Sleep is for the weak

We have been struggling with sleep issues with Shawn Joaquin for many months now, summoned to his bed up to 20 times nightly with wails and screams that ultimately end with him sniffling and saying "nuffing" when we ask him what's wrong. We have tried incentive programs, punishment, door open, door closed, explanations, coaxing, yelling, removal of special blankets, toys, lights, and books. We have promised multiple viewings of Shrek, ice cream for breakfast, trips to the zoo, the moon and the restaurant of his choice. We have tried tapes, videos, sound machines, total freedom of movement throughout the room, silence in all other rooms and dozens of books in bed. All for naught and resulting in nothing more than the deterioration of our adult time together and the firmness of the skin beneath our eyes. 

After nearly nine months of this, I finally lost my mind with him one night and became someone I would never want caught on tape, and am now officially off the casting list for Moment of Truth. So I changed tactics — from that night forward, sleep time would be known as Operation: Who Is Shawn Joaquin. 

At the Operation's launch,  we explained to Shawn Joaquin that his job at night was to go to bed, and our job was to spend mama and daddy time together. We would eat dinner, watch TV and do whatever we used to do before we spent 2 hours arguing with him at bedtime. We would be here, we would love him and we would not leave the house. But we would also not talk to him after his requisite Mama Time and Daddy Book Time - once we said goodnight, he would cease to exist until the morning. In the morning we would cuddle him. In the wee small hours he would be persona non grata. 

After spending a great deal of time explaining this, accompanied by lots of nods and assertions of "yeah, I'm gonna stay in bed and have good behavior," we began. Within three minutes Shawn Joaquin was outside his room screaming for Gregg, infuriated when he didn't hear pounding footsteps coming down the stairs. For the next hour, he alternately screamed, cried and ran when he felt he had finally lured us to his room. He actually appeared happy and excited when he saw me coming down the stairs, then furious when he realized that I was not there to berate or punish him but to change into my Nick and Nora fruit-covered pajamas. 

Forty-five minutes of screaming later, we settled in to eat dinner and watch TV like sedentary adults in other homes. We ignored Shawn Joaquin as he crept up the stairs quietly, aching to be caught and punished. For two hours he stalked us, finally losing interest and playing with a piece of string he found on the stairs, possibly considering the string a replacement for his once-attentive parents. At some point he quietly wandered back to his bedroom, emerging when we went to bed to peer into the darkened room and determine whether there was any chance of rousing us and sending us screaming down the hallway. We were not to be baited. 

We are now in week three of Who Is Shawn Joaquin, and our success has been mixed. He now drops off to sleep around 9pm instead of 11pm, a heavy book on his head and one arm flung over the side of the bed. He has permanently lost the light bulb in his lamp, forced to read by the dimmer light of his still-bright night light, a tactic for which we may end up paying for with bifocals at the age of eight. He still wakes up once or twice a night to scream that Gregg should be working in his office or that we should not be sleeping  or — to our great but stifled amusement — to run down the hall with his palms flat over his eyes screaming "I CAN'T SEE! I CAN'T SEE! SOMEONE, HELP ME!" 

I see a future on Broadway for him or, more likely, an off-Broadway play entitled "When I Didn't Exist" where — in a darkened theater that bears a slight whiff of self-pity mixed with fear sweat — he can work through his painful childhood years. Then perhaps he, and all of us, will finally sleep.

Jesus, take the wheel

Life as the parents of two young children takes a daily toll on my marriage and my home. We had no idea how easy we had it with Shawn Joaquin prior to Madelena's arrival - he was a neat freakin', 12-hour sleeping, caution-seeking sweet boy who had a penchant for thousands of questions but few temper tantrums or other less-than-appealing behaviors. Now he's been replaced with a flailing, red-faced, screaming banshee whose life has been ruined by his parents insistence on good behavior, sleeping in his own bed for at least a few hours every night, and a sister who points at him during his fits and says in a bored tone of voice "Hermano CRY, CRY, CRYYY."

Amidst the madness we attempt to have a few sane moments, some child-free, and focus on the times when everyone is fed, clean and happy. This is more difficult to achieve than one might imagine, primarily because of my own inability to achieve success in those three areas myself.

