Wordless Wednesday: naptime!

Oh, how I want one right now...

Updates..

I envy moms who find the time to post frequently with more than one small child. Maybe it's me, maybe it's my particular kids; most likely it's a combination (I never have been great at regular posting).

Elessar has been a challenge, and I'm convinced she's made it her mission in life to make sure I know she's a different person from her sister. After a couple of weeks of hours of screaming, we figured out that she's sensitive to dairy. So I've had to give up my beloved cheese... Fortunately I can still have butter and goat cheese, so I'm not entirely bereft, but it's not been easy to revamp my menu to be dairy-free. Elessar is now a very happy baby, but we're in deep trouble - she rolled over at 4 weeks, and at 2 months she's been working hard on crawling for a couple of weeks now. I would not be surprised if she crawls before 6 months.

The Infanta has been very needy as well. She hasn't turned any anger against her sister (yet), but she's definitely in the fast lane to becoming a "threenager", alternating classic toddler tantrums with intense Mama-need and utter sweetness.

Between the two - Elessar with complete physical dependence and the Infanta with major emotional neediness - I'm stretched to my limit. Fortunately I do have a good outlet with my knitting group (I go to every session for my mental health!), and I have an AMAZING support network and community of friends both near and far. I had a very bad night a few days ago, and posted a call for help on Facebook; by morning an acquaintance was at my house, washing every dish in my kitchen, and calls and messages of support are still rolling in! I'm convinced this is part of what it means that "it takes a village to raise a child" - when they're this small, mothers need community help just to function as much as the children need to learn from others when they're older.

Catching up

How has it been a month since my last post? Pregnancy, knitting, chasing toddlers, trying to get enough rest... it's pretty all-absorbing.

I've been working on a lot of baby knits - surprise, surprise. I've even finished a couple of things! I had a half-assed idea that I would take pictures of my FOs and WIPs, and possibly even a belly pic! but I'm tired and achy after OFFF yesterday. Also, it's raining.. and I'm having a great deal of trouble wanting to do anything but listen to the rain, work on baby knits, and watch TV.

The Infanta permitting, I'm planning to take and post those pictures this week.

Goal check-in

It's the end of the month, and I feel like checking in on the goals I made for myself for this year.

1. I'd like to think I'm doing a little better at actively appreciating the lovely people I live with. The Infanta is working very hard on some more of those developmental leaps (she's figuring out counting! at least, the beginning of it... and more words... and just today she's started actively playing with a baby doll...), so her sleep is very irregular, but I'm finding that if I slow down and just *be* with her, I don't get so frustrated. J has been his usual wonderful supportive self through the stresses of the last couple weeks, and I'm trying to show my appreciation; for example, I took Herself with me to knitting Saturday so that he could have an afternoon all by his lonesome for a change.

2. Well, I got a good start on this... I had promised a friend that I would make her a baby carrier, and I got it cut out and half-sewn... and then the friend that was helping me with toddler distraction went and had her baby 6 weeks early. So my momentum on that has yet again been derailed. But it's derailed in such a way that given a couple of hours, I can have the carrier pretty well done.

I've been thinking about further sewing projects, as well. I promised J that I would make him a kimono some time back... and while that's not going yet, it's definitely on my mind. I also decided that I want to make nightgowns for me and the Infanta, and went so far as to buy patterns for the purpose Saturday. Go me!

3. My last couple of cycles have been weirdly short, so I decided to start actively charting again. You could make a case that this isn't doing anything to relax about the pregnancy thing, but for me it is; it's something I can *do*, something that will let me see more of what's actually going on than just enduring the same symptoms every month which are so very much the same as very early pregnancy symptoms and which drive me and the people around me crazy with hope.

4. I'm not running dishes *every* night... but I'm not letting them pile up over my head, either. It feels good. It also feels good that the dining room table is clear enough to eat at whenever we feel like it, which we have been fairly often! Clear it and they will come, I guess. Alongside this refocusing on my domestic space, I've resolved to get back to cloth diapering.

