Rob and I are not the best adults.

In addition to a myriad of professional and family obligations, we also have a vast number of personal interests that often keep us from our real responsibilities. Most of the time, I let a one hour run trump just about anything else in my life, including paying bills or cleaning.

This means a lot of stuff does not get done. All that ends now. We are the parents and that means we stop letting parking tickets, taxes and bills accrue interest because we were too lazy to open the mail and instead put it into a “to be filed” bin, which functions more as a holding place for future trash.

We spent the last weekend of his 10-day break (it was bliss having him home) reorganizing our home, the way we file and pay bills and scheduling weekly family meetings to go over the to-do list for the week, divvy up chores and plan our weekly menus.

We also joined Costco, which I am hoping will help us save some money by buying in bulk. Whole Foods has tried to steal our savings for the last time.

Every January 1st, I promise myself that things will change and more often than not, they don’t. But in this case, we have a workable action plan and a set of shiny new files. We have a new wall mounted letter bin and a chalkboard for menu planning. Our weekly family meetings are Sunday night after the kids are in bed. In short, we have an action plan. And isn’t an action plan like ¾ of the battle? Let’s hope so. Because this is the direction I want our family to go.

This past month, a very surprising thing happened. I am not sure if it was the cookie baking, the Pandora Christmas Carol mix or the fun my daughter had when we trimmed our little tree (our first in our six years of marriage and two years of cohabitation before that), but somewhere along the way, I actually caught the holiday spirit. For reals, yo.

It was the best holiday season I remember, the first time my husband and I really did it up: presents under the tree, menorah every night (we are an interfaith family), actual wrapped gifts and enough cookies to keep the Girl Scouts in business.

A short list of my favorite activities:

1.) Having my husband home for 10 days
2.) Hearing my daughter scream “Seeta! Seeta” when we went
to see the Man in the Red Suit.
3.) Baking, baking, baking
4.) Making a gingerbread house as a family
5.) Decorating our tree
6.) Getting my new “runner girl” pink ornament
7.) Staying up late wrapping gifts with Rob, watching “The
Family Man” and recognizing that it is basically a
movie about our life.

In short, it was a rocking two weeks.

So, maybe I am not so Scooge-like after all. Or maybe my latent holiday spirit just needed some babies to reawaken. Either way, I am sad to see this time pass, sad to see my husband go back to work and sad for the long stretch of snowy bleakness ahead. I have not felt this way in years.

Farewell holiday season. I will see you again next year—and rock you even harder.

We have not had the best luck introducing our children. My toddler daughter, while sweet, spirited and tons of fun is also a bit… intense. When she loves her brother she loves him.















But when she doesn’t, she doesn’t. She pinches. She smacks.

She takes his toys, she bites his feet, she smacks his head. Lately she even has the courtesy to tell us: “I am going to hit Anni now.” Great honey, thanks for your honesty.

We have tried it all—timeouts, talking to her, begging, positive reinforcement of good behavior. Nothing works with this kid. Last month we thought we found the answer when we worked out a Supernanny like routine—she hit, we said no, led her into her room, shut the door, counted to 60, explained what she did wrong and made her say sorry. Then she started putting herself in time out, hitting her brother, shutting the door, crying and then apologizing. Outsmarted we were. By a kid who is not yet 2.

I am still trying to find the balance, trying to find the place where my two children can connect and love one another. When we first had Sam, we were told to have our second ASAP—“they will be so close,” everyone said.

I assume they meant close emotionally, because right now? She is not getting anywhere close to him again.

Everyone promises that once we have a “schedule” all will fall into place.

It sounds so nice:
8-10:we play
10-2: we nap
2-5: we do an outing
5-7: we play and eat
7-8: we get ready for bed
8-8: we sleep.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

The reality is often much blurrier:
8-12: scurry about, run to the gym, cry, attempt to not watch television
12-3 or 4: we nap some days, while others we chat in our cribs or cry
4-5:mommy feels like pulling out her hair and starts counting the minutes until Daddy comes home
5-8: counting the minutes until bed
8-8: toddler asleep; infant sometimes asleep, sometimes screaming or eating

I have come to the conclusion that, at least in my house, scheduling is a myth along the same lines as sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster—super cool in theory, but in practice, probably just a man in a yak suit.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just abandon the myth? Let it go? Every time someone alludes to their schedule--“I would die without it,” my cousin says—I want to ask: How do I get one of those? Can I use my Target gift card to buy one?

My cousin is the mother of two kids 20-months apart who also manages to send holiday cards (I don’t), remember birthdays (not I) and get a hot meal on the table each night while her husband works 24 hour shifts at the hospital where he is training to be a surgeon.

