No, I’m not talking about next week, when Jennifer is in Singapore and I have to be a single, working father of two for ten days. I’m talking about later today when Jennifer is running around the house, packing like a crazy person. Auntie K. and Uncle T. will be at a wedding, and I’m going to be playing softball with my volleyball buddies. Rather, I’m going to be drinking with my drinking buddies, while trying to play softball at the same time, and wishing I was playing volleyball instead.

K. and T. have been in town all week, and will be leaving at the same time tomorrow as Mom. I anticipate this will spark in Anna an outburst of epic proportions, such that none will be spared. But at least that frees me from having to plan the rest of the week.

After Jennifer and beloved Auntie K. and Uncle T. leave for the airport and Anna throws an epic outburst, only to be calmed by the Cinderella Video of Last Resort, followed by the nap-time consisting only of screaming and pounding on the door because she may not again watch the Cinderella Video of Last Resort, followed by threats of death (by all parties), followed by a half hour of relative quiet, it will be time to go to the playgroup Easter party. Getting-ready-to-go-to-playgroup will consist of some sort of clothing-related protest, followed by a dislike-of-parties-to-which-strangers-are-invited protest, followed by some yet-to-be-foreseen protest, after which I will pack the girls into the car and go to playgroup if for no other reason than to collect the well-wishes and offers of help from the other parents who have been in the same boat at one time or another. I will bring my camera, but I suspect I won’t have a chance to use it. I suspect I will stop at McDonald’s on the way home, even though I only eat there a couple of times a year, but I don’t think I’ll have the patience to deal with picky eaters or dirty dishes.

After going through the bedtime-for-two drill, followed by the reversal-of-entropy¹ drill, the blue glow therapy², and preparing for the following day, it will time to go to sleep, which in practice, means tossing and turning in my big empty bed until I decide the consequences of being tired will be too dire, then drifting off, only to be immediately awakened by one of the children crying, then failing to ignore the crying, then finally going to sleep at 90 minutes past too-late o’clock, then apparently getting immediately back up and starting the morning routine.

But who knows, it might not be as bad as all that. Maybe there will only be two protests before playgroup.

¹ cleaning

² watching TV

On Monday, Jennifer’s regular day off, I also took the day off. We sent the kids to their respective preschool and daycare, then spent the day off by ourselves.

We went for a hike at Torrey Pines State Reserve, which really is San Diego in microcosm; rugged cliffs, beautiful ocean vistas, and terrific weather. I took some pictures and we enjoyed the wonderful weather and scenery. In the ocean, we saw a whale migrating south, a seal, and pelicans dive-bombing fish.

After our hike, we drove south to La Jolla, where we had a nice lunch at Brockton Villa, a casual restaurant with an ocean view and a terrific menu. It wasn’t exactly the care-free getaway we were hoping for, but it was a really nice day to enjoy the fruits of our insanely high cost of living.

Anna and Tara spent the night at M. and K.’s house, so Jennifer and I had the first at-home date night in a very long time. By the time we were ready to go, I was really in no mood to go out for dinner; I had a very long and lousy day at work which left me without time to eat breakfast or lunch. After some deliberation, we stopped at the KFC drive-thru. We very rarely eat fast food, so this was something out of the ordinary for us. Sitting at our kitchen table, ignoring the toy-strewn disaster around us, it was wonderful to sit and talk not as parents, but as people. Without a menu to peruse or noisy patrons to ignore, we actually had the freedom to pay attention to each other for what seems like the first time in forever.

To top it off, we each got at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep; an event so rare and precious in our circles as to inspire awe and jealousy among our friends.

For the last couple years, since our child-free Western Carribean cruise, we have been seeking to reproduce “the cruise effect”–the liberated feeling that comes with putting our responsibilites aside for a time. We know it’s within our grasp for short periods of time, but it’s so hard to let go of all the unresolved issues and logistical juggling that make up the bulk of our daily interaction. Our $12 date surpassed any $150 meal I’ve ever had.

The challenge now is to do it again. and again…

For the last couple weeks, Anna has been absolutely addicted to the Pippi Longstocking books, even to the point of giving up her usual “happy things” and daily review to have extra time to read Pippi. It seems that we’ve read “Pippi Goes On Board” a least four or five times cover to cover (Anna bookmarks it in between sessions), and it probably takes two hours to read the whole thing once. Some of the material seems a bit mature for her ears: cannibals, firearms, and of course Pippi herself is an uneducated rich girl who lives with a horse and a monkey¹.

