Weasel Of Doom

Squeeker crawled up the stairs all the way to the second floor today. Parental house has the living room and kitchen downstairs, master bedroom and guest bedroom on the second floor, and a craft/relaxation/place-to-hang-clothes-to-dry-out-after-washing room on the third floor. Both boys are beginning to get bored with the downstairs, I suspect.

DemonChild now routinely goes into my room on the pretense of looking for Mommy, and then proceeds to play under the bed, unique little snowflake that he is. Whole colonies of innocent dust bunnies have been wiped out. Attempts to put stickers on floors, TV, and windowsills have been made. Furniture that ought not to be climbed upon was scaled. Things were used for purposes they were not meant for. Plants were endangered, and mattresses trampled. Downstairs, DemonChild managed to get almost all the way into the fireplace. Parental units shoo-ed him out before I could take a picture, alas. I am hoping to convince them to give him another opportunity for a photo moment.

Squeeker makes a beeline for the fireplace any chance he has. If thwarted, he heads to the opposite wall and uses the glass shelves for the dvd player and vcr to pull up, another thing he is not supposed to do, mainly because we worry he will slip and hurt himself on the glass. He not so much crawls as runs around on all fours, very quickly, and takes every opportunity to skitter towards places he should avoid as soon as our attention wanders for a few seconds.

The other day at the park, DemonChild walked quite a ways away from Dad. When captured, he had a fat juicy worm in his hand. “I checked, and it did not look like DemonChild had a chance to take a bite out of it,” reports my father. Some things, I just don’t want to know :-)

On Tuesday, Dad drove me and the boys to the Gulf of Finland. We did not have an auspicious start to our adventure – DemonChild fell asleep in the car, and upon being transferred into the stroller said, “спать!” (Russian for “sleep!”) and proceeded to nap for another half an hour. Squeeker started crying as soon as we got to the beach. Then we woke up DemonChild, and neither of them wanted to enjoy the nice sunshine and sand. I finally dragged DemonChild into the surf, which he loved and had a great time with. Half an hour later, he was “All done.” Back under the beach umbrella, Squeeker found a rock he could love, and finally stopped fussing. DemonChild ran around for a while, picked up and discarded unholy amounts of garbage, then crawled into the front seat of the stroller and informed us that it was “time to go home.” I had no idea he knew the sentence!

Sleep continues to be a problem. It took over an hour to get DemonChild to fall asleep tonight. From 9:30 to 11 pm, my work was punctuated by ear-piercing shrieks at random intervals. Hopefully, he will at least sleep in, instead of waking up at 5:30 like the last time. My poor parents are going to be in a zombie-like state by the time we have to leave, if this keeps up.

I think the last time I got an uninterrupted nights’ sleep was when Erin and I went to a conference in Salisbury (summer 2005, I think it was). And even then I had to be accompanied by a breast pump.

We are not blessed with children who fall asleep at 8 pm, sleep through the night, and wake up cheerfully at 8 am. Hell no. DemonChild goes down, fighting every step of the way, between 10 and 11 pm (granted, it is still light out by then, and that gotta add to the confusion, but still, one would think he would be too tired to care by that point). He sleeps in my parents’ room, occasionally finishing the night in their bed. He is usually up by 6:30, 7 at the latest.

Squeeker sleeps in my room. After nursing himself into slumber around 9 pm, he then proceeds to wake up for repeat visits to the boob every couple of hours (he probably is teething, and wants the comforts, but still, one would think every three hours would have worked just as well). He is usually up by 6:30 am.

[here the writing of this post was interrupted because you-know-who wanted his midnight boob appointment]

A few days ago, Squeeker got up at 5:45, and DemonChild followed at 6:00. Fortunately, Dad got up then, too, so I rolled back into bed, muttering, “One of these days I am going to exchange you for two kittens, even if I have to pay extra for it.” Yup, I am a shining example of loving motherhood when I am running on 4 hours of sleep. Luckily, I get to go back to bed until noon or so after both of my parents get up :)

This, incidentally, is my 100th post. Figures it would be a whiny one, right?

DemonChild got a new haircut.

