observation

I have one child who was really difficult to get here. I couldn’t get pregnant for a long time. Then when I started getting pregnant, I couldn’t sustain a pregnancy. I struggled with infertility for several years. I had four miscarriages. When I finally got pregnant I was too frightened to be happy. The pregnancy was a nightmare, as all HG pregnancies are. The baby came two weeks early, was tiny, jaundiced and born right before a major holiday in the middle of a very stressful season in both our professional and personal lives. The baby struggled to gain weight, never quite made the growth chart, and didn’t sleep for more than 2-3 hours in a row for over a year. That child has a severe allergy, was a difficult, high-needs baby, and is still a very demanding little human being. I have another child who was not difficult at all to get here. I had only barely begun to think about having another baby and had pretty much decided not to do so, due to some professional opportunities that were about to come my way. That pregnancy, also an HG pregnancy, was also a nightmare and seemed in many ways worse than the other one because I was already exhausted due to having to mother one child already. But the labor was short (4 hours) and the baby was healthy. Only slightly jaundiced, not even enough to warrant multiple heel sticks, this baby was much heavier and gained weight much faster. This baby did have significant reflux issues, but they were solved with a common prescription for Zantac. This child is laid-back and easy-going. This child sleeps (although when teething, this child is notably a non-sleeper). This child has no discernable allergies and aside from a terrible bout of RSV at 9 months and Scarlet Fever at 14 months, health issues have not been a problem for this child. This child is a lot less “work” for me as a mother.

So, the child I worked very hard for continues to make me work very hard. The child I didn’t work hard for at all is very little trouble for me. I wonder if that will continue to be the case as they grow into full childhood and then as youths and young adults.

Halloween

I don’t know what it is about the bumble bee costume that we have, but it strikes absolute terror in the hearts of our children. It’s a cute costume. Fuzzy, yellow and black striped, has a little hood with antennae on it. You’ve probably seen it in stores. My parents’ neighbors gave it to us as a hand-me-down for K when they moved several years ago. It is an 18 month old size, which was perfect for K for her second Halloween as she was 22 months old but very tiny. E is exactly 18 months old and average size, so it was perfect for him, too. The bargain hunter in me was so pleased. I mean, what are the odds that a free costume would fit two children born at different times during the year (so differing sizes at different seasons) of two genders?! Nevertheless when we put it on K two years ago, she pretty much melted down. I tried the outfit on her several times, always to many tears. Eventually she did wear the thing to a couple of events and I have the cutest pictures of her in it. She never would put the hood up, though. For this year, I decided to leave the costume out in E’s room for several weeks (I had done that with K, but it didn’t help). I tried it on him last Saturday. oh the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth! You’d have thought I was torturing the poor soul. Pulling the soft fuzzy material over his head only sparked shrieks. My good-natured child was turned into a big blob of tears, and I could even feel his little heart just pounding. Well, life’s too short to make your child be something for Halloween when they just aren’t into it. So, I just took the costume to the MOMS Club party we had yesterady and let E wear regular clothes. I offered a couple of times to put the costume on him, but all my overtures were met with decidedly negative responses. Today, as he was supposed to dress up for Kindermusik, I put him in a onesie that had baseballs and bats on it, pulled on some sports-striped shorts and put a baseball cap on his head that said “little leaguer.” Done. One Halloween costume guaranteed not to cause heart failure in my toddler.

E at the moment

E, you are 18 months and 5 days old.
As you come toddling into the bathroom carrying one of your sister’s many pocketboks and your small stuffed Babar doll, you remind me that you so very much want to be a big kid. You imitate your sister. You ask to do “mommy things” that I’m doing.

You recently started asking me to comb your hair when I do that to mine. You want me to spray the same “warm vanilla sugar” body spray on you just like I do on me. You want me to put the Clinique moisturizing lotion on your face, just like I do on mine.

Just this morning you wanted me to comb your hair as I did mine. Then, as you usually do, afterwards, you want to take the comb from me and comb your own hair. and then you want to comb mine. This morning I had to file a fingernail. You wanted in on that personal grooming routine as well. I filed your fingernail and then you wanted to hold the emery board. Everything turns into a tactile experience for you. It is so much fun to see you exploring the world around you, fingering and tasting your way through the day. You are doing such a good job of imitating those around you. of incorporating our movements into your world. You want to be in my shoes and put on my clothes. You are moving away from being so ego-centric and into an awareness that there are others in your world. You are noticing other faces; you want to wear sunglasses, my glasses, to put my glasses on my face.

