Dental people always hate me. 

I think this is because dental people tend to be fastidious, routine-and-habit people and I tend to be more the, “We-get-there-when-we-get-there-and-YOWZA-how-old-is-that-banana on the floor?” –type.

So far today I have managed four breakfasts, four basically clothed people, two swim lessons, one toddler gym session, snacks in the car and a perfect 11:42 arrival at the dentist.

“This,” I say proudly, “is Mary, she’s here for her 11:45.”

“It was an 11:15,” the woman says.  She is trim and tall, in pressed pink scrubs. 

“It was?”  I say.   “Sheesh, I wrote down 11:45.”  (Lie.  I write NOTHING down.  I don’t even own a calendar.  I’ve had the “this-year-I-will-use-a-calendar” resolution as many times as I’ve had the “I-will-learn-to-carry-a-purse” resolution.)

“It’s my fault,” I say, “I’m sorry.”

She glaring at me. She’s fabulous at it.  Right away I hate myself.

I have a stain on my shirt, don’t I?  I totally do.

And my boobs.  They sag, right?  Since the baby?  I know.  I know.

“So, um,” I say.  “What can we do?”

“It’s a broken appointment.”

“Ooookay.”

On my hip, Eden is covered head-to-toe in the applesauce she drank from the to-go pouch in the car.  Mare and Ren are rolling around in the play space.  Eden screeches, I set her down, straighten myself out and try to look adorable and worthy of sympathy.

Eden clomps away and that’s when I notice she’s only wearing one pink patent leather shoe. 

“We charge for broken appointments,” says Bright Smile, The Eminently Hostile.

“Awesome,” I say.   We have no dental insurance.  Just walking in here is giving me the heebee-jeebees.  (NO X-RAYS AND NO CAVITIES, CLEAR?)

“Forty dollars,” she says.

“Okay,” I say.

“And we’ll send you a letter, warning you.”

“Oh.”  (I’m not going to ask whether it’s really necessary to send a letter when you’re doing a superb job of this little verbal warning.)

“After your third broken appointment, we send you a letter suggesting maybe this isn’t the practice for you.”

Holy shit this totally isn’t the practice for me.  But it might be the practice for my kid’s teeth, and that’s a whole other issue.

She says she can fit us in at quarter of one.  I say great, see you then.  Eden doesn’t want to leave because she loves the little slide in the corner.  Mare and Ren are bickering over blocks and it’s entirely possible that I raise my voice a decibel above “dulcet and charming” as I instruct them to get their patooties out to the car.       

Oh my God this car is disgusting.  I need to clean the car and the baby  and I need to balance my checkbook and tweeze my eyebrows and call my grandmother.

We stop at the Starbucks drive through where I order an iced coffee and two lemon loaves.  My plan is to idle the kids in the gas station with a movie while I sort trash and scrape old Cheerios out of the upholstry.

I think maybe the lemon loaves are lunch.  Oh, no, wait, here’s some crackers, they can have those, too.

We’re at the window and that’s when I realize I don’t have my wallet. 

Where the hell IS my wallet?

I gaze sadly at the cold iced coffee sweating on the counter as I drive away from it and  back to the house. I leave the kids idling with the movie playing and grab a garbage bag.  While I’m sorting old Starbucks bags and coloring pages from gymnastics, I’m thinking about coffee and where my wallet could be and what I am going to do with the rest of my afternoon.

When is the Dr. Pearl appointment?

Monday, Ren got a bad splinter and by the time we went to get Mare’s stitches out Tuesday, Ren’s foot was pussing.  So after he took out the sutures, Dr. Button took the scalpel to Ren’s foot, took the splinter out and everything looked okay except now it’s black and leaking again.  Dr. Button is on vacation so Dr. Pearl is going to look at it.

I’m pretty sure that’s at 1:45.

Oh no.  Wait.  Was that the dentist appointment? 

Ohmahgawd back in the dental office there was a 1 and a 45.  Was it quarter-of-one?  Or 1:45?

Is there any chance I have some sort of special math dyslexia?

Where is my wallet?

Oh!  I find it!  — Under the front passenger seat.  Is there enough time for Starbucks?

(Gee, I don’t know, Liz, that depends was the appointment for 12:45 or 1:45?)