I must be some kind of defunct Mama that I can’t do the same. But the reality is, most parents say their kids were not on anything resembling a schedule for at least the first year.

I also tell myself that one day even we will have a schedule. When the kids are five and six they will have school and I will have my freedom back. But until that day, I am embracing the chaos that arrives each morning at 8—right on schedule.

After my first baby was born, I spent a lot of time nursing in front of the TV. With a second, it is not as easy. And since many of us ladies are masters of the multi-task, I have devised a top 10 list of the things you thought you could not do, but actually can while nursing list. I have tried—and almost mastered—all of them.

Here goes:

1.) Read an entire book to a toddler—5 times!

2.) Type an essay one handed.

3.) Email work and friends via iphone (this one-handed device is especially helpful)

4.) Read an actual adult book if you catch 3 seconds to yourself.

5.) Feed a toddler lunch, breakfast, dinner or a snack.

6.) Watch your kid at the park—bonus points if you can actually stand on the equipment while keeping the other kid latched.

7.) Make play-doh cutouts.

8.) Drop cookie dough onto a baking sheet (seated at a table)

9.) Chop veggies (seated at a table)

10.) Return phone calls

I am a big believer in trying to live my life while the little man gets his grub on. It is not easy, but after a few months—and a few Boppys strategically placed throughout the house—you find you can do just about anything and keep the baby latched at the same time.

I was probably the most miserable pregnant woman you ever met at the end of my last pregnancy.

It was the end of summer, I was exhausted and my toddler daughter was non-stop all day long. My daughter arrived at exactly 38 weeks, so when that day came and passed during my second pregnancy, I became bitter indeed.

My son arrived, healthy and robust, on his due date. I skipped around the hospital room screaming with joy. I was no longer pregnant.

Yesterday—four months and one week later-- I had to visit the midwife for a quick check-up. I walked into the office, expecting to feel relieved, happy that my body was back and my bladder was no longer compressed.

Instead I burst into tears.

The books—Your Happy Healthy Pregnancy; Birthing from Within; The New Mom’s Guide to Pregnancy—brought it all home. My belly is flat. My baby is growing (too fast). It is over.

When a pregnant woman waddled by, one week overdue, complaining to her husband, I wanted to shout at her to appreciate it, to relish the anticipation and the excitement and the promise of what is to come. But I refrained. I know all too well how those last weeks feel.

My son may be my last baby, that pregnancy my final one. Until I heard the whirring ultrasound machine next door, I had no idea just how sad that fact makes me.

I held my hands over my empty belly, aching for my son who is now on the outside. We can’t appreciate our pregnancies when sciatica, shortness of breath and exhaustion are upon us, but afterwards, believe it or not, we just might miss those kicks in the ribs.

I would do it all again just to have that anticipation and excitement a new baby brings. I may never have that again. But I do take comfort in the walking, the crawling, the speaking—the many firsts we have yet to come.

In the past couple of months, I have come to the realization that to be good mother (actually, to be a generally good human) I need to sleep. Period.

I know the newborn time is the time when we need to let go of some of our own needs to serve the greater good—meaning my infant’s needs trump my own--but my infant’s needs will be better met on days where Mama gets her rest. And so we have decided to start sleep training our four-month-old.

I am following the advice of Kim West, also known as “The Sleep Lady,” who I interviewed for a story recently and whom I think has the best method of sleep training. Our problem is not with the going to sleep, though. Our problem is with the waking for food.

He goes down just fine around 8 p.m. after a bath and nursing session. Then he wakes around 11 to eat and then all bets or off. On a bad night, he spends upwards of three hours suckling. This what they call in sleep professional land, “a poor pattern.” Who knew?

Given this reality, last night we commenced Operation Break the Night Feed, but it felt more like Operation Mommy Breakdown.

Because Alan has slept 8 hours stretches some nights, he is capable of doing so. So when he wakes to eat, we simply do not feed him. We rock, we shush, we pat, we swaddle, but we do not feed.

My boy is stubborn. At 2:30 he woke and screamed for a half hour. During that half hour we managed to wake our neighbors, get into a fight over who had “shushing duty”, cry, whimper and end up curled in the fetal position repeating “this is the best thing for him, this is the best thing for him, this is the best thing for him.”

He fell back asleep, but I may be traumatized for life.

Around 4:30 he woke again and after 10 minutes of tears, I gave in. I figured 5+ hours was close enough. Maybe I will be braver tonight. But he is my baby. My daughter (blessed is she) slept through the night at six weeks, which makes me a bit green when it comes to this stuff.

