girlfiend

Miss N is almost 3 months old. She is less of a squishy, lumpy, newborn and more of an actual baby these days. It is a little bit heartbreaking.

T is speaking more and more. I don’t believe his nutty speech therapist has anything to do with it. I think he’s just ready. He isn’t always clear and with new words it often takes a while to figure out what he’s saying, but he’s talking. Sentences even. He is hilarious and sweet and a holy terror these days. He is exhausting. Not too long ago he asked for a lollipop and I told him no. He pushed his chair over to the door by the basement stairs- we have a little pantry behind the door where I can lock the treats away. He couldn’t figure out the lock on the door and turned to his brother for help. He said, “F, help, please,” only it sounded more like “[F], ep, eese.” Because he had used words and asked so nicely I didn’t stop F from helping.

F is such a big kid now. He is tall and skinny and makes poop jokes that aren’t even slightly amusing. He is funny and charming and smart. He spent the better part of an hour writing the alphabet in the sand on our vacation. He can be sweet and polite without prompting, asking our friends how they have been and thanking me repeatedly for the watering can I bought him because he just really likes it. I want to say more nice things about him, but honestly, he is being a complete asshole today and I’m so blinded by rage that I can’t think of a single thing. But other people like him and have lovely things to say about him. Just not me right now.

A few weeks ago my mother emailed to tell me she was sending movers to my house to pick up my dining room furniture. The furniture was my grandmother’s and was at my mother’s shore house up until a few years ago when she decided the salt air was no good for it and she wanted to take my more casual dining room set and replace it with my grandmother’s. She spent who knows how much money for a guy to move the furniture to my house and swap it for mine. There was no fucking way I was going to let her take it back just because she was pissed off. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I would have said okay just because she is my mother and I don’t know how to respond to any of her insane shit, but B’s immediate “no” response snapped me out of my stupor. Rather than putting anything in writing I called her and told her no, I would be keeping the furniture. She told me we would discuss it further. I haven’t heard anything since. It is strange not talking to her, F tells me that he misses her. This is the week the movers are supposed to come. We changed the locks preemptively.

Aside from the crazy the summer has been relaxing and nice. Well, relaxing except for the children because children are anything but relaxing. We’ve gone to the beach and the mountains the art museum and playgrounds. We’re trying to cram in as much as we can before it’s over.

I made a stir fry for dinner. Bok choy, green onions, sugar snap peas, carrots and steak over rice. F ate two bowls of the veggies and three servings of rice (separately, of course) and T ate three servings of rice and possibly a vegetable and maybe even a bite of steak. Either way I count it as a success.

Little Miss N is four weeks old today. She is suddenly huge. I had to pack away all of the newborn size clothes that she’s outgrown. She has even grown out of the newborn diapers- I had to switch from orange edge to yellow. She’s waking up some and holds up her head and looks around. I hung a few toys from the play mat today and for a moment, after looking through the rest of the box, I wondered if I should get some new baby toys for her to play with. Then I remembered that she is a baby and will most likely shun 90% of age appropriate toys in favor of choking hazards and my cell phone.

I failed my middle child in two ways today:

1. He wanted to use the potty after his bath while I was giving Miss N her bath. He took the potty seat and tried to put it on the toilet but got it backwards. F fixed it for him, but T needed help getting up to sit. By the time I was able to get to him, at least a minute or two after he told me he wanted the potty, he was peeing on the floor next to the toilet.

2. A few minutes later I was getting Miss N into her pajamas. T followed me in the room and sat on the glider/recliner which was in the reclined position. Somehow he managed to get his leg stuck in the chair’s footrest. Really stuck. I tried to get it out, but couldn’t- I’d already broken one child’s leg and was afraid I’d break his too. I had to call for B to come up and get him unstuck. Nothing was broken, but there is a nasty bruise on both the front and back of his leg.

It’s getting easier. I wouldn’t call it easy, but I’m managing. I keep forcing myself to get out of the house and take the boys places so I can prove that I can do it. Not just the easy places like the library or the playground, but hard places like when I took all three out to get the boys haircuts and when we went to the Please Touch Museum and to the zoo. It’s hard, but it’s not as bad as I’d anticipated. The transition from two children to three isn’t nearly as difficult as the transition from one to two. I wouldn’t recommend having three kids so close in age, ages four, two and zero as F likes to tell people, but it’s okay.