I drive back to the dentist’s office and sit in the parking lot in an agony of indecision.  The movie is going, the girls are happy, and it’s 12:38.  I’m pretty sure 12:45 is the time but I can’t bear to drag all my kids in there only to have that woman tell me that it was for 1:45.  And then I will have to break a second appointment because I am pretty confident Dr. Pearl was for 1:45 and I feel rotting flesh trumps tooth cleaning.

I decide to drag everyone in.  Eden’s still covered in apple sauce only now it smells a little sour.  I totally forgot about her shoe problem.  She sounds like a trotting horse with one pink mary jane hitting the floor followed by her bare foot.  CLOP, smack, CLOP, smack.

“So, um,” I say.  I pull out my Blue Cross card.  I’m so proud I have my wallet.  “I, ah, I want to check and see if we have any dental coverage, and, ahh …”

I was figuring that if the appointment was for 1:45 it made perfect sense that I was stopping back in to check insurance ahead of time.  If the appointment was for 12:45, then Happy Shiny Tooth Woman would make that obvious by signing me in and getting things started.

But she’s looking at me like she thinks I should have been drowned at birth.

The appointment was for 12:45.  GREAT.  I fill out paper work while Eden throws herself down the slide.  Her sisters cheer and encourage her to do it again, backward.

Finally, we’re all escorted back to Dr. Shiny’s little dental chair.  Part of me thinks it would be wise to let her go by herself and keep the littles next to the slide and the People Magazine.  But I’m actually not comfortable letting a seven year-old be examined alone, yet.

So  I set Eden and Ren in front of a little pile of books at Mare’s feet and Mare puts on her sunglasses and proceeds to be tortured not by the squeegee or the stuff or the goop, but by the fact that for twenty straight minutes she can’t talk.

That’s when Ren falls backward off the chair landing on the linoleum with a sick crack of her head.

For some ungodly reason I drag her screaming self out to the lobby.  I think I thought it was discrete, or something.

She’s wailing, Shiny Woman is glaring, Schmoopy’s clop-smacking it over to the slide, I’m asking for ice and thinking NATASHA RICHARDSON OHMAWGAWD.

After a few minutes Ren stops wailing, a member of the practice who is an MD looks at her and says she’s fine, and we all gather ourselves and get back to Mare. 

“Mrs. Schwarzer,” Dr. Shiny says (12 years, and I still LOVE that.  Makes me feel so grown-up).  “I have to compliment you on Mary’s teeth.  Seriously, this is one of the healthiest mouths I’ve seen in a while. “

“Oh, that’s great, to hear,” I say.  “Listen, would you mind stepping out into the lobby for me again and repeating that extremely loudly?”

I check out and pay and ram everyone into the car and head for the doctor’s office.

Time for Starbucks?  — No.

The children complain of hunger and stickiness and all I can think about is that sweating iced coffee sitting all lonely on the window sill.

Dr. Pearl sends us right to x-ray and then back to her office to consult.

“The x-ray doesn’t show any foreign body in her foot,” she says.  “There may still be something in there and we need to get it out.  Or this may be an infection and we need to drain the pus.  The problem is that if it is an infection, I’m afraid if we cut we could spread it to her blood.”

I sit in silence for a second.  I learned to do this with Eden, to control the pace, give myself time to think.  Then I say, “Let me be sure I have this,” and repeat back what I think I heard.

“Yes,” she says.

“And the alternative?”

“Antibiotics.”

“And if she’s on those for a day or two does that improve our chances of avoiding a blood infection when you open her up?”

“Exactly,” she says.   

“Let’s do it.”  I say.  “Hey, Ren?”  She is sitting on the exam table admiring the poster of the cat on the wall.  “We don’t think the splinter is still in there.  We think you have germs in the cut the splinter made.  Dr. Pearl is worried that if we touch it the germs will spread.  So she wants to give you medicine, a kind that kills germs from the inside.”

“O’tay,” she says.  “Will it hurt any more?”

“Well, we hope not, but we’re not sure about that part.  If you start the medicine tonight it could start to feel better as early as tomorrow morning.  If it doesn’t, we’ll come back here and Dr. Button will look at it again and we’ll decide what to do next.”

“O’tay,” she shrugs.

“Mrs. Schwarzer,” Dr. Pearl says  (I STILL love that).  “You’re really an excellent advocate for your child.  It’s fun to see.”

“Oh, wow,” I say.  “Thanks.  Hey, listen, if I just pick up my cell, here, and call to confirm my kid’s dental appointment, do you think you could say that again, really loudly in the background?”