5. There's been a fair amount of sunshine this last week, so the Infanta and I and sometimes other friends have been getting out and walking to nearby parks, playing for a while, and then walking home. I think it's good for both (all) of us.

New Year, Old Frustrations

I don't like how long it's been since I last posted. For the five of you still paying attention, I apologize. It's not at all that I've had nothing to post; rather the issue is that I've had entirely too much I want to write about, and it gets overwhelming. Then there's the part where I don't have time, and on top of all that, I've been incredibly inarticulate of late.

Goals for this year:

1. Love my family, no matter how much hair they make me want to tear out. More than that, enjoy them! J is a really great guy, and I don't pay enough attention to him. The Infanta is in a frustrating stage, but she's a sweet-natured, bright, beautiful little girl, and it's easy to lose sight of that in the day-to-day (or the all-nighters).

2. Sew more.

3. Relax about getting pregnant again. (Much easier said than done!)

4. Get better at household maintenance - by which I mean trying to keep the floor more or less picked up, the table clear (for dining or for sewing, which will help with #2), the dishes done more or less daily, etc. It's so easy to slack a day, and then it's overwhelming. Speaking of which, I should go run dishes once this is posted.

5. Get outside! I spend entirely too much time sitting here, dinking on the lappy. The Infanta needs to get out and run more, and I would do better with more outside air as well.

Now to get on some of those chores, while J has the Infanta off at church with him!

Bliss...

...is in short supply around here lately, so I'm leaping on it where I find it. For example, tonight's dinner.

My tummy decided against the salmon (broiled 10 minutes each side, coated with a paste of mayonnaise and lemon juice), but the taters are right on. I found this recipe a couple of weeks ago in my Italian cookbook: it's for chicken and potatoes. Basically you prepare chicken pieces and potatoes for roasting, then pour over them a mix of a couple tablespoons each of olive oil and lemon juice, a good amount (maybe a tablespoon) of rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, then roast at 350 til done (around 40 min). The meat is okay.. I've tried it with salmon, too. The potatoes, on the other hand, turn out divine! They soak up the lemon juice, and... oh, you have to try them to understand. Tonight I did the taters just alone with the ..sauce?, and it's just what the midwife ordered. Mashed up in a big heap on my plate with lots of butter... yum.

More niftiness

I do have meatier posts in mind, but this week I've kind of been letting gravity have its way with me.

Man in labor?!

Much is up in the air, and so I don't want to post any updates before I have solid knowledge (rather than unhappy suppositions). But y'all deserve a post, so watch this:



Please note: the suggested coping mechanisms do in fact help in actual labor, since the pain of labor is related to specific work and baby position, rather than just to muscular contractions. Still, this is an amusing watch.

Updates

So, I imagine you're all wondering what the whole bedrest thing is about. Yes, I'm still under orders to rest as much as possible; not technically bedrest, but I can really tell the difference in the way I feel between sitting and lying down.

So anyway, here's the deal: I'm currently pregnant. The problem is that I've been having a lot of spotting, to the point that it's a "threatened miscarriage". The way I've been feeling I think the bean is likely to stick, but it's not sure yet, and besides, my feeling may just be wishful thinking. But the morning sickness is real, and so are the food aversions, the heightened sense of smell, and the tender belly.

The part that really sucks is that as part of this rest cure I'm not allowed to lift more than 20 pounds - and since the Infanta is just about exactly that weight, I can only lift or carry her in brief and urgent moments. Also, trying to rest with a sick toddler is nigh impossible...

So that's what's up with me. I will post updates as they're available.

