Life in Ridgecrest seems so bipolar these days. Or maybe I should say life in Ridgecrest with two-year-old twins. One day I'll be thinking yeah, OK, I can do this, we can have a nice life here, tortoises, mountains, the big sky, the writers group, the liberals, the gem & mineral society... and the next day I'll be sitting at the park with yet ANOTHER religious mothers group nearby (this week they were talking about the life of Christ and giving me dirty looks), thinking about calling the movers.
Today the babies were really crabby, hitting each other, yelling, throwing things around, and Rocket Boy has a cold, so he wasn't a lot of help. And it was already too hot to go to the park. And there's nowhere else to go in Ridgecrest. But I was in a pretty good space, so I was coping, I was getting through the day. I made snack, I did a load of laundry and hung it on the line, I made lunch. After lunch the crabbiness intensified, so I strapped the boos into their carseats and did another long drive. We did the 395 to Garlock Road to 14 to 178 to China Lake Boulevard route. Highway 14 through Red Rock Canyon state park is so incredibly gorgeous.
I'm listening to All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy on CD in the car. This is my first book on CD, got it at the library on Thursday, and what a bad choice it was. I have trouble hearing the narrator's voice when I'm on the highway, it's too low, and when I can't follow the story, I find myself falling asleep, and when I can follow the story, I wish I couldn't because it depresses me. I thought I wanted to read some more Cormac McCarthy (I was very moved by The Road), but I guess I was wrong. Or maybe it's just the listening that I don't like. I'm already very worried about the characters, so I strain to hear what happens next, and then get upset about whatever it is. But I'm on the 4th CD now (out of 10, ack), so maybe I'll finish it. Or fall asleep at the wheel.
On our way home we were driving down China Lake Boulevard and I thought I'd stop at K-Mart and try to find Rocket Boy a Father's Day present that could be from the boos. But as I pulled into a parking space I thought: what?!! what could you possibly find at K-Mart that would make a nice present? So I pulled back out of the parking space and went on home. I tried to think of somewhere else to buy a present, but there is just nowhere.
Anyway, when we got back it was only 2:30 pm, and the boos got cranky again, so it was a long rest of the afternoon. Can I just say, for the record, that I wish I had never started potty training? Baby B is in love with the whole thing, of course, but now I think he's not ready. He hasn't successfully used the potty for a few days now, but he will not wear diapers (except to bed at night) and he will barely allow me to put him in a pullup. We sit in the bathroom together, him on the potty (not going), and after 15 minutes or so I say "well, you did a great job, now let's put on your pullup," and Baby B screams "NO!!!" and runs out of the bathroom bare bottomed. I chase him through the house, catch him, and try to force his legs into the pullup. "PEE POOP!!!" he screams, so I relent, and let him go back to sit on the potty for another 15 minutes, fruitlessly, and then we do it all over again. Meanwhile, Baby A, who has given up on potty training for the duration but likes to watch, hits Baby B with a plastic lemon. And thus the afternoon goes by.
Oh, one related incident: the babies and I were hanging out and one of us (no need to mention who) passed some gas. I said brightly, "oh, what was that?" and Baby A said "Airplane!"
We went out for an early dinner at Kristy's, the local family-style, middle-America, if-we-were-a-chain-we'd-be-Denny's restaurant, and I thought that went pretty well, although there was a lot of spoon- and straw-throwing and general misbehavior. But on the way home Baby A began to scream at the top of his lungs, that really out of control screaming, something about "my cah!" and we couldn't get him to quiet down. By the time we got home, Rocket Boy and I were at the end of our respective ropes, and we had a brief fight and then I took the boys out for a stroller ride while he did some repairs on the gate.
It was a little less than 90 degrees and the wind was blowing again -- this has been the windiest spring! Maybe the wind will stop on Monday, when it officially becomes summer. I pushed the stroller valiantly down the street, and as I pushed I started to think that instead of just getting in my car and driving back to Boulder (one of my regular fantasies), maybe I could put the twins up for adoption. Rocket Boy would agree, because he has trouble dealing with them for an hour, much less fulltime if I were to leave. Maybe I could turn them in to foster care. However, I believe you can only do that if your children are newborn infants or if you run a meth lab. In Nebraska you used to be able to give up your children at any age, but they changed that, because people were turning in their teenagers.
It's so frustrating to think that when the boos are teenagers, I will MISS this time in their lives! I already desperately miss their babyhood, and at the time I thought that was the hardest thing I'd ever lived through. (And it was, because I hadn't yet lived through the twos.)
By the time we got home I had changed my mind about the adoption thing. But it was a close call.
No comments:
Post a Comment