Got milk?

So Nathan continues to despise solid food. We vainly put him in his highchair every day and bring out baby food of various kinds and flavors, put on his bib, and then manage to get maybe one teaspoon in his little mouth. Then he closes up like a vault and nothing else is getting in there, man. And he's wise to us now. We can smile and laugh and play silly games with him all we want, and he may smile back if we're really hilarious, but he ain't opening that mouth. No way, jose. It isn't gonna happen.

Yesterday I was holding him and eating crackers and he was watching me eat very intently. And he was opening and closing his mouth and making little smacking sounds. So I whisked him over to the kitchen, got out a cheerio, bit it in half and put the other half in his (amazingly) open mouth. To my absolute delight, not only did he eat it, he seemed to enjoy it. He ate a few more before starting to turn them away. No big deal, I thought, and hurrah, he's eating!

So when John came home, I couldn't wait to show him our new trick. I got out a Cheerio, bit it in half, and held it out, beaming, to Nathan. Who proceeded to jam his mouth closed and cry.

I am starting to worry, and it's a good thing he has a doctor's appointment next week. I mean, I think he's doing fine on my milk, he seems to be growing, although not at the crazy pace he was for his first six months. I just don't know what else to do. If he doesn't want to eat the food, he doesn't want to eat the food. I wonder if there's something else going on. Does it hurt him? Did his time in the NICU after he was born, with tubes down his throat, make putting things in his mouth equal torture? I just don't know.

A crazy kind of love

I was once told that parenting is the hardest thing you'll ever do. The most rewarding, to be sure, but the hardest.

I don't think they were kidding. The sheer endurance that is required can pretty much pull you under, never mind the financial, physical, and emotional toll. And that's just if you're doing a pretty good job as a parent. Whoever sets the bar of being an excellent parent always seems to keep it rising, within sight but juuust out of reach. On a good day, that is. Pretty much out of the ballpark on a bad one.

The exhaustion, though, oh, the exhaustion is so hard. And there isn't ever enough of a break, not really. You can grab an hour or two off here and there, and there's that delicious hour or two at night when you can just sit and watch Grey's Anatomy. And if you're truly lucky, you won't be interrupted to find out why your two-year-old has woken up and is crying, or to nurse the baby. But for the most part, you never get enough rest. Enough time off to be really rested and really ready to re-engage? That is only a nice, far-off dream. No, you just have to keep pushing through, and you just have to deal with the fact that the needs of these children, the ever-present need, is constant.

Stay with me here, because I'm just getting started. Want to know what the hardest thing is? If you're a parent, especially a stay-at-home parent, you know that it's the relentlessness of it...for the love of god, sometimes it's almost funny how far you can be pushed, regardless of your own feelings or status or well-being. Your needs are so far down the page, sometimes they aren't even in view. And with more than one child, it only gets multiplied.

A friend came and stayed with me and the kids for a weekend awhile back when John was out of town. She's fabulous with kids and adores mine, so it was great to have her here because she really pitches in and helps, you know? She doesn't just sit on the couch watching as chaos rains down around her. Anyway, at one point she looked at me and asked incredulously, "Holy crap, it just never stops, does it?"

No, it doesn't. And it won't, not even tonight when things are momentarily calm and quiet. Nathan has yet to sleep through the night, Sabrina often wakes and needs to be tucked back in, and the cat seems to be very fond of throwing up in the middle of the night. Oh, and pooping on the bathroom floor. The exhaustion and the relentlessness of it? Very much a part of my life right now.

But here's the thing - here's the kicker - I'm crazy, crazy in love with these kids. Now before you start rolling your eyes, let me assure you that I know what you're thinking. Before I had children, when I heard someone say how lucky they were to be a parent, I would think to myself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Throw some sunshine somewhere else." I always thought it was the kid who was lucky to have a good parent, not the other way around. And I wasn't usually in the mood to listen to some schmaltzy parent waxing on about how privileged they were to have these kids.

Now I know better. (Prepare yourself.) I still get a little thrill in my heart at least once a day when Sabrina says "Mommy" and she means me. ME! This beautiful, smart, funny, fascinating child loves ME. When she's sick or tired or gets hurt, the only person in the world who can make it better, the ONLY person in the world she wants, is me. That blows me away. To be that lucky, that incredibly lucky to be the person whom she loves more than anything, well...words fail me.

And this baby of mine, this little boy, who is gorgeous and sweet and happy...I can't believe he's mine either. I actually gave birth to him! The way he lights up when he sees me - good god, it could stop my heart right in its tracks. How did this happen? Where did he come from? And is it really my good luck that he wants nothing more in this world than to be held and nursed and comforted and played with by me?