We will make this work. Tonight, I will hang this over my pillow to remind me of when I love him the very best:

My husband is the kind of father who rushes home from work at 5 to spend as much time with his children as he can.

He bathes our daughter, puts her to bed every night, reads her dozens of books everyday and takes her on special outings to the grocery and hardware stores.

I realize his parenting skills are at least in the 90th percentile among fathers. This generation of fathers is certainly more involved than our parents’, but most mothers I know still do the bulk of the child rearing.

Here’s the thing: they also get the rewards. Their children come to them when they fall, they cry for “mommy” when they have a nightmare and they prefer their mother over everyone else.

Not my daughter.

The other night, she had a diaper rash to severe, it made her scream and thrash on the changing table. She only wanted her daddy. If I tried to approach, she acted as if I planned to apply rubbing alcohol. “DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!” she screamed as she pushed me away.

Ouch. Her bum may have hurt, but I was the one most scarred. And it is not the first time.

Sam almost always prefers her father—when she is hurt, when she is happy, when she wants to play. I have to sit on the sidelines. At home, it is hurtful and hard, but in public it is downright shameful. All over the Children’s Museum, park and mall, tiny babies cling to their mamas.

Not my daughter.

I fear it means I am a bad parent. Everyone tells me their daughter is a “daddy’s girl,” too. “It is just a phase”; “She just does not get to see him as much.”

The thing is, I know they are wrong. He is the better parent. She feels closer to him. I trudge on trying to remember that I am the adult, that she does not know she is hurting me. But it is hard sometimes to be constantly pushed away in favor of the Big Man on Campus.

I am happy they are close. I really am. But once in a while, it would be nice to hear her call for her mommy. And then I remember that for almost two years, the kid was all mine both in my body and nursing for a year once she was out.

Her father is just trying to catch up.

People often tell me to dress the part I want to play—in other words, if I feel unmotivated, throw on a dress I like and somehow, magically, I will feel better. This often works.

I have decided to take the same approach to the holidays this season. I am going to bake, decorate and spread cheer until my ears ring with jingle bells. Phase one of my plan was to decorate a pre-fab gingerbread house, which was foiled by the fact that I left the kit at my family lake house three hours away during Thanksgiving. Oops.

This weekend I had an epiphany standing in line at the grocery store, surrounded by carts, screaming children and 532 green, sparkling garlands. It is simply this: this season turns everything into a major pain in the rear--cookie baking, wrapping, spending money I don’t have, seeing people I barely tolerate. The season conspires to make us all feel like Martha Stewart so for a chick who is barely treading water all year (like me), the idea that there are yet more demands on my time turns the holly and the jolly into surly and depressed pretty quickly.

Bearing that in mind, I decided to turn Casa Worsham into a cookie factory this weekend by baking cutouts and the first of several of the cookies I used to enjoy back when all of the schlepping was for my benefit.

Here we are making butterballs from my Nana’s recipe:

Then we moved on to Christmas cutouts:

My toddler decorated and while she had fun, mommy had less fun cleaning it up. Meet Santa as interpreted by a 22-month-old:

Still, we persevered. And the end result, while not pretty, was certainly worth a photo.

Cleaning up after a toddler has double-fisted green and red crystal sugar was, as predicted, more work than lying on the couch and funneling store bought cookies. If you’d asked me last night if it was worth it, I would have said no. But this morning, with 12 hours distance and a thorough visit from our cleaning ladies, I can safely say those memories were worth the extra effort. Stay tuned for more from my “catch the spirit” series.

Sasha Brown-Worsham is a freelance writer whose monthly column runs online at The Family Groove. Her work has appeared in Pregnancy, Runner's World, Self and many other publications. She lives in Boston with her husband, daughter, son (and a cat and dog).

Sometimes people accuse we breeders of being narcissistic, of having children because we want a way to make ourselves immortal. Maybe that is true.

I certainly know when I look at my daughter I see more than myself. I see my mother:

That simple fact makes having children the single coolest thing I have done since my mom died when I was 16. I get to see her again.

You do the math. Here is what I look like now:

Here is what I looked like at Sam’s age:

And here is what she looks like now:

Is this face some kind of dominant gene? Is that even possible? Either way, I love it. In the faces of my daughter and my mother, I can see the other. They meet through me, through my DNA, even though they may never meet in person.

We breeders rock. We are bringing the impossible to life.

Sasha Brown-Worsham is a freelance writer whose monthly column runs online at The Family Groove. Her work has appeared in Pregnancy, Runner's World, Self and many other publications. She lives in Boston with her husband, daughter, son (and a cat and dog).