[Aside to beloved spouse: You ask, "Who’s idea was it to cut DemonChilds hair and what was the excuse they used? :-)" That would have been my parents. You, I believe, uttered, "they can cut his hair if they want to" before we left. Well, they wanted to. *grins*]

I stayed home with Squeeker, while Mom and Dad took DemonChild to the special kid’s hair-cut place. They took along our portable DVD player to entertain DemonChild (who at home would not let us do much to his hair). At the salon, they had three hairdressers, toys, TV playing cartoons, etc. Even a live turtle. I am told DemonChild sat through the haircut absorbed in “Lilo and Stitch”, but after the haircut was done he went over and explored the toy shelf and visited with the turtle. It was apparently a very positive experience for all concerned.

What do you think? Everybody is loving the short hair, but I am ambivalent. I think DemonChild looked really cute with his hair long. Guess I was meant to be a redneck parent… Am I totally in the minority by preferring the long hair look?

DemonChild is not very verbal. We are lucky to get “Bye bye french fries, nuggets all gone” out of him. He does, however, say “Ting-ting” a lot, and nobody knows what the hell that means. He would come up and point at Squeeker, “Ting-ting!” Or see something interesting, “Ting-ting?” Or just babble “ting-ting” for no discernible reason. We are baffled.

DemonChild is saying some words in Russian. I heard him say “Серёжа” instead of Squeeker a couple of times. Dad says he said “машина” when he saw a car. Mom reports hearing “яблоко” when he asked for an apple. Other than that, he is resisting all our attempts to make him multilingual.

Friday afternoon, DemonChild picked up a big rock and tried chucking it around. Dad took the rock from him and stuffed it down the back of DemonChild’s pants. Much hilarity on our part ensued, as DemonChild tried to figure out what was going on and the rock kept sliding inexorably down his pant leg.

It rained on Friday night. DemonChild was begging to go outside. The grandparents let him out for a while, while the rain was only a drizzle, “so he will grow.” (In Russia, we say that mushrooms grow in the rain; hoping it would work on DemonChildren, too.) We shall see if a sudden growth spurt will follow :-)

And then there are a lot of not-so-cute moments. DemonChild refusing to stop picking up garbage, DemonChild hitting people when he is frustrated, DemonChild throwing temper tantrums, DemonChild not doing what he is told, DemonChild being destructive, DemonChild being disobedient, DemonChild being a pain in the ass. Frankly, I am not enjoying this age very much. I miss the sweet baby DemonChild used to be, and hope that once this stage is over, we will get our lovable boy back.

I love my parents, but…

[exhibit A]

It is 10:30 pm, and both kids are bouncing off the walls.
Me: “Why won’t I put the kids in the stroller and go for a walk with them?”
Them: “Dad went for a walk with DemonChild two hours ago and that did not work.”
Me (thinking): “It worked earlier today for his nap, though… And perhaps now he is ready to fall asleep.”
Fast forward to 11 am. Both kids still up.
Dad: “What do you do in a situation like that?”
Me: “We put the kids in the stroller and go for a walk.”
Dad (not what he wanted to hear): “Even this late?”
Me: “Well, yeah. Though normally if they are still up like that by 10 pm, we head out – we don’t wait longer.”
Dad: “…”
Me: “Or we can take them for a drive. That usually works, too.”
Dad: “They’ll fall asleep soon.”
Me (thinking): “A car ride worked for DemonChild’s nap yesterday. The two of you have been wasting the last two hours trying to put the kids to bed. And you look at me like I am the idiot here?”
Me (out loud): “You ask what we do. I tell you, and you don’t want to try any of that. Then why do you even ask?”
Dad: “…”
It is now almost midnight and Squeektar is still awake. I wash my hands of this mess.
12:30. Mom gets Squeektar to fall asleep by giving him a stroller ride inside the house.
Mom: “Well, why DIDN’T you take them for a walk in the stroller?”
Me (thinking): “Because you and Dad said not to. Duh.”