They threw flower petals at me and brought me a New York Times and a little bell to ring for service and a beautifully-written menu with check-off boxes.  I checked “cinnamon dolce latte;” and “fried monkey butt” and handed it back.  (I also selected a Bach cello concerto for my music.)

Mary arrived sheepishly a few minutes later to tell me the fried monkey butt was no longer on the menu.  “The cats got into it,” she said. “It wasn’t pretty.”

So I switched to a Daddy-made breakfast burrrito.

Ren climbed into bed next to me and handed me the bag she had been so jealously guarding since mid-week last week.  Of course, the bracelet that was supposed to be inside was missing, so she cried, and I said it was probably still in her bed, and she said she would find it and then pointed to the note.

“TO MOMMA LOVE REN” it said.

“I wrote it,” she grinned proudly.

To think there was a time when I appreciated neither the freedom to read the paper in peace, nor the gift of a child’s very first handwritten note.

They brought me the latte and now I am staring at this New York Times  and feeling all intimidated at the prospect of reading it.

The cello is lovely.  I am sorry about the monkey butt, but I suppose I can confess to you here that I think the burrito is a better choice, anyway.

Here’s to feeling chewed up, and swallowed whole, rolled around and pinned down, lifted up and brought low.  Here’s to the days we make it and the days we don’t.  Here’s to being good enough.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Of course, getting to the potatoes was much harder than anything should ever be.  First, I had to get all the kids dressed.  Now, maybe for some people “dressed” means, like, coordinated and clean and pressed with cute hair ribbons.  For me, getting the kids “dressed” has come down to three critical parts:  1) shoes;  2)  panties;  3)  something appropriate enough to the weather to limit hostile staring from strangers.  (And, honestly, item #2 is on there just because I know it should be, but as long as dresses are down, I kind of have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.)

Okay, so I shove all of that in the car, buckled and tucked, and then I drive.  The driving should be the easy part, I always thought it would be.  But in fact, this is how the driving part goes:

“Momma today in school Bella C. said that I had ugly handwriting.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mary — let’s play Paris!  Can we play Paris?  I am going to be Little Sarah and we are going to go to Paris and you are going to buy me a beret.”

“…and I said to Bella C., ‘That was very rude,’ and she said, ‘Nya nya nya nya nya-’ and then I told on her to the teacher, I said ’Bella C. is distracting me in my work and she is being rude –’”

“WAAAAA!  WAAAAAAAEEEK WA!”

“Who’s eating something?” I say. “What are you eating back there? — You know it makes the baby crazy when you eat in front of her and don’t share.”

“WAAAAA FREAKING WAAA!!”

“I’m eating a piece of lemon loaf I found from yesterday.”

“Isn’t it kind of stale?”

“Yeah, it’s crunchy.  Not bad.”

“Well, whatever, give some to the baby.”

“WAAAAAA …. (munch, munch.)”

“Hey!  I WANT SOME!  DEY HAVE LEMON LOAF IN PARIS!”

“I don’t have any left, Ren, I’m sorry.”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

I was craving fish tacos, and Whole Foods has the best fish.  I really should never go to Whole Foods because a)  I can’t afford it and b) I can’t control myself in there.  I go in for a piece of halibut and next thing I am leaving with oysters and fiddlehead ferns and 2 pounds of quinoa I SWEAR I can make the kids like.

Getting the children out of the car requires the skill and discipline that I hear they’re looking for in the Marine Corps silent drill team.

First, everyone has designated egress doors.  Eden’s seat blocks the driver’s side, so I grab her.  Mare and Ren are required to bail out the other side which makes me extremely nervous, particularly when the space next to us is open because some psycho who MUST HAVE HER BRAZILLIAN GUAVA GOAT CHEESE RIGHT NOW could mow down my children in her Urban Assault Vehicle without so much as pausing to give them back a limb.

So once everyone is holding hands and looking both ways, we walk toward the market.

Now, again, to the layman, you’re thinking:  Oh, okay, now you’re in the store.  This must be easier.

Au contraire my fine friend.  This is the point at which all of my best Congressional political negotiation skills come into play.

Ren wants the cart that drives/ that’s too lame for Mare.  That one has the infant seat in it/Eden’s too big for an infant seat.  How about the standard cart and can Ren ride in the back?/ where will we put the groceries?