Your language continues to emerge ever so gradually. GO! you scream from the bed in the middle of the night, indicating that you want us to get up and go play with you. GO! you cry when someone leaves, indicating that you want to be in the car with whomever it is, going wherever they go, just as long as you get to go, too! Packpack, your word for backpack is cute. You still put three syllables in the word “hi” so it comes out “hi-ya-eah.” It is enormously cute, especially when paired with your dancing eyes and wide smile.

I love you baby boy. You are the light of my life.

sprayed down

We were outside playing, and E decided to investigate the garden hose and its spray nozzle. Sure enough, there was still water in the hose with the pressure built up and so he covered himself in cold water. So, just like that, we were done playing outside. Funny baby boy.

the proof is in the poop

Solid poo! Finally! I haven’t changed a solid poo diaper on E in months. That means the teething really is over. Though you won’t get a doctor to ever confirm it, I believe that teething (at least in my kids) does a real number on their bowels. E hasn’t been “right” since the first week of August, in his sleep or his poo. But this week seems to be the turning point. I can feel the tip of the tooth in his gums, he is sleeping through the night (for the most part) again, and today we went back to a normal poo-y diaper. Nearly three months of this has been hard on us all.

the glory that is sleep

Have I mentioned how much I love my life now that I’m sleeping?! I slept Friday night and Saturday night and Sunday night. I slept fairly well last night, although there was some of the being woken up. Sleep totally changes my outlook: E is more adorable, I’m happier, K is more agreeable. Everything is better. I feel like I’ve missed so much of their short lives complaining about no sleep and getting no sleep and trying to find a chance to get some sleep. Hell, if it’d been this easy all along, I’d have had no qualms at all about going back to work. Fact is, I can’t write a sermon, hold a meeting, even drive a damn car, when I’m as sleep-deprived as I’ve been. It is more of the sleeplessness that has kept me from living a fuller life than the having of small children (although apparently since I’ve been given little humans who need little sleep, the two go hand in hand for me).

what a big girl

K dressed herself completely this morning. Finally, at 4 years, 10 months old. She hasn’t really been able to do it until now because of her socks (she’s had shirts and sweaters and pants down pat for a good while now). I had gotten cheapo socks at Target which are too tight. But when I got the nicer socks at The Children’s Place, she immediately discovered that she could “do it myself, mama!” Last night, I had her lay out her clothes on the other twin bed in hopes that she would dress herself in the morning. And sure enough, this morning she did that very thing.

I so very much want to raise independent children. Just like being able to feed themselves and bathe themselves and being potty trained, being able to dress themselves is yet another step in that direction.

Tuesday

Good thing I’ve gotten lots of sleep lately. T was gone overnight last night, so I’m here by myself with the children. E woke up at 6:30 saying “GO, GO!” which is his word for “I want to get down out of this bed and go play in the den. NOW!” So, I’m on my third load of laundry (I very well may actually catch up with laundry today — yippee!) and have cleaned my bathroom and fed two of us breakfast and taken a shower and gotten dressed myself. Amazing what you can get done with some sleep (even though it was spotty last night, it wasn’t awful) and being up early.

Thank goodness that last tooth finally broke through in E’s head! We’ve done so much better in the sleep category since I found that little white cusp poking through his upper gums last Thursday or Friday. Even though the teeth aren’t all fully in, they have all now broken through, so I do hope that our sleeping pattern can return to a somewhat normal routine. He must be the longest teether on record. He’s been cutting these lateral incisors for at least 10 weeks. Now if we can just get his poopy diapers to return to normal.

the way she phrases things

K: “Mom, can you walk me into preschool this morning, ’cause I’m not liking the drive through (the drop off option our preschool offers) these days?”

treadmill

The treadmill I gave T for Christmas when I was pregnant with E has lain dormant at our house since E was born. T dutifully worked out every day from Christmas until April, when E arrived. Then it just began to gather dust. We even moved the treadmill to the new house this summer, because we thought we might actually use the treadmill someday. Today was that day. I was cold, just sitting around in the house. I figured I could either bump up the heat, put on more clothes, or do something that made me sweat. I chose the last option. So for a very brief (didn’t want to over-do it my first day back at a workout) 10 minutes, I walked on the treadmill. I hope that I’ll be able to keep up some semblance of a routine, eventually walking 20-30 minutes 4-5 times a week. It’s not so much that I need to lose weight — I don’t. But my heart could stand some serious healthiness-making.