SUPER HUNGY

This morning at 7am in the car while I was dropping Jeff off at work, I blithely made the most karma-jinxing-voodoo-faux-pas of a comment: "Amber has been so cute this week--she has been such a sweet little companion." Realizing my error and sensing the cosmic waves my words were rippling, I attempted to temper the statement with "maybe she seems extra sweet and fun this week because last week during her tonsillectomy recovery she was so exhausting." Jeff chuckled and then went in to work. I drove home, contentedly listening to Amber's cute high little semi-intelligible voice giving me a running commentary on some internal dialogue and trying not to think about the fact that Jeff would not be home until 10pm (courtesy of a far-off track meet in our massive state).

Amber really has been a fun little treasure of a daughter this week. We have had our run-ins, like when I attempted to get her to pee in the potty one day (we are so doomed in regards to Amber and the potty) and Amber sat there for ten solid minutes utterly refusing to pee. I was SO ANNOYED because she knows how to pee in the potty, but she refuses because she just doesn't want to. The condition for her to watch a show was to pee in the potty first. I thought that would motivate her perfectly, but alas, it did not. After an intensely frustrating battle of wills, I let Amber off the toilet but did not let her watch her show. She cried about it and I lost the half hour of quiet I would have gotten from her show-time. Sigh. Parenting. 

ANYWAYS, with the regular exceptions, I have really been enjoying Amber this week. She is so quirky and funny with such a big personality under her curly hair. I found myself nostalgically thinking thoughts such as "what am I going to take pictures of when Amber is in school?" and "I've been looking forward to large blocks of quiet time to write when Amber is in school, but will I even have anything to write about when Amber isn't pushing all of my buttons 24/7?" My heart felt heavy and sad at the thought. Babies growing up is a big, hard thing for us moms. 

After driving Jay and Rose to school this morning, I settled down at the kitchen table with a stack of papers to work on: 

• a school transfer application (Jay and Rose tested into the highly capable program which is offered at a different elementary school, so next school year they will switch schools)
• paperwork for our new optometrist (I could've just stayed with our previous optometrist, but for unpleasant appointments like eye-poking and teeth-gouging I prefer to be as close to home as possible, so we are switching.)
• a cookbook and paper to make a Costco/WinCo pantry restock list (this is the most expensive, least exciting type of grocery shopping, but I really only have to do it once a month or every other month if I'm feeling extra unmotivated, and it is so worthwhile to have a well-stocked pantry.)
• my monthly budget spreadsheet (to make sure I could work in the funds necessary for my aforementioned major pantry re-stock shopping trip)

It was a riveting morning. While I was number crunching and pantry-inventorying (ugh), Amber was bored. She was not in the mood to sit and watch me work. She was not in the mood to go off and play happily by herself. The sprinklers were jetting our yard in gallons of irrigation water, so outside was not an option. Predictably, Amber passed the time pestering me and making my work go turtle-slow. Here's a sample of the events from five minutes while I was trying to work:

• I write a word on my list.
• Amber attempts to click my pen top, messing up my writing.
• I push Amber's hands away and try dreaming up potential dinners for next week.
• Amber grabs my elbow and says loudly "I want to painting!" (she calls watercolors "painting") 
• I leave my papers to quickly fill a cup with water and grab the watercolors and paper, hoping this craft would buy me enough time to finish my work.
• After painting for two minutes, Amber climbs halfway onto the table in front of my face, shouting "I SUPER HUNGY! I SUPER HUNGY!" (I'm super hungry")
• I drag Amber away from my work area, rearranging the papers she disturbed.
• Amber yanks open the fridge and starts climbing the shelves to reach the yogurt which I keep on the top shelf so it's out of her reach. "I get the yogurt!"
• I leap up and pluck Amber out of the fridge (with a similar upwards-and-outwards unhooking motion that one might use to remove a cat from the curtains), telling her "NO CLIMBING the fridge--it's dangerous! And it's not time for yogurt--you just had breakfast an hour ago."
• Amber howls "Yogurrrrrrt! Wahhhh! Yogurrrrrt!" and runs off crying, curling up under her blanket across the kitchen. 
• I look back down at my list, grasping at my dangling train of thought.
• Recovering surprisingly quickly from her yogurt drama, Amber climbs up behind me on my chair, removes my ponytail, and commences tying my hair in knots, pushing it all into my eyes, and generally turning it into a teased, tangled disaster.
• After enduring Amber's hair-doing for nearly 2 entire everlasting minutes and telling her to be gentle 100 times, I ROAR in agony/frustration and stand up, moving my head and hair out of Amber's clawing grasp. Fixing my ponytail, I lecture her impatiently on the importance of being gentle with hair.
• Unconcerned, Amber runs off to play in the other room for one minute and ten seconds.
• I pause to ponder which snack foods are the healthiest/cheapest/most filling, and start adding to my list.
• Amber suddenly appears at my elbow, yanking on my elbow and messing up my writing. "I SUPER HUNGY!"
• I shake her off, grumble at her, and attempt to continue adding to my list.
• Amber walks back to the fridge, tugs it open, and then climbs inside, allowing the door to mostly close on top of her. A small voice floats out of the fridge: "Mommy, can you help me open the door?"

