It’s been quite a month plus. Between Jennifer in the hospital on bed rest, and then having her baby girl at 31 weeks, a couple of trips, the horrifically terrible 2 phase that Lily is in, and two sets of ear infections for both girls, plus a yucky cold for me, I’ve been barely hanging on.

I go full time next week - starting after Labor Day. The decision was made much easier for me when the director of Lily’s new school told me it was full-time or no-time. Since I’ve been on the waiting list for that school for over 2 years now, I figured I’d better grab a slot when there was an opening. It worked out well as Jennifer’s real maternity leave will start when baby Sophia comes home from the NICU.

However, on nights like these, I can barely look in the mirror. I know all mothers constantly second-guess themselves and feel guilty no matter what they do, but it doesn’t make my own struggle any easier. The few days I am with Lily and Arden, I am nearly insane by the time Mike gets home, due to Lily’s penchant for temper tantrums at the drop of a hat (or by me doing something accidentally for her that I should apparently know better than to do). Then I wonder if she would have these temper tantrums if I was home full-time with her. And then I reflect on what Risa said - that being a part-time mom and part-time worker is harder than full-time anything. I think I might agree finally. The days I’m home with them, my cell phone rings, emergencies happen, and the fact of the matter is, clients could care less that my kids aren’t in daycare on Mondays and Fridays. It wasn’t such a big deal when Jennifer was around - she shielded me on those days and took anything that blew up - but she’s not there and calls have to be answered. This weekend in Pinehurst I didn’t check email from Friday afternoon til Monday evening. I had 67 emails. Only a few were spam. It was overwhelming. I sat there and cried and felt sorry for myself and wondered how I was ever going to dig myself out of the hole of work and motherhood I’m in.

I know part of it is simply that I have too much work to do, and it is taking over my life. I know that this is only temporary, and that I just have to suck it up and deal with it. I also know that Lily will eventually leave this phase she’s in, and hopefully we will both survive until that happy day. I never knew how much stress a 2 year old could place on you. I also never knew how much I could love someone until I had kids. The combination of huge, throbbing love plus the complete maniacal-mother-button-pushing that Lily does makes me exhausted by the end of the day. I looked down at her tonight as she screamed at the top of her lungs while sitting on the “potty” and saw myself. I wondered how my mother ever survived it, and forgive her for all the times she completely lost it and started to scream back. The other night Lily’s temper tantrum was so bad, and so long, that I actually started crying out of frustration. That freaked her out - she actually stopped and kissed me. So maybe I need to cry more often!

Arden, on the other hand, continues to be sweet-natured and fairly easy going. She gave up baby food this weekend, even though she has no teeth. She will have nothing to do with it and seems to do fine just gumming all the small pieces we cut up for her to death. I am trying to get over any choking paranoia. She’s still only about 15 pounds so she’ll be small, like Lily. Her appetite however is much better than her big sister’s, so maybe there’s a chance she’ll overtake Lily and be of normal height! Lily is still only 23 pounds. She’s been that weight forever, it seems.

After screwing up the company checking account today and nearly hitting a street person who was limping across Franklin Street today (accidentally of course), I picked up the kids. Lily had a temper tantrum before I even got her in the car and that one lasted about 20 minutes. We have a rule that before bed, she has to try to use the potty. “Trying” means that she has to sit on the potty without screaming and crying and try. If she doesn’t have to go, fine - if she does, even better. We had a tantrum about this a few weeks ago - Battle of the Wills Part I - and I won that time. I thought we were over it. Nope - she decided she wouldn’t go and spent 30 minutes literally screaming her head off, kicking at me, throwing her stuffed animal in the toilet, ripping the toilet paper off the roll and shredding it, and throwing herself off the toilet. At one point she was jumping up and down on the toilet seat and got her leg pinched between her Dora potty cover and the regular seat. That caused an even bigger tantrum. This was after about 30 minutes of calm. Prior to temper tantrum #3, we had an issue about getting out of the car. She wanted me to carry her and I couldn’t because I was carrying Arden. She refused to walk in the house, so I let her scream for a bit in the garage (the neighbors must hate me). When I went back to get her, she took off running - straight into the road!!! I finally caught up with her and she refused to walk. I still had Arden under one arm and was basically trying to drag/pull Lily into the house. I slipped going in through the door, hit Arden on the hit with the doorframe accidentally, and stepped on Lily’s foot. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been hilarious.

I had become “that woman”. The one you hear screaming at her kids in Wal-Mart or the grocery store. The neighbor with kids that are always screaming at the top of their lungs, “NO, I WON’T!!!!!!!!!!” or “GET AWAY!” Yes, that’s me these days.

I’m just down these days - and I know I’ll get over it. Lily will get older and learn to express things better than simply screaming “AHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH! AHHHHH!!!” over and over again (usually while enclosed in a small space like a car). Arden will begin to walk so my back won’t feel like it’s being split in half. The time I spend with my kids when I go full-time will be quality time as opposed to quantity. I won’t answer my cell phone and hopefully I won’t have to work as much at night. And maybe someday soon I won’t feel like I’m about to have a full-blown panic attack about my business!

We are back from the beach, somewhat sunburned and wishing for more. We had a great time and although Arden got an ear infection halfway through our time in Corolla, we still enjoyed it very much. The house was amazing. I took pictures and when I get around to developing them, I’ll post some. I now want heated floors and heated towel racks along with a steam shower in MY bathroom. It was luxury . . .

