4 month marker

Four months marked the time in which Baby Girl ceased observing the nightly witching hour from 7-9 p.m. "Okay, you bumbling parents," said she, "You seem to have suffered enough. I will decline your bribes of hot pink Vespas, but will concede to this early evening siesta of which you speak so highly." Imagine the ecstasy that Loverpants and I enjoyed as newbie parents. Watching the sleeping cherub doze while we ate macaroni dinner that had not taken on the consistency of something you would buy in the $.25 vending machine at KMart, but which was still PIPING HOT! In a queer twist of fate, Little Man, who has, up until now, slept in intervals of 5 and 6 hours at night, has passed the 4 month mark and has decreed that he will now wake up every 2-3 hours with a voracious hunger and a diaper that feels like a frat boy's wifebeater after a day of sand volleyball in the sun. This has resulted in his mother being so beatdown that even the magic of Mary Kay cosmetics cannot touch these puffy undereye bags full of soot and ash. Seriously.

But who am I, this blithe, whiny parent? I'm only a combined total of 33 months deep into the throes of parenthood. What about in twelve years when my kids bring home friends that ask why our house is so small, and what it's like to have a Chinese dad. What about when my kids give me their essays to proofread and I write whole new essays in the margin because I am my father's daughter? And then the alliance of Little Man/Baby Girl will inevitably join forces with Lovey Loverpants -- who will still look like he is in undergrad when both of our children are taking driver's ed -- and the triumvirate will spend whole weekends doing awesome things that I am not invited to do, because I have to take the mini-van for a tune-up and probably re-write their essays on Great British Imperialism for which they will resent me, wholeheartedly.

Yeah, so anyway, did I tell you that while my children are still portable and not full of vitriol toward me, we went to an awesome farm with splendid pumpkins and playgrounds and possibly CIDER DONUTS???