate bedrooms, and toys. I've had a glimpse at life without them, and it is not pretty.

Done and done

We're heading home tomorrow, four days early. I called United to see what would be involved in changing my flight, and to see if there even was a flight. It's only going to cost $100 and there's a flight leaving at noon tomorrow. Done!!!

This morning I endured the torture of packing the whole room up in anticipation of being shifted to another room, with a toddler unpacking it as fast as I could pack it, then waiting around for help while he climbed the walls. Thankfully people did come to help me move all our crap to a holding room while I checked out, then I thought I'd hang around with the family with kids, but then they all started fighting so I lost it and dragged B away, kicking and screaming. Some of the (very uptight and unfriendly) older members of this group were chastising B and barking at him "big boys don't cry!" It was another awful start to the day.  I sat in the car with B still screaming, Theo wailing away as always, and the air conditioning blasting, with again no plans of any kind, and burst into tears. It was at this point that I decided it was time to go. 

Ironically, once the flights were changed and everything was settled and I decided to let go of trying to meet up with anyone, the three of us had a very pleasant day. We went to a nifty farmer's market and had a nice lunch, then drove to a lovely cove beach where we spent much of the day. It was so mellow and safe I could even let B on his own and didn't have to hover over him every second. If only I could have put Theo down for two seconds I could have gotten in the water with B and we could have had a blast playing together...but no. 

Got back to the timeshare, gathered up all my stuff and painstakingly moved it to my new room with baby on chest and toddler in tow - tons of people watched me struggling but nobody offered to help; these people suck - another hot, exhausting affair. Was reminded how glad I am I cut this puppy short and am leaving tomorrow. 

Did anyone from the group check in with me at all today? Nope. Apart from one mother/daughter combo we ran into this evening to whom I want to donate all my unopened food, I'm not even going to tell anyone I'm going. What's the point? 

Had another Rube Goldberg-esque evening of trying to get the baby to sleep while Bumpus rampaged around, then had to figure out dinner, then tooth brushing, then bathing us both, packing up for tomorrow's departure, calming the hysterical woken-up baby, then getting toddler down to bed...ugh! And it'll be another long night of hour-on-the-hour feeding for Theo, no doubt. 

I have not decided if I'm going to mention my early departure on Facebook or not. I actually really don't want my hosts to feel bad. They didn't do anything wrong; I just got in over my head. It just goes to show what a liar Facebook is; it shows awesome happy pictures like this one, making you think we're having the time of our lives. But you people know the truth. 

Oh, the humanity

Ok. I think it's time to admit that this trip was a terrible idea. Now my only hope is to survive the next five days (literally - the possibility of utter disaster is around every corner); getting the slightest pleasure out of it flew out the window some time ago.

It sounded so good on paper - go to Hawaii, stay in the same timeshare with a big group of fun people with similar-aged kids, all chip in to help each other and the kids entertain each other. Right? Wrong. So, so wrong.

You know what happens when you get a bunch of toddlers and preschoolers together? They scream and fight over toys (and by "toys" I mean light switches and garbage), push each other and hit each other with sticks. So you can't leave them to play for half a second. And you certainly can't leave your four month old baby unattended, so he has to be in a carrier all the time, which he hates, so he lunges and screams and claws you with tiny razor-like fingernails all day long.

Then nobody can decide where to go or what to do so everyone just goes off on their own, which means I spent yet another miserable day alone on a beach with a baby and a toddler, trying desperately to keep the toddler from drowning while simultaneously trying to keep the baby from drowning as the toddler yanks and pulls on me so hard I am nearly always on the brink of falling into the water with the baby on my chest.  It's horrifying and exhausting. It's also hot, my back hurts like hell from the baby in the carrier, I am constantly worried that we don't have enough sunscreen on and are about to burn to a crisp, I get wicked headaches and am always thirsty or hungry but can do nothing about it because the second I take my eye off Bumpus a wave will come and sweep him away and that'll be it. 

To top it all off the stupid timeshare is making me pack up and check out of my room at 10 tomorrow morning, melting groceries and all, only to be roomless until 4 PM when I have to check into a new room. Why? Who the hell knows? Apparently several in our group have to go through this rigmarole, which according to the front desk should have been explained to us by the timeshare owners. I'm extremely pissed about this, but what can you do? Just another totally irritating and inconvenient thing to endure. 

