Snapshots

Here's what else has been going on (at least the things I've managed to take pictures of):
The fair!

After pretending to be a horsey for weeks, Emily got to meet one up close and personal

Charlotte is already helping Daddy with work...

...and also starting to share his love of weightlifting!

She's THIS close to walking, and is great at pulling herself up. She spends most of her time standing these days


And she especially loves hanging out with her big sister






She also enjoys spending time with the dishwasher (which is probably why the door broke this morning)


Just like another 9-month old baby who used to crawl around my house

Also, last weekend, my littlest sister got married!
She had one excited (and adorable if you ask me) flower girl





Sorry I don't have any GOOD pictures of the wedding, a bag was placed on top of my camera while we were getting ready so I couldn't find it and therefore didn't take pictures for the rest of the day.

I haven't blogged much since Charlotte was born, and I feel bad about that, like her first year has slipped by mostly undocumented. Unless you count the thousands of pictures and videos we have. But still. So to go along with the pictures I've finally posted, here are the girls' stats.

EMILY
Age: 3.5 years
Height: 37.5 inches
Weight: 33 pounds
Likes: Preschool, pretending to be a doggie, pretending to be a horsey, Flogging Molly, swinging, pb&j sandwiches, He-Man, dinosaurs, halloween decorations, making loud and usually inappropriate observations about people in public, juiceboxes, knocking her sister over, roughhousing, baths and reading books.
Dislikes: Getting shots (although she is SO brave about it), going to the dentist (our first trip was NOT successful), wearing clothes (especially while sleeping), walking up hills, having her hair brushed and having her teeth brushed.
Emily-isms:
-Last Morgan (translation...last morning, which basically means "an undetermined amount of time ago")
-Boo-mehm-uh - remember
-Unhand me monster! (said at random times...I think it's from Shrek 3)
-(insert item or experience here) is my favorite I've ever seen in town!
-My heart wants a banana with peanut butter (said with hand laying over heart pledge of allegiance-style)
-I want FREE! (translation: I want three, always said while holding up 2 fingers)
-We need to eat hell-fully food and exercise so our skeletons don't jump out of our bodies (NO idea where this came from)

CHARLOTTE
Age: 9.5 months
Height: 27 inches
Weight: 19 pounds
Likes: Mommy, crawling, pulling up on things, digging in houseplant dirt, eating leaves and grass and paper, Mommy, cuckoo clocks, big sister's toys, peek-a-boo, fans, lights, Mommy, pointing, shaking her head "no", dancing, clapping, doing "so big", being upside-down, bananas, tofu, cheese, dishwashers, making a mess, wind, ibuprofen, shopping, being in the Bjorn, baths and Mommy.
Dislikes: TEETHING (8 teeth so far), wearing more than 1 shoe at a time, visiting the doctor, not being able to keep up with big sister, being in a carseat, having her nose wiped, sleeping, being tired, and anything that involves not being held by Mommy.
Words she has said: Da Da, a sort of tongue-clicking noise that means "clock" and as of this morning, "woof".

Preschoolin'

I've been feeling guilty for a long time about not posting Emily's first day of preschool pictures after moaning on here for so long about the preschool decision. So without further ado, here we go!

My big girl!

The carefully-selected dinosaur backpack



So excited!

She STILL hangs her backpack up backwards. Oh well, it works



Day 1 was a success! Especially since she got her first taste of froot loops.

Emily has been doing really well with preschool. Aside from a rough week where she ended up in time-outs on a couple days for pushing and hitting her classmates on the playground, she seems to love it. When we drive by, she points out the building and says "Are we going to preschool? I am so ess-kited to go to preschool!". It's really nice, especially when I see the little boy who still, after a month and a half, has a breakdown whenever his mom drops him off. The little boy who Emily loudly tells me is named "Jack-in-the-box" and is a whiney boy when we're standing right next to him. I have a feeling Charlotte is going to be like that in a few years.

But that's another worry for another time.

Pointers

I've been having some issues recently with my feelings of worth as a mother. Emily is in a tough stage (when ISN'T she?) and I end up yelling more than I should, getting frustrated more than I should, and not having the motivation to do all the fun things I'd like to do with my girls. So I've decided to implement a points system. Here is how things have gone so far this afternoon:

Got both girls down for a nap at the same time: +20 points
Didn't remember to start doing the 30 Day Shred until girls had already been asleep for an hour: -10 points
Remembered to do it at all: +3 points
Had to stop workout partway through the warm up to go put on 2 sports bras because my boobs were hitting my stomach during jumping jacks and making a distracting slapping noise: -5 points
Charlotte woke up 5 minutes into the workout: -2 points
I was already wrecked after 5 minutes: -5 points
While I was re-hooking my nursing bra, Charlotte pitched forward and bopped her face on the arm of the rocking chair: -20 points
Emily woke up happy: +10 points
Did wholesome activity with Emily and made good on a promise (made popcorn): +10 points
We were both still happy after completing wholesome activity: +5 points
Didn't burn any popcorn either: +2 points
Now we're watching TV again: -5 points
It's Dinosaur Train, so at least it's moderately educational: +1 point

So my baby is sporting a nasty bruise under her left eye and I am supremely out of shape, but I am up 4 completely arbitrary rating points so I choose to look on this afternoon as a success.

...but he was STILL hungry!

These things freak me right out:

They're very reptilian-looking, like those things in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They are chrysalides (yes that's a word, I looked it up. I would've thought it'd be "chrysalii", but what do I know) from which painted lady butterflies will presumably emerge in a couple days. And they're on my counter. Did you know chrysalides can wiggle as a defense mechanism when something bumps them? Charming!