Invariably, we settle on the big freaking race car thing with me hauling on the handles to pivot a hundred pounds in screaming child flesh toward produce.

The more chaotic it gets, the cheerier my voice is.

“Oh, hey, isn’t this just great, kids?  Look at all these people!  All these vegetables — look lady you gonna buy the melon or molest it, I got a big-ass cart to get through here.”

I better get tomorrow night’s dinner, too, I can’t do this again.  Maybe a chicken?  Some broccoli, I need one other item …

And that was when we got to the potatoes.

Cute little bags of them, all ready to roast.  This is how you get into trouble at Whole Foods.  I could buy this bag of little baby roasters, toss them in a pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper and be done.  No peeling, no cutting, nothing.  I knew the price difference would be a couple of dollars per pound, which didn’t make a lot of sense over a lot of time, but once in a while having the easy prep is worth just a dollar or two.

And that was when it hit me.

A bag was not going to feed my family.  Two bags would not feed my family.   I was going to need four of those little cute baby ‘tater bags at four dollars each … 16 dollars for potatoes.

“Oh my God we have a lot of children.” 

To be third. With a box of taco shells for company.

I can’t ever buy the easy-step stuff again.  I have to buy in bulk.  Bulk potatoes, bulk napkins, bulk freaking-berets.  Bulk ballet lessons and birthday parties and college tuitions OH MY GOD THAT’S WHY THIS IS SO HARD WE HAVE THREE CHILDREN.

I bought a dense bag of russets for four dollars.  I’d peel and chop and probably mash, too, fine, whatever.  I grabbed the broccoli and then headed for the International food aisle for taco shells.  Eden started screeching so I handed her first, a pack of pickled ginger and then a little baggie of nori flakes that crunched satisfyingly between her fingers.

“What are we going to do with that?” Mare asked me.

“Toss it to the floor like a bored toddler,” I answered.  “We’re not actually buying that, baby, Eden’s just playing with it.”

The Free Food people gave the kids nuggets, Mare and Ren loved the nuggets, cried for the nuggets, so I tossed two (!) boxes into the cart and headed over for a gallon of milk while Mare and Ren bickered over an imaginary beret.

At the check out line I realized I had forgotten lemon for the chicken and broccoli.  I grabbed Eden, bolted for the produce aisle, came back to the checkout line to my elder daughters singing “Holding up the line!  High ho the dairy-o, we’re holding up the line!”  while people glared.

My first card was declined, so I wrote a check, which the fools accepted.

Then I steered that big effer-cart out the door, over to the Loser Cruiser while I proceeded with the ingress part of the entire experience.

That was when the bag exploded and I realized that I now owned nori flakes and pickled ginger.

And had forgotten to buy fish.

I mean, that is not your average every day sort of news.

“Huh,” I said.  And because this is Real Life and I’m a woman with children and a mortgage, my next thought was.  “Well, damn, they picked me.  That’s a mess.”

I forwarded the e-mail to Cute Husband with the note:  “Hmm…” and then went downstairs to see how the kids were doing with breakfast and the family mission to leave the house looking like we own a hair brush.

“Wow.  We really can’t afford it,” I thought as I wrangled the Schmoop and got some-freaking-yes-she-has-them socks on her. “But.  I mean.  Wow.  It’s a shuttle launch.  It’s one of the last shuttle launches.”

“Guess what?” I said, just to see how cool the words sounded. ”Momma got invited to watch the Space Shuttle launch!!” 

“MOMMA!!”  Mare said.  “YOU HAVE TO GO IT’S YOUR ADVENTURE!” 

“Thanks, baby,” I said.

“YEAH!” Ren piped up.  “IT’S YOUR ADBENCHURE!”

“Well, Ren,” I said.  “If I go, I’ll be gone two days.  You’ll have to go to day care.”

“Oh, well, den don’t go, I need you here.”

By the time Eden was down for her nap and I was on my second cup of coffee, I was Googling “Cocoa Beach hotels.”

I mean.  It’s a shuttle launch.  It’s one of the last shuttle launches.

Whoa, Nellie.  There are, like no  rooms left in all of Cocoa Beach for May 13.  Oh, no, look, the Econo Lodge has one … for $140.

Airfare?  $250.

Rental car?  $100.

Day care …

Oh.  And then I remembered.  I have a baby.  Mare and Ren can go to day care, but Eden is not enrolled in their school.  WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THE EXTRA PERSON?

