One Perfect Mess

Archive for March, 2009

It’s no secret that the Peanut came into this world a grumpy little fella. And I don’t blame him as he was very nearly born in the car and came so fast his entire face was bruised and he had a giant knot on his head for the first few weeks. I didn’t know what to do with an unhappy baby. Weebles had been so laid back and would just fall asleep any ol’ place you put her. She’d sleep through big family dinners, through many rounds of “pass the baby” really just about anywhere when the mood struck her. This said on a day she’s decided she’s going to pass on her nap thankyouverymuch but anyway… Peanut spent the better part of the first month of his life screaming bloody murder. Mercifully he seemed to feel better at nighttime and would actually sleep fairly well but we were on pins and needles at all other times. I was exhausted, Andrew was exhausted, the grandparents were a little intimidated to hold him lest he have a total breakdown and we were all at a loss. The pediatrician said he was having a hard time adjusting to all the lights and sounds and my response to that was bulls*&t there is something seriously wrong. But it looks like she just might have been right. Once he started to flash those big gummy grins I realized that he does happy just as intensly as he does sad and it is so worth it. Now I feel fairly certain that I can calm him when he gets upset. We still haven’t gotten to the point where I’m willing to leave him for longer than an hour but I actually can imagine getting to that point in the near future and its amazing. He is just so darn happy most of the time now that I just can’t get over it and as any mother will tell you if your kids are happy then all is right in the world.

When The Weebles was a newborn I wouldn’t have even thought about letting her precious skin touch the carpet. I vacuumed relentlessly and always put down a blanket for her to play on. The discovery of crawling made that slightly more difficult to maintain but every evening I faithfully vacuumed the entire downstairs of our house. Now I’m lucky if I vacuum once a week, every two weeks for sure though cause the in laws usually come and we can’t have them thinking we’re messy folks now can we? I do try to put down a blanket for The Peanut to roll around on, but if one isn’t nearby I have been known just to plunk him down. But the real kicker is food these days. The Weebles has become the sterotypical picky eater. I can put any manner of yummy things on her plate for her to eat and the majority of it she doesn’t even bother to try. Even pudding got the cautious eye! Pudding! The confusing thing is she will find things on the floor and happily pop them in her mouth no problem. Play Doh? YUM! A stray ice cube in front of the fridge in the kitchen? MM MM Good. Even an uncooked chunk of potato the other day I dropped while transferring from the cutting board to the stove. Seriously? She won’t eat them cooked on a plate but raw on the floor is good eats. Cheerios used to be a favorite but now she’ll maybe eat one or two and then gleefully throw the rest around (thanks PaPa for teaching her to feed the deer, she is applying that principle all over the place these days!). Admittedly I no longer flinch when she eats them off the floor in the house, as a matter of fact I’m usually excited she’s actually eating something. She had a container of them in the car yesterday on our trip home from Asheville and therefore the entire second row of the van was littered in Cheerios. Andrew and I threw them on the ground as we got them up only to hear Weebles screaming NO NO NO as she ran about frantically picking them up off the ground and eating them! It didn’t help that it had been raining for like six weeks straight. Soggy, dirty Cheerios. I guess at this rate her immune system will be great.

I don’t consider myself outright “crunchy” although I do follow attachment parenting, we co-sleep, both childbirths were unmedicated and I tandem nurse. On second though maybe I AM sort of crunchy. I have been totally amazed by the lack of knowledge in the medical field about breastfeeding. It’s as if the two groups of medical personnel you would expect to be educated on the subject, midwives/OB’s and pediatricians, each assume the other has it so they don’t bother. When the Weebles was born I would ask her pediatrician questions when I had them. Nods and blank looks. WTH? Here are my favorite instances of blatant ignorance on the subject that could have thwarted a new mom’s efforts at breastfeeding.