Even though they're gross, they don't freak me out quite as badly as these did:


That's what they looked like before they chrysalide-ified.

And why did I willingly bring things that kind of terrify me into my house? Why because they kind of terrify me, of course.

I really hate and fear most bugs. Especially cockroaches, and especially bees, and especially wall shrimp. And also especially other bugs. And I kind of wish I didn't. It gets irritating, even to me sometimes, and I'm sure it's irritating to other people. I've really been trying NOT to pass this trait down do my girls, so I have tried my best to remain calm around bugs when they're watching (not always successfully) and I've looked for ways to teach Emily about bugs so that she may one day see them as interesting, not horrifying. So when I saw these gross bastards go on sale at Amazon, I decided it might be a fun project.

I sent away for them, and they arrived, all small and motionless. Good, I figured, I can deal with this. But they got bigger fast, and their undulating, swollen mushy bodies began to freak me out right quick. They started to look crowded in their little cup, and I had visions of them getting too big and popping the lid off, exploding out like those snake-in-a-nut-container gags. I put on a brave face as I explained to Emily in a singsong voice that they were storing up energy for when they would turn into a chrysalis, then a butterfly, but underneath I was wondering if my throat would ever heal from all the screaming if one of them ever got out and touched me.

I heaved a sigh of relief when the first one crawled to the top of the cup and started curling up. Phew, now they won't get any bigger. Now they'll be (nearly) motionless for a bit, then (if The Very Hungry Caterpillar is an accurate guide) they'll emerge as beautiful butterflies! Which honestly, I am not all that crazy about either. But butterflies and I have an understanding, as long as they don't land on me with their sticky feet and freaky rolled-up tube mouth thing.

So basically I paid $18 for the chance to grow caterpillars which look exactly like the gypsy moth caterpillars that descend on our area every year and have pretty much eaten every leaf off of every tree by mid-summer. I could've waited a week and then captured some in a jar and Emily could've enjoyed the same educational benefits for free.

But this way I didn't have to touch them.

It was worth every penny.

Ok, this has to stop

Or rather, this has to re-start.

I have tried several times to put an end to my blogging hiatus, but I feel like I need to do this big, beautiful catch-up post full of pictures of what I've been doing while I was away. But that takes a long time, and I don't get long amounts of time (with two hands free anyway) to sit at the computer, so my hiatus just keeps getting longer and longer. So I will start posting again, and perhaps do mini catch-ups as I get a chance, just so you don't miss out on the scintillating minutiae of my crazy everyday life these past months. Otherwise my daughters will be in college before I post again.

Said daughters are now 3 years old, and 5 months old! For some reason, the month before a big age milestone tends to hit me harder than the milestone itself. For example, my baby is 5 months old today! Which is almost 6 months old! Which is half a year old! I can't believe it! So now, by the time she actually is 6 months old I will have already spent 1 full month freaking out about the idea, and it won't be such a big deal. I did the same thing when Emily turned 11 months old. It works well.

Charlotte has already cut two teeth, which she uses at every opportunity to bite me. I was really hoping she'd be one of those kids who didn't get their first teeth until around 1 year old. But no, she's an early teether, a loud and miserable teether, and a voracious biter. Help me.

She has also been hoarse for no apparent reason for a week and a half now, and in the last couple days she has added a head cold into the mix. Poor miserable baby.

But the good thing about babies is that there's not any drama yet. True, she is miserable sometimes and definitely acts it, but babies don't lay around moaning just to get attention, and she also has happy moments. Every day she's becoming more of an active participant in family life. Last night, Will and Emily were roughhousing on the couch, much to Charlotte's interest. Every time Will lifted Emily into the air, Charlotte would utter an uncertain "aaaaaah?" Gradually she started to understand that they were playing, and her uncertainty turned into excitement. She wiggled and kicked and echoed each of her sister's delighted squeals with her own (albeit hoarse) versions. I even caught her sitting forward from her carseat the other day so that she could watch the trees go by out the window. Little things like that, things that aren't huge accomplishments or milestones but just tiny indicators that your baby is turning into a person, are some of the most fun things to observe. She loves wind, biting me (Oh God the biting!), and rides in the Bjorn. Today, as I Bjorned her around Costco, she kept both her arms raised in an Eva Peron-like gesture, looking like she was very literally trying to get her arms out far enough to grab the world by the lapels. Well, I hope she does go out and grab the world, just maybe in a few more years. If she grabbed the world right now it would go straight into her mouth just like everything she grabs, and the world can be a dirty place.

My other daughter is alternately a riot and a royal pain. I'm so proud of her and amazed every day, and she also drives me to the brink of insanity with her constant demands (news flash, 3 year olds are demanding! Who would've thought?) She loves dinosaurs and can rattle off even the most complicated names with relative ease (and an adorable lisp). She echoes back everything she hears, today she asked me if I felt that we needed closure. She loves dance class, wandering around outside while shouting gibberish, collecting and then lining up like objects, and acting out stories with her toys. But she never pretends to be anything herself, except for a princess, and she treats that more as a fact than as something she's pretending to be. If asked "Are you pretending to be a kitty cat?" (or a doggie, or whatever) she will immediately and confidently say "No, I'm just a big girl Emily". The girl has a strong sense of who she is. I hope she is able to hold onto that and always remain as proud to be a big girl Emily as she is now.