This morning I considered taking us home today and saying the hell with it. I'm pretty sure this would cost a fortune otherwise I'd do it in a heartbeat. I have no desire to try to see if things improve - it's pretty clear that this is just how things like this go. I've said it before - one person simply cannot go on a beach vacation with a baby and a toddler unless you're at a special resort designed for your kids' age group, and you can get tons and tons of childcare. Unless you like having a screaming baby strapped to you in the hot sun while you try to prevent your two-year-old from drowning for several hours a day, then returning to your chaotic timeshare where your toddler wants to do nothing but tear the whole place apart while the baby screams on a towel on the floor and you futilely try to cook dinner while simultaneously trying to prevent the toddler from running the filthy carpet sweeper over the baby. The fact that neither of them are horribly sunburned, injured, or dead at this point is a minor miracle.

So tomorrow I will drag us to some playground I was told was good (today I dragged B away from one, kicking and screaming, because there were some mean little boys not playing very nicely with a toddler girl whose parents had left her there alone - it was awful and I didn't want Bumpus to be their next casualty). Then maybe I'll hit up the crappy Taco Bell drive thru on the way home again because it's the only way I'm going to get any kind of dinner. 

Right now I'm in our dark, a/c-less hot bedroom with the lights off and a sleeping baby and very much awake toddler who keeps slamming the mirrored closet doors open and shut even though I've asked him not to about fifteen times. How on earth am I going to force this child to sleep when he clearly doesn't want to? Should I let him out into the living room to ransack the place again just to wear him out? How do I do this?

And how the heck do I pack everything up first thing in the morning and haul us all out of here, only to be left with no room for six hours? What the hell are we going to do with ourselves all day???

Here is a picture of my awful Taco Bell dinner eaten in the car while Theo screamed and Bumpus sang tunelessly in the back seat. It was the most enjoyable moment I've had here yet.

42, anyone?

So. Much like my birthday last year was spent in Florida nauseated and in pouring rain, today was equally sucky but made slightly less sucky by kind people making an impromptu party for me.

After another crappy sleep night, I got us up and headed to the store to load up on groceries for the week (another fox/bag of grain/chicken puzzle - how the hell to get three bags of groceries, two giant water jugs, a toddler and a baby up two flights of stairs at the same time? Answer; with great difficulty).

My friend texted that his family was headed to a beach far on the north shore - almost two hours away. But by then I was looking forward to the break a long drive would give me, so I didn't mind. Unfortunately when I got there there was no parking - I mean none. So we had to drive a ways back to park in a lumpy, muddy lot, which meant the stroller was out. Then when we arrived it started pouring rain. I was about to wrap up the baby when just weighing the rain, the long walk along a highway with a toddler, the mud and misery, just didn't seem worth it. So I made the executive decision to turn around and head home, hoping we'd find another beach along the way.

We did find another beach...but like so many beaches here the wind was so strong and it was so rough that I was worried for our safety (I forgot to mention the three of us had a slightly scary encounter with the rough beach by the hotel this morning) so I had to drag poor kicking screaming Bumpus away from this one as well. I did convince him to walk into a large cave a bunch of tourists were exploring, though, which was somewhat cool.

Finally a few miles away we found a lovely beach with a big cove area that turned out to be perfect. Well, as soon as we found a part that didn't slant right down to deep water right away, which B of course stumbled into, which gave me the fun experience of watching his face panic as he tumbled backwards and then fully under water before I could lunge forward and pull him out.

There is just no safe way to be around water with a toddler and a baby. It's physically impossible.

Thank God we were able to stay in this area for some time and B had a blast playing in the sand and shallow water. Theo slept and I actually got to sit down. For my 42nd birthday all I want is to sit down. I would say all I want is to sleep more than two hours in a row, but right now that appears to be too much to ask for.

I went to my friend's place for dinner with a big group of people and they stuck a toy candle in a donut and sang to me. It was a nice way to end the day. 

So I'm glad that the day ended well, because it started off with me repeating over and over things like stop doing that and what's wrong with you and what do you want?!? and you're driving me nuts! while my inner dialogue was an endless mantra of IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis. Some days with little kids are just like that, you know?