[exhibit B]
Me (on the phone to parents a couple weeks ago): “And DemonChild picks up every single piece of junk he sees! And puts everything in his mouth! And does not obey when you say No.”
Mom: “What do you expect? He is a boy.”
Present day. Mom returns from her first walk with DemonChild.
Mom: “He picks up every single piece of junk he sees! And puts everything in his mouth! And does not obey when you say No.”
Me: “Ummm…. Told you….”
It took every ounce of willpower I have not to say, “What do you expect? He is a boy!”

St. Petersburg is 9 hrs ahead of Milwaukee. Often, adjusting to the time change is the hardest thing about the trip. S., though, seems unfazed – he fell asleep about 10 pm and was up around 5:30, with a couple nursing sessions thrown in between, which is par for the course for him. D. had somewhat more trouble – the first night he was up until 2 am (because some parents who shall remain nameless let him sleep until 8 pm; I was asleep myself, or I would have said something). Next morning, he slept until 9:30, had an hour long nap, and was asleep by 10 pm. Today he got up around 10 am – where is all that sleeping in when B. and I need it during the weekend? S. slept until 8:30 am, too – it’s like the kids are mocking me. He is taking pretty nice naps, too, and rarely squeekers. Nobody believes me that it is so NOT how things normally are *smiles* Update: It is now Thursday, and the kids got up at 7 am (D.) and 8 am (S.). D. is throwing tantrums like there is no tomorrow. S. is finding opportunities for squeekering. Looks like things are back to normal, LOL.

On Monday D. went for a walk with Dad and found a puddle to play in. Such was his joy at making himself one with the puddle that even random passerby cheered him on. He came home dripping wet and covered in mud. On Tuesday, Mom took him to the pond to see the ducks. D. waded right in. It became very obvious that having only two pairs of shoes was not going to cut it. So we took a family trip to the store, and D. now has 4 new pairs of shoes. Can you tell the ones he has already worn?

On Wednesday, my parents dragged a tub outside and filled it with water. Much water play commenced. S. splashed. D. tried to lap the water like a dog. S. led the way into the tub. D. gamely followed, almost squashing Squeektar in the process. Clothes got soaked. Diapers swelled to disturbing size. Eventually, protesting players were carried off to get a bath.

We land in Stockholm. Friendly Laura stops by to help me get everything off the plane. We get out of the plane to the total absence of stroller. “Where is my stroller?” I ask, and am told to keep walking, it will be there. Now we are in the airport proper, still no stroller and nobody around to ask; the doors leading back to the airplane are closed, with finality. There are two possible directions to go (down or left), and Laura and I chose down, in hopes that the stroller awaits at the bottom. DemonChild freaks out on the escalator, and learns that falling down is NOT an acceptable coping mechanism when you are on what basically amounts to moving stairs. Once down, we find out that we should have gone left. Laura helps me carry Squeeker back upstairs, elevators (or escalators up) not being high on list of priorities in the Arlanda airport. DemonChild is not in the mood to walk up the steps, so I more or less drag him by the arm. Upstairs is now totally empty; Laura finds me a cart somewhere, and tells me that by now she would have been crying. I explain that my TSA interlude took care of that.

Helpful Laura departs to meet with her husband and children, and I approach the apparently empty security checkpoint leading to my gate. Turns out there IS someone manning it; my bottle of water is confiscated (it does not matter that I literally took it off the plane – rules are rules), but DemonChild is allowed to keep the water in his sippy cup (which he then accidentally half-spills on the wood laminate floor – not something you see in airports often, and I flash back to my Mom ironing their wood laminate floor when it got accidentally rained on), mainly because they have no place to dump the water, and I suspect the guard feels bad for me. He does explain that strollers are not allowed in Arlanda if you are making a connecting flight, and assures me that my stroller will go to St. Petersburg. I, however, am in a possession of a gate tag that clearly says “ARL” on it, so I have other opinions on the odds of stroller and self reuniting at our final destination.

I have an hour to kill before boarding starts. Our gate is at the other end of the terminal, so we take a leasurely walk there. I attempt to put the bear harness on DemonChild, who promptly has a meltdown – he wants to be the one holding “monkey tail.” Fine. We perambulate down terminal 5, DemonChild leading me on the leash. We take a look at waiting planes. DemonChild screams “sleeping! Ssshhhhh!” whenever he sees people asleep. I try putting the harness on him again. Full-blown meltdown ensues. Somebody really really needs a nap. We go for another walk along the terminal, DemonChild leading by the tail.