She has made friends with the 4 year old girl across the street who has a big trampoline (Score! Now we won't ever have to put one of those behemoths in our own backyard!) and begs daily to go out and play with "Dasmind". Jazmin, Dasmind, it's all cool when you're 3. I am very happy that she has a friend right across the street, but I'll be even happier about it when she's old enough to go over to her house by herself (or for them to play in our backyard while I'm in the house). It's valuable socialization, entertainment, and exercise for Emily that I don't have to drive her anywhere to get, but it also requires that I stand outside for an hour or so in the evenings and that really bites into what I can get done around the house. It sounds terrible to say, I know, and don't worry; I dutifully strap the baby onto my chest and head out with Emily every time there's a Jazmin sighting out the front window, but I have so little time as it is to do anything productive, and my house is definitely showing it. I really wish I could just be in the moment and enjoy my kids without freaking out in the back of my head every minute about what is not getting done. The kids are only young once, the house can wait...the kids are only young once, the house can wait...

Anyway, speaking of me (we were, weren't we?), look at my new car!

Hello Gorgeous!

Is that Mystic Teal Mica you're wearing?

It goes so well with your elegant light gray interior

Please excuse my lame attempts to cover my license plate. As far as I'm concerned, any kind of photo editing that goes beyond the scope of Microsoft Paint just uses magic. Magic that I don't have. So I have to physically mess with my photos before taking them instead of using a computer afterward. I like to think of myself as the George Lucas of photography. Well, the George Lucas who did the first 3 Star Wars movies anyway. Good Lord, am I still talking?

Yes, I got my minivan, and yes, I totally love it. It's true, there was a time not so long ago when I made the sign of the horns and spat on the ground at the idea of ever driving a minivan, but that was mostly because I was forced to drive a minivan to school at age 16 and it was hideously embarrassing. Besides, look at the above pictures. This one is totally sexy.

And now, I will close, because remember the part about how I don't have time for super-long posts? I really don't. This post has taken me days to write, which is defeating the purpose of just getting back into the swing of things, so it's best for everyone if I just shut up and hit publish already. I will be writing more very soon, I promise.

Sanity

Strangely enough, it's conversations like this that keep me sane.

Brachiosaurus: Hi, I'm Brach-a-lee-saur-us. I want to talk to Mommy Hand.

Mommy Hand: Hi Brachiosaurus. I'm Mommy Hand. How are you today?

Brachiosaurus: I'm doing well. I like to eat green leaf-is.

This is my husband, Mr. Pack-a-lee-sef-a-lo-saur-us.

Mommy Hand: Hi Mr. Pachycephalosaurus. So you guys are married?
Brachiosaurus: Yes.
Mommy Hand: Did you wear a wedding dress to your wedding?
Brachiosaurus: Yes, but dinosaurs are nakey except for my tail. And my four feetsies. Also, I have a crest on my head. Do you want to see my crest?

Mommy Hand: Yes, I would like to see your crest.
Brachiosaurus: See?

Mommy Hand: That's a very nice crest.
Brachiosaurus: Thanks. Now I am going to eat some green leaf-is.

Mommy Hand: What do the green leaf-is taste like?
Brachiosaurus: Mushrooms. Goodbye.

Things that I wish...

I wish that I had selected any dog other than Mingus back at that Petsmart 6.5 years ago.

I wish that working with him, hiring a professional trainer, and giving him Prozac had worked.

I wish that he hadn't bit Will twice this weekend.

I wish (or rather hope) that we can find a rescue or somewhere that will take him so we don't have to put him down, but it's not looking good so far.

I wish Charlotte hadn't awoken 3 times last night.

I wish I felt comfortable having Mingus inside with my kids.

I wish I had any room in my house that was big enough for me to close Mingus in for an extended period of time so I didn't have to keep him outside to humanely keep him separated from my girls.

I wish my neighbor had asked me to bring him inside instead of calling animal control to lodge a complaint that my dog was outside barking all day.

I wish the animal control officer had listened to me instead of cutting me off when I tried to explain that the back corner of our yard touches two other yards, with two dogs in each of those yards, and the barking is not ALL my dogs.

I wish that stay at home moms could go to a breakroom or something to cry for awhile without having to nurse someone or convince a very concerned someone else that they are NOT in fact crying.

I wish I wasn't such a girl and had come out and asked Will to skip the gym and come home instead of just hoping he'd realize I wanted him to.

I wish my baby would take a bottle or a pacifier or a chew toy or SOMETHING other than my boob so that I could get something, anything done.

I wish that Emily didn't always barf after spending more than an hour in the car.

I wish that we didn't have to drive 3 hours with her to Virginia Beach in 2 weeks.

I wish this month was over.

Give me a head with hair....

This Saturday, Emily finally got her first haircut. We didn't take off much, but the trim was much-needed. We took her in to the place Will goes, so she was able to watch Daddy get his hair cut first.

Watching Daddy:

Ready for her turn:

Chatting with Lawrence:

Being a very patient and mature girl:


All done!


And although Charlotte doesn't need a haircut quite yet, she still wanted to join in on the fun. She has decided recently to start rockin' a mohawk:


Now, hopefully, Emily's hair won't tangle as easily. And if Charlotte ends up with curly hair like I have (which is starting to seem likely) then at least I've SOMEWHAT learned how to control mine so I can be of help to Charlotte in learning how to control hers.

8 is enough

This child:


slept for 8 hours straight last night.

That is momentous enough that I had considered ending my blog post there. But you know how much I like to blabber on, and I haven't posted in a month, so I will continue.