1. When I called to make another follow up appointment with the lactation consultants at the hospital when my daughter was about seven weeks old, the lady told me that she didn’t think they could help me if my daughter was that old, that we probably wouldn’t ever be able to get the hang of it. My daughter is 19 months this week and still going strong thankyouverymuch. Actually we wouldn’t have had such problems to begin with if a nurse at the hospital hadn’t broken our latch right after birth to take my baby away without my consent. That’s a whole other issue.

2. When I found out quite unexpectedly that the Peanut was on the way I called to make an appointment and the nurse that does the initial phone interview told me flat out that they required me to quit nursing by 20 weeks. Let’s just say that little bit of information had me crying the rest of the day until I realized she was just uninformed. At no point in my second pregnancy did any midwife tell me it was necessary to quit.

3. After the Peanut’s arrival the baby nurse warned me that my toddler would take up all the milk that my newborn needed. This wasn’t an issue to me because I knew she just had no clue what she was talking about but how many other mom’s might not? Think of the rift that would have caused at that point to wean my toddler right after her brother was born. The Peanut was eight pounds at birth and nearly 13 and a half at two months so I think he’s doin’ just fine thanks.

I really wish there would be some sort of education on this subject for everyone in related fields. Being a new mom is hard, breastfeeding is HARD and emotional and painful (but obviously worth it) without misinformation being thrown into the mix. We need those that we trust to help us navigate this exciting and scary time to be knowledgable enough to do so.

The Weebles has always loved to dance. She’s got this adorable foot shuffle that she has expanded in recent months with a pretty snazzy spin move. Our dancing had so far been limited to times that others were dancing on the TV. The 4:30-6 window around here is dicey for attitudes, both theirs and mine. Everyone is tired and I’m pretty much out of tricks to keep them laughing. On a whim yesterday I turned on the iPod and found some nice fast paced music and started hoppin’ around old school style. Weebles stared at me for a minute or so and then let loose with her best little girl shrieking. She loved it. We must’ve run a mile around the bedroom spinning and laughing. The Peanut found it a fascinating show to watch. Weebles enjoyed some Beastie Boys, some AC/DC and of course MMMMMBop which I’m trying hard to teach her to say. After each song as her elderly mama collapsed on the floor she’d run up signing MO’ MO’ excitedly. I think the five o’clock dance party is going to become a regular in our schedule.

The Peanut had his 2 month check up today. He is developmentally advanced according to the doctor because he can roll over and hold his head up so well. The flirtatious smiles he was doling out probably didn’t hurt his cause any. Since he had improved so much emotionally we decided to go ahead with vaccines on schedule. The poor little boy turned such a dark color I honestly had to ask the nurse if he was okay. He’s a second born so the things that freak me out are much fewer but hoo boy he was not pleased. He calmed down after a few minutes and promptly passed out. I had planned to go by JTS on the way home since I hadn’t gotten my act together and managed to go in since he was born. Since he was so soundly asleep I figured it was safe to give it a try. He did a great job and didn’t get upset at all whew. I surprised myself by realizing how much I miss those two mornings a week to sit at a desk, answer phones and email and otherwise be in “adult” company. My co-workers will laugh at that description no doubt. Maybe I should revise that to “mostly adult” company. The first few weeks after Peanut was born I honestly thought there was no way I could ever go back. I also thought there was no way I’d ever get to go anywhere or do anything but that’s a different story. I started to ponder on the way home how I could make it work. Perhaps wait until the summer is over and JT gets busy enough to even need me? By then he’d be on solid foods and I would be able to leave him for longer periods. Or maybe go back sooner and hire a nanny to stay here WITH grandma so she’d have back up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the kind of mom that can leave her kids with someone she doesn’t know very very very well. I reserve the right to change my mind on that in the future I started to have hope though, that maybe it could work… just maybe I could carve out a few hours a week to go and spend some time doing something besides being Mom. Then, I got home. The Weebles had fallen and busted her lip, not only did she have a diaper in bad need of a change but I also discovered that to clean the CUT on her LIP her poor grandmother had used a cloth diaper that we use to dry off Peanut at diaper changes. Did I mention it was a CUT on her LIP. Ugh, the germs. Great googily moogily as the Ferocious Beast would say… and yes I’m quoting children’s cartoons now… how gross. I didn’t even know what kind of damage control was possible there so I’m going with the wait and see and pray and trynottothinktoomuchaboutit route. So now I’m back to wondering about whether I really will ever get out…