When I worked in the city, I shined up every day. My clothing was current, fitted and flattering. My footware was hot, heeled and unscuffed. My hair was bouncin' and behavin' and my makeup natural but complete. I had my non-fat yogurt and Peet's coffee before leaving the house, and picked up a nice plate of ham and eggs on the way to my neat and fashionable office. Fast forward to today.

Current attire: baggy jeans with a suspicious stain on the right leg, running socks that have apparently swiffered the floor near the dog bed. Hair in a pony tail since a shower was not to be this morning, make up reduced to tinted moisturizer and a quick swipe of the lip gloss brush. Underwear MIA, since none were conveniently near the jeans crumpled on the floor. Breakfast of an Atkins bar and some once-hot coffee, shoved down while making a ham sandwich that will surely be abandoned by Shawn Joaquin come lunch time. My only accessories my watch and my pedometer, showing the priorities of my life. Yet Gregg leaves the house showered, shaved and well-dressed. Shawn Joaquin sharply put together in his Oaklandia shirt and jeans, face shiny and hair wet but neat. Madelena looking like her usual catalog-baby self, matched from her hair bands down to her socks. This is the most common circumstance - one of these things is not like the other, and one of those things is ME. To quote David Byrne, how did I get here?

I must remind myself, as I look at my tired eyes and less-than-put-together self: By choice. I chose this life, I chose these kids, and I chose my sharp-dressed man. And someday, when the kids are able to take care of themselves and no longer need me to pick out the clothes, make the lunches and wipe up the bottoms or tears, I will look back — well-dressed, coiffed and once again ready for my close up — and ask again...how did I get here? And miss these days of being needed, however painfully, with all my heart.

Have you hugged your pirate today?

When I saw the ad for "Pirate Festival" I knew immediately that this was our Saturday afternoon destination - we had become stuck in a rut. Saturday mornings at the park, afternoon spent prowling Rite Aid or Trader Joe's...Sundays at the Farmer's Market and later yet another park. Or those weekends when we went from one kid's birthday party to another, considering tequila shots on the way out the door in order to deal with the high levels of squealing sure to pierce eardrums. But this weekend was going to be different, sure to show us something different.

As we drove to the festival, Shawn Joaquin asked me about the pirates.

Will they be nice pirates?
Can I hug a pirate?
What do pirates eat?
Can I eat pirate food?
Will they say aaaargh?

Yes, yes, of course you can hug a pirate Shawn Joaquin. And then we arrived....

You know that kind of creepy feeling you get at the Renaissance Faire when you come across people who are just a wee bit tooooo into their costumes and the attached role, unable to break from their "miladies" and "thou art" even when in the bathroom drying their hands with Costco paper towels? The Pirate Festival is filled with people who LIVE, LIVE, LIVE for Renaissance Faires and travel around the country to attend fairs everywhere, and more than a handful of people who were turned away at the Renaissance Faire gates — so disturbing was their intensity, their make up, their cleavage or their lack of sobriety. These are the people who flooded the ferry landing in Vallejo, ready to be seen as their true selves — black-hearted pirates, fetishists bound into corsets of amazing proportion and boning, drunken sailors with an unquenchable thirst for ale and booty of all kinds.

As we entered, I exchanged a look with Gregg that said "holy crap" while Shawn Joaquin ran past a bare-breasted woman to jump into a cage with a skeleton. Madelena, not to be outdone, screamed from her stroller to join him. With our children safely locked in a cage, I observed the scene around us.


Inhumanly huge breasts with pints of ale balanced on their expansive, vein-laden skin and cleverly hiding coaster-sized nipples to be revealed only when swigging from the stein. Men in ankle length leather jackets, overly tanned and waxed chests bare except the chains and chains of gold and pearls that tangled with their long, curly hair. Seemingly dead faces with eyeballs falling out onto their ragged velvet jackets, itchy fingers on their wooden muskets but no way to sight their enemy. Bodies of all sizes squeezed into bustiers and corsets over thin cotton sheaths, leaving breasts presented nearly horizontally and with little to no coverage. Drunken sailors, wenches, captives and captains, slurring their words and commands as they strolled or stomped about.

Welcome to the Pirate Festival. One of many life-scarring events we have subjected our children to.