I was angry about the time change this weekend (whoever invented daylight savings time obviously didn't have kids) and the fact that Charlotte had kept me up until midnight Sunday night, but then she fell asleep at 9:30 last night and I didn't hear a peep from her until 5:40 this morning. Emily didn't sleep this long until she was 3 weeks older than Charlotte so I'm quite thrilled. I just got the longest chunk of sleep (in my own bed!) that I've gotten since maybe August. She also puts up with me munching on her cheeks and rubbing her head with great aplomb, and she gives me smiles and chuckles on demand. For all that, I will forgive her for projectile-vomiting all over me and the couch yesterday. And flat-out refusing to take bottles EVER, much preferring to drink straight from the source CONSTANTLY.

This child:


woke me up at 6 yesterday to say she had pee pees in her bed. Then she pulled a houseplant down on her head, showering the just-cleaned floor and dog bed (and her just-cleaned self) with dirt. I spent the next hour vacuuming it all up, and chasing her around in my shower with the sprayer trying to get all the dirt particles out of her hair. Luckily, it was then time to put new sheets on her bed and put her down for a nap. Then she peed in the bed again.

Emily has been kind of a huge pain recently. Her previously stellar eating habits have started to crumble to the point where all she wants to eat is Kashi Heart to Heart and avocadoes. She'll eat a bite or two of dinner, then refuse to eat any more (even if she likes it) and just ask for dessert. Dinners now are full of stressful bargaining. The screaming hysteria that started creeping into our daily routine a couple weeks before Charlotte was born has now become a bi-daily occurance. We never know what will emerge from her room in the morning...sometimes it's a sweet girl who's all smiles. But more than half the time these days it's a bed-headed Emily-shaped container of nitroglycerin that will explode at the slightest provocation. When she comes downstairs and responds to a cheerful "Good morning Emily!" with this:


we know we're in trouble. This is a girl who is going to be a walking zombie without her coffee when she gets older.

I am pretty sure the tantrums are just because she's finally hitting the terrible twos and not because of having a new sister. But the having a new sister thing isn't going quite as well either. I knew that Emily wouldn't just walk up to me and say "Mommy, I'm jealous because you're paying attention to Charlotte a lot, can you please pay attention to me for a bit?" but it took me awhile to realize that IS what she is saying by coming over to kiss Charlotte and biting her instead, or giving her a hug and squeezing her until she cries. Emily's displeasure is expressed by displays of affection that all of a sudden turn into acts of violence. It's tough for me because I can't exactly say "You can't kiss or hug your sister", but even though I always hold Charlotte in my lap while they're interacting, and even though I constantly mutter "gentle gentle gentle gentle GENTLE!" while Emily is touching the baby, she still manages to hurt her from time to time.

And I understand. GOD do I understand. I am the oldest of 3 kids, as is Will, and when we see the barely-restrained (and sometimes not restrained) violence in her eyes and see her hands shake with the urge to pinch or smack or otherwise hurt, we remember. We have been there. But it's still not ok. Now that I am paying a bit more attention I notice when Emily gets louder and starts to sidle closer and dart glances at Charlotte. Those are the signs that I need to focus on Emily for a bit if I can. I know she needs one-on-one attention, and I try to give it, but it's difficult when I'm nursing all the time.

But there is always the good, and with Emily the good is awesome. She is so loving, and will often tell me how much she loves everyone in the family. "You're the best mommy I've ever seen in town" is heard often, so I certainly can't complain that being her mommy is a thankless job. She comes out with some new, precocious phrase every other day it seems, like "his feet are damaged", "in the meantime", and "I tell you true". I am often corrected by a little voice saying "actually....", just like I used to as a kid. If you ask her how old she is, she'll either say "Well, I'm 48 weeks pregnant" (I don't envy ya, sister) or she'll say "I'm two half and a pounds". Either way, she knows she has a birthday coming up, and she has told me in no uncertain terms she requires a Madagascar cake. Yay, licensed characters! She will "read" her sushi book to us, and all I have to say about that is if you haven't heard a 2 year old say "Tamachi style handroll with uni urchin roe" then you don't know what the definition of cute is. She gets so excited about the simplest things and loves telling us about her dreams.

Most exciting of all, she saw a tap class going on at Little Gym the other day, and her eyes just lit up. She tried to march right in, and was crushed when I told her she can't start tap class until the beginning of April. She begged me to buy her tap shoes right then and there, and idiot that I am, in my excitement I complied. Of course I ended up driving to several different stores with screaming girls who were up long past lunchtime and naptime and pretty much chasing all of Il Forno's Pizzaria's clientelle out the door with my armful of screaming kids (the fact that I bought my daughter white bread pizza should tell you just how desperate I was). But now she has tap shoes. She requested as soon as we got home that I bring down my tap shoes too so we could dance together. I may have shed a tear.

I don't know how to end this post without sounding mushy and trite, so I'll just go for the whole 9 yards here and hope you'll forgive me. It's true what they say. Parenting is the most difficult thing I have ever done, but also the most rewarding.

Deja vu all over again

While chatting with Will the other day, I came to an unsettling realization. I don't have deja vu anymore. That in and of itself isn't unsettling, but when we delved deeper into the "why" of it, I came to the conclusion that I don't have deja vu anymore because every one of my days is pretty much exactly like the rest of them anyway. My life IS deja vu. It has been especially bad recently what with being snowed in and unable to go anywhere. I pretty much want to go back in time to the Friday before last and punch myself in the face for this post. But in Sara of Two Weeks Ago's defense, she thought she'd only be snowed in for a couple days. If she had known how very much snow was on the way, she might have been a bit less cheery. Right now though, our 3rd snow in 10 days looks like it's wrapping up without much ill effect on the roads, so I am hoping to go on an excursion with the girls tomorrow. Anywhere will do. And I am hoping that since all of Frederick county just underwent a 7 day quarantine that everyone's germs had a chance to run their course in the privacy of their own homes and now we'll have a remarkably healthy late winter.