“You guys could come!” I said to Cute Husband.  “And then afterward we could spend the day at Disney!  DISNEY!  I mean, we never thought we could do that!”

“Maybe we should talk about this later,” he said, and he went to his meeting and I piled back into the Loser Cruiser to pick up Renny.

“Ren tells me you’re going to the moon!” Miss Hope said. 

“A shuttle launch,” I said. 

“WOW!” she said. 

I could break my rule!  I could fly Eden on my lap.  Maybe if we stayed somewhere off Cocoa Beach it would be a lot cheaper.  We could lie to the hotel, pack into a tiny room.  Florida!  ORANGES IN FREAKING TREES!

“What the hell is wrong with this door?”

The door to the Loser Cruiser would not shut.

I am a calm cool professional woman.  NASA likes me.  I can handle this.

I got out and pulled on the automatic sliding door.  A little piece of cable was hanging down, holding the door back about halfway before shut.

I take it back about Cocoa.  I really really take it back about Disney.  That glimmer I had about using the credit cards?  Oh, my God, I SO take that back. 

Please shut my car door.  Please let it just shut.  Please please I’ll be good,  really I will.

“DIS IS AWESOME!!!!” Ren shouted as her hair flowed along the cool wind blowing in from the open mini-van door as we inched along the road to the dealership, hazzards flashing.  “I LOVE DIS, MOMMA!!!”

“WAAAAAH!!!!!” Eden screamed.  “WA-FREAKING-AHHH!!!”

This moment of humility brought to you by Nissan.

Okay, let me pause for a public service announcement:

As I shot this, I actually a heard a woman say, "Look! Oh my GOD now she's stopping to take a picture. What is WRONG with that woman?" I dunno, lady, but FREAKING NASA SEEMS TO LIKE IT.

If you ever happen to stop at a light next to an open-doored mini-van with flashers on?  And you can clearly see a howling red-faced infant and a euphoric four year old shouting “FASTER MOMMA FASTER!” … and little scraps of candy wrappers and random toys are falling out of the car?  And the woman driving?  Looks like she just wants to go to freaking Cocoa Beach?

Okay, not the time to say, “HEY LADY, THE DOOR’S OPEN!”

Because, I looked it up, and “No shit Sherlock” is the Internationally Approved response to that statement.

"Why we stopped, Momma? Dis is no fun, stopped."

And then we were back at the dealership. Look, here’s me trapped with two children in a tiny waiting room eating candy from the vending machine and waiting to find out just how fucked I am.  Never happens.

“So, the automatic door motor is shot,” he tells me.

“A new one is $900, installed.”

Okay, UNIVERSE, I GET IT!  We didn’t have it to go to Cocoa, either!  Hahahaha a cosmic lesson in money management, that’s a great one, I never get that one!

“I don’t need the door to be automatic,” I say.  “I just need it to shut.”

He pulls out a pair of cutters, clips the wire, shuts the door.

We’re back on the road in time to go get Mare.

That was when the heavens opened.

No, I don’t mean that the light came down and a little dove and a Big Voice said, “GO TO FLORIDA!!”

I mean that it started hailing.

No shit.

And Ren, who adores open cars and speed, rather detests hail and thunder. 

“STOP IT!  STOP IT WITH DA THUNDER I DON’T LIKE IT!”

We collected Mare who sat in the back holding the little kids’ hands and then Ren said, “I AM DA SNOW QUEEN AND I AM TELLING YOU TO STOP!”

And it did.

“Momma!”  Mare breathed.

“I know,” I said.  “Not only am I going to be stuck home with Ren, but she’s going to have a God complex.”

Back at the Tilty-Floored Farm House, the power was out.

Here I had a little Moment with my creator.

“Look, it’s not neccessary to hit the car and the sump pump in the same day, okay?  UNCLE.  I GIVE.” 

It was ballet day, and I was very proud of myself that despite it all, we got Mare into a leotard, hair in a proper bun, and out the door on time with all her siblings dressed basically appropriately.

We were the only ones there so we had a really nice view of the sign on the door reminding us that there was no class this week.

Swung back by the house and the power was still out, and her Mighty Weather-Altering Highness can’t deal with power outages, so we did what we always do.

We totally drove to the 99.  The Sox won last night, so one kid was free.

That’s a bargain.

