02.28.07

Different kids

Posted in Parenting at 5:56 pm by Anne

Emma has a full blown case of the twosies. This is something that Lily never really went through or else if she did it was mild but Emma? Oh Emma. Maybe it is because she is the second child and now the middle child but she has serious attitude. She fights with Lily, argues with Gramma, and says things like “You no love me.” She pouts, she screams and has fits, and most annoyingly, she wants to hold Piper 24/7, especially when I am nursing the baby and trying to chill. Many times I witness the latest transgression and wonder where the nearest orphanage is but then, later that same night, Emma will throw her arms around my neck to kiss me goodnight, and I will wonder where I got this lovely child.

Lily is my special oldest girl who has a very tender heart. She helps me without a foul look, she likes to dance and sing and watch cartoons. Her favorite thing for supper is spaghetti and meatballs, and I can coax her into eating her lunch most of the time. Lily is a prime example of why so many eldest children seem to have won their parent’ hearts I think. When she is hurt I hurt. When she cries piteously, my heart breaks and I have to stifle the urge to give her a pony to make it all better (I’m referencing Flinger here) because life never works that way or if it does, invariably you’ll be punished for getting a pony in the first damn place.

Pipes is just three weeks old and some days she is significantly cuter than others. For example, last night she failed to give me a 4-5 hour sleeping block…as a result, this morning I was not feeling the love so much. I also caught a foul diaper that was on the verge of becoming her very first explosion. “How sweet, babies first blow-out!” Like I said, it was a near miss but I was reminded of all the blow-outs I’ve changed with the previous two babies in my house. I’m kind of resigned to the facts of going through these things for the last time. The saving grace, of course, is that Piper will grow into a lively personality all her own. As much as I know how quickly these childhood years will pass, I can’t wait to meet her. 

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02.26.07

Etiquette question

Posted in Piper at 12:36 pm by Anne

In your opinion, is receiving a birth announcement an invitation to send a baby gift? Can I not send people a pretty picture without making them feel obligated to buy Piper something? In my world, receiving a baby announcement is a happy thing with no strings attached but Shan is concerned some people may feel pressured.

grrrrrr and zzzzzzZZzz.

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02.25.07

This about sums it up.

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:35 pm by Anne

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02.23.07

Why ask?

Posted in Parenting at 6:40 pm by Anne

Witnessed this morning before a play-doh extravaganza with Gramma. 10:22 AM

Setting: Lily and Emma seated at the kitchen table. Lily has two playdoh stampers in front of her, one white and the other blue.

Lily: Okay, Emma, which My Little Pony stamp do you want?

Emma: That one! (pointing at the white one)

Lily: Okay Emma, here you go! (handing her the blue one.)

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02.22.07

free at last

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:13 pm by Anne

Thanks to KelliH and Christine, I am now the proud owner of two sets of Lilypadz. I bought them here and they were about 15 dollars a set, which was 5 dollars less than at other places I’d looked. They arrived in the mail a few days ago and the kind seller had included a free tube of peppermint lip balm that is so much like buttah it is all I can to to keep from eating it. I LOVE it! (Thanks Heather!) I love it almost as much as I love the Lilypadz themselves. Seriously, I reccommend these things to anyone who nurses or who plans to nurse. Just as they claim, there are nearly invisible and they totally prevent any kind of gushing or leaking bosom. You don’t know how tired I was from changing t-shirts. Come on! I have so few articles of clothing that actually fit me right now as it was!

I’m currently in that depressing void where I dang sure don’t want to wear the maternity clothes but there is no way I can put on any of my pre-pregnancy shirts because of the Homer-Simpson belly. And buying in-between clothes is just not part of my plan so I’m stuck wearing Shan’s oversized t-shirts in conjunction with the heinous maternity pants. At least they are early pregnancy maternity pants though. I guess. gak!

And no, I have not even stepped on a scale. I don’t even know exactly what my total weight had been a few weeks ago. I think I don’t want to know.

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02.20.07

Posted in Piper at 3:16 pm by Anne

The doctor’s visit was great, all things considered, if you can count sitting in the waiting room for 15 minutes plus sitting in the actual examination room for another 15 minutes before seeing the actual dr. Then there was the expected poopy diaper, the removing of clothes, and sitting on the scale in front of God and everyone. After that it was Piper’s turn.

Get this: I *AM* nursing her correctly! She is over her birth weight (6 lbs. 15 oz) to a staggering 7 lbs 3 oz. Everything else was fine and dandy and after pricking her little heel for that pesky second genetic screen, we left.