This part of winter is always difficult. The excitement of the holiday season is over, all of my magazines are showing spring dresses and Easter centerpieces, your sister and mother are luxuriating in the Jamaican sun (grrrr), and yet outside it's still winter. And this year is especially bad because with all the snow on the ground I can't even let Emily go outside without gloves, hat, scarf, sweater, shirt, jeans, boots, snow pants, wool socks and someone to lift her out of the snowdrifts if she falls over. During the week that someone has to be me, and since Charlotte does not tend to accept any activity other than being held and being nursed, it's tough to even get enough time to get Emily dressed, let alone go outside. And now that I'm feeling normal again, I would really like to do some exercise but the girls rarely cooperate. I COULD go for a walk with Emily in the stroller and wear Charlotte inside my big coat, but these days the sidewalks are buried under over 4 feet of snow :-( Sigh.

In an effort to distract myself from the cabin fever, I am focusing on things I'm looking forward to. I am shopping around for a car, because I am not a huge fan of our Highlander, and it'll be paid off in June so I'm anxious to find something new and different. I would dearly love a Toyota Sienna with AWD, but the trade-in value of our Highlander would pretty much pay in full for a Kia Sedona which is also rated extremely well and the thought of having a new car and no car payments is compelling. And as long as I have to drive a family car, I might as well go all out and get a minivan because they ARE incredibly convenient. It's like driving your living room around.

I'm also thinking about and planning other warm weather things like the garden we want to plant, the CSA we are joining, the trip to the beach we'll be taking with my family, the "Triumphant Return to Travel" trip I want to take with Will once Charlotte is old enough to be left with my parents for a couple days (although that will probably be more like a year from now), and the trips and activities I would like to do with the girls once going outside isn't such an ordeal. Hopefully if I plan things now they'll actually happen, and if I can keep my eyes focused ahead on the warmer months I won't notice so much that my legs are buried in the snow.

Free at last!

This morning, I awoke to two wonderful sounds. First was the sound of the snow plow finally going by! I almost cried with happiness. Coincidentally it went by exactly when I usually wake up, so I am quite grateful to be freed from my snowy prison AND allowed to sleep in untill my normal waking time. I don't take kindly to being awakened by anyone but my children because nobody but my children can possibly need me badly enough to warrant curtailing my precious sleep.

The second wonderful sound was Emily's voice announcing that her bed was dry this morning! The poor girl has been potty trained since August, but I always still put a diaper on her at night. I did this for two reasons. First, because I was too exhausted what with gestating and now with feeding a new baby through the night to even consider having to deal with an accident at 3AM. Second, because Emily's diaper weighs about 5 pounds when she wakes up in the morning and considering how deeply she sleeps I just didn't think she'd be able to hold it or wake up enough to get that much pee out without a diaper on! Will has been lobbying for us to give her a chance for awhile, so last night we finally did and she made it on the first try! Now if only she could learn how to get a reasonable amount of toilet paper by herself without unraveling the whole roll she'd be 100% self-sufficient in the potty department.

So I don't think I'll venture out quite yet, but it makes me feel lighter just knowing I'm not trapped anymore. 7 days is a long time to have to entertain a 2 year old without the benefit of playgrounds or libraries or Little Gym.

Reading all my childless friends' facebook updates this week has made me somewhat jealous. It would've been quite nice to just curl up on the couch with Will and a cup of tea and catch up on our TV shows while it snowed (although without kids we wouldn't have been nearly as far behind on our TV shows in the first place). Instead I was charging back and forth between a screaming hungry baby and a bored tantruming 2 year old (who referred to her sister yesterday as a "stupid old baby" and tried to drag her across the floor by the foot of her PJs), wracking my brain for fun stuff to do and desperately trying to convince Emily that we don't need to watch Home on the Range again. That's where she learned the word stupid in the first place :-( But parts of this week were fun, and I am actually quite glad that we even had Home on the Range as an option, because lots of people were without power this whole week. I can't imagine having to go through a blizzard without being able to bake, do laundry, watch TV or even stay in my house. I can't imagine the frustration and annoyance of having to pack my whole family into a car that can't handle driving in 10" of snow and trying to find a hotel that'll accept two 45 pound dogs, one of whom just discovered that he loves eating poop. Dealing with THAT has been horrifying enough while snug and warm in our own house.

So I've decided I need to make a list of things I'll miss about having little kids, and things I WON'T miss about having little kids. I'll keep the first list posted in a place I see it and add to it often, and the other list I'll save to reference in the future when I am looking back with nostalgia on these days.

THINGS I WILL MISS

-Hugs and snuggles pretty much whenever I want
-Hearing "I love you mommy" often
-The hilarious things that kids think about and say
-Not having to "learn to let go" yet, I can keep them with me and safe at all times
-Fuzzy baby heads...have I mentioned that I love baby heads?
-Their butts. Baby and toddler butts are adorable
-The rest of them too
-Having someone around who is so sweet, so innocent, and so impressed with the simplest things
-Watching them grow and feeling so proud when they master new concepts and tasks
-Having people in this world who think I know everything
-Being able to act like a dork without judgment
-Kissing boo boos and being able to make it all better
-Feeling so needed all of the time


THINGS I WILL NOT MISS

-Feeling so needed all of the time
-Having to deal with human waste every day
-LACK OF SLEEP!
-Having to adhere perfectly to a 30-minute long carefully choreographed bedtime routine or else suffer the wrath of a 2 year old
-Brushing teeth, wiping butts, washing hair, wiping noses
-Tantrums, especially when there are multiple tantrum events in one day
-The huge messes
-Having to pack up the whole house before I go anywhere, and having to buckle them into carseats. SUCH A PAIN
-Having to prioritize my free time to the point where getting a pedicure (or sometimes even a shower) is pretty much out of the question
-Having to drive a "family" car (I miss my little Audi!)

