First off, thank you all for being so kind on Monday (and in real life since then). I got not one single comment that was anything less than totally supportive and awesome – not even anonymously or in my spam filter. I was LOOKING for someone to tell me to go screw myself for being a lousy mom and a lousy human being – because that’s how I’ve been feeling about myself for months – but now I guess I’ll have to stop beating myself up and just enjoy feeling like a person again.

Ok, phew, back to our regularly scheduled posting.

On Tuesday I took the kids to visit the preschool a friend recommended. I’m SO OVER calling around and trying to find info about every single program we might even consider considering. I HATE making phone calls, especially because  for some reason these schools are harder to track down than Osama Bin Laden (is that still a joke? What else is hard to track down? Big Foot?) They aren’t listed anywhere, they don’t have direct phone numbers, NONE of them have websites, which is ridiculous. IT IS 2012. GET ONLINE. Anyways, I called for info on this particular school a few weeks ago and read through their packet and it seemed nice so we went in to look around.

I liked it. Evan seemed to like it. They have a toddler program Caroline can attend when she’s 2-ish. There weren’t any children chained up in the corners and I didn’t see anyone pushing meth behind the play equipment so I guess it’s…good? What are the standards for preschool? Am I supposed to judge whether their circle time is appropriately circular? Should I be worried that some of the butterfly craft projects were done in non-complementary colors? They had lots of blocks and puzzles and dinosaurs and OK fine, so it’s going to feel a bit like I’m just paying to let him play three days a week but is that really so bad? I like the idea of someone else arguing with encouraging him to pick up after himself and doing the same puzzle over and over and helping him wash his hands every time he thinks they have gotten even the tiniest bit sticky. I think that would be good for both of us.

Based on my completely non-scientific survey on Twitter the cost seems reasonable (although my husband is still having a minor heart attack) and within our price range. I suppose if it was REALLY REALLY important we could figure out a way to pay for a fancier school. And if I started buying our fruits and vegetables off the bruised cart and switched to generic toothpaste and don’t buy ANY new clothes for the next 5 years we might even be able to afford the fancy Montessori school for a semester or two. But do I really want to apply for tuition assistance for a 3-year-old? Am I somehow failing my kids if I don’t send them to the very best thing available? And who even knows if that WOULD be the very best thing? Maybe Evan would hate it. Maybe he’s going to hate any preschool. I’m pretty sure I got kicked out of at least one myself – also known as the Great Block Throwing Scandal of ’86 – so I wouldn’t be too shocked.

This decision really shouldn’t be this hard. I keep telling myself I should just be glad we don’t live somewhere that super competitive waiting list $10,000 a year preschools are our only option. I think it’s helping, a little at least.

Today I’m stuck home with a busted car and a baby trying to bust some new teeth through her poor swollen gums and I feel like busting out the vodka to go in my third cup of coffee.

(The car people just called. They think the huge electrical freakout happening to my minivan has been caused by…coins. In my radio. One guess who’s responsible. I…have no words.)

The upside to being home is I don’t have to fight with the toddler. Because the fighting? Is driving me insane. And the not listening. And the running away. And the tantrums. I spend too many hours a day with all my muscles tensed in anticipation of the fight I know is coming any second. I am exhausted before he even DOES anything wrong. My current methods of dealing with the poor behavior are time outs he doesn’t care about, making idle threats, hissing through my teeth, counting to three and then counting to three again and then counting to three again, picking him up and dragging him out of Target, ignoring while I die of shame and bribery.

I’m not even going to pretend I know what I’m doing anymore.

Since I seem to have lost my copy of How Exactly To Parent Your Child So They Always Act Perfectly But Don’t End Up Needing Therapy (I’ve heard people from certain internet message boards get a copy right after they give birth)(Or maybe the childless people are hoarding all the copies – based on their internet comments they certainly THINK they know everything), I think it’s time to put my Amazon Prime membership to use and order up a big stack of parenting books. I am open to suggestions. All suggestions. YOUR suggestions.

So far I’ve got “Unconditional Parenting” – recommended by my friend Robyn – on the crunchy, hippie, new-agey end. And I don’t plan to send Evan out back to cut his own switch, so I won’t need Grandpa’s imaginary book “This Is Going To Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You”. But I figure the more books I read the more likely I am to find something that sounds like a) I (we) can do it and b) might work on MY kid. Or maybe my brain will explode. But at this point that feeling inevitable.

You better go put on your Thanksgiving bib, cause I’m about to spew rainbows and sunshine all over you. This post is the literary equivalent of a unicorn frolicking with sugar-dipped kittens while eating an ice cream sundae topped with rock candy. Your teeth might actually rot from your head before you can even eat your pie. Better have the pie first. I can’t handle that on my conscience.

Today I am thankful for you. YOU. Reading this right now. You are my thankful today and every day. I am thankful for every single person who has ever read my silly words here on my silly blog. I am thankful for the amazing advice I’ve gotten, the friends I’ve made or reconnected with, the support, the encouragement, the happy thoughts, the prayers, and the nudges back from the edge on the days I don’t think I can take it anymore. I am thankful for the people who read every day and the ones who have only read one post. I am so luck to have found a village – even if it’s a virtual village – in my journey as a mother.You have supported causes important to my heart with your time and your wallet. Because you read I get to call myself a blogger (when I’m feeling brave) and a writer (when I’m feeling REALLY brave). There truly are not enough words for me to express how much I love my corner of the internet and it is ONE BAZILLION PERCENT because of you.