I read that somewhere recently and truer words may have never been spoken. Each day I wake up with the same goal, to survive until Andrew gets home. I love our nights. Dinner with the kids, bathtime (always lots of fun) and then snuggles and storytime until they fall asleep. The problem is that I basically rush through the majority of our days and boy do some of them drag on! Not only does my daughter look more and more like a little girl instead of my baby every day but my newborn isn’t new born anymore either. He’s nearly 2 1/2 months old and in the blink of an eye he’ll be sitting up, crawling, driving the car.. you get the idea. I need to stop and remember every lunchtime, every meltdown, every shopping trip that this is my life with them. We’ll never have this day again and tomorrow they’ll be a little bigger, a little more grown up and a little closer to being on their own. And I will miss every second I had with them and wish for them all back.

It’s not really any secret that I’m crazy. Not like in a split personality sort of way, but certainly in an anxiety ridden, irrational worry, likely to have a breakdown any minute sort of way. Where does this come from? Well I’m sure there are many who have taken far more hours of Psych at establishments of higher learning than I that could weigh in on the subject. But it seems to be it could be an either/or, or hell perhaps BOTH proposition. Let’s just say we’ve got relatives in this weekend and leave it at that shall we? The debate continues….

I am so looking forward to spring. Windows open, half the laundry to deal with and lots of playtime outside for the kids. The Weebles loves to walk around the yard and collect rocks and acorns. The Peanut isn’t too sure about being outdoors just yet but then again he’s only really be exposed to chilly weather so I don’t blame him. I managed to clean and organize our bedroom and bathroom yesterday. My post motivated me to dig out from under some of the toy clutter and get things done. It’s like living in a new house! Today I am hoping to tackle to living room although that will be trickier as The Weebles has to have somewhere to play after all. But a few less Happy Meal toys won’t ruin the fun I hope. We are in a blissful period where a schedule is starting to take shape. Every day from about 12-2:30 both kids sleep. The Peanut’s other naps are more flexible, he usually dozes for at least a few minutes in the morning and then again sometime in the late afternoon. Our nighttime schedule has been in place for a few weeks now. Peanut’s bath before Andrew gets home, dinner for everyone and then Weeble’s bath after dinner. Then they both get tucked in and read stories. I’m afraid to get too excited about how well life is going with two kids. Those first few days were such trial by fire (okay okay PURE HELL might be more like it) that I never believed I’d see the day that I would start to feel like I had a handle on this gig. Of course, I’m seeing signs that The Weeble’s two year molars are coming in… so that’s sure to put me back in my place.

So last night was my first night doing bedtime “alone” with both kids. The reason I say “alone” is because my parents came over for dinner to keep me company but unfortunately aren’t much help when it comes to bathtime or nursing children into sleepyville. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to make it work with two baths to negotiate since The Peanut has this policy against sleeping or being put down peacefully until his sister is in the bed hearing bedtime stories. He must just love a good bedtime story, who can blame him? But things went surprisingly well. After his bath he hung out in the bathroom on his play mat while The Weebles had hers. Then I decided to let her go hang out with her grandparents while The Peanut got his milks on. After tucking him in I was patting myself on the back as I rushed to fetch The Weebles before he could realize that bedtime stories weren’t in progress. I found my daughter sitting happily on the couch with her grandma watching O’Reilly and holding mom’s empty tea glass. Mom announced, a little too proudly, “she’s had a lot of tea”. Um.. excuse me? Geez mom don’t you think caffeine before bed (or anytime for someone her age) might be a bad idea? Pause. Pause. “Oh, I thought you used decaf.” Now, we’ve already made the switch to unsweet tea in the name of health over here. If we also went decaf there’s no point in drinking it at all. Sigh. Luckily she wasn’t up half the night. Well… any more than usual anyway.