I had to make the first list longer than the second so that I look like a good mom. Which I HOPE I am, and if I took a week and made these lists exhaustive, I have no doubt the first would be way longer than the second. Motherhood does feel like a pretty thankless job sometimes, but even if I have a day when the second list feels longer than the first, I love my kids like crazy, and that makes up for any perceived imbalance.

Snowpocalypse/Snowapalooza/Snowmageddon/Snow More 2010

We're all too clever for our own good.

Hey, remember my last post? The one about how I was still cool with hanging out at the house but Emily wanted to get out? Well we got our 30" of snow, Will dug us out, and 4 napless days later when the furthest I've gone from my house is the mailbox, I'm getting some cabin fever. The first snow came on a Friday, which meant I could look forward to having Will at home with me and the girls for several days. However now it's Tuesday, and Will's at work because the newspaper (being a newspaper) doesn't close for snow. And now this is happening:



That, my friends, is 15-20" of additional snow falling on top of the 30" we already got. That is Mother Nature laughing at us. That is where I'm going to keep my pet penguins, because I've always thought they were super-cute and now that we are living in an Antarctica-like climate I know they would be very happy here.

It is annoying to finally start feeling well enough to go out with both girls only to get repeatedly snowed in. And it's very difficult to keep a 2 year old on a nap strike occupied and happy while you are trapped in the house with a baby attached to your boob. Yesterday we watched 5 movies, and I hated it SO much. I feel like I'm turning my daughter's brain to mush, and I definitely feel like my brain is turning to mush. Every time she asks to watch a show, I try to distract her but the truth is it's so much easier to sit down and nurse Charlotte or do the dishes when Emily is plunked in front of a show. I've told myself it's ok, it's only temporary, I'm just using it to get us through crazy times and as soon as I'm not pregnant/Charlotte is older/We're not sick/It's not raining or snowing outside I will enforce a no TV policy. I sound like an addict rationalizing, and the worst part is that I've created a little addict in the process. Once we cut back on TV it's going to be painful so I keep putting it off.

With little kids, distraction is much better than just flat-out forbidding something, so I made big plans for today. We were going to go outside and play, and we were going to do fun, educational activities inside and Emily wouldn't even have time to think about watching TV.

I spent 15 minutes getting Emily into her snow gear, and 15 more minutes trying to get Charlotte full so that she'd be nice and calm. I strapped Charlotte to my chest and bundled us up too. Then we added food coloring to spray bottles, and went out to have fun!


Not pictured: screaming Charlotte strapped to my chest.

Emily sprayed the colored water for about 2 minutes, then decided she didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. She ate a couple handfuls of snow, then started whining to go back inside.

No matter! I had fun and educational activities planned for inside too!

I decided to start discussing the concept of opposites. We collected black and white things from around the house, and I had Emily sort them, then we used little cups and millet (because I hate millet and will never eat all of what we have) to learn about full and empty:


In the corner you can see our squares of sandpaper and plastic we used for rough and smooth.

We also did near and far, and closed ourselves in the powder room to learn dark vs. light.

As an added bonus we even glued cottonballs to black construction paper to make snow pictures. And in a fortuitous turn of events a package arrived from my aunt that had gifts for Charlotte as well as a Dora the Explorer backpack filled with art supplies for Emily that occupied her for awhile.

And after doing all of that? We've still ended up watching 4 shows in between activities. I need SOME time to get dishes done and nurse the baby. And I need preschool to start. Then someone else can entertain my kid 3 days a week because this is exhausting!

Speaking of preschool, I finally made my decision after much (MUCH) deliberation and agonizing. I had hoped that once everything was decided I would heave a sigh of relief and not have to worry about it again until August, but that has not been the case. I got both girls dressed and out of the house last Monday in time to make it to the preschool sign-up at 9AM (I really impressed myself there) thereby securing my daughter's future, then immediately started questioning my decision. True, her preschool has the best playground, a big indoor gym where the kids can play in bad weather, a centers room instead of individual centers areas in each classroom which allows them to offer more materials, tiny bathrooms, small classes, experienced teachers and field trips and classes 3 mornings a week vs. 2, but it doesn't offer Spanish or Yoga or sign language or an observation area like the preschool that made second place on my list. Let's just hope that Emily doesn't ever end up cursing me for my decision as she's sitting across the desk from a deaf spanish-speaking yoga enthusiast interviewer.

But right decision or no, she's officially signed up now, and if we turn out regretting our decision we can always rectify our mistake with Charlotte. That's what second kids are for, right?

All I really want is girls!

The storm of the century is moving in here, and as I watch the snow fall I am feeling very happy. I am happy that we live in the city now vs. way out in the country so I know our road will be plowed in a reasonable amount of time. If the power goes out, we will still have water because we are not on a a well anymore, and thanks to our sweet phones we will even have internet access, at least until our batteries die. We are even within walking distance of a grocery store, so if the $120 worth of groceries that I impulse-bought today (I already had enough food for days, but if everyone else is buying up all the milk and toilet paper, I need to buy things too!) don't last us, Will can just walk over and pick up whatever we need. I say "Will" because he is taller, and if we get 30" of snow I probably don't have the physical endurance built back up yet to take on such a trek. Also, I braved the grocery stores today with Emily and Charlotte, I ended up having to breastfeed my baby while standing in a 30-minute long line at the grocery store, and I withstood the confusion of having a lady with a full beard butt in front of me in line (I would've said something, but I usually make it a point not to pick fights with people who have beards) so I feel like I've served my time already.