I didn't lose you there, did I? Somewhere in the deep, velvety world of adoration for my children? Well, maybe I did. Maybe you were all for this post when you thought it was all about bitching about how hard parenting is and then you walked away from the computer in disgust when you realized that this post is really about how worth it it all is.

Well, it's true. This parenting biz? God, it's hard. Harder than I could have ever imagined or predicted or expected. But it is also more mind-blowing and wonderful and soul-altering than I ever knew as well. So there you go. It is, in fact, the hardest thing you'll ever do. And also the most rewarding. They go hand-in-hand. Sometimes the exhaustion and relentlessness wins out. And sometimes, in the moments of pure grace, the beauty of a love like this wins. And that's when you know you would never change your life, not for anything.

What did you just say?

So just a little while ago, I was sitting on the floor playing with the kids. Sabrina has one of those wooden fruit sets, the kind with velcro that you can use a little wooden knife to cut up and then stick them back together.

She was playing with the little green pear and I have known for awhile that part of it is missing, and I suspect that - along with many, many other missing things in our household right now - it is packed. (Don't ask why only part of the pear would get packed. I can only assume it was lying around during one of the mad packing sessions and it got carelessly tossed in as well.)

Which is a poor answer to a 2-year-old who doesn't get why we can't just go get all those things that have mysteriously disappeared into the world of 'packing' and who gets frustrated because they sure don't seem to be reappearing, despite promises that they will. So when she asked me where the missing piece was, I casually replied that I didn't know, we would have to keep an eye out for it.

"No," she informed me, "It DIED."

I'm sorry, it what?????????? Where on earth does a 2-year-old learn that word? I sat for a second, torn between inquiring further on the topic to find out if she knew what it meant and just letting it go, and I finally settled on asking where she heard that word.

Oh, she replied, Daddy.

So I dropped the topic with her because she was clearly not upset about the apparent loss, and emailed my husband at work. His reply just came back through, and he thinks he may have slipped the other day and said that his cell phone died.

Sometimes when I think about how Sabrina is paying attention to absolutely EVERYTHING and soaking it all in, even when we think she's totally busy with something else, it makes me feel so tired. How will we teach her what we want her to learn and keep her from that which she doesn't need to know about yet? I know, I know, she obviously doesn't know what 'dying' means yet. In the small scheme of things, it's not a big deal. In the bigger sense of things, it really kind of is. I'm not really ready to explain death to her yet.

Where's that big giant bubble for me to put her in? It's about time one shows up. This whole world is just a bit too big for her to be in sometimes.

And the answer is...

It has come to my attention that when it comes to knowing things about the world, I am woefully inadequate. I may be college educated, but when it comes to my 2-year-old, I don't know crap.

I know a lot of basic information about things, but I don't know why some leaves are green and some are yellow, for instance. I don't know how to explain why I can skip ahead to specific songs that Sabrina wants to hear on CDs but I can't call up certain songs she likes when we're listening to the radio. Think about it - can YOU explain the difference between radio and CDs in terms that a 2-year-old can understand? Yeah, you probably can. I thought I could too, but when I'm sitting there in the car trying to explain why I can't get the radio to play the song she likes but I can make the CD play any song she wants, in any order, well, I do my best, but I feel like I fall short.

When I think about the responsibility of teaching these kids about the world, I feel very small. And unprepared. Thank god there's the internet.

Don't touch me!

Do you know what the term 'touched out' means? If you're the mother to at least one small child, you probably do. It's the feeling that you have after taking care of small, needy creatures all day that you just can't have one more thing or one more person touch you. You are all touched out. This is especially true of nursing moms. This is especially true of me.

Of course, the person who usually gets the full brunt of me not wanting to be touched isn't either one of the kids. Of course not. It's my husband. Sometimes he just scootches close to me in bed when we're watching TV before falling asleep and it's all I can do not to just push him away. And sometimes I do, I just can't help it. I have a needy, separation-anxiety-driven 8-month old that I hold and nurse all day and a 2-year-old who wants to be held and read to and played with all day. The ever so small, ever so fleeting time I have in the evenings between when we put the kids to bed and the next time Nathan wakes up to nurse is supposed to be mine...although it's usually filled with me trying to get some of my freelance work done, eat dinner, and just try to get some down time (ha). I'm afraid I usually just don't want to have to fulfill yet another need for someone else.

I know, it sounds terrible. And I know that my husband and our marriage both need my attention and love as well. But heck, sometimes the cat will jump up on me in the evenings and I push her away too. I just don't want anyone, anything that needs my physical attention and affection. The baby will inevitably be awake and needing to nurse again in only an hour or two. Sometimes I just can't take it. I can't offer myself up for anything else. It's like my body is community property these days. And most of the time, the door is open, come on in, I'm all for it. But every now and then, I just want the door to be shut. Lights out, business is closed. Come back later.

Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins

So we decided this weekend that it would be a good idea to take the kids to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival, a yearly ritual in the Bay Area that is so popular that it can take over an hour to drive the 7 miles from the highway into the little coastal town that is Half Moon Bay because of all the traffic. In fact, the huge crowds are why we've never done it before, but since we're preparing to leave the area, we figured now was the time. Now or never, right?

Well, never started looking a heck of a lot more appealing once we had finally made our way to Half Moon Bay, snagged a remarkably lucky parking space from a nice old man who was leaving, and walked into the main area of town where the festival was. I have almost never seen so many people packed onto a street, I swear to god. And even though the weather was beautiful and everyone seemed to be in good moods, with loads of people wearing Halloween costumes or colors or pumpkin outfits of one kind or another, it was far too crazy for me.

As John and I reminded ourselves later, we actually don't like street festivals. We don't just really have much use for them, you know? We don't like the folksy art that is being sold at such a festival, I'm not much of a fan of the greasy food cooked in enormous amounts, and I don't like pushing my way through crowds, especially when I have my kids with me. So we worked our way forcibly up one side of the street and back down the other, bypassing every single one of the booths and the food area. We finally stopped at a deli that was on the street, got sandwiches, ate quickly, and then kept on walking back to the car. Not exactly worth the effort of getting there.

So then we drove up a bit further to one of the famous pumpkin patches nearby. And I'll admit, it was gosh darn cute, with scarecrows and pumpkins absolutely everywhere, and they had a train, a hay ride, a petting zoo, a jumpy house, a haunted house, ponies to ride, the whole deal. But they also knew they had you by the tail, because everything cost money to do. And I know this is a business and all, but come on! You can't let the kids pet a duck for free? Oh, please. Have some Halloween spirit, people. Nevertheless, we shelled out money for Sabrina to ride a pony around in a little circle and she loved it. Then we picked out pumpkins for everyone and we were outta there. Nearly $20 poorer, but we were outta there.

Should have just bought a couple of pumpkins at Safeway and called it a day.

The blame game

It's so easy to look at other parents and mentally point an accusing finger, have you ever noticed that? There was a mom and her little boy at the park this afternoon and her little boy ran over and started playing with Sabrina's sand toys. No big deal, it's totally park etiquette to allow other kids to play with your sand toys and to let your kid play with theirs. It's one of those unspoken rules at the playground. So when Sabrina protested, as I knew she would, I pointed out that she wasn't even playing with them, she was climbing on the playground.

Naturally, she was instantly interested in playing with them again, so the other mom and I did the "Now, let's share" talk with the kids, in that slightly higher-pitched voice we all get when we are being preachy to our children around other parents. Well, soon enough it was getting chilly and it was about dinnertime, so I said it was time to go. And the other mom said it was time for them to go too, and could Brandon (her son) please give back the sand toys. Of course he didn't want to, and it was actually pretty cute, because he would set the sand buckets down at my feet obediently, but then you could tell he just couldn't bear to part with them, because then he would pick them back up and move a few feet away with them. Then, with urging from his mother, he'd bring them back, set them down in front of me, and then quickly snatch them back up and look at me beseechingly. This went on for several minutes. Well, I couldn't very well just let him have them, and Sabrina was watching all of this quizzically from on top of the slide, where she had retreated when I announced it was time to go.

So I patiently waited for the mother to step in, take the buckets, hand them to me, and collect her son. Which she never did. Instead, she stood nearby and half-laughed, half-pleaded with her son to give me the toys so they could leave. So, since I was getting tired, Nathan was getting cold, and Sabrina was starting to look a little concerned that I might actually give in and let him have the toys, I had to gently pry the bucket handles from the boy and tell him thank you for playing with us, but we were going home now. Which caused the inevitable protest and crying on his part, but I was able to at least collect Sabrina, the toys, and Nathan, and head to the car.

Which just so happened to be parked next to the car of Brandon and his mommy, who also decided to leave. I stood Sabrina on the sidewalk with instructions to wait for me while I put the sand toys away in the trunk and put Nathan in his car seat. Then I came back around to collect Sabrina, who was having sort of a stand off with the little boy on the sidewalk, with both of them staring somewhat frostily at each other. But the minute he saw my keys in my hand, little Brandon forgot all about Sabrina and came running up to me, holding out his hand for my keys and whining something I couldn't understand. I held the keys aloft and looked at his mother for help, who shrugged and said "Oh, he loves keys. Don't let him have your keys, you'll never get them back."