It was a long morning. I could have gotten all of my boring paperwork done in an hour or less, but thanks to Amber, it took me nearly triple that! To vent a little of my frustration at my prolonged pantry planning purgatory, I shot a few cranky texts at Jeff:

• IF I HEAR "I SUPER HUNGY" ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO LOSE IT!
• Amber has been badgering for food me ever since breakfast.
• I'm sitting here trying to make a grocery list and she's pulling on my arm, my hair, pinching me, crying, etc. 
• All I do is clean and figure out food.

At this point, Jeff got a word in edgewise: "You forgot looking fabulous. That is another thing you do, and you do it well." I recognized that he was trying to cheer me up with a compliment and a joke, but I was too Amber-frazzled to completely appreciate it. I continued my whining a little longer...

• My life is so exciting.
• Food stress, Amber stress, and cub scout stress. No wonder so many women work outside the home these days. It's so much easier.
• I know I'm being glum, but seriously:

I sent Jeff this picture of Amber inside the fridge, reaped a little spousal sympathy, and then soldiered on through my lists and paperwork. One of my pet peeves is when people (ok, my children) ask me for food when I am in the process of preparing food for them. It happens almost daily while I'm cooking dinner. "Mommy, can I have a snack? Can I have a little bite of that? Can I lick the spoon?" I always tell them that I am not going to pause preparing their meal to give them food! FOOD FOOD FOOD. It rules my life, and Jay isn't even a teenager yet. Amber asking me for food while I was trying to write a grocery list this morning was right along those same lines and ugh.

Remember all of those nostalgic, melancholy Amber thoughts I wrote about at the beginning of this post? They had all completely vanished after my morning of desk work with Amber all up in my business. The come-and-go nature of my motherly nostalgia (aka the motherly ache) caused me to pause and learn (or re-learn) a lesson. In the future when my nest starts to empty, I may not miss every detail of daily life with a high-strung three year old, but I will miss parts of it, like when she wore a gold crown and pink sunglasses while sitting in the stroller for my entire run yesterday (I will not, however, miss running with the stroller). It's ok not to love every part of this phase. 

It is ok for the days to be hard right now--and in the future! Having a hard day does not mean I love my job or my kids less. Having a hard day does not mean I am wishing away their childhood. It just means that life is life, and nothing can be 100% smooth sailing or perfect all the time. Opposition is an integral part of the joy, as annoying as it can be. 

 "The Queen mounted her chariot and journeyed forth into her kingdom to soak in the sunshine, view the vineyards, and smell the fresh mint fields. She declared it all most satisfactory and appealing."

 Grape vines in the foreground, mint fields in the background. Running on the bumpy gravel roads near our house is not easy with the stroller, and I rarely do it, but yesterday (Wednesday) circumstances left me with stroller-run or insanity, and I chose stroller-run. It was a gorgeous day and we both enjoyed ourselves.

Declaring a Royal Decree. 

After surviving a morning of Amber-pestering today (and finally feeding the "super-hungy" child lunch at 11am--she only ate the yogurt), I defaulted to one of my long-held foundational beliefs: kids who misbehave need more time outside. So we went for a walk and admired the newly dredged mini-irrigation-creek behind our house. It was much safer for throwing rocks in than the giant deep canal next door, so Amber was free to roam as she pleased. And she was pleased. 

Cute creek-let. Endless entertainment. It was hot in the 75 degree sunshine! 

We tossed in a scrap of wood and followed it a long way down the fast flowing ditch water. It went through two culvert pipe-tunnels and only got stuck a few times! It was surprisingly enjoyable, walking along the little stream, watching our wood-scrap raft bob in the current, and cheering when it got unstuck on its own.  

I had to lift/drag her out of this crevice and force her to walk home. Next time maybe I should bring a shade umbrella and a book, and stay as long as Amber wants.

Maybe Amber was actually "super hungy" for the great outdoors!