What we didn't know

We have some friends who have some friends who have some friends who are lesbians and expecting their first child in the spring. Via this friend chain, they asked about talking with us and we said sure, so I'm supposed to be talking to one of them tomorrow morning. The whole thing makes me think about all the things I didn't know before becoming a parent. Since most of this blog is pretty much all about the incredible, overpowering love for your children and the way they change your life, I was thinking about the slightly more mundane, but still life-altering aspects about becoming a parent.

For example, let's take sleep. Obviously, there's the sleep deprivation of having a newborn, and, for us, the first two years of having a kid who just would not sleep. But then, there are the patterns your kids develop that are just innate and that you can't change no matter what, like, in our case, our kids' wake-up times. When I talked to the friend of a friend tonight to set up a time to really talk, she mentioned that before 7:30 am would be good for her, but it might be too early for us? Ha!

I know I've gone into this, but Mateo is in our room every morning between 5 and 6 am and he has slept past 8 am exactly one time in his entire life, and that was when he had a fever. The coming into our room thing is actually a big improvement, because he used to wake up at that time shouting "MAMA! MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!" over and over until I finally woke up and dashed across the house to quiet him down before he woke up his sister.

Obviously, almost everyone has to get up early for work whether they have kids or not, but the relentlessness of them NEVER sleeping past 6 does kind of wear you down. Although, I have to admit that having Mateo snuggle in bed with us in the morning and ask in his little chipper, wide-awake voice "Mama? What day is it? What are we doing today?" is pretty adorable.

Then, and I am really going for the mundane here, but towels. Towels, people. We have accumulated about five thousand hand towels since the kids came along and we go through them all at least twice a week. If we used paper towels (ok, we do sometimes, but hardly ever), we would be filling landfills at an alarming rate. I had no idea how much kids could spill, or how many times, or what the true (massive) diameter would be of a spill that resulted from a milk cup being thrown from the table in the midst of a tantrum.

Nor did I have any idea about the constant wiping of hands, faces, etc, and that's just at mealtime. Then came the ART! I know I should lift them up or find a huge stool and have them wash their hands after they've drawn all over themselves, but sometimes it's easier to just wipe them down. So, towels. If you have kids, you will either buy stock in whoever makes Costco paper towels or you will toss your hand towels in the wash with alarming frequency. Also, you should buy stock in the major stain stick company while you're at it.

I used to have a thing for holiday towels, which is kind of unlike me, but nonetheless, I loved putting out the autumn ones in autumn, and the Christmas ones at Christmas, and so on. That has all gone by the wayside. It's Christmas and Halloween and spring and summer and fall in our kitchen all year round, judging by what's hanging next to the sink. Here's a small sampling of what comes out of the laundry every few days:

And, finally, just to get this out of my system so the lady I talk to tomorrow doesn't think I'm a total freak: swimming. Swimming with your kids is so fun. Especially in Portland where they have soaking pools that are like huge hot tubs. Super, duper fun. Until you have to get out. That is when all hell breaks loose, or, at least, it does for us.

Take today, for example. It's been wet and cold and it's actually snowing right now. When the kids got up from their naps, after spending a rather sedentary morning running errands (actually, we were scoring brand new, ridiculously cheap kids' snow gear off of craigslist in preparation for some Mt. Hood time later this winter) and going to a birthday party, I decided we needed to move our bodies. I gave them the choice of the soaking pool or OMSI and they went for the hot water. The great thing about the soaking pool is that it's really like a pool for them, but safer. It has a ledge all around the inside, so the kids can walk all around it safely and it's warm, but not so hot that they can't splash around and get some energy out. For pre-swimmers especially, they have a lot more freedom to explore than at a regular swimming pool.

So, off we went and of course it was packed, because everyone in the world was trying to warm up. We had a great time (and Sacha was doing the first of two long days of parent-teacher conferences, so I tried to keep us in there as long as possible!) splashing and going up and down the steps and floating and such. Then, we got inside and even though I now have a system for this, it was still SO FRUSTRATING that I went from relaxed to wanting to scream just in the time it took to get us all dressed. This was especially frustrating because, like I said, we've been before (with both Sacha and me and with just me) and have developed a system to get everyone out of wet clothes and into dry ones as fast as possible.

The thing is, though, anywhere you go swimming, the locker room is going to be wet, and the kids are going to want to explore and open the door when you don't want it opened, get their hands in the water on the floor, randomly refuse to get their shirt/pants/shoes/anything at all on, demand to go pee right then even though the bathroom is across the hall and closed for cleaning, or possibly several of these things at once. I always make sure to get them dressed and cozy before I get myself dressed, because I don't want them cold and wet and also because I've learned the hard way that doing all three of us at once is even more of a disaster. At least when I get them dressed first, I can let them out into the rest of the dressing room and they can spend their time unloading the rest of our stuff onto the floor and crawling in and out of the lockers and slamming any open doors repeatedly. Getting dressed all together makes it almost 100% likely that one of them will loudly and repeatedly ask me something like "MAMA, ARE THOSE YOUR (BODY PARTS)? MAMA? IS THAT YOUR UNDERWEAR?" which is always makes me feel like a real winner of a mom.

Anyway, so I'm trying to get them dressed today and I have almost made it to the finish line - we are all dressed and just need to get our shoes on. However, all the mats in the locker room are soaked and there are people sitting on the only bench, so I make this makeshift arrangement in the corner and have us all stand on towels so that I can get their feet dry and their shoes on.

However, this puts us near the door of the locker room, which people have to walk through to get to the soaking pool. Naturally, Tali starts whacking the door handle up and down as loudly as she can, not responding to me counting her or asking her to please stop. I then threaten to take away the pizza dinner I had promised them if they can't show me they can behave, which has no effect on her, of course. Sensing that the pizza might be about to vanish in front of his eyes, Mateo takes it upon himself to plaster himself in front of the door so his sister can't touch it, but, also, no one else can get in or out. Good times.

We finally made it out into the hall, which is when we discovered that the bathroom was closed, but that's a whole 'nother story, and we did finally make it to dinner and then home without further incident. I guess I'm just saying, wow, parenting is exhausting. It is amazing and fulfilling and I would never change our choices, but just typing all that out made me think of the pre-kid me and what I would think of that. Sacha and I used to go to a soaking pool place in San Francisco that was for women only and we would go and relax and then go out to dinner afterwards. Now, a trip to the pool (heated or outdoors in the summer) is fun (and still worth doing), but it requires some serious emotional fortitude to get back to the car without totally blowing one's top!

Finally, and this is more positive, I never realized how jaw-droppingly sweet it is to see your kids interacting in a loving way. Mateo has never been especially affectionate or demonstrative towards his sister, but recently he's been wanting to kiss her, hug her, and he's started calling her "sweetie," just like Apa does. It is the sweetest thing.

Part of their bedtime routine now includes them giving each other kisses and hugs, and I tell you, that is one of the really good parts. Even with the relentless early waking, the towels, the insane amounts of laundry, the swimming logistics, and all those million other time-consuming things that aren't fun but have to be done once you have kids, it really is true, for me, however corny it is, that all it takes is one moment where Mateo calls Natalia "sweetie" or a time where they both want to tell me that they love me and smack me right on the lips and it is all worth it. All of it.

Now I just need someone to remind me of that when, after adjusting to a new normal twice now, we're adjusting to the new normal that Drizzle's arrival brings with it! I actually can't wait. I know it will be a big change and a ton of work, but I can't wait for all of it anyway.