Okay, fine. So I scooped up Sabrina with one arm and continued to hold the keys out of the reach of Brandon, who was now lunging for them. And I swear to god, that kid followed me as I stepped off the sidewalk and into the parking lot to put Sabrina in her car seat. And his mother let him. She only came over to get him when he was standing right by the car door and I was going to hit him in the head with the door by opening it if he didn't move. (Okay, so it occurred to me, but I did not hit him in the head with the door. I promise.)

Anyway, I got Sabrina in the car and we came home. But I don't know, that mother just seemed at a loss most of the time, like someone had only recently dumped this kid in her lap and she was still getting the lay of the land on how to deal with this strange creature. Which I know isn't true because she referred to herself as Mommy more than once. So you'd think, wouldn't you, that she would have a better handle on how to deal with this little boy who was not behaving badly, I'm not trying to say that, he just wanted these things, and wanted them badly.

Again, I don't know. And again, it's so easy to point a finger and say "What's up with that parent?" and feel all smug and proud, like you are freaking Parent of the Year all the time. When the fact is, who knows what other parents were thinking about you at the same time. It's enough to make you feel proud and ashamed, all at once.

...but why?

Sabrina has entered that notorious stage where she wants to know 'why' for everything. And I mean everything.

I have to admit, I kind of thought that the stereotype of a kid who asked why over and over and over was just that, a stereotype. I hereby stand corrected. This kid, my kid, wants to know why a leaf is green, why I had cereal for breakfast, why the man on the bicycle wasn't wearing a helmet...and on and on and on. And just when I think I've done a pretty good job of answering her with at least mostly correct information that is condensed into language a 2-year-old can understand and maybe even be a little educational, she still wants to know more. But why? Mama, why?

And yes, oh yes, I trot out the old standard. Old faithful. And I feel little to no guilt in saying it - "Because I said so." You can almost hear my relief when silence typically follows that statement. At least for 30 seconds until something else occurs to her and she wants to know why.

Nathan, meanwhile, can't talk yet, although he does a fine job of babbling. He's such a boy, it's so funny. He doesn't just coo gently like his sister did. No, he lets loose with long strings of big, loud baby talk. He practically yells. And he likes to rock himself back and forth and from side to side and bang on things to make noise. Is this just the beginning? Is he going to be one of those loud, crazy boys who can make anything into a car or a bulldozer, complete with 'vroom vroom' noises, who runs headfirst into anything and anyone, who can be heard yelling over any gaggle of children? Seems that he's well on his way.

Oh, and by the way, he's so not sleeping through the night. He was up every hour last night. Sabrina got in on the game and was up once or twice herself, yelling bloody murder when it was her father who went in instead of me. I resorted to cursing every time Nathan was up again, crying. I felt bad about it this morning - it can't be good to be greeted with profanities when you wake up crying when you're just a baby. But I couldn't help it. I was so tired. So done. My breasts felt nearly flat because he was nursing so often, and there just wasn't anything left in there. I hate being that tired. It's one of the worst feelings in the world.

When we finally do move (oh, don't get me started), Nathan is getting his own room and oh heck yeah, we're doing some sleep training. I use the Sleep Lady Shuffle method - it worked quite well with Sabrina, who is still very good when it comes to falling asleep. But since Nathan still sleeps in our room, I haven't done sleep training. It's just one more reason why we need a new house.

We're moving...right?

So this whole selling-our-house thing is starting to seriously wear me out. The market sucks (why oh why couldn't we decide to do this when the market was red hot?), and what I assume is a pretty stressful situation under the best of circumstances is even harder with two small children and two skittish cats. Every time a realtor calls to see the place, I'm invariably out with the kids about 20 minutes from home, and I have to rush them home, park Sabrina in front of the TV, and try to juggle a howling Nathan while I feverishly try to clean the place. Then I have to get Sabrina to move quickly (no easy task with a 2-year-old) to put on her shoes, go potty, put on her jacket, change and feed Nathan, and leave the house again so the realtor can come spend 10 minutes with their clients browsing through our house like it's a rack of clothes at Macy's.

Yeah, I'm kind of done with this whole thing. Not to mention the whole Open House thing on Sundays, where the same manic cleaning needs to be done and then we have to stay out of the house for 3 hours...right during the lunch/naptime portion of our day. Sigh.

In other news, Nathan is 8 months old now. He's so big! I can't get over it and I want time to stop. Can't someone tell me how to make time stop?

Oh, and by the way...

I just re-read some of my earlier posts, and I just looked at the one where Nathan was sleeping through the night at 2 months.

Now why couldn't I have just kept my little mouth shut? Because of course now he does no such thing. He's nearly 8 months and nearly 20 pounds (oh, no petite flower is he), but he only sleeps 2-4 hours at a time at night. Usually more like 2-3. Sleeping through the night? A very distant, hazy memory.