My inclination was not to write it, because I don’t feel good about my choices, because I don’t believe in crying it out, and because the issue is so controversial, I was not sure I could stand to read the comments.

But having made the decision to share so much of my mothering, I feel a moral obligation to share when I have done things badly and not just when I have done them well.  Because the best work of life is in the hard stuff, the part we don’t want to talk about, the part that actually defines us whether we want it to or not. 

Your comments — every single last one of them — made the choice to post worthwhile.  Those of you who support crying it out were extremely compelling and thoughtful in your arguments.  Those who oppose were so tactful and so generous to me in my sleepless state.  And all of you were encouraging of me and my family and our efforts to do the best we can.

Things actually worked out very well.  I decided to combine strategies.  The first night (two nights ago) I put her down, let her cry a bit, when she was worked up went back in picked her up and soothed her, put her back down.  I brought her into my bed, when she refused to settle, put her back in hers.  It was a miserable night, we were both up all night but she never cried alone for more than a few minutes. 

Yesterday we made her stay in the crib for her nap time.  She was furious, but it didn’t last long.  Last night she fussed for only a bit before going to bed.  I slept almost six hours, uninterrupted.  This morning I feel like the birds are singing all around my head and I realize it’s not normal to throw back coffee to drown out your hatred of life.   I put her down for her nap a short bit ago and she went with no fuss.

I think perhaps that a big part of my sense of having failed is that I am on my third child and I still don’t know what the right choice is.  My instinct screams against ever letting a child cry for her mother and not going to her.  But I can’t help but notice how much better today is — not just for me, but for Eden.  She is so much happier this morning than she has been in a few weeks.  Less clingy, so much more eager to play.  No screeching.  She doesn’t seem at all traumatized, quite the opposite.  Which is confusing to me, but a huge relief, too.

Maybe the part I messed up was in letting her get so sleep deprived in the first place.  I’m not sure.

I’ll let you know if I figure it out.

At any rate, things are suddenly much better, and I am grateful for that, and grateful to all of you for your generosity.

Really, thanks.

~DaMomma~

Eden will not sleep.

I discovered co-sleeping when Mare was a newborn.  I was afraid to do it initially because of the Roll Over and Smother factor, but putting her in the crib carried the Spontaneous Death While You’re Sleeping factor.  So I decided I would just stay awake while she was a baby, (a decision that may or may not have been heavily influenced by the post-Cesarean Percocet).  Then I thought, holy God she’ll be a teenager and I can’t sleep then or she’ll bust out a basement window and hitch a ride to the Cape and I won’t catch wise until morning.  So I figured, well, she’ll move out some day, I can sleep then but — OH!  What if she needs me and I don’t hear the phone?

So then I decided just not to sleep — actually, I think it was the deciding not to sleep that led to all the thinking in the preceding paragraph.  Then I took a nap and realized I needed a better plan.

So we co-slept.  Mare never used a bassinette.  I bought a new one for Ren that she never used, and in keeping with tradition, I even got one for Eden that she never used, either.

I love co-sleeping a newborn.  It inspires me to keep the laundry current.  You tuck in beside this warm, sweet-smelling little package bundled in a bleach-fresh white sleep sack, bury your head against her, hear her breathe all night long.  Also, don’t tell anyone this, but it is super-convenient.  No getting up, stumbling around in the dark.  No crying, even.  She barely wakes up.  The baby roots against me, I nurse, pat her back,  she burps and passes out and we’re both back to sleep.  Dreamy.

With all three children there came some point near the end of the first year where they stopped sleeping.  Both Mare and Ren turned the convenience of my body next to them into a desire to latch on and stay that way all night long.

Cute Husband would take them over to his side in his arms, and they would screech and shriek to get back to me.  With me, they would shriek unless I let them nurse.

With both of them, it got to a crisis point where we were all sleepless and desperate.  I suffered for weeks — I wanted to find the solution that nurtured, didn’t abandon, met their needs … and resulted in sleep.  I never found it.

The sleeplessness had turned to abject hopelessness, day and night.  A darkening of perspective so dismal there was nothing left to do but the thing I did not want to do:  I put them in their crib and left them and did not come when they cried.  I hated myself for it.

With both of them, I swore it was the wrong thing to do, I cried in the other room feeling like I had become the mother I did not want to be — and cried in relief on the third night when the baby was blissfully asleep in her crib at 7 p.m.. 

With both kids, I swore that next time I would figure it out so we did not get to this point.

