Welcome to the Scream Fest

Sometimes the most love-drenched parenting moments come in silence: profound gazes, sleeping bodies cuddled impossibly close, hungry mouths sucking noiselessly away on my breast with the strength of survival-stained-instinct.

But if you are really, really lucky, you find yourself transcendent in the midst of the (incredibly deafening) not-so-peaceful moments.

Let me just give you an example. A few weeks ago, we (ridiculously) decided to take our family (all of us snot-nosed and coughing) to a wedding less than two hours away. BK (before kids), such a trip would be no big deal at all. And, indeed, Justin and I congratulated ourselves on our incredible parenting skills after a peaceful ride up to the wedding, both children snoring noisily in the backseat. And then, of course, the ride home ensued.

To describe the 90 minute trip home as loud would be an enormous understatement. It turns out that exhausted three year olds who are also a bit sick and crazed by too much sugar do not make the best traveling companions. Lucy transformed from the sweet cherub that she had been a few hours before into a pacifier demanding, irrational creature with disproportionately large lung capacities. In short, she screamed the entire way home.

It should be said that Lucy's scream fests always are triggered by something or other. But the something or other that triggers them is almost always imperceptible to rational adults. I believe a few weeks ago the issue was she had dropped on pacifier that she wanted to hold onto (although she still had another pacifier in her mouth) and we refused to pull the car over immediately to remedy the drastically urgent emergency. In any case, once the screams begin, the only thing that is certain is that they most likely will not stop until our ears are ringing or Lucy gets her way.

Because we are super-hero-parents, we try not to give in to these fits. Ask POLITELY, we remind her calmly. And so, she adds a new word to her screaming mantra. Instead of "STOP THE CAR NOW!" She starts yelling, at an increased pitch and volume: "PLEASE STOP THE CAR NOW." We, still calm, tell her that this is not acceptable behavior, reminding her that her brother is sleeping beside her. She screams back "HE IS NOT SLEEPING ANYMORE." As if to confirm her words, Zander then began to add his own screams to the symphony.

A newborn's screams are a different matter entirely. Lucy's screams make me mad. His break my heart. His, sound to me like: "Mommy I love you but I am trying to sleep and I am sick and sissy is so loud and my ears hurt."

And so, Justin and I drove, exchanging glances ranging from amusement to torment, all the way back to Bloomington, with our two children screaming at the top of their lungs.

I think this is the story of persistence. I think there are small victories in each day that we miraculously don't lose our insanity.

And I think next time we go on a long trip with the kids, Justin and I will most definitely pack ear plugs.

No Sleep = No Joke

All moms have their "things".

You know what I mean. Some moms really worry that their kids will get fat, so they over-obsess about only giving them healthy foods. Some moms really worry that their kids won't succeed in school, so they sign them up for every possible tutoring-academic-organization imaginable. My mom's main worry had everything to do with sleep.

I still remember my mom's face when I would ask to go to a sleepover. "You know you will come home the next morning totally grouchy and it will ruin the rest of your Saturday," she would point out, not altogether incorrect. And each night, during our back scratching-prayer ritual (this was a huge hit in our house . . a duo that created in me a deep affinity for prayer), she would negotiate with my alarm-setting for the next day: "Do you REALLY need all that time to get ready? How about sleep in just a few more minutes??"

Thanks to mom, I've been a pretty good sleeper throughout life. I'd get made fun of during college, as I dutifully headed off to bed by 11pmish each night, ensuring at least eight hours a night. But then I became a mother. And, even more shocking, I decided to become a mother a second time.

In many ways, once you become a mother you realize the multitude of ways your own mother wasn't such a dummy after all. Well, here's one way. Forced into living a life of sleep deprivation, I have found the first months living with a newborn as delightfully fuzzy. I can't recall my address, my passwords, or, sometimes, my husband's name. I drive slower, but I feel like I'm zooming down the highway. I have to focus, REALLY focus, to hear and comprehend words when there is any other background noise (aka the TV). And, most pointedly, my ambition for any expenditure of energy beyond the necessary things (eating, sleeping, nursing, feeding my kids) is remarkedly low. Yesterday I sat in amazement at all of the young, energetic, motivated grad students surrounding me. (I used to perhaps be one of them just a few months ago.) They literally competed to answer questions better, use larger vocabulary words, get their criticism of the author out there. I sat there literally amused, thinking, "how CUTE. They all really CARE about this stuff." Uh oh.

I'm praying I get back in the swing of the academic world just in time to, oh, I don't know, write a qualifying exam and a dissertation proposal. I'm praying all of this is about sleep deprivation and not a totally brain melting. And I'm praying I can remember my husband's name again.

But most of all, I've got to say: "Mom, you were right. Sleep is pretty much the most important thing ever. I promise I will attend NO sleep overs for the next decade, and I will set my alarm for the latest possible time." It's really too bad baby Zander doesn't come with a snooze button.