He also has absolutely no interest in solid food. If we actually manage to poke a tiny amount into his tightly closed mouth, he makes a face of absolute misery and squeezes his eyes shut and shudders in revulsion. Needless to say, I don't make this a regular habit. I don't believe in making food a power struggle, so I think it will be awhile until he's eating actual meals.

MIA

Okay, so I pretty much suck. At least when it comes to keeping up with this blog, although I'm sure there are other ways as well. I don't even really know why I haven't written in this blog for so long, other than it felt like no one was really out there and I was kind of in a room by myself, prattling on and on out loud about my life as a mother. Which of course I find fascinating, since it's my life and all, but it felt like maybe no one else found it all that compelling.

Since then, I've gotten some messages from people out there and it's really kind of nice to know that a few people are paying attention. And hey, they may even get what I'm saying. And better yet, they even think it's worth hearing.

So cool. I'm back. And boy, has life gone on this total warp speed thing. Sabrina is nearly 3 now and is still crazy, crazy, crazy, but she's also totally smart and funny and constantly blowing my mind with what a complete little person she is becoming. Nathan will be 8 months later this week, which is also completely blowing my mind, and he's just this round, joyful little guy who completely lights up my life and steals my heart.

We're considering moving to Colorado. Well, more than considering it. Our place is up for sale here in California, and once it actually sells, we're going to buy a house in Colorado and move. We just need this place to sell. Soon. Please.

Gone, oh so gone, are the days when there was such a demand for housing in this region that the minute any property went on the market, there was an immediate bidding war to get it. There still seems to be interest, but people are taking their time and they have a ton of properties for sale to choose from. Which is a long and tortuous process for those of us selling.

Plus, we had to pack up a bunch of our stuff and put it in storage to make the place look more attractive to buyers. Which meant that a lot of Sabrina's stuff got packed up too. And now we regularly have to do a complete scouring of the place to get it ready to show, at least once a week. And if you have any idea of life with a toddler, you know that it is literally impossible to get, much less keep, a house clean with a 2-year-old around. I mean it. It is physically impossible. So the kids have to be whisked out of the house by one parent while the other parent manically cleans for a couple of hours, and then you all have to stay out of the house while the people come look at it or during the open house. All of which is hugely stressful for everyone, including Sabrina, who just wants her toys out and wants to make a mess without us panicking and telling her we have to keep the house clean, and to stop hearing about people coming to see her house.

I totally get that, by the way. This is her house, why should she be forced to leave while people come tramping through her house, her space, the one area that is supposed to be sacred in such a big world? I get it. And my heart breaks, because as a parent who just so happens to want people to come see the place so that maybe they'll want to buy it, what are you supposed to do? It's gotta be done.

Sigh. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg. The move itself is going to be even more crazy and even more stressful. I'm not looking forward to that. But I am ready, oh am I ever ready, to just get on with it. Just do it. Just buy a house and deal with the whole thing and move and just finally be there and settle in and start our lives again. Because this part? This whole waiting and not knowing when our place will sell or when we'll be moving exactly, this sucks.

Flat Little Noggin

So there's always something to worry about in motherhood. Always. If not one thing, there's five. Right now, my main obsession is the fact that Nathan has a flat spot on his head. I've mentioned this before. I guess this is pretty common these days, what with babies sleeping on their backs, etc. But it makes me feel terrible because it also means that we put him down a lot. (Which is almost a given when you also have a crazy two-year-old to take care of, but that doesn't change my guilt about it.) And when you look these things up on the web, you can find anything from "Don't worry about it, it will go away when the baby is older" to "Get your baby to a pediatric neurosurgeon right away!" Ack!

So I called my doctor's office and they had me talk to the nurse. She could not have been less helpful. She said that when the baby was awake, to have him be on his tummy. Well, for one thing, he's only three months old. He can't really lift his head up to look around when he's on his tummy, so he just flails around, whining miserably. For that very understandable reason, he hates being on his tummy. And for one, big, bazooka of a reason, I have a whirling tornado of a two-year-old who would trample him if he was just hanging out in the middle of the floor. But the nurse was adamant, and totally uninterested in discussing it further with me. Put him on his tummy.

Well, I'll try. But dang it, it just doesn't seem like that's the only answer. Or at least, there should be an answer I like better. I think I'll call again tomorrow and talk to the other nurse. When you don't like the answer you've been given, get a different answer from someone else, is what I say.

The Motherhood Ideal

You know how there are some days, or at least some hours, when you feel like you're doing a pretty good job as a mom? You say the right things, you do the right things, and your child is happy and considerate and says "I love you, Mama," and "Please" and "Thank you," and is in general a bunch of fun to be around.