$30 in crappy food later, Madelena had made friends with a pirate named Captain Shawn, Shawn Joaquin had danced a jig while hiding behind my legs to avoid the stare of a particularly saucy wench, and I had been propositioned by a drunken pirate who wore a shirt that said “I like it when you [blank] my [blank]” under his velvet jacket and ropes of pearls. Gregg had hunkered down at the relative safety of the not-so-pirate-like picnic tables, sticky with ale and effluence better left unnamed; he was able to observe the role playing and breast-serving-up all the better from a distance and behind sunglasses.

After an hour of nearly pornographic fun and with no money left to waste on bad food, we wrapped it up and headed towards the gate. Other than his jig, Shawn Joaquin had spent most of his time hiding from the scary gaze of pirate ghosts and a particularly scary 6 foot 6 man in full reaper-wear, alternating his hiding with coming out and whining about food, clothing, proximity of his sister or strangers. As we exited, Shawn Joaquin summed it up with a single line: Well, THAT was a LOT of pirates.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Jagermeister hidden in the folds of a dusty pirate suit by a 60-year old man who's far too old for dress up…yes, yes, yes it was, my son. Aaaaargh.

Rambling

Tonight we embark on a 6+ hour drive to Arcata, carefully planned to the sleep cycles of Madelena, She Who Does Not Enjoy Long Car Rides. Our plans include fueling up on forbidden caffeine from Peet's coffee, flashcards to keep our brains active and Benadryl for all under three feet. The one thing I had not planned on was a sudden heat wave in Arcata, reaching 87 degrees today.

Holy mother of god. 

I will be spending 3 nights in a mobile home in Arcata, far from sea breezes and close to a number of homes with carved wooden donkeys and bathtubs filled with flowers. I will be sharing my room and possibly my bed with a squirming and sweaty kid of some gender, and am already stressed by the possible lack of diet foods available to me and necessary for my Body 2008 goals. And now the wrath of god on Arcata in the form of stifling heat? I know China, Myanmar and others have problems, but what about MY NEEDS?

It will actually be a relief to be in Arcata, where newspapers are printed weekly and internet service is only found at Starbucks for the low, low price of your SOUL. Recent news from China, Myanmar and friends in Guatemala have become overwhelming in my mom-head as of late, and I find myself waking up at 2am to think of all of the grief being felt around the world this week, summed up by the phrase "what if that were MY child?"

Everyday we complain to our friends about our childcare, the cost of repairs to our Volvo or BMW, how difficult it is to find just the right organic produce or a yoga class that works for us. We drive a few miles to stock up on fresh food and organic milk, pick up flowers every week without a thought about cost, download the lastest iTunes without a blink, buy our $14 per pound olives and then pass that guy on the street so distastefully panhandling. And we go home to kiss or complain about our always well-dressed, well-fed, well-educated and generally healthy children who most likely have no obstacles before them that can't be overcome by themselves, their family and their U.S. citizenship status.

So while we drive to Arcata without worrying about floods, cyclones, PGN, mortar rounds or the prospect of prison for driving out of our neighborhood without papers, I will try to focus on the blessed life that I live rather than any screaming coming from the back seat. And perhaps by doing that I will also stop worrying heat and the availability of Atkins bars and realize that while other mothers in other countries are looking for their lost children or struggling to find basic food and supplies.... I know exactly where my child is and that we will have everything we need tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. 

Namaste.

Author's note: This was written with a 12 ounce bag of frozen sweet corn on my neck to battle the heat stroke that is imminent in our 100+ degree house, which may have also affected the rambling quality of this entry. Thank you, global warming.

Just saying hello

In the opening scene of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" the lead character is surprised by his girlfriend as he steps out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. By way of greeting, he drops the towel and twists his body back and forth while just below his hips — out of camera range — we hear a distinct "slap slap slap".

"Oh, that's a WW," says Gregg.

"A what?"

"A WW. You know."

"No, I don't."

"It's a weenie wave. EVERYONE knows that. It's just KNOWN."

And thus my husband teaches me something again that I did not know nor want to know, but now will forever have lodged in my brain next to the information about how tofu is made and how to identify lice nits, somewhere behind an image of a liver curdled by cirrhosis.