A Small Tragedy: The 24-hour dad mug

I knew it was only a matter of time. In some ways I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. And yet it's still a raw shock that it's time with us was so brief.

Last Saturday was a beautiful day, and I decided to take Karol for some mommy-daughter time to a place called Little Shop of Crafts not far from where we live. It's a really neat place where you can hang out as long as you want, listen to music, and make crafty things. But it's not cheap. The trade for not having a sitting fee or materials fee is that the pottery or other products for painting/decorating are a little overpriced. In the long run, however, it's totally worth it not to have to ration your paint or watch the clock. If you don't finish the day you come in, you can even bring your stuff back another day and continue working!

Karol spent 20 minutes picking out a small mug with sharks engraved in it to paint as a special gift for Daddy, then we had a barrel of fun painting it for a couple of hours! It would be ready for pick-up a week later: yesterday.

After a long conversation about carrying with two hands and walking slowly, Karol delivered the gift to Matt, who of course loved it and put it in the cabinet with the rest of the mugs.

Today, desperate for any form of caffeine, Matt used his new, favorite mug to brew some tea, left it perilously close to the edge of the counter and left the room.

Enter Patrick. My sweet, sweet Patrick. He came into the kitchen with a dirty dish and I told him to put it in the sink. I noticed he was due for a diaper change, so I left the kitchen to get a new diaper, just one room away. Then it happened.

*CRASH* *TEARS* I bolt back into the kitchen to find Pat a little wet from the scalding hot water and completely and totally distraught, overwhelmed by emotion. I scoop him up only a moment before Karol comes in to see what's going on and finds her precious new mug shattered into at least a dozen pieces. Emotional breakdown number 2, tears and wailing commence.

I hand Patrick off to Matt who checks him for burns from the water (he was totally fine) and scoop up the second heartbroken baby saying, "it's okay, it's just a mug, we can make another one. Yes it's very sad, but it was an accident."

And then we switch. Naturally, Matt assuages Karol by telling her how much he loved the mug, but now she can make a new one, and they begin cleaning up the mess.

Patrick is still balling his eyes out and so while changing his diaper (he still needed a change, after all) I tried to listen through the tears at what he was saying. "I broke Karol's cup, I broke Karol's cup," he kept repeating. He was obviously very guilt stricken and upset. Even though it was an accident, he felt terrible! Now that I think about it, it was a surprisingly kind-hearted and mature emotion for a (should-be) self-absorbed 2-year-old to have - but that's my Patrick :)

It was clear he needed redemption so I told him that it was an accident and it was not his fault but if he felt bad he should go tell Karol he's sorry. After a heartfelt "I sorry, Kawol" and a hug, the tears dried up quickly.

Bear in mind, this all happened within like a 4-minute span of time, at the most. What kills me is how I felt throughout this whole ordeal. It could not have been a more pitiful situation, with both children involved, and both legitimately upset, and no one really did anything wrong, per se. But to see and to know how upset and grieved they both were was more painful for me as a mother to watch than for them to experience, it seemed!

In short, a lot of good, hard lessons learned today, for everyone. I'm certainly not looking forward to the many heartbreaks yet to come, even more serious than this.

Oh, and if you're wondering where Max was for all of this, thankfully, he napped through the entire thing.

The Men in My Life: Patrick & Daddy

I am really amazed to see such a transformation in the relationship between Matt and Patrick. Probably imperceptible to them, I can see that Patrick has grown so deeply attached to Matt in the short time that Matt has been with the kids day in and day out. I think Patty will definitely remain a mama's boy at the core, but the bond between father & son is already so strong.

When Matt left for New York last summer, I think we were both a little worried that he and Pat would miss out on some relationship building. In actuality, Patrick was probably too young to notice that Matt was only around on the weekends, and the time they spend together now is far more valuable than the time that was missed last summer. The quiver in Patrick's lip when Matt leaves the room even for a few minutes or the way his face lights up when he sees him first thing in the morning, it's so precious.

It really makes me happy to see how natural and loving Matt and the kids are. I'm almost a little worried that they'll be sad when he's the one going away to an office every day!

On top of being stay-at-home Dad, Matt's pulling more than his fair share after hours, too, thanks to Max putting me out of commission a good deal more than Karol or Patrick did. I'm really looking forward to meeting this kid face to face and giving my internal organs a little more space!

