There is so much to love about this parenting job - the free hugs and kisses, the adulation, adoration, and simple surety of love. But there are one or two things that are on the OTHER list. The list of things about which there is considerably less to love. Or at least, I thought there were. Vomiting probably tops this other list - though so far it's been far worse in my imagination than in reality - thankfully a reality I've only dealt with three times between two kids. This last one was the worst but much more so for the poor teenaged workers at the Jamba Juice than for me. All I had to do was console and change the crying and bewildered little fox and then myself before driving us home. Those poor teenagers got the rest. The vomiting isn't so bad because it's so clearly worse for the child and the adult goes completely (or, I think and am grateful that this is what happens to me) into reactive triage mode.

"Let's play Pretend", however, is an easy number two on the list. I have no idea why I fear it so - why it fills me with dread and why, when I hear those words, all the fun drains out of me. After swimming at the gym, the Bug loves to put the suits in the spinner and count to ten while she holds down the lid and whips the water out of them. That's me. Within ten seconds of hearing the "pretend" word, all the imagination and excitement I have inside has been magically disappeared, leaving a deflated sack of a mother.

I'm a professional actress, for goodness sake, a writer. But this, for whatever reason, is hard for me - or I always think it's going to be. Perhaps it's the change of gears, just simply getting out of my own head. Jordan started asking us for stories in the car and since we're twenty minutes from everywhere, there is ample opportunity for fantasy multiple times a day - and I used to dread it. Now, I know if I grit my teeth and get through the initial shift into storytelling gear and just start, I'm okay - in fact, it's wonderful to look in the rearview and see her rapt, waiting to hear what happens to the mythical Jordan of the stories, or the ponies or pandas or alligators or whomever the protagonists are. I guess it's because I get out of whatever I was thinking in my own head - usually the constant editing of the laundry list of to do items - and then I go back into another mental room and actually indulge some fantasy for a while (the stories often happen in places I'd like to revisit or visit, last week it was a trip on the Orient Express, so it's not like it's too much torture).

For playing pretend, however, it's a little more of a struggle - I have to get out of my own head and stay there in communication not with the daughter whom I adore but with all of the ponies and the Magical Fairy of the Ponies or the monsters, the dragons, the lost little children. She's four, so "Let's Pretend" is how most sentences begin these days, and even when (and perhaps I should be worried by this one) some of them begin "Let's pretend you're the mom and I'm your daughter", I shudder.

Tom isn't all that excited about it either, truth be told, but man did I enjoy listening when it was his turn a few nights ago. He'd been gone all day and after dinner I was cleaning the kitchen while he played with Jordan - Pet Shop Lila dolls (ask a girl between the ages of 4 and 12 who Polly Pocket as and you'll understand). He had to put darling little outfits on the miniature dog and cat and help Jordan change the outfits her two Lilas were wearing. There is nothing quite so amusing as watching all six feet of him folded into one of the kid table chairs trying to use his big woodcutting/chainsawing/manual labor hands to put tiny little outfits on tiny little dolls. Pretty special. He loves math jobs, word jobs, dominoes, games, whatever, but for both of us, it seems, playing pretend is a little more painful.

In the end today, I just gave in to it, let myself not think about what I could be accomplishing and instead played pony hide-and-go-seek again and again. And again. Jordan gets to be in charge and even though she does imaginative play all the time on her own or with friends, I know it's important for us to go there with her, too. It wasn't so bad, in the end. It's always good to get new perspective by role reversing, being bossed around by hte little creatures you brought into the world. Mostly, it felt good to just do what the little bug wanted to do, to let that be the best and most important thing for those twenty minutes. She's already been four for a month and a half, and I'm pretty sure she's going to be taller than me someday so while I can still hold her perfect little self in my arms and while she still lets me in to all the places her mind goes, I'd better go along for the ride. I don't think I've turned any corners in terms of LOVING to play pretend, but I'm going to remember to stop and smell the roses in her little world a bit more often - and willingly.

Now on Sawyer's OTHER list, I'm pretty sure that no matter how much pleasure he gets out of the raspberries we blow on his belly once he's clean, changing those poopy diapers is going to rank in spot number one until he masters that potty-going skill. What I sometimes think of as an easy number two (no pun intended) on the list is often a chart topper on the other list for both of us - the blissful agony of waking up with the little fox when he first rises, and getting him back to sleep for another precious hour or two of sleep.

It would help if Tom and I didn't like spending time with one another (we've rediscovered Boggle after I condemned it to the game cupboard for a few years after a string of particularly humiliating defeats), and if Netflix didn't exist. We'd get to bed earlier and not need so desperately those last few moments of slumber. But this is inevitably what happens: Sawyer cries out sometime between 4:15 and 6, waking up Jordan. Jordan runs towards our bedroom, "Sawyer's crying is keeping me awake" being one of the only reasons she's allowed to use to come into our bed. One of us passes her, bleary eyed, on the trek from one end of the house to the other, lifts Sawyer from his crib and carries him into Jordan's now empty room where the Queen sized bed is. It used to be we'd lie with him in the extra twin bed in his room, but our backs are honestly getting too old to hold us in the necessarily contorted position, afraid to stretch out or move lest we wake him from his fragile slumber. So now it's the queen sized bed where we rub his back to soothe him to sleep, sometimes more than once while he employs tactics like tweaking our noses or pulling my hair to keep sleep at bay. But the bliss of lying next to so small a little creature, so sweet breathed and warm is so worth it.

When he's slept long enough, he wakes up happy, usually stands up and lifts the shade to look out at the new morning, or grabs a book and makes his little "uh, uh, uh" pleading noise. And we read stories or play peek a boo until the kitchen is too big a draw for him and he slips out, needing food or water and running with his characteristic little waddling motion into the lmain living room where we start on building a fire, making breakfast, and ushering in yet another jam-packed day. Whoever is with Jordan wakes up to her sleepy smile and her usual desire to have the non-present parent "come and find us" and we 'pretend' that the game is new, the day is new, and will be filled with the wonder and joy of whatever list they choose to pick from.