May

1. Sleep

OK, many things on my mind. The first, not surprisingly, is sleep. Or, lack of. Max is learning how to sleep in his bed. For the whole night. We are learning about what scares him and trying to eliminate some of that fear. We are rewarding him with books. A great side effect, is that Aiden wants to be like his big brother, so he wants to be in his own bed as well.

I will admit that Max still visits us in the night, but we bring him back, and he goes back to sleep pretty quickly. Aiden, not so easy BUT I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can hang out after kid bedtime and actually read a book, knit, or talk with BZ while he tries to read. Its very refreshing. There is also tons more space in our bed. Wow.

5/11 update: Both boys slept through the night in their own beds. Hurray, 2 books!

2. Anniversary

BZ dreads the month of May. He feels overwhelmed by the pressure of the trifecta. Mother's Day, Wedding anniversary, my birthday. I LOVE May. Usually. Last year, we had to have a do-over for all of May. BZ got overwhelmed building his studio and that was that. I was hurt. On my birthday, he gave me two books, with wrapping paper draped over them. So, I got my gift at 7am and that was it for the day. No further reference to speak of. At dinner, Max asked where my birthday cake was.....that's when I got really sad. I would have had one if I went to get it for myself.

We had a do-over in June. We got a friend to watch the kids for an overnight, our first overnight without them. Somehow, we ended up in this lousy burger joint to get a quick dinner before going to Spiderman 2. I remember sitting in this horrible place and thinking, this is not exactly what I had in mind. I was so disappointed but didn't want to say anything and sound like a princess. After about three minutes, BZ looked at me and said, "This is all wrong."

We left the burger joint, blew off the movie, checked into our hotel, went for a cheap dinner of pasta and wine and just hung out the rest of the evening by ourselves, without the kids. It was lovely.

So this year, on May Day, I saw the beginning of the Trifecta panic entering BZ's body. Our relationship is in a different place than a year ago. We can discuss the panic out in the open and laugh about it, even if it remains.

This year, I think we have it handled: For Mother's Day, I think I will bake a pie. For my birthday, we will probably go see Billy perform at Yoshi's. And for our anniversary, we'll grab some sushi and then go see Ironman. Silly, good fun.