Back at the gate, other passengers bound to St. Petersburg have shown up. A nice lady takes DemonChild for a little walk. Another lady holds Squeeker. Everybody is sympathetic, and refrain from saying I must have been out of my mind to fly alone with two kids. We board. Our seats are at the very back of the plane. Squeektar starts to squeek as we walk down the isle; by the time I plop him in the window seat, he is out. Once we are in the air, I take DemonChild to the bathroom to get changed. It must be right over the motors; the hiss of air and roar of engines are very loud. DemonChild is very obviously freaked out, and submits to diaper change with a very clear “can we please get done here ASAP?” expression on his face. Poor little guy. He finally falls asleep during the last 15 minutes of our one-hour flight. I chat with the stewardess, who tells me that the reason why they don’t gate check strollers in Arlanda has something to do with insurance policies.

We land in St. Petersburg. The stewardess helps me with luggage, then the lady who walked DemonChild before takes Squeek, and her husband takes my carryons. We walk to customs; upon spying the escalator, DemonChild begs to be picked up. Smart boy. Amazingly, there is no line to get through customs. We are done in less than 5 minutes, and actually have to wait for luggage. Helpful Russian couple gets me a cart, and suggest I try to get the kids to my parents first. It’s a good idea; Dad is already hovering in the entryway, so I hand the boys over and resist an urge to go right back through customs and take a little vacation of my own *grins*

Luggage arrives. Not surprisingly, the stroller does not. I go to “Lost Luggage” department and try to explain that my luggage is not so much lost as shipped to the wrong place. After advising me to always ask questions about where my luggage is going in the future, they promise to hunt the stroller down. [Sure enough, they call Tuesday night to let us know the stroller arrived in Pulkovo airport, and then deliver it to my parents house on Wednesday evening.]

The hard part of traveling to Russia is over. Now to see if I can avoid driving parental units nuts during our four-week stay.

(caution: this is rather long, and nowhere near as funny as B.’s account of D.’s TSA encounter)

The plan was to pack on Saturday. As usual, real life had no respect for my plans. I was tired, kids wanted attention, etc, etc – as a result, there we were around midnight, starting to pack. B. liberated flash cards, memory sticks, and outlet adapters from their plastic prisons, and went to bed. I spent the night doing laundry, loading stuff into the big black suitcase, and burning DVDs.

Sunday morning, both little bundles of joy were up by 6:30 am. I finished packing, and realized that, while everything fit into the big suitcase, it also made the aforementioned suitcase virtually impossible to lift, requiring me to pay extra at checkin. To avoid that hassle, I had speedily repacked everything into two smaller hot-pink suitcases. Both were by no means full, but guaranteed to be under the weight limit. Packing the carry-ons proved to be another challenge. Mental note to self: 20 diapers may be an overkill. Books to read for self should go into the suitcase. D. does not need an extra change of clothes. S. would not eat canned 1st foods, no matter how hard you try. At any rate, I was packing to the bitter end (and even then, forgot the diaper cream. Ooops.)

We were warned that there was road construction in Illinois, so it might take us longer to get to O’Hare than usual. So we got out of the house around noon, stopped at Alan’s to get his I-Pass, and toodled off towards Chicago. D. and S. had fallen asleep once we got going, and I finished reading “Spindle’s End” to B.. Sleep was not forthcoming.

We made pretty good time, and got to O’Hare around 2 pm. Then we realized that getting a double stroller with two kids in it, two suitcases, two carry-ons, and a pack’n’play to the check-in area may not be as easy as anticipated. And of course SAS check-in counter was on the opposite side of the terminal from where we entered :-)

Still, necessity is the mother of invention (it is entirely possible to balance a pack-n-play in front of the handlebars of the double-stroller, in case you are wondering), and we lugged everything to the appropriate counter and checked in. As usual, nobody asked to see the notarized permission letting me take the children out of the country. I asked if I would be able to gate-check the stroller. They said sure. I asked if I would be able to use the stroller in the Stockholm airport, and they said to ask the agent at the gate about that (and so the Stroller Saga begins).