I am not the best blogger or the funniest or the coolest or the most generous or the kindest or the most fashionable or the healthiest or the most creative or any sort of superlative at all. But I would like to try to be better at being a friend. If there is anything I can ever do for you – YOU – please let me know.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with as much food, football and family as you can possibly stand.

I gave Caroline a bath the other night, and it ended up being one of my top 5 best moments as a mom.

Normally, bedtimes are a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am assembly line to get the kids washed and into bed as quickly and painlessly as possible. That is 99% of my advice for parents of 2 close-in-age kids: GIVE THEM THE SAME BEDTIME. Not only does it mean you’re off the parenting clock faster, it also means when the day comes that you have to do it all alone you’ll be set up for success.  Sure, a shared bath can get a little… splashy, but the kids seem to like it and it turns a 2 hour ordeal into a 30 minute routine, start to finish. If they’re not particularly dirty and don’t need shampoo E and I can do it in 17 minutes flat. In the Parenting Olympics, we’d be the Michael Phelps of bedtimes.

But on this particular day, Little Evan had an extremely late nap and wasn’t even close to tired when Caroline was rubbing her eyes and making sad little whimpering noises. Rather than try to keep her awake (I’m not a TOTAL idiot) or force the toddler into bed (BAHAHAHAHA), I decided a split bath time was in order and took my girl upstairs for some mommy-daughter time.

I worry a lot that Caroline isn’t getting the kind of extremely focused attention I gave Little Evan his first year. There’s less staring at her while she sleeps and more wondering how long until I can sneak out of the room and collapse in front of Top Chef. It’s not that I don’t have enough LOVE to give her – my heart makes love faster than I could ever give it out – I just don’t have enough TIME. Or maybe more accurately, I don’t THINK I have enough time. There are dishes to be washed! Laundry to be folded! Halloween costumes to make! Playgroups to attend! Quick, I must do ALL THE THINGS because otherwise I lose at motherhood!

But isn’t motherhood really less about doing stuff and more about bath time and rubber duckies and bubble crowns? Watching her splash in the tub, I was struck by how at that moment her entire life was right there in that bathroom. I am the sun to her planet. I could have a whole solar system of kids orbiting me day and night but as far as she’s concerned I am enough, even when I’m not feeling particularly shiny.

It was one of those moments where your mind is blown and you suddenly remember parenting isn’t just playgroups and butt-wiping. It’s RAISING A HUMAN BEING. It’s amazing I’m even being allowed to try.

E’s job is changing after this week. It’s nothing dramatic, just new orders to a new command, but new orders that mean I’m going to be doing a lot more single parenting. I’ll be doing bathtimes and bedtimes and wake-ups and mornings and dinners and snacks and running out of TIME for ALL THE THINGS every single day. I feel overwhelmed already and it hasn’t even started, so it’s good for my mental health to have moments like Caroline’s bath.

I wish there was an easy way to explain how having a second baby is different from having a first baby, but there are SO MANY WAYS I don’t think I can. When people talk about having a second baby, they talking about “doing it again” – “Oh I couldn’t do that all again! The spit up! The diapers! The sleepless nights!” – but they forget that all the OTHER stuff is easier. Yes there is going to be a ton of poop, but you’ve gotten so good at pinning down a squirmy baby while you change them it only ends up on your clothes once a day! Or even less!

I should probably include a disclaimer that my second baby is a much easier baby than my first, but honestly I’m not sure where the line between “easier because she was born more easy-going” and “easier because I treat her differently” falls. It’s like the chicken and the egg, if the chicken is a mother who is often distracted by a toddler licking things he shouldn’t be licking and the egg is a baby who has learned to only scream for attention when she’s about to be eaten by wolves or fall down a well. There is something to be said for nature – Little Evan has some sort of crazy silent, painless reflux that turned him into an 8 pound vomit machine and Caroline has thrown up half a dozen times in her entire life – but the way I nurture her is definitely making a difference.

For example, we are sleep training Caroline, which is something I literally couldn’t even imagine doing with Little Evan. My brain shut down and my head hurt and my boobs tingled just thinking about LEAVING MY BABY alone to cry in the dark. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of nights he cried in the crib but it was after HOURS AND HOURS of rocking and nursing and begging and banging my head against the wall wondering why I was such a failure as a mother. It never occurred to me he was just really tired and if I put him down for more than 30 seconds he might fall asleep.

But Caroline has been acting nocturnal and I’ve been totally exhausted and unable to parent my OTHER kid during the day plus I decided it was sort of ridiculous she would ONLY sleep in her baby swing at nine months old. So we put her in the crib. That’s it. She’s fussed a few times, but if I let her roll around and shout indignantly (as opposed to because she is hurt or hungry or needs something) for five minutes she sleeps like, well, a baby. I know the crying won’t kill her because it didn’t kill the first kid. I have tangible proof I am capable of keeping a human being alive despite my mistakes, and that confidence is PRICELESS.

It also works in the other direction – because Caroline takes more hands-on time than Little Evan (except on the days when he’s potty training, which is one of the reasons we haven’t been trying too hard but now that he’s showing a lot of interest we’re going to have to and OMG I AM NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO IT) he has gotten more independent and really improved his communication skills. He’s also more loving and affectionate, which I suspect is because I spend so much time holding the baby he wants some cuddle time of his own. I call that a win-win.

Even when things that worked the first time (ahem, babywearing) don’t work so great with baby #2, I have enough confidence in my own mothering skills to just move on and try something else. It’s making this whole parenting gig much more fun.

I’m assuming the next kid will just be born walking, talking and making my morning coffee.

(p.s. Caroline took 6 steps TWICE on Sunday. Remind me to re-read this post when they start running in opposite directions)