Remember that excellent 4-5 hr sleeping block she does? Well, I forgot to mention that the nights she doesn’t  give me the block, she spends nearly the entire time mewling or squalling about who knows what. That would be last night. And another thing, I don’t know what is going on but I am extremely sensitive to the smell of baby poo. It seems like Piper always smells like poo and when I think, “Wait a minute, you JUST changed her.” I’ll take a look and sure enough she’s poo’d again. silently. It’s like a guerilla tactic for her. What a clever baby!

Tonight we are having sister and brother in law and the twins over for supper. The menu so far:

muffaletta

potato salad

Still thinking of a dessert. Stay tuned.

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02.19.07

Two weeks

Posted in Piper at 9:45 am by Anne

It’s been two weeks with the Piper and I am relieved to admit that nursing is no longer the anguishing interaction it used to be. The same goes for that pain in the ass lochia…AND my bosoms have leveled out at a reasonable size, albeit smaller than the previous two nursings. Breast tissue-loss does that to a bosom unfortunately.

Two week truths:

1. The days of staying in bed until 10AM, nursing and changing diapers…a distant memory. It only takes a half hour to take care of Piper and we are good to get up in the morning.

2. The Graco Pack and Play is the most essential piece of baby equipment around.

3. Best outfit: Those creepers that snap into a long nightgown or into jammies with legs. Easy on, easy off.

4. Why the HELL did I buy so much extra baby shit? I don’t think I need this but I have one anyway. Same with the swing. And the bouncy chair. zzZZZZZzzz

 Today is the Pipes 2 week appointment. I feel a little uneasy about the whole thing, the weighing and shots whatnot, especially since I more or less MADE her sleep from 2AM until 8AM today. You heard me. I nursed her  around 12:45AM and when she woke up at 2 I just soothed her back to sleep instead of feeding her again so soon. She’s  been doing a really nice job with sleeping in at least one 5 hr block sometime during the early morning hours and I was trying to prevent a break in her record.

cough. Oh yeah, and I was freaking exhausted too.

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02.15.07

wrap-up

Posted in Food, Recipes at 2:39 pm by Anne

So I’m working on getting the Pipes on a feeding schedule. Her two week appt is set up for next week and at that time I’ll know if we’ve gotten the hang of things. It’s always a bit scary at first since the bosom doesn’t have hash marks to spell out if the suckling babe is getting enough nourishment. I know this. I remember it. I am re-living it for the last time.

Meanwhile, I’m at the computer and at the 2 hour mark, I start lactating. nice. Can we just please stretch it out to three hours? Come on! As a result I’m re-aquainting myself with the ol nursing pad phenom. Can they make any that don’t look so obvious? I’m just saying…it’s not like I am wearing ultra-tight form-fitting clothing but SHEEZUS. The pads make pretty obvious targets. The eyes just want to settle on the ill-shaped carbunkles sprouting from my chest. Or should I say ’spouting’.

Valentine’s Day was pretty anticlimactic. A few days ago Shan tried to tell me he was buying me something for both us…a heartrate monitor for use at the gym. I suggested he just buy one for himself because there is never any concern of me over-doing it at the gym. Let’s call a spade a spade. I don’t know the status of the monitor now since my enthusiasm didn’t overwhelm him. What’s that? What did I give him for such a romantic occasion created by or at least fed by a bevy of enormous corporations as a means to further separate us from those precious greenbacks?

No card. No gift. No prose of sweet nothings. You might say DICKSQUAT.  Instead, I did what I usually do to demonstrate my love and affection; I made a bad-ass supper. Look here:

vegetable frittata (no asparagus, instead steamed spinach and sun dreid tomatoes and a bit of crispy bacon)

foccacia (toppings: sauteed onion, garlic, parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper)

salad w/ balsamic vinaigrette

chocolate covered strawberries

and

chocolate mousse

Dinner was slightly interrupted by some friends dropping by with their 3 rambunctious older kids in tow. They plunged into the strawberries without asking (which kind of PISSED me off) and I didn’t bring out the mousse. So we’ll be having that little bit of heaven for dessert tonight. Whipped cream or no whipped cream? I guess it all depends on how serious I am about losing this GD baby-weight. Do people who care about weight loss eat chocolate mousse in the first GD place? Don’t answer that. My head is spinning.

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02.13.07

Plans

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:19 pm by Anne

So I had planned on getting out into the cold with the kids today, planned on a little grocery shopping, maybe wash Piper and take a few pics, handle some errands, all while Mom drove us. Instead? Well, I *did* manage to wash the baby.