Jen heard from a german friend that Astrid Lindgren’s books are very popular in Germany, and more of them have been translated from Swedish to German than to English. Perhaps we’ll have to dig up some of the German versions for Jen to read to Anna. Although Anna takes Spanish lessons at school, I don’t practice with her at home; we haven’t even begin to take advantage of Jennifer’s fluency in German.

¹ Perhaps she could be considered the Paris Hilton of her time.

Anna and I spent pretty much the whole morning in the pool, taking a short break between shifts to re-up the sunscreen. Jen had a rotten night of sleep, as Tara was up three times (not counting the time Anna cried and woke her up before Jen got back from her game). Of course, the weather was hot long before we were out of the room, so the pool was quite nice.

We ate lunch in our room from the plentiful spread Jen had packed; shortly after, Jen had to go to her game, and I tried to get the two girls to sleep. Anna would not sleep because her knee kept waking her up because it wanted to go to Mom’s hockey game. Or so she says, I’m somewhat skeptical. She seemed like she was itchy, and hadn’t bathed since coming back from the pool, so I put her in the bath before waking up Tara and gathering up both girls and their gear in the car to go see Mom’s game. Anna cried all the way there that she was going to be badly sunburned (keep in mind, this girl is half Mexican). Twenty minutes later we were at the rink. I gathered the bags, a weeping Anna, a wiggling Tara, and made it to the stands just in time to see the final NINE SECONDS tick off the clock in the third period. Bzzzt. Game over.

We watched the players shake hands and leave the ice, then waited for Jen to get changed so that we could give her a ride home. You win some, you lose some, and some you miss entirely.

Last night Jennifer orchestrated a terrific evening to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. But wait, I have to back up a bit.

Anna has been waking up at night for about the last week, and each night it has been getting progressively worse. Jennifer is a light sleeper to begin with, so she has been getting progressively more tired as a result. In the old days, when Anna would have a problem sleeping, we would have to start ignoring her cries at night; after one or two nights she would stop waking up, because she knew she’d get no attention. As a result, she’d sleep better and be happier around the clock. This strategy is complicated by the fact that Anna’s night waking now means that Tara will wake up as well, and Tara is too young to have her cries ignored. This is a problem.

So, we’ve been getting up to settle Anna back down, and this has resulted in habitual night waking, leading to the entire family being tired and cranky around the clock, with no resolution in sight. Since we have a standing reward for Anna for sleeping through the night¹ (choice of video, stickers, book, other trinkets), we chose to have consequences for not sleeping, namely losing Bear for the night and having her door closed. Didn’t work. Saturday was especially rotten in the morning, as Anna was having epic bad behavior, and as the two of us battled with Anna over her behavior, I could not remember a time where I felt less competent as a parent. Such is life with children. At least I did manage to handle both girls at nap time so that Jennifer could take an hour nap; she was just exhausted. I was too, but I usually sleep pretty hard and I knew that Jennifer would probably be up before I would if one of the girls started making noise. In the afternoon, we had a zero-tolerance policy on Anna’s whining, and she behaved much better as a result.

Jen had C. and her sister C. come over to watch the girls² while the two of us went out to Donovan’s for a very nice dinner, then we scooted up to Del Mar to walk along the coast. We reflected on our ten years of marriage, and fifteen years together. It was wonderful.

When we arrived home, the girls were asleep. Anna had gone to bed early, and Tara had gone very late. This is fine for us, because Anna sleeps better when she’s not overtired, and Tara sleeps better when she is. Our nighttime strategy was to ignore Anna’s waking for the night, so Jen slept in my office wearing earplugs, while Tara and I slept in the master bedroom. As Jen was putting Tara to bed, Anna was awake enough for Jen to explain the rules for the night. The result was that Anna didn’t wake up at all, Tara slept eight hours, and I slept so well that I was wide awake at 5am–I’m just not used to getting that much sleep lately. Hopefully everyone will be rested and happy today, as we have two birthday parties to attend today, and Anna will not have a chance to nap in between.

We often talk about how little we knew about ourselves, each other, and marriage ten years ago. We talk about how fifteen years ago we wouldn’t have guessed that we’d be married (to each other) with children at this point. We certainly wouldn’t have guessed that on the occasion of our tenth anniversary we’d be sleeping in separate beds and thinking it was a good thing.

¹ When you’ve lost as much sleep as we have, a full night’s rest is a bargain at twice the price.

² When Tara gets older, C. should be able to handle them both by herself.