Today I took all three kids to the Please Touch Museum. My original plan was to take them to the zoo, but when I heard on the drive over that the forecast called for early afternoon thunderstorms I decided I’d rather be stuck in the germ factory than outside in the sticky heat and rain.

The Fiendling only ran off once and did not have a single tantrum. T only had a tantrum when I had to drag him bodily off of the carousel after unclenching his fingers from horse’s pole. The new baby, Miss N, spent most of the trip eating or sleeping. I did not have a single tantrum, scream, or handle any of the children roughly. We made it home in one piece and I feel like I deserve a medal and/or a giant cocktail. I made myself a strawberry milkshake, but it would have been better with booze.

It’s been two weeks since we got home from the hospital and I am having a tough time adjusting to three kids.

Like his brother before him, T has decided that napping is for babies. With F it wasn’t that much of a surprise- he was barely napping to begin with. But T was napping for 2-3 hours a day in his crib before this nap strike. Now that he learned to climb out of his crib- the day we got home from the hospital, of course- it’s a lost cause. I put him in his room and he plays quietly for an hour, but he doesn’t sleep then he is tired and cranky. I hope it’s just a strike and he’ll go back to napping, but I fear that this may be permanent and I may lose my mind. He’s only two. He needs a nap.

The Fiendling is doing well since he adores his sister. But he’s been regressing in a lot of ways, telling me he doesn’t know how to put on his clothes or shoes and he’s been speaking this irritating brand of baby talk, either speaking nonsense (WTF is Safa and why does he keep insisting it’s on the dining room table) or adding the long e sound to everything(I want the greenie platey). I am trying to be patient, but I am not. Especially when he takes his goddamn sock off after I put it on him because even though he gave me his left foot, he wanted me to put the right sock on before the left.

The new baby is wonderful. I love newborns and wish I’d known how easy they were when I had the Fiendling. She is sleepy and hungry and has gained more than a pound in two weeks. She is up a pound and a half from her discharge weight. She is starting to wake up a little and act a little fussy, but she’s a newborn, so she’s easily soothed. I wish they were all so easy.

My mother is out of her goddamn mind and we’ve only spoken twice since she stormed out of the house 2 weeks ago. The situation is not good, and it looks as though we won’t be spending much time at the beach this summer. Which sucks for the kids, but is good for my stress level. I will write out the story one of these days, cutting and pasting from emails, but I need a good chunk of time to compose the story because it is lengthy and crazy and infuriating.

It’s tough getting out of the house and it’s tough rounding them up and getting them home. It’s not easy feeding and watering everyone and keeping everyone content. The lack of T’s nap is making it incredibly difficult for me to get things like housework and laundry done. Thank god for my friends who have been delivering meals, because we’d be eating pretzels and nutella for dinner without them. I am tired and I wish I had more time to myself. I am sick of the tantrums and one child starting to cry after another has stopped. Mornings like today, when all children were crying at the same time before nine are morale killers. I just want to get back into bed, but I can’t, because my door doesn’t lock and the kids just follow me in, crying even harder. My sister-in-law, who has been very helpful, said that she didn’t want to bother me by calling because it looks like I have everything under control. I do not. I have very little under control, but I’m trying.

I either have four or five weeks left before B is home from the summer. I hope I can make it.

After a whole lot of stress about a very easy (2 1/2 hours from the time contractions started) induction and delivery, our baby girl was born on May 11, 2010 at 12.30 pm. She was 6lbs 9oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She is beautiful, with light hair, fair skin and the longest, skinniest little baby feet.

The Fiendling is thrilled that he got a sister and the baby, who is now a 2 year old giant, is handling the new baby pretty well. Emotions are running high, children are behaving oddly, and T has learned to climb out of his crib, but the transition hasn’t been too terrible.

In the two days we’ve been home from the hospital we’ve had 20 people over to celebrate T’s 2nd birthday, my mother has left in a rage, and I’ve gotten mastitis. It’s all fun and games around here.

For the fourth day in a row, T told us he had a poo in his diaper by sticking his hand in it and waving it around. Luckily, today I caught it before he had the opportunity to wipe his hand off on his clothes and toys. The other day I was not so lucky and needed to wash and disinfect half of the playroom.

Aside from putting him onesies, which I hate in general and don’t actually have in the appropriate size, is there a way to stop this disgusting monkey behavior? The Fiendling never did this. I am at a loss here. I am way too pregnant to deal with this (his) shit.