Tonight as we were feeding Arden her bottle, Lily informed us that she wanted to “take Arden”. We asked her where she wanted to take her, and she told us “to the garbage can. I’m going to throw her away.” Isn’t she loving and sweet? She was somewhat devilish and mean to Tori while at the beach, but now has asked repeatedly where Tori is and why she is in Texas and not in our guest room. I feel like telling her, “If you were nicer, maybe she’d have stayed!!!” Can’t do that, I suppose. She’s going through her very terrible twos and hopefully it will be over soon. Potty training is not going so well, but considering there are only 2 out of 18 kids in her class out of diapers, apparently I’m not the only one having problems with this.

Things back in Richmond are moving along. The moon is out of alignment or something because everything has been going slightly wrong. First Jennifer ended up on bedrest with more than 2 months of pregnancy left. I vacillate between feeling like I’m going to puke with worry for the baby and wanting to close the business up so I can go do laundry and feed her. She’s still working from her “bed office” (not home office) and that’s helpful in terms of keeping her sane and keeping us in business. I also had my follow up visit with the plastic surgeon, who took one look at my upper stomach and said, “Ooooh, that’s not right.” Okay, out of all the things you want to hear come out of your doctor’s mouth - that is not one of them! Basically my muscles didn’t stay stitched together and now I have this lovely “balloon” of skin and it won’t go away unless I have additionally surgery in the next 3-4 months. The surgery isn’t as major as the original surgery, but it’s still major and will put me back on no lifting for ANOTHER four weeks. Maybe by then Arden will be walking and it won’t be such an ordeal. In addition, we came back from Corolla and the roofing guys had shown up to fix our cedar shakes. Whatever they did caused every ant, spider and silverfish to converge on our house. We are overrun with bugs and hoping Western Pest can detonate a small, insect-sized atomic bomb in here. It’s just gross - one ran across my arm while I was typing this. Ewwwww.

Here are a couple of pictures from the beach. Of course, none of Arden - those will be posted later. These came from grammy’s camera and apparently only Lily was at the beach when she took these.

The whole fam damily is heading to Corolla this coming weekend for the week, so I’m going to be busy working, washing clothes, and trying to get Lily potty-trained over the next few days. I have to tell you, I’m wringing my hands over the potty issues. Lily is a stubborn one - you know she gets that from her daddy

We are all looking forward to a week away. I can’t even say especially me, since Mike needs a vacation badly as well. I think it will be good to get away from work and home and out of Richmond. It’s hotter than Hades here right now and I’m burned out in all sorts of ways. Hopefully Lily and Arden will enjoy the beach although I think Lily will enjoy the pool at the house more. We bought a big beach tent thingy to cover up Ms. Paleface (Arden). We don’t want to burn her, and she is so fair! Lily is already the color of a chargrilled steak, so nothing seems to bother her. I wish I could tan like she does.

All in all, things are going well. We’ve been busy at work and busy at home with swim lessons, another round of sickness for Lily, and Arden learning to crawl. She’s getting really fast now!

Lily’s been taking swim lessons, and they are amazing - or at least, the teachers are amazing! I can’t believe the things Lily is doing. This morning I picked her up and she was on her back in the water. They teach them to go under the water and roll themselves onto their back so they surface and breathe. She was just floating calmly in the water with her hands on her belly, grinning. It was hilarious! She also went down to the bottom of the pool and picked up a ring. She’s learning that she can open her eyes in her goggles and look around under the water. She also knows how to grab the edge of the pool and pull herself out. The school’s main focus is on water safety and teaching children to be prepared in case they were to ever fall in or lose their bearings in the water. We’ll work with her on the finer points of swimming as she gets older. Right now, having her be able to hold her breath under water and learn how to propel herself is good enough for me. I’m thrilled.

Arden is still working on her crawl. She moves herself forward by sheer will. She gets up on her hands and knees all the time now and loves to rock. It won’t be long before I have two children who are mobile. Does that thought strike fear and terror into the heart of anyone but me?

Steve and Vicki arrive with a truck this weekend and they close on their new house Friday. That part is a done deal now and they can finally begin to get settled and start their new lives in Virginia. Of course they are coming the weekend they are calling for floods due to the remnants of Hurricane Cindi. It’s that Kimler luck, following them south from Michigan . . .

Today I started my week by traumatizing Lily - but it’s in her best interests. We started swim lessons today with Morgan Swim School. She did fairly well, considering everything. She cried for about 20 minutes of the 30 minute lesson, which they said was normal. However, by the time I came back to pick her up, she was doing some guided swimming underwater and was letting her instructor pull her on her back around the pool. She was also very excited and intrigued by her new red goggles . . . so we tried to focus on that as opposed to the trauma of being left alone in a swimming pool with a complete stranger.

We had a great weekend with Uncle Sal, Aunt Paula and Auntie Ana. Lily enjoyed all of the attention and Arden decided to sit up this weekend for the first time and show off her skill to the family. We think she’ll be crawling soon - she is trying very hard to propel herself and she will succeed shortly. Yesterday we started the day off at the park and then headed to the pool after the afternoon naps. It was a quiet and mellow 4th, but much needed after all the days of activities - including nearly smoking the house out while Uncle Sal and Aunt Ana made chiles rellenos. We have quite the sensitive smoke detectors and Ana was scorching the skin on the outside of the chiles. It was pretty hilarious. The “Najera Tacos” were a big hit once we got Chef Sal to stop obsessing about the need to put radishes on everyone’s tacos . . . he’s a trip.

Sara has made a monster out of me. An organizing monster, that is. Once I saw how nice our office and the playroom looked, I decided to organize the master bathroom. That wasn’t enough. Last night I worked on my closet for close to 2 1/2 hours messing around with everything, donating clothes, throwing out old shoes, and organizing by skirt, shirt, color and season. I’m a maniac. The linen closet is next . . . I highly recommend her services to anyone in Richmond. Or anyone in the US who can afford to pay her travel expenses. She rocks.