I Love My Friends

I've put myself on bedrest for the last few days; my body has given notice that I need to STOP for a bit, so I'm doing my best. Trouble is... bedrest is nigh impossible with a 16 month old. So, I've ended up leaning on some wonderful people to help wrangle the Infanta so that I don't have to be up and down chasing her all day. Sunday Josh managed her, despite his lingering nasty cold. Yesterday I called my friend Amber, whose daughter is about a month older than the Infanta; they came and spent a mellow afternoon. It helps that the girls play well together (as much as babies their age are capable of it). Today my friend Katie came over, bringing her boys. Katie rocked my world. She came over with the intent of not only keeping me company and distracting the Infanta, but also of cleaning the house. And clean she did! The instant she walked in, she started picking up toys (which the kids naturally promptly started taking out again). She moved from there to clearing the dining room table, and thence to starting a load of dishes. She paused a bit there to watch part of a movie and knit a bit, but then she hopped up again, picked the toys up, and vacuumed. Then she did another load of dishes, following that up with cleaning assorted counter clutter. Then, as she left, she remarked that she was lazy today! Because, you see, she'd intended to do laundry as well, and didn't get to it!

Tomorrow Josh will be home again, taking care of his cold, and incidentally wrangling Herself. I'm hoping that I won't need the help much past this week, that this rest will be enough to ease my troubles; I have seen signs that I may be healing as I hoped, but I certainly don't want to jeopardize that healing by taking too much on again too soon.

This'n'that

It was a long, hard week last week. The coming weeks don't look like they'll be much better, in some ways; easier in others, I hope.

In no particular order:

A mom I know is in the process of losing her baby at 26-27 weeks. I'm not close friends with her, but it's agonizing to watch even at this remove.

Josh and I had a humdinger of a fight. It's more or less resolved now, but wasn't fun while it lasted.

I've started the process of night weaning the Infanta, partly in preparation for moving her out of our bedroom. It's not going so well, partly because I'm having a really hard time with how hard she cries (and how firmly she refuses to sleep) when she doesn't nurse as long as usual overnight. She usually only wakes me a couple of times during the hours I'm trying to wean, but that's not the point. This is one of the things I don't see getting more fun anytime soon.

And then today I discovered that the fall changes to the bus routes not only meant that one of the buses I use frequently is no longer free, but they also cut significant portions of the service to our side of town. On the one hand, this is going to be rough on our already very limited budget, not to mention that it means that I can basically only go downtown from home, not at all to pretty much anywhere else on this side of the river. On the other, I'm taking it as incentive to finally get my damn driver's license. Of course, then we'll have to work out the car situation...

Still, fall has begun, and not everything in my life sucks right now. :)

I wish it was labor.

Because at least if it was labor, it would be *doing* something, and I'd get a baby at the end of it.

As it is, it's "just" cramps, but cramps as bad as I've ever gotten them.

At least I don't get them this bad *every* month...

Elessar

We spent several days this week watching the Lord of the Rings extended movies. We've gotten hooked into a new (to us) computer game, and having a movie on in the background not only gives us something else to think about, but also (sometimes) helps distract the Infanta, who is otherwise constantly up in my lap wanting to nurse. Call us bad parents for babysitting with movies if you like, we won't deny it, but sometimes a mom has GOT to make some room for herself.

Anyway, I was struck by something. As some of you, my faithful readers, know, Aragorn's milk-name was Elessar, an Elvish word that means 'hope'. The Elvish portions of the dialogue often bounce the word around, one of the most profound moments being the conversation where Elrond gives Aragorn the sword Anduril. I'm paraphrasing here, but Elrond says to Aragorn that he is the hope of Men, and Aragorn replies that he keeps none for himself. Despite this pessimistic remark, Aragorn is consistently Gandalf's voice of optimism. Twice during the films, Gandalf has time to stop and worry about how he's sent Frodo on a fool's errand, and begins to despair of Frodo's chances for success. Both times, however, Aragorn speaks with the voice of hope, and prompts Gandalf to realize that he really does believe it may work, pushing back the threatening despair.

If it wasn't 11:30 at night after a loooong week of juggling a fussing toddler I could probably pull that into a thesis, but it is, so I'll just leave it at that observation. Still, isn't that interesting? What do you all think?

Ugh.

So, three days into my new posting resolution... and I skip a day. It wasn't my fault, though! I decided to swap the operating system, and making it work took a lot longer than we expected. But as of this afternoon, I'm back online.

