Any thing worth doing is worth over doing

In Scott's words:

When Eve came into our room this morning, politely asking for some "grola", she was in such a sweet mood that I assumed it must be at least 6:00. "Whoops, slept through the alarm again," I thought. Rebekah then turned to me and said, "Scott, it's 3." I tried to explain the significance of that fact to Eve, but unfortunately we have not yet taught her the concept of linear time, so negotiations were complicated.

After realizing that logical reasoning was futile, we got up (okay, so half the reason to write this post is to let everyone know that--for once--I actually got up to help with Eve in the middle of the night) and fixed Eve a bowl of granola. Alright, so my contacts weren't in, and I mostly walked around like a zombie bumping into things until Rebekah escorted me to a chair, but I was present.

Eve proceeded to cheerfully down "a large bowl of oatmeal" Wee Gillis style, and I kept wondering where Gillis' parents were, and how they had managed to pawn their childrearing responsibilities off onto all of their relations.

When Dinfast (the mid-night equivalent of Brunch) concluded around 4 am, Eve snuggled up in her bed and went back to sleep, with Mom laying down beside her and me on the floor as per our usual routine. Rebekah was "too hungry to sleep", and decided that an intense yoga session was in order. If I hadn't been so tired, I might have attempted to point out the logical disconnect required to consider strenuous exercise a practical remedy for hunger pains, but as it was I nestled down and tried to sleep.

I have been pretty stressed at work recently (I'm [mostly] running a project, which is a nice opportunity, so it's mostly good stress, but stress nonetheless) and my body responded by serving up dreams involving me forgetting to do my homework and showing up to class late--recurring themes for me.

I woke up just before 7 to a sloppy Eve kiss. I looked at her, and she said "Monkey wakes up early!" with such enthusiasm that I couldn't help but smile. Of course my smile was quickly replaced by a proper grimace as soon as Rebekah gave me "that look" and said, "We've been up... for a while..." I have no idea how long "a while" actually is, but I do know that Rebekah has now been up for the equivalent of a full work day, and it's not even lunch time yet.

You women, and Rebekah particularly, are amazing to me. I have so much respect for the sacrifices mothers make.

Oh, and did I mention that Rebekah baked 12 loaves of rustic European bread yesterday, and that it was the best bread I've eaten in my whole life? In Eve's words: "Awesome bread, this is awesome, this is so good!" Just part of another day's work for a supermom.

In my own words:

PART ONE

My sister gave me an amazing bread baking book for Christmas and I have been wanting to try out a recipe ever since. A couple of weeks ago I picked one out and got all the ingredients. Tuesday, yesterday, was decided as the Big Baking Day.

The process started Monday night actually which should have been a sign of things to come. It actually wasn't that bad. I had to pull the dough out and knead it by hand every hour or so starting at 11 o'clock but I was planning on staying that day anyway.

We did run into some trouble when it came to the part where I needed to shape the baguettes. We made it through however and knowing that I had an hour before I needed to bake thim I decided to try and put Eve down for a nap.

An hour goes by and Eve is still tired and still awake. Plus she's been off since last Thursday anyway (teething?) so I knew I was in trouble. I put the first three loaves on the paddle and put them in the oven but Eve was all over me so I then tried to hurry and I messed up a couple loaves.

This was straw. I had been working on these things for almost 24 hours now and when Eve touched the outside of the oven door (500 degrees and with a pizza stone in it) and burned her finger I lost it. I was so frustrated and upset at myself for making my daughter cry just so I could bake some bread ... I burst into tears. I'm usually very determined to not use tv as a baby sitter which made me cry even more when I thought about how messed up my priorities were but I was desperate and determined to finish what I had worked so hard on.

I put on Disney's Robin Hood in order to finish baking the baguettes and continued to cry until I realized that Eve was doing ok, fingers and all and that watching half an hour of Robin Hood wouldn't undermind all the good things we had taught her. Plus the bread was turning out ok and that helped too.

I pulled out the last three loaves, turned off the oven, grabbed Eve and rushed out the door to go pick up Scott from work.

P.S. I had washed the mascare mess off my face before.

PART TWO

3 am Eve wakes up asking for "gola." I look at clock and decide to try just giving her a bottle of milk and laying her back down. She prevails. I'm sitting at her little table with her on my lap eating while I read "Green Eggs and Ham" - something I'm afraid she has insisted on for a week or two now whenever she eats granola; think Pavlov's dogs.

Meanwhile Scott is a sweetheart and is sitting up with me. Eve wolfs down her food evidence that she really was hungry. We go back to bed and thankfully she falls right asleep. Half an hour later she wakes up again. I go lay down with her and she falls back asleep.

By now I'm pretty hungry myself and decide that if I tried to fall back asleep I'd lay awake for an hour at least. So I get up and do yoga which tempers my appetite temporarily. I then make some pancake batter all ready and tackle the ironing waiting for Scott to wake up so we can have breakfast.

However, Eve wake up and come stumbling in wanting to be held. I hold her while finishing Scott's Sunday shirt and then go wake him up.

It's now 4:30 in the afternoon. Eve and I have had two naps today, she's still asleep and we're having baguette sandwiches for dinner. Thank goodness.