But most of all, I'm SO happy that I've already had my baby and I don't have to worry I'll go into labor as 30 inches of snow is falling. And not being able to leave the house gives me an excuse to just lay around and enjoy my baby (It also helps that there's another adult here with me to give me a bit more time to relax). This time around, I don't think I'm sleeping much better (Charlotte will only sleep at night in the guest bed with me, the crib is super-lame) but I am feeling less exhausted than I did with Emily. Emily used to cluster feed in the evenings, and it stressed me out SO badly, but Charlotte cluster-feeds all day long and it doesn't really bother me much. I think it's because going from only having to think about yourself and your husband to having to spend 24 hours a day devoted to a tiny, new person is a huge wake-up call, but this time around I'm already awake. I also know how short this phase is, so I'm not falling into the "This will never get better! She will never stop eating/start sleeping through the night/stop crying!" mindset like I did before. Instead I'm trying to enjoy my baby while she's tiny, and watching the changes that happen every day. I am way more into enjoying the phase she's in this time around, instead of being anxious for her to hit milestones. She has already smiled purposely which I love, but I also love how solemn babies always look before they get super-smiley. Her eyes get more focused every day, but I love when she tries to look at me and her eyes cross. I am rubbing my face on her head at every opportunity before it turns from delectably soft baby fuzz to silky toddler hair (still good for face-rubbing, but you don't get exactly the same effect).

Emily is still doing great...aside from the fact that she's had a nasty runny nose pretty much ever since we brought Charlotte home. This distresses us quite a bit, especially since Emily loves to snuggle her sister, and also because Charlotte has gotten pretty sniffly the last couple days. Let's hope my antibodies keep it from getting any worse! But Emily is a great big sister, she hasn't shown any jealousy at all, she loves to rub Charlotte's fuzzy head, and whenever Charlotte cries Emily says "She needs her mama! Nurse her, mommy!" Between Emily and the ever-vigilant Mingus, I definitely don't need to worry that I won't notice when Charlotte cries.

I'm still in the kinda crazy early days before Charlotte settles into a schedule, but we'll get there soon. And while I'm fairly content to just lay around looking at my baby, Emily would benefit from some time out of the house but I confess I am afraid of all the germs lurking out there. I wanted to take her to the park the other day because it was supposed to be 50 outside and I feel like there are less germs on an outside playground where the sun can kill them than on the nasty indoor playgrounds at the mall and fast food restaurants, but the day ended up being 35 and rainy. Now I don't think all this snow will be gone until the pool opens on Memorial Day, so I guess I'd better get over my germophobia or else find some sort of nice sterile robot-child to help socialize and play with Emily because she'll end up going stir-crazy before long. It's really tough to protect a brand-new baby when you also have a 2 year old who periodically eats the ice out of the seafood displays at Giant and enjoys licking the freezer doors at Wal-Mart. If only kids were born knowing and practicing proper illness-avoidance procedures.

So until the weather warms up, I'll force myself to venture out periodically, but the bulk of my time will be spent snuggled up watching the best entertainment there is. No, not the Superbowl, or the Oscars, or even the Olympics, although I definitely need to find a way to watch all of those things. Not even Home on the Range (THE worst Disney movie ever) even though it plays at our house at least twice a day because it's Emily's favorite. I'll entertain myself by watching my kidlets grow and change day by day, and revel in how lucky I am to be able to do that.

Charlotte's Birth Story

Just as I finished doing the bedtime routine with Emily on Sunday night at 9:10PM and went to leave her room, my water broke. I looked over at Emily and saw her big eyes looking at me, so I calmly said "goodnight sweetie", then ran for the bathroom. I at first headed for the guest bathroom, but remembered that my mother-in-law would be spending the night and using the bathroom so I didn't want to make a mess in there! I changed course and headed to my bathroom and quickly diapered myself in a towel so that I could waddle downstairs and tell Will to start calling everyone. Then I went back upstairs to take a shower. I had one contraction while I was shaving my leg that was uncomfortable enough to make me stop for a bit, but otherwise I was just feeling little squeezes.

My mother-in-law arrived to watch our daughter, and my mom and sister arrived to head to the hospital with us. We left the house at about 10:15PM.

On the way to the hospital I had 2 contractions that required a bit of breathing and concentration. Mostly I was uncomfortable because Charlotte was kicking up a storm, I felt like I needed to pee, and I could feel some gas bubbling around in my stomach. There was just entirely too much going on in my pelvis!

When we got to the hospital, I tried to head to the bathroom to relieve some pressure but the check-in lady saw me and stopped me. She said I'd have to give a urine sample as soon as I got to L&D so I should just check in first. Of course it took over 10 minutes! I only had a couple mild contractions but I REALLY wanted to pee!

I finally got to L&D, got a chance to pee, and was settled in at around 11:15PM. I was checked and told I was 4cm. I was having contractions about every 10 min, and a couple periods of discomfort in between each contraction that I still thought were due to Charlotte moving so much combined with gas pains, but once I was on the monitor it turned out they were contractions too.