We grabbed a bit to eat at McDonalds, so that D. can have his last French fries and chicken nuggets for a while (when I told that part to Mom, she looked heavenward at the mention of the junk we feed our precious first-born). 20 minutes later, the line to TSA security has more than quadrupled in size. It now snaked almost all the way to the original SAS check-in counter. We had an hour before boarding started, and the line looked like it would easily outlast all of us.

40 minutes later, we had progressed to where the line used to end before we went to McDonalds. At that point, a harried lady gathered all SAS passengers and formed a new line for us. I was told to make sure nothing would trigger the sensors, or I “would keep everybody waiting.” At this point I am thinking, “Lady, I have two little kids, two carry-ons, and a big-ass stroller, I quite frankly don’t give a damn about your problems.” I take off D.’s shoes. He has no idea what is going on, and is not happy. Now I am holding S. and D., and attempting to go through the scanning machine. But no, they want D. to go through on his own. I politely tell them he is not going to. They insist. D. walks half-way through, finds a ticket stub on the floor, sits down in the middle of the gate, and commences playing with the garbage. The TSA agent tries urging him on. D. does not give a damn. Surprise, surprise, they let me through holding both kids. Now I am on the other side, restraining D. while trying to hold on to Squeek. TSA is having issues with my stroller, apparently. I am not sympathetic. Five minutes later, still no stroller. I get a dirty look for having all my stuff still in the bins. I tell them through clenched teeth that I will not be able to do anything until my stroller gets through. Another five minutes, some more TSA struggle to fold the stroller, and finally I and the only way I can get the kids to sit still are reunited. Everybody gets strapped in, and to the gate we go. My opinion of the people behind the idea of TSA finds some new lows to sink to.

At the gate, and the boarding has not started yet. They tag my stroller, and I ask if I will be able to use it when we land in Stockholm. “Sure,” they say. I meet a nice lady named Laura, who is traveling to join her husband and children on vacation in Sweden. Laura plays with S. a while, until we figure out there is no special boarding for passengers with kids. We get in line, Laura carries S. in for me, I fold the stroller and leave it at the gate. Will I see it again in Stockholm? We’ll find out in 8 hours, I guess.

We have three out of four middle seats towards the end of the plane. Pleasant surprise – the fourth seat is empty. I strap D. in at the isle seat (he is NOT amused at being strapped in, even though there is plenty of wiggle room for him with the belt at its tightest), and position the car seat on the other side of me. Takeoff. I shove the boobs into S.’s face, in hopes that he will nurse and pop the pressure in his ears by swallowing. D. is not thrilled about the ear pressure, and I force him to swallow some water, which helps. Toys are being handed out to the kids. S. gets a soft toy that is probably a dragon (opinions vary), and D. a book of Superman stickers. Nice ladies across the isle help him figure out what to do with the stickers. It becomes obvious that D. is not ready for stickers quite yet.

D. eats his grapes and his blueberries, and munches on a some kind of hard thing bread cracker-type thingie they gave us with dinner. Then he settles in to watch Ice Age 2 on the portable DVD player. He wants nothing to do with the headphones, however, so he gets to watch a silent film. In the meantime, S. squeekers a bit, loudly refuses my attempts to feed him baby food, nurses, and finally clonks out around 7 pm. He sleeps on and off until around midnight. D. gets done with Ice Age 2, requests Lilo & Stitch, and finally falls asleep around 10 pm, stretched across his seat and mine. My total sleep time on the plane: 2 hrs.

Our pilot announces that we will be landing in Stockholm in an hour. I repack our bags, buckle in S. (who, if left unbuckled in his seat, demonstrates an unnerving ability to climb out of it), and wake up D., who at this point had about 4 hrs of sleep and is not happy about being woken up. Nothing new there – D. does NOT like it when his sleep is being interrupted (he does not have any such qualms about other people’s sleep).

(to be concluded)

more later….

Heading out to Chicago.

Pray for us :-)