The end.

On a different note, does anyone know where I can go to see if I am wearing the baby sling correctly? I’ve worn Piper in it a few times but she grunts and exhales loudly the whole time, which makes me wonder if I am doing it wrong. I mean, how many possible ways are there to wear it? It’s a piece of fabric with two slip rings for crissakes! I’m just sayin’.

And Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Day-am. I rememeber throwing together a HUGE dinner for Shan when Lily was a month old. He came home and I was sweating over the stove with a baby under one arm while sauteeing chicken piccata with the other. This time I have no idea. What can I prepare with canned ranch style beans and chex whole grain cereal?

As for the incision, it seems to be healing up nicely albeit gradually. I’ve been slowing down my vicodin intake (which means Piper is finally waving her true freak-flag instead of sleeping all the time) and almost can forego it altogether. Almost. Until early evening when things start crying out in pain but at least we are headed towards no more meds. Although I really appreciate hydrocodone, it also makes me a bit apprehensive to swallow pills every day.

Now. Let me live vicariously through you and your romantic intentions. You must share the V-Day plans.

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02.11.07

Breaking Down

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:25 am by Anne

The post-partum thing? I am there. I remember crying those first few weeks pretty easily after Lily and Emma were born but last friday night there was an actual episode. Something went down that I have never experienced before and it was scary as hell.

We’d had a productive friday afternoon…everyone loaded up and made a grocery shopping trip and came back home again. I let Emma down, Mom climbed over the backseat and started unloading groceries, Shan helped her, and Lily climbed out of her own accord. Once in the house I got busy organizing and after at least five minutes Shan asked, “Where’s Piper?”

Nice. No one had gotten her out of the car. I suppose we all thought someone else would get her.

So that began the guilt cycle for me. That evening some friends were bringing supper over and staying to eat with us. Ordinarily, in a more normal situation, that would not be a big deal, right? Friends. Dinner. Great! But Shan decided he was going to the gym for a few hours and would be back close to dinner time. Ok. Fine. then, for some inexplicable reason, my Mom decided she was going to go over to my sister’s house for a bit. I shrugged, “What me worry?” and she took off marking the central bad decision of the night. Why didn’t I ask her to stay with me? It didn’t even occur to me that I’m not supposed to be lifting anything heavier than Piper, and what would happen if there was an emergency but whatever. It was done.

There we were, the three girls and me, with the house to ourselves. Lily and Emma started out watching PBS and I took Piper back for a feeding. Somehow, while I was in my room doing that, Emma decided to take off her diaper and pull her pants back up again. bareassed. not cool. Pipes feedings take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour now…only because 1) she is constantly falling asleep or 2) she refuses to burp so I was working on her while watching the clock, counting down the minutes until our friends would arrive and little by little was becoming more and more frazzled.

Finally I called my Mom to ask her back but I had to leave a message. Which was irritating. Then I saw I had a message in my own inbox and it was from my Mom. “Hi Anne, I am going to stay awhile and help your sister wash the boys, I’ll be home in an hour.” Which was a half hour past our dinner plans. And my bosoms were in pain again, and Piper was not burped. and then Emma came walking up with completely soggy jeans on.

WTF! I just started bawling. Loud, gasping, shuddering, tearful bawling with my destroyed bosoms and Piper under one arm while Emma just looked at me. Until she started bawling too. She ran off and came back holding hands with her big sister. Lily cocked her little blonde head at me and asked, “Why are you crying Mommy?” and assured me, “It’s okay, Mommy, just take a deep breath…” which was so sweet and good that it made me cry even harder. So there we were, Emma and I crying, Lily and Piper chilling with us, when Daddy breezed in with his gym bag.

“What is wrong?!” He spent the next few minutes trying to calm me down before letting me know that he had to go to a job and fix something before dinner. Not exactly what a crazy woman wanted to hear. He went so far as to volunteer taking the older girls with him but by that time I was over it, whatever it was, and his incessant asking if he should take the girls with him was starting to piss me off. I wasn’t going to harm one of them, no one was in danger, I was just having a bad moment.

and I can’t get it out of my head, two days later. How long do I have to wait for my hormones to balance out again because I cannot remember? Is it when my back stops hurting, when my center of gravity comes home, when I’m closer to my original weight? (Don’t even go there, I am still sporting the maternity pants and at this rate will be wearing them for the next few years.)

I’m hoping and praying that this next week is an improvement. And with no more crazy spells. Good God.

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