Over the next hour the contractions picked up to the point where I was losing control. I had gone natural with Emily and hoped to do so again, but I was having difficulty relaxing and breathing through and ended up doing a lot of yelling instead! I was feeling them mostly in my back, so I tried leaning forward but that felt terrible. I went back to a sitting up/semi-reclined position, but that wasn't very good for the baby heartrate monitor so the nurse had me turn sideways a bit. As with my labor with Emily, moving brought on contractions, so as I rolled one came on and I kind of got stuck in a half on my back/half on my left side position where I remained for awhile. This position was unfortunately not a very good one, but I didn't want to move an inch because I wanted as long between contractions as possible!

The contractions at this point felt like my contractions I was having at 7-8cm with my first labor! When I was checked at 12:30, I was a whopping 5cm. The idea of spending the next 5 hours in pain this bad was NOT appealing to me, so I asked for an epidural. My mom said "But Sara, you're in transition!", to which I replied "I am NOT in transition, transition is going from 8-10cm and I am only at FIVE! I want an epidural NOW!"

The nurse started my IV and told me that once the whole bag of saline was in, she'd call the anesthesiologist. I was NOT happy, and with each contraction was yelling at my mom, the nurse, and random other nurses who came in the room to squeeze the IV bag and get it in there quicker! Everyone thought this was amusing, but I know for a fact that they can do this to get fluids in quickly in an emergency and I was furious that no one was listening to me! I've never seen liquid move more slowly!

The nurse finally said she'd call for him when the bag was only half empty, and when we got there 10 minutes later she checked me and I was 7cm. The fact that I had dilated 2 cm in 10 minutes was lost on me, I had my eyes set on an epidural and I was getting one!

The anesthesiologist finally got there around 12:45AM (I know, that was pretty dang fast but it didn't feel like it!). Once the epidural was in (which wasn't painful at all) I laid back and all of a sudden felt the baby drop into the birth canal. The nurse checked me, and I just had a lip of cervix left. It took about 2 more contractions for me to start to feel the numbness creeping in, and my left side was going numb before my right. I was worried because I have heard of epidurals that only ever take on one side, but the anesthesiologist said it is normal to go numb on one side first and it didn't mean I'd NEVER go numb on the other side.

My body was starting to push on its own, and I had to puff through each contraction because the doctor wasn't there yet. I heard the nurse ask the anesthesiologist if he wanted to catch the baby, and he said "I prefer to wait until the mother cat has licked off the afterbirth". I was focused pretty inward, getting ready to push, but even so that comment made me pause and think "What did he just say?!?!"

The doctor arrived at about 1:15AM and I started to push. Pushing with an epidural is much harder than pushing without! I could feel the muscles that were doing the pushing, but I couldn't feel the results, if that makes any sense, and I definitely couldn't push as hard. I seemed to do ok though, because 3 contractions later, she was out!

I always used to think a fast labor was a good thing but you know what? I actually preferred my 11.5 hour labor with Emily to this 4 hour labor! With Emily's labor it was gradual enough that I was able to stay on top of the contractions whereas this one went from zero to sixty before I knew it and I got scared and unable to relax.

If I had asked for the epidural 1-2 contractions later, it probably would've been too late to get one. I ALMOST wish that had been the case, but now I have experienced labor both ways. I was definitely more comfortable with the epidural, and I think it allowed me to be more patient about pushing so I didn't tear as much, but at the same time I definitely didn't get the same burst of post-labor endorphins this time that I had with my natural birth.

Either way, Charlotte is here, and I'm glad to be through labor! I'm super-glad that both times my water broke it was in the privacy of my own home. It's nice to not be a ticking time bomb anymore!

Life as we know it

A week ago today, I gave birth to Emily #2 Baby Charlotte. It is RIDICULOUS how much this girl looks like her sister. Take a look:

Charlotte:


Emily:


The only difference in their appearance is that Charlotte DEFINITELY has Will's family's long skinny feet and long skinny fingers whereas Emily has my short fat fingers and feet. I can already forsee the pre-teen meltdowns when I take my girls shoe shopping and Emily and I can buy cute shoes at the store while Charlotte will have to get whatever fits. Oh well, there's always Zappos.

I have a feeling they won't look identical for long though, because while Emily was jaundice and it was always a struggle to get her to eat, Charlotte NEVER stops eating. She will nurse for 45 minutes, fall asleep, wake up 5 minutes later rooting and nurse for another half hour. Sometimes she's still hungry after that, and then we'll give her a bottle (both because I'm out of milk and because there's only so much nursing my boobs can take) and she'll drink 3.5 oz. A baby at 10 days old is only supposed to have a stomach capacity of 1 oz! My milk, as usual, has been very sluggish to come in despite the fact that I've been taking enough fenugreek to make me smell like a maple tree, but when it does come in I'd better have a lot...I feel like I'm nursing twins.

So Charlotte is a very good baby...she only really gets irritated if she starts rooting and is not supplied with a boob or bottle in a timely manner. She almost never spits up, which is a HUGE difference from Emily, who was so difficult to feed in the first place and then she'd promptly barf up everything you'd given her. Charlotte has been snoozing quite a bit during the day, which makes me nervous because it can mean party time all night, but she pretty much wakes up for a diaper change and a nursing session and goes back to sleep at night which is awesome.

Emily has been amazing too. She hasn't shown a single bit of jealousy so far, and she LOVES her little sister. She has gotten a bit TOO loving on one or two occasions, but by and large she is incredibly gentle and sweet, especially for a 2.5 year old. Except for some complications I'm dealing with (I will probably post about it later) life has been pretty great since we got home. I've been getting a shower and a nap every day thanks to my wonderful husband and family, and that's huge. Emily has been a well-behaved toddler and wonderful big sister and Charlotte is healthy and doing well so we're all pretty happy campers around here.