I feel like those days, those hours, are slipping away from me far too much lately. I want to be the best mom I can be, I really really really really do. I love that darn little girl of mine so much and I still feel a little thrill when she calls for me because I think it is such a privilege to be her mama. But she is the total embodiment of "terrible twos" right now, and it's sometimes I snap before I can stop myself. And sometimes I find myself trying to explain to her why I'm so frustrated, but I already know that what I'm saying is too complicated for her. So she isn't going to understand and the moment is already gone. And then she's already on to the next thing and I'm still standing there, inanely saying "Sabrina, do you understand why Mama is so unhappy? Because you did something that I asked you not to do and I keep asking you not to do it and you keep doing it anyway and that makes Mama very frustrated." And she's totally oblivious to me already, and I can hear myself talking and am thinking "What the hell am I even saying??" Even if she was listening, I'd have lost her in the first half of my warbled monologue. But I still can't stop.

I read an article recently that recommended that when you're frustrated with your child, you should stop and ask yourself what you'd want your mom to do if you were the one who was two and the roles were reversed. I'm trying to do that, and it helps sometimes. Because of course, you'd want your mom to stop, take a deep breath, and get down on your level and explain in a way you understand and wasn't all mean and snappy. God, I don't want to be mean and snappy. And yet (head down in shame), I am.

Actually, I have to say that I've had moments in the past day or two when I also want to be able to reason with Nathan as well. Mind you, he's just 12 weeks. But he really only wants me to hold him and not John, and he cries a lot, and his new trick of sleeping through the night (can I get a hallelujah??) means that he doesn't really nap much during the day. Which is great at night, but means he needs to be entertained all day. So sometimes I'll be trying to hold him and deal with Sabrina and I'm starving and really want to just put him down for a few minutes to get to deal with life. And I'll find myself wanting to just say to him, "Nathan, Mama's hungry and she just needs to eat, so if you could just sit there in your bouncy chair, that would really help."

I think perhaps I'm losing it. Because, sure, I could say that to him. I'm sure it would sound like everything else I say to him - some nice flurry of sounds that mean nothing to him. Because he's a baby.

Hmmm. Perhaps this is what my voice sounds like to Sabrina as well, only maybe not as nice or flurry. I just make sounds that equates to something she doesn't want to hear, so she just ignores them.

Oh, and Nathan has a flat spot on his head. This is driving me nuts and is providing me with yet another reason to feel terribly, horribly guilty. It means he has spent too much time on his back, and I admit it freely - he has. Between carting Sabrina back and forth to preschool in the car and spending hours at various parks while he (hopefully) sleeps in his car seat in the stroller, and popping him in the aforementioned bouncy chair so that I can take Sabrina to the potty or whatever the crisis of the moment is, the poor little dude spends a lot of time on his back. Oh, god, I feel so bad about it. So now he has a flat spot. The remedy is obvious - get him off his back. And, in no small coincidence, he lately has absolutely no patience for being anywhere but in my arms. He hates his car seat, won't stand for the bouncy seat for more than 5 minutes, and will only barely tolerate being propped up in his boppy pillow. So I got a new sling and I'm trying to learn how to use it. It will help when he can hold his head up a little better, but in the meantime, I'm trying. I am. I don't want him to end up in a little head helmet.

So yeah. There's little around here that's ideal right now. Is there ever?

O Holy Night

So I almost hate to say this for fear of jinxing it, but Nathan has started to sleep through the night. (There it is - now that I've not only thought it but put it on paper, I'm sure to see everything go right back to the way it was.)

Seriously, though, he's sleeping. And not just the 5-6 hours that they say constitute 'sleeping through the night.' He's sleeping 8 hours at a time. 8 hours!!! I kid you not. He has done it the past two nights, and I just keep thinking he's going to realize that he likes eating more than he does sleeping and start getting up every 2-3 hours again. Which would be okay, but man, I like this way a whole lot better. In fact, I'm so gosh darn energized when he does wake me up, usually around 5am, that after I feed him from boobs about to burst with milk, I go in the other room and pump the rest. And then I come back to bed and get to go back to sleep for another hour or so until Sabrina wakes up. This is something I could keep doing for a long time.

It's so much nicer than the bleary stumble to the changing table and then back in to bed to nurse him every 2 hours or so. Although I've developed some favorites on TV to keep me company. I like the Craig Ferguson show on CBS. He's really, genuinely funny. It doesn't seem nearly as scripted as some of the other late-night shows. And I also like the ABC News Now show that's on from 2-5am. I keep it on that one for a long time. Then I'll switch over to local news if I'm up anytime past 5am to see what the local weather is going to be like and to plan my day with Sabrina. Plus, there are things we have on TiVo. So I can totally survive another few months of sleeplessness if I have to. But the taste of sleep is so sweet. You just gotta love it.