This week has been a very long one in some ways, and very short in others. Two good friends had their babies (Stacey on Wednesday, Karinda just today), Br. Vincent visited, and so on. This is fairly TMI, but my breasts have been very tender this week, rendering nursing very uncomfortable. The Infanta has been beginning to take more chances with what she can do, and so her collection of war injuries, as of this evening, includes two splits in her lip and a bruise on her cheek.

We said farewell to Br. Vincent this morning, delivering him to visit his dad in Newport. I'm not sure when we'll get to see him in person again, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of good times online, as we generally do (when life doesn't have us too busy).

Tonight I am exhausted. I ache in body and soul, and am beginning to dread overnight, knowing that the Infanta is likely to nurse much as she did last night - not often (she only woke me twice), but long, and persistently (owie!!!!). I'm beginning to have thoughts about night weaning, but am not sure I'm up to the battle that I have no question it will be.

I am looking forward to the weekend, however. I have knitting tomorrow afternoon, and the weather has cooled significantly. I hope you all have good ones!

Time flies when you're roasting.

It's been over a week since I posted last - yikes! I didn't realize until Mom called last night, wanting to know how things were since I hadn't posted... It's been hot. If you don't follow the weather in the Willamette Valley as slavishly as do the people who live here, we're on the down side of a really nasty heat wave - I think even my friends who live in places like California, New Mexico and Texas will agree that 108 is really, really hot! It's even worse when you live in a place that's rainy for 10 months of the year, and where 95 is usually considered roasting. As I type, it's about 92... and it feels a bit warmer than we'd really prefer, but it's not horrid. Two days ago? 108. Happily for us, we could go take refuge with my in-laws and their central AC for the afternoon; I'm not sure what we'd have done without that option. I've been feeling ambivalent about the fancy, expensive windows we had installed last year, but no more! With this heat, they've really been showing their worth, keeping our poorly insulated house mostly tolerable.

What else, what else... well, I'm on call for a mom whose EDD was two days ago, and that's pretty central to my life right now. It's hard to relax into doing much of anything when I know that any moment I'll get The Call, and have an hour to get ready and be over at her house (or wherever she wants me to meet them). I'm very excited to attend this birth, but being on call is really a strain.

At the same time, I'm instituting some changes with nursing the Infanta. I've really been feeling that her nursing has strongly contributed to losing two pregnancies now (early this month I had what I believe was a chemical pregnancy, where the egg is fertilized, but never implants). Since we really want to become pregnant again, I'm making an effort to reduce the number of times a day that she nurses. I'm aiming for about three hours between sessions (with the intent of stretching it longer bit by bit over time), which really isn't all that long, but is quite a lot longer than the 45 minutes or so she was doing earlier this month! It's a change for all of us, especially as Josh and I have to pay much more attention to giving her real food and drink to replace the mommy-moo we're trying to cut down on. I'm *not* weaning her completely, simply trying to adjust the proportion of milk to solids. I think it's going ok at the moment, but I'm also at a point of my cycle where she is much more relaxed about my supply. She does start getting frantic to nurse about a half hour before I'm ready to, which means that we're practicing the fine art of toddler distraction.

Perhaps by the time I post again, I'll have double the number of doula births under my belt. :)

Monday Night Musings

Posting just to post, more or less. I'm sitting here, tired after a busy but fun weekend, wondering why I'm not in bed, snatching a few hours' rest before my mom and little brother arrive. They didn't leave the Bay Area until mid afternoon, so we don't expect them on our doorstep until after midnight... It's going to be a long night. I am really looking forward to seeing my mom and brother, though!

The Infanta is clearly teething; I can see her still-missing lower incisors lurking just below the surface, just waiting to cut through and damage my poor, innocent nipples. Such is motherhood, I suppose.

I should sign off here, collect my now-wakeful offspring, and drag Josh into the bathroom to cut his hair (sounds kinky, but it's really not).