So you know, it has happened. All week long, F has been a relative angel. He’s been sweet and mostly agreeable and there hasn’t been a giant tantrum in days. He’s getting dressed, eating breakfast and going to school without argument and sleeping in his own bed. He’s been giving me hugs and kisses regularly and telling me how much he loves me several times a day. He hasn’t run away from me in public in weeks. Yes, he’s still been working my nerves. He still jumps on (and off of) the furniture and runs in the house and helps himself to handfuls of the chocolate chips I use for baking without permission. He still steals toys from his brother and has to be reminded about acceptable behavior several times a day. He still tests me and is still a pain in the ass. But his behavior has been so much better that the small transgressions, while irritating, aren’t even memorable at the end of the day.

The baby on the other hand? My sweet, darling boy? He has been possessed by the demon that has left F. For the last 3 days, from morning until night, T has been torturing me and his brother. He refuses to eat, he hits and pulls hair with little provocation, he has been throwing everything. The puzzle F is working on? T rips it apart, screaming like a banshee, and throws the pieces down the steps. The cereal he asked for? Dumped on the floor. Anything within reach on a surface? Thrown to the floor or down the steps or both. The eggs that need to come to room temperature before adding to the cake? Smashed on the kitchen floor. My coffee this morning? Spilled everywhere. The entire kitchen floor has been spot cleaned in the past 2 days. His pants? Keep disappearing. He has taken to removing his pants and diaper several times a day. And he’s fast, too. I’ll turn my back for less than a minute and when I turn around he is pantsless.

I just don’t get a break.

F’s birthday is on Monday. Four years ago today, March 5th, was his due date. He is going to be four. Four. How is it even possible? I have to make a Triceratops cake today. The Thomas Era seems to have come to an end thanks to the marketing geniuses behind Dinosaur Train.

I failed to mention in my earlier post that I threw a giant temper tantrum right along with F this morning. After he pushed and pushed and pushed I turned into a raving lunatic, screaming and stamping my feet. I felt badly about my juvenile reaction to his juvenile behavior and decided to take the boys to the children’s museum.

You should know that I hate that place. I used to enjoy it when it was downtown, small and contained. But then they moved into a larger space, a giant, beautiful space, and now I hate it. It is too big. Too much to do in a two hour block. Not enough activities that are actually engaging. I’ve been to children’s museums in other states that manage to teach things through play. Ours has dropped the ball on that. And to make it worse, there is entirely too much corporate sponsorship. Do they really need a play McDon@lds in a museum? Anyway, I hate it there, but the boys love it so I take them anyway. And when it expires this year, as much as the boys love it, I am not renewing the membership.

Anyway, I should have known it was a terrible idea to take him there on an already shitty day. I pulled the car out of the driveway and got T into his seat. F tried to climb into the car but it was too slippery and he needed my help. I helped him into his seat, got his arms into the straps, tightened, and one of the straps came out completely. Not sure how, but it disengaged from the thing on the back of the seat. This meant that I had to take his seat out to fix it. The childless among you may not understand what a pain in the ass it is to mess with a car seat. Even with latch, it’s still an ordeal to loosen the belt that keeps it secure, undo the latch, fix the strap that came undone, put it back together, get the seat back in, and tighten it enough so it’s safe. Especially when it’s 20-some degrees outside, I’m standing in a 2 foot bank of snow, the metal latches are frozen, my fingers are frozen, and both kids are outside with me. I should have given up and brought the kids back inside, postponing the outing for another day, but I soldiered on.

25 minutes later, after a car ride of me explaining the rules and expectations of behavior, especially my expectations of what was going to happen when it was time to leave, we were at the museum. The boys played nicely and I didn’t have too much trouble keeping them both in sight. But then I was helping T down a slide, and in the two seconds I wasn’t watching him F ran to the opposite side of the museum. I had to get the museum staff to locate him. When I caught up with him I didn’t lose my mind or yell. I reiterated the rules about staying close and he remembered our earlier talk about safety and strangers. He apologized and stayed very close, asking to see something else for the next hour.

I gave him plenty of warning as it got close to the time to leave. I told him we we were going to do one more thing, stop in the gift shop so he could look at the trains, get our coats and leave. We went to the arts and crafts room and played for a bit. The boys had a snack. We went to the gift shop. I said it was time to get our coats. And F started to freak. He didn’t want to ride in the stroller so I let him walk across the entrance hall to the coat room. Halfway across F took off running, back into the museum. Wisely, he stopped to see if I was chasing him and I managed to catch him and drag him into the coat room. T was ready to nap and gladly put on his coat. I had to muscle F into his coat, then muscle him into the stroller while he screamed and screamed.

