the juxtaposition of babies and teenagers

last night, sean ditched me to go see the melvins, so it was me and the kids on a solo run. I picked bella up at daycare and she promptly decided she hated the carseat. the "bing!" of the gas light in my car had just gone on and I seriously considered pumping gas while holding bella, which probably is bad because of the fumes. so I left her crying in the car instead. ever notice how goddamn slow the pumps are? then, because we had used the last of the pediacare decongestant drops the night before, and knowing that the night would be even longer if I had to wipe her nose every 5 seconds and sleep with her sitting up, we stopped at the drugstore to get more. we got both the regular decongestant drops and the ones with the cough suppressant, as she had coughed only a few times - but I still wanted it on hand.

after wrestling bella back into the carseat and enduring the screams, we got home. I expected trent to be lounging on the couch watching TV (brett had picked him up from soccer and dropped him at our house) which he's totally not supposed to do before 7pm on a weeknight, but he was downstairs diligently working on his spanish project. I couldn't believe it. he came up and fed the pets while I wrangled a very cranky bella and made "dinner". I had figured I'd just make spaghetti because that's easy, but after I started cooking the wheat pasta, I noticed we had no gravy. we did have half a jar of cheddar sauce and a small jar of ragu pizza quick. so we had cheezy pizza macaroni. it was actually pretty good. I may make it again on purpose.

at dinner, which bella loved too by the way, trent informed me that a few days before, when he had his friend matt over (!!!), they installed AIM on trent's profile. let me explain. I make my living from the internet and at one point fairly recently, I was working exclusively from home using our computer. I am very acutely aware of spyware and adware and how they can ruin a computer. therefore, to keep my work things in order and since we only have one computer, I had sectored areas for me, sean, and trent. I was the only administrator. for my work, I was required to use AIM (yeah, believe it?) and the computer already had it installed, though it was not viewable on trent's profile. so as soon as he told me he installed AIM with his friend matt, I was like, how? he said he made himself an administrator. wha??? the thing with trent is, he is extremely permissive with his friends. he knows better, but doesn't say anything in part because I think he's just so thrilled that he's being socially accepted that he doesn't want to ruin it. which makes me so sad I can't even explain it. but still. he can't be fucking around with the computer.

so then it hit me why he'd been so diligently working on the computer for this long - he's been instant messaging people this whole time. and immediately after dinner, he was back down there again, working on his project and doing his homework. theoretically. he was down there for more than 4 hours, right up until bedtime. at least he got his homework and project done.

so while my almost-teenager was downstairs IMing friends and girls, my little baby was playing with me in the tent. she started playing this game where she goes in the tent, and sticks out her little hand. I have to grab her hand and then reach in and tickle her. we played this for seriously a half hour. we took a break to have crackers (which she picked out by pointing to the box, and then did the sign for more when she wanted more) but we went right back to the tent game afterwards. she was laughing so hard.

I had one child who was testing my boundaries and opening his fledgling wings out of my eyesight, and one child who wanted all of my attention for a silly game of grab-my-hand. I am blessed to have these kids, who by their very differences make me appreciate each stage of their development.