Guess what?

Eden’s path to this point has been slightly different:  she wanted out of our bed at four months.  Cute Husband and I think this is because we couldn’t stop poking her to check her breathing and like, major organ function.  She hated us and wanted her own space.

But oh, what a dream she was to put to bed.  Down on her belly, bummy up in the air, thumb in her mouth, and she would close her eyes and drift off.

I hated the inconvenience of a baby that had to be tended to in another room, I begged her to come back to our bed, but she really liked her own space.  So I did it:  I got up, I nursed, I soothed.  Every two hours for a year.

And yet, it has happened anyway.  Eden has reached a point where she will not sleep.  She screams in her crib, she screams in our bed.  The most she will sleep is four consecutive hours at night, and just forty five minutes twice per day.

And the sleep deprivation is one beast during the day when I am working and taking care of kids and trying to keep up with the stuff of life with a cosmic neurological hangover.  But at 2 a.m. sleep deprivation is even darker.  I pat a wailing baby, I stare out into the dark street, I try not to think about how the hell I am going to get my work done tomorrow, and what will happen if I am fired and what will we do when the money runs out and who did we think we were to have these kids and how many years am I going to have to work this hard and be this desperate?

And what if something bad happens?  If it’s this hard when it’s good how bad will it be when it’s bad and what will be the next bad thing that happens?

And then morning comes and I drink too much coffee and my head hurts and I am anxious and again it is 2 a.m. and I don’t know how to make this baby sleep.

I have made a mistake.  I know I have.  I know this was avoidable, but I have not managed to avoid it.

In the darkness of that empty sleepless hour, I understand that this is what it means to be accountable:  this has to end.  It can’t be about what I don’t want to do – it has to be about what has to get done.  I’m not perfect and the more I try to be perfect, to find the answer I am happy with, the more damage I will do.

I will tell myself that she is crying in anger and not fear.  I will tell myself that lots of people do this.  I will remind myself that I have done it twice before and it has worked out.  I will take myself firmly by the shoulders and say, “What you have done for her in hours of nurture and devotion cannot be undone by this.”

But at the end of the day I just feel bad.  I will forever wince at “the Sleep Question” because I feel I have answered it badly for our family.  Because I am completely morally opposed to crying it out, and we’re going to do it anyway.

A third time.

8:03 Yes you can watch Sponge Bob.

8:07 Is there a limit to how much mucus can pour out of my cranium? Seriously?

9:20 Got shut out of Zumba because the gym nursery won’t keep Eden more than an hour and you have to get here 20 mins early to grab a spot. Pissed & frustrated

9:30 Eating fruit snacks from the vending machine, still pissed.

9:40 Gym Director personally apologized, hears my suggestions. Gives me guest pass to tomorrow’s private class with Miss No-Organs, whom I passionately love despite the fact she cannot possibly be carrying everything she needs in that tiny abdomen.

10:00 Much less pissed. Gym management is excellent.

Noon  STARBUCKS!

1:00 Schmoop naps and I look at the scattering of Cheerios all over my floor and put a good long thought into sweeping them up.  Then I come to my senses and play a round of iPhone solitaire.

Noon   I want to take the kids somewhere, but Eden has no more clothes.  Her drawers are totally empty.  I consider that it would be really wrong to spend another day inside.  And, in that vein, doing laundry would keep us inside, wouldn’t it?

1:00 Loaded the kids into the Loser Cruiser.  Eden’s totally naked, except for a diaper.

1:30  At Target we run into Ren’s teacher.  Ren gleefully explains that we’re there to buy clothes for her naked sister.  She’s so excited she almost falls over in her mismatched shoes.  I’m just proud we got all the barf out of her hair and I really feel like I’m doing well.  (Plus, honestly, lady?  If you didn’t feel the need to take a freaking break I wouldn’t be in this position, now would I? Am I right?)

1:45  “I’m totally telling this story to Eden when she’s old enough,” Miss Thanren* said. 

              “Oh, you won’t need to, all she’ll have to do is Google herself.”

1:50 We pick a cute outfit and upload the pictures to Facebook.  Everyone agrees she looks great in brown.

2:00  Errands, a few presents for the girls, STARBUCKS! –sun is shining, now we’re cooking with gas!

*The head teacher’s name is “Miss Smarter”

Ren barfed in our bed after her Dad stuffed her full of treats at the Celtics game.