A New World Order

This was week 1 of Daddy Duty. Since Matt's completely done with school, we've set the childcare tech free to pursue bigger and better things, and now Matt is stay-at-home-dad...I know what you're thinking - I'm scared, too!

No, just kidding. The kids survived and Matt's actually got them on a pretty tight schedule. I've been trying to help out as much as I can before work and at lunchtime, other than that, he's on his own. No surprise here, Karol is eating it up having Daddy around 24/7. She is such a daddy's girl.

Last weekend we both GRADUATED!!! And now we have Master's degrees. It still hasn't sunken in yet. Matt's got his post-grad job, now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with mine, after Max arrives, of course.

Speaking of which, he's been a pain in the back recently, literally. I've always had a little acute lower back pain during pregnancy, but in the past couple of days its been debilitating. It started Friday, and luckily, being at work is actually easier on the muscles than being at home is (Patrick loves his mommy but he's heavy!).

So now it's back to work on Monday. Only 11 1/2 more weeks of lugging this kid around the hard way!

Good Times in the Bath

Karol and I wrapped up the evening (a terrible, nothing goes right type of day today) with a mommy-daughter bath, complete with facial masques, tea-tree oil foot scrubs, and an intense game of 'Spuh-LASH!' which is a lot like catch, but without the catching.

Luckily the rest of the night went smoothly with no tears from either toddler at bedtime. Unfortunately, Matt will be up late tonight working on one of two final papers that is due tomorrow at noon. I will be SO glad when he is done with all of this on WEDNESDAY.

As for me, I've been done with class for a week or two now (yay!). Now I'm going nuts about packing, going through the kids' clothes and weeding the outgrown and winter weather gear from their drawers for storage, and making big piles of random stuff to be donated. We are going to be losing a lot of space with the move to NYC (oh yeah, and adding a kid) and the extra stuff just isn't getting out of my apartment fast enough for my taste.

It's 9pm, and I think I'm going to go to bed. That's actually a little early for me. I'm hoping tomorrow starts off a little smoother than today did, but I'm not looking forward to Matt being MIA while he crams on final projects the next three days!

Happy and Healthy Babies - All of Them!

Today was a 'big' day for the DC Plomins.  Bright and early this morning the whole family trekked up to our old stomping grounds, Silver Spring, for a round of doctor's appointments.

Karol - not surprisingly, Karol got a gold star for verbal ability.  The doctor was floored that she was answering questions like "how old are you?" and "are you a boy or a girl?"  I guess those are questions a 3 year old may be able to answer.  She was also impressed with the 6-word sentences she was uttering -but Matt and I know she can easily do 15-word sentences and more!
She's an expert at jumping, but hasn't mastered walking backwards yet - although that's another 3 year old task.

Patrick - Patrick is right on track developmentally, and doing especially well in the walking/climbing arena.  He's off the charts for both height and weight and a very healthy growing boy.  Patrick's language is seemingly ahead of schedule, too, but of course he was too shy to talk to Dr. Fishman at all.  He did manage a 'high five' though.
Patrick got a whopping 3 shots, one of which being the chicken pox vaccine.  The good news is that he won't need any at all at the 18 month check up.  I'm hoping we can squeeze that one in before we have to leave for NYC in July.

Baby #3 - Mommy and baby got a check up today, too.  I'm doing fine, of course, and New Baby Plomin has all the major organs and limbs and whatnot that they check for in the 20 week ultrasound.  And of course we got the opportunity to find out what we're having.  And, as I've been predicting since day 1 - the ultrasound confirmed we're having a boy!  Karol and Patrick are excited to have a baby brother and Matt and I are excited to use pronouns like "he" instead of "it" when referring to "him."

Measurement-wise he is still on track with his original due date of Aug 10, give or take a couple days.  I'm betting he'll be quite an average size, weighing more than Karol did (7 lbs 9 oz) and less than Patrick (9 lbs 3 oz).  It'll be 'fun' to get to know all new doctors just a month before he's born to deliver him in NYC, but we're getting closer to figuring out who that will be now.  Or I should say, Matt is.  I've put him in charge of finding the doc, the hospital and an apartment in NYC.  We'll see how that goes.

The apartment search is still pretty passive - it's still early - but we've got some feelers out.  We're still pretty focused on the West side, hopefully somewhere in our between the West Village and Upper West Side.  I'm not really thinking about that now, though.  For right now I'm just looking forward to tying my shoes without straining and meeting my new little boy, and thanking God we are so very lucky to have such beautiful and healthy children.

So that's the update for now!