Baby Budda Belly

When you're newly pregnant, you just can't wait to start to see your belly expand. In both of my pregnancies, I started wearing baggy maternity shirts and pants as soon as I could eek out any sort of actual rationale for it. And when you're in full bloom, with a belly out to there, you're proud and happy to let it stick out there and when strangers notice it, you think, "Yup, that's right. There's a baby in there."

And then you have the baby and all of a sudden, that cute little budda belly isn't so cute anymore. It's just a belly. With more folds and heft to it than you find desirable. And you want it gone.

I'll admit now that I kept an eye on the scale during both pregnancies, even more so this last time. And I worked out until I was put on bed rest in my 7th month. So when I finally got on the scale after Nathan was born, I only had a couple of pounds to lose to get back to my baseline weight.

I know what you might be thinking - a few pounds? Who freakin' cares??? Well, I do. The thing about being so vigilant about working out and staying at a certain weight for years is that, well, you're vigilant. And I want those pounds gone. But I'm nursing, and you have to be really careful about losing weight when you're nursing. Plus, sometimes your body won't let the weight go.

So, long story short, I tried for a couple of weeks to just watch what I ate and to get back into working out to see if the weight would drop. It didn't. So last week, I joined my husband (who wants to lose about 15 pounds) on a balanced-eating diet, where you eat these carefully balanced meals of protein, dairy, veggies/fruit, and carbs every 3-4 hours. And I lost a pound.

You'd think this would be giving me incentive to keep going and to keep my ass in gear. But I haven't worked out this weekend, and I'm sitting here, struggling with not wanting to get my butt off the couch and go do it. We even recently bought a jogging stroller so that one of us could take Sabrina with us and go out for a run when the gym just wasn't an option. It is sitting in the corner, mocking me with how little it has been used. The child care at the gym has already closed for the day. The gym isn't an option. But it isn't raining outside. The jogging stroller is an option.

Damn it all.

I should go. I should run. Running is the best way to torch calories and you can do it in 30 minutes or less and be totally virtuous in that time. But. I. Just. Don't. Wanna.

Damn it all. Maybe I'll just go eat some Oreos and worry about it tomorrow.

PS - In case you're wondering, yes, I took Sabrina to the Children's Museum on Friday. The good mom in me came out and won. Sometimes that does happen.

Nursing Woes

So the nursing woes continue. I stopped by a nursing store yesterday (the good thing about liberal ol' Northern California is that we have such things, I suppose!) and spilled my tale of woe to the cashier. Hey, in a crisis, anyone who will listen will do. She actually listened quite nicely, suggested that I use these 'comfort pads' in my bra, and pump after I feed my baby to make sure that all the milk is being emptied from my breasts.

Well, I'm here to tell you that pumping doesn't feel a whole lot better than nursing does right now, but somehow I'm feeling better about the whole thing. I guess it helps to have some sort of plan of action, even if the plan comes from the cashier at the nursing store. Plus, I will get to see the actual lactation consultant tomorrow, and I hope she's ready. I may actually run, not walk, to get into her office.

Other than that, my inner-mom-angel and inner-mom-devil are battling it out right now. When Sabrina wakes up from her nap, I should really get both kids collected and go to the kids' museum or something equally stimulating. But part of me just wants to say screw it, because just getting both of them ready to actually leave the house can be exhausting. Much less balancing a newly-potty-trained toddler and a nursing infant (never mind the whole nursing pain issue) in public. The good mom would just sigh, load up the good ol' diaper bag and go with high hopes for a relatively smooth outing. The bad mom would just sigh, say it isn't worth it, and turn on "Curious George" for everyone's viewing pleasure instead. I still don't know who will win. Stay tuned!

The Best Laid Plans

So nothing today has gone like I expected it to. Par for the course with two small children, I realize, but there are still quite a few days when I'm able to steer the course with fair accuracy. Not so much today.

It started out with a doctor's appointment for Nathan, my two-month-old. He needed some shots and then I was supposed to meet with their lactation consultant to discuss why I have been having stabbing, excruciating pain when he latches on for the past couple of weeks. He's not a newborn, this shouldn't be happening, and I need help. My husband was supposed to pick up our daughter from preschool and take her home so that I could make these appointments, but when I was literally pulling out of our driveway, he called to say that there was an emergency at work and he couldn't pick her up. I'd have to cancel the appointment and go get her myself.

Needless to say, I was unhappy. I don't want to dread nursing, and right now, I do. It hurts so damn much. But nevertheless, I had to reschedule the appointment for Friday.

This afternoon, after I had gotten everyone home, I had high hopes of getting them both to sleep at the same time. That way, I could eat and then if the baby stayed asleep, I could have some good one-on-one time with my daughter, who has been all sorts of awful toddler crazy lately. But the baby has yet (even now) to sleep more than 10-15 minutes at a time today, and he didn't stay asleep, so I had to juggle them both, as well as still more painful nursing sessions. Oh, and eating? Yeah, right.