Bleh.

First things: yes, Karinda, the toddler muumuus do match, and yes, we did coordinate their wearing ahead of time. Matching outfits for the girls was actually Bethany's birthday present to us/the Infanta/the girls. The Infanta isn't yet quite old enough to care about it so much, but boy does it ever make the Hurricane's day...

This has been kind of an ucky day. Josh and I had a teeny tiny tiff about something so insignificant I don't even remember what it was, except that it left me a bit grumpy... and then grumpy morphed into a major (for me) anxiety attack. I spent the anxious energy doing housework, but didn't quite realize what I was doing until I'd scrubbed my rolling pin - mind you, I've been avoiding dealing with the cookie dough caked on it since before Christmas. Soon after, the Infanta demanded to be nursed, and fell asleep... quite normal for her, but what wasn't normal was that with the anxiety attack going on, her nursing right then was making my skin crawl. I sucked it up long enough for her to be sound asleep, then laid her in her crib, and came back out to nap on the couch. She slept almost two and a half hours, and crawled out of the bedroom looking groggy; I dozed and napped for an hour or so and felt much, much better. Bless Josh for providing lunch and replacing the dishwasher detergent!

I'm still pretty down and out, and really feeling bad, because I'm kinda paralyzed, but supposed to be making a poster about birth in the Netherlands... but not having luck finding information, and feeling guilty about having left it to the last minute, and that's making me more down, and therefore more paralyzed... I could swear I didn't skip my brain meds, but why else am I so randomly off my stride? Seriously, I'm down enough right now that I don't much want to knit or read. *sigh*

Teething, Part next

We've got a lot of "nexts" going on right now, and they're all upping the ante. As with the walking, so the teething...

Herself has had six teeth for several months now, and she's more or less figured out how to use them (usually only accidentally on Mama). I've been dreading the return of full-fledged teething, but it's gotten lost behind other concerns... mostly. However, Mademoiselle McFusspot has been showing definite signs of teething again for a couple of weeks, all of which got easily confused with symptoms of the ear infections she had earlier in the month.

Today, after a lovely outing to the Wednesday Market with Bethany, her mom, and the Hurricane (the above picture wasn't taken today, but the toddler muumuu brigade was in full force), we came home and the Infanta started SCREAMING!!!! Full on, blood-curdling, who's-torturing-this-kid screams, with no obvious cause, and no easy remedy. No obvious trigger, just playing happily, and then BAM! A couple of frantic advice nurse conversations and teething tablets later, it's apparently that dreaded scourge teething come back to haunt us. We can see her two missing incisors just below the surface, but what's causing the pain is probably the swollen bumps indicating molars and canines.

And it's a week to payday and our supplies of Children's Motrin are running low.

Father's Day

Dear Josh: I love you very much. You are a fantastic father, and an amazing co-parent. Even when we disagree on parenting philosophy, you graciously defer to me and support my methods. You are also an excellent and considerate husband; you make me aspire to be a worthy wife to you.

~Katie



Father's Day dessert: strawberry shortcake made with berries from my MIL's garden.

Better Than a Vegas Show

This is Josh's evening to go gaming, so I started the artichokes steaming at 3:30, so that we could sit down and eat together before he left. He got home around 4; we were idly checking our email when we discovered a TORNADO WARNING!!!!111eleven And then the lightning started. And then the thunder! And then the sky opened up!!!!111eleventy-one!!! It seemed almost Biblical, but really was just a good summer storm.

So, we did what any right-minded geek would do: we unplugged the computers from the wall sockets, and then we took our dinners out and sat on the porch to enjoy the show Nature provided. The big part of the thunderstorm lasted just long enough for us to enjoy our artichokes, and eased up with just enough time for Josh to plug the router and modem back in before heading out. It's like we scheduled it or something. ;)

As I type, it's still raining, with occasional rumbles, but nothing more right on top of us. Actually, it's dark enough, and my day started early enough (thanks to a certain toddler) that I'm quite surprised it's not yet 6!