Hopefully I will not be alone on the beach much more during this trip. It's a complete waste of time (for me, anyway). Honestly I'd rather pack us all into the car and drive around with the radio blasting over Theo's screaming and look for a drive thru Starbucks.

Better in concept

While it's still fresh in my mind, and while I'm surrounded by sleeping children, I thought now would be a good time to talk about traveling solo with two small children.

In a word, it sucks.

The sad thing is it wouldn't suck quite as much if a) I wasn't so uptight and b) if I were not so heavily burdened by that thing called "hubris". It's times like these that I realize what a thin thread my sense of well-being dangles by; one set of sticky fingers or one sopping diaper and everything falls apart. My life at home is so controlled and regimented; out of my comfort zone, it's just torture. And traveling is absolutely out of your comfort zone.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning with tremendous anxiety - of the I'm-about-to-throw-up variety I haven't experienced in a long while. I honestly almost didn't come. But I managed to wrangle two sleepy children out of bed, haul all of our CRAP to the airport, get on that plane, survive a poopy toddler diaper mid-flight, and come out of it with many compliments from our neighbors on how they "didn't even know" my kids were there (yay us).

The flight was really ok. Bumpus was frustrated by the puzzles and games I'd painstakingly loaded onto the Kindle - too advanced for him, unfortunately - but he did love the one stupid one with shitty animation of cars and trucks that you touch to make "go" (I would say whoever designed that app must be a millionaire, except that it's a free app), so that entertained him sporadically. He melted down massively all during the lengthy security process. But honestly it was really ok. Juggling the two wasn't so bad while we were in flight; having my nipple mangled by one squirmy kid while trying to explain to another squirmy kid why the effing Kindle takes about 800 years to boot up isn't exactly my favorite way to spend a Wednesday, but hey.

The crappy part was hauling all the junk around in this tremendous heat and humidity. I somehow didn't factor in that our room at this timeshare (which is really just a hotel with kitchens) wouldn't be ready until four, and we landed at 11 AM. Luckily my friends were here so I went and hung out in their room - but left all my stuff baking in the car far away; I had no diapers and Theo was soaked, we were all starving and thirsty and exhausted and were way overdressed and had no sunscreen or hats or anything. So it was a frustrating afternoon of just wanting to sleep but instead trying to simulate a beach day with none of the appropriate gear. My friends slathered sunscreen on B and fed and watered us while I felt like a bit of an incompetent idiot. This self-view was only furthered when later, finally allowed to check in, I a) painstakingly hauled all of our crap up two flights of stairs with a tired toddler and a wailing baby in tow, not realizing there was an elevator just feet away, and then b) had a minor meltdown when I couldn't get into my room, having the front desk issue me new keys, only to discover I'd been trying to get into the wrong room.

Thankfully friends of my friends heard the baby screaming in the hallway and offered to play with B while I got settled in the room and got me some groceries; B hung out with them for hours while I desperately tried to nurse Theo and get him to sleep which he finally did, then these same people brought me dinner. 

This says to me that people are awesome, and that I hate having to be the person that always needs help. I take the help gladly, because I need it, and because I know it makes you feel good to be able to help someone in need. But I don't like to be "in need". I want to be the awesome super single mom, not the one who falls apart under the slightest set of unusual circumstances; the one who always needs something.

I'm not sure how the rest of this trip will go, but I'm fairly certain it will involve imposing on people and asking for favors a lot, which I would never have to do if I had a partner. Do couples who vacation with small children feel as messy and disorganized and out of control as I do right now? The sad answer is, probably yes. At least I have no illusions that anything about this trip will be romantic or "rekindle" anything.

I think if I make the kind of money I hope to make next year that it may be worthwhile to plan ahead and travel with other mothers or a nanny. Doing it alone is just too damned hard. I need someone with me from my house to the airport to the destination. I don't want to pass on all future travel for the next decade, but I don't particularly want to do it again like this, either. As always, money could provide a solution. 

Here are a couple of pictures I had the presence of mind to take while we were fooling around on the beach waiting for our room. 

Oh, and I'm 42 tomorrow.