Even now when it is early evening, I just nursed and walked the baby until he was asleep while my husband took Sabrina, our two-year-old, to the park. (Yes, he does have some redeeming qualities.) But the baby is already fussing, so he's obviously STILL not asleep. Lest I think I could actually get anything done the way I want it to be done today. Foolish me.

Something to check out

Here is another site to check out for other blogs...(Pardon the plug, but it's always interesting to read other people's perspective!)

Mommy Dearest

So you know those moms, the kind who always have totally healthy, perfectly packed snacks with them at the park for their kids? You know, the kind who always seem to know exactly what to say to their children, even when the kid is being a total pain, the ones who seem to have endless reserves of patience? I am not one of those moms. I want to be. In fact, I think of those moms when my daughter acting like a maniac, and instead of rising to the occasion and being kind and gentle and serenely guiding her through the moment, I'm snapping like a wild turtle instead. I always think guiltily of those moms and wonder what they would have done and how they would have handled it differently. And then I feel even worse, because who doesn't want to be a better mother?

But here's the other thing I think (hope?) - maybe those moms do the exact same thing in the privacy of their own homes, when there are no other moms around to watch and evaluate how they are handling the situation. Maybe they snap at their kids too and don't think of the right thing to say all the time, much less say it. This makes me feel better, and I hope I'm right about it. In the meantime, I really do need to try harder to stay calm and gentle as much as possible. (Although a friend just emailed me and reminded me that sleep deprivation is a form of torture and that Navy Seals who were woken up every two hours for a week or two began to buckle. So that makes me feel a little better. Blame the sleep deprivation. Life will get better when my newborn starts to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time.) Right?

What The...

So the cat is peeing on everything. Everything. I'll be out and about and all of a sudden, I'll catch a whiff of that terrible, familiar scent, and I'll start sniffing everything around me, including my clothes, the kids, the stroller...I must look like a lunatic. Plus, I'm trying to keep from having to explain how and why the cat is peeing on everything to my two-year-old. So when she pipes up and asks with great interest, "Mama, what are you doing?" as I surreptitiously sniff my gym bag, I have to nonchalantly answer "Oh, just looking for something." Yeah, right.

Why is the cat doing this? Why?? Is it because of the new baby? Is it because of the new baby and the toddler and the fact that I have absolutely no time or affection left over by the end of the day for cats? (Or any other creatures for that matter, just ask my husband.) Is the cat food tainted and she's really dying of kidney failure and I'm a terrible kitty mother because I'm letting it happen? I've checked and the cat food we buy isn't on any of the recall lists, but you just gotta wonder sometimes. Sigh. This means I'm going to have to get both our cats into the vet to have it checked out. I so don't have time for this. But then again, I don't want her to be sick while I stand around and bitch about all the peeing, so I guess it's just plain time to go see our beloved vet, Dr. York. If only the veterinary office offered childcare...

Trying to Focus...

So I'd like to sit here and write something profound and funny...but my two-month-old, placed just minutes ago in his bassinet fast asleep, is already making noises that mean my free time is limited. Plus, my two-year-old is also asleep, but that can't possibly last much longer either.

I just managed to gobble down lunch at 3pm, after getting home from the pediatrician's office to see why my daughter's rectum turned inside out on Easter Sunday. (Turns out she just needs more water, less milk - who knew???) Oh yeah, these are the things no one warns you about when it comes to motherhood. I mean, I love my daughter more than life itself, but there are some things I just don't need to see. Ever.

Anyway, then I raced home to feed her lunch and get her down for a nap before it was too late in the day, which would result in her having a complete and total meltdown right during dinner. Not to mention my son wanting to nurse non-stop and wanting to be held and, well, oyyy. Oh, and the cat peed on the diaper bag, so now I need to figure out how to get that horrible, rancid cat pee smell out of something that I carry around with me everywhere. I put my wallet, keys, and phone in my son's car seat and left the diaper bag in the car when we went into the pediatrician's office so that she wouldn't think that I let my kids live in utter filth. (It's not utter filth, really, it's just complete disorder. Who has time to clean the house when you're raising two small children?? Seriously. June Cleaver, I'm not.)

My husband said he'd be home today around 5. Am I completely selfish for resenting his calm, adult-filled day at the office? I mean, sure, you've got meetings and annoying co-workers, but no one pees on your briefcase, you don't have to explain about a rectum turned inside out, there isn't spit-up on your shirt , and chances are, you've had a shower in the past five days.

Okay, the baby is still fussing. I'd best go see to him, or I actually WILL be in the running for Worst Mother of the Week.