He didn’t want to wear his coat. I told him had to because it was freezing outside. He didn’t want to sit in the stroller. I told him he had to because he’d run off two times and I needed to be sure he was safe. Screaming at the top of his lungs he kicked off his boots. I put them in our bag and pushed him out of the coat room. T was sweet enough to hold my hand and walk beside me. F screamed through the entrance hall and out the door. People stared, probably assuming by the volume of his screams that I was beating him with a fire poker. I pushed him down the long ramp, to the parking lot, his screams growing impossibly louder.

Some asshole parked right on top of my car, meaning I could get T into his seat, but there wasn’t enough room for me to get F or my pregnant self in since I couldn’t open either of the doors wide enough. I got T safely buckled and briefly considered keying the asshole’s car, but didn’t just in case they were having as bad a day as I was. Not knowing what to do with F, who was still kicking and screaming securely strapped in the stroller, I opened the tailgate and threw him in the back of the car along with the stroller.

I climbed in the passenger side door, over the console to the driver’s seat and turned on the car. F, who has had car seat safety drilled into him, started shrieking for me to stop, he didn’t want to sit back there and he needed to be buckled into his seat. He climbed into his seat and I buckled him, which didn’t stop him from screaming the whole ride home. At one point I left Boyfiend a message asking if I could just leave him in the car all afternoon long. Then I took a short video with my phone of the screams which I sent to B, so he could enjoy it along with me. I’m not sure how I managed to restrain myself, but at no point did I yell back. I didn’t even respond. I kept my mouth shut.

Halfway through the 10 minute ride F stopped screaming about going back to the museum and started screaming that he wanted to stay in the car. He screamed I don’t like you. I ignored it, even when he said it again and again. He screamed I don’t love you and I wanted to ignore it, but instead I told him that I loved him, and even when I’m mad and even when he does things he shouldn’t. I will still love him. I will always love him. That may have been more for my benefit than for his. I wanted to, but did not, tell him that I wanted to fucking kill him.

We got home and miraculously, T managed to fall asleep through the screaming. Rather than mess with both of them, I gave F what he wanted and left the car in front of the driveway, locking it, and imagining that passersby would see him screaming in there and call the police to report me for neglect. I brought T in the house, leaving the still screaming Fiendling in the car. T woke up as soon as I put him down, so I changed his diaper and got him a snack before going back to the car to get F who had calmed down sufficiently in the few minutes I was in the house. He’d gotten the top part of his strap unbuckled, but he still can’t finagle the bottom so he was still in his seat. His face was red and tear stained and he was hiccuping. He said, mama, I love you. I asked if he was ready to go in the house with me and he said yes. I collected his socks and hat and mittens and carried him into the house and got him a snack.

T never got his nap. I never got a break. F is still on the verge of a tantrum and I hate myself for taking away TV and computer privileges earlier, but there is no fucking way I’m going to back down on this today, even though I’m losing my mind.

Taking away TV and computer privileges is far worse for me than it is for him.

I know nothing about middle child syndrome since I was an only child. All I know of it I’ve learned from The Brady Bunch. I imagine that T will not be affected in all the same ways as poor Jan was once this third child arrives, but he’s sure to experience some trauma and I want to record this easy time while it’s happening. I also feel like I should take some time to fill you in on the baby, lest you think I’ve forgotten him in the midst of all the asshole drama.

T, at 20 months, is awesome. He does have his fair share of toddler tantrums, and will scratch at my face and pull my hair if I forcibly remove him from whatever activity he should not be engaged in or take him away from the playground before he is ready to leave, but for the most part he is wonderful.

He still isn’t talking. He has a few words- mama, dada, haya (Howard), hi, yay (usually accompanied by a clap), and makes some animal and vehicle sounds, but that’s about it. And his animal sounds are just plain lazy. He says “mmmmm” for moo and “unh unh” for oink. At least he says them with enthusiasm. We finally had his hearing checked last week and as I suspected, it is fine. So we can rule out hearing issues. I still think he is just slow to talk and that when he is ready he will surprise us all with complete sentences.

His comprehension is fine- he follows multi-step directions with pleasure- and he is still relatively successful at communicating his wants and needs. He knows what he wants and if you don’t he will show you. He has long since mastered the art of pushing a step stool, chair, or any object he can move over to the cabinets (or window sill, or bed, or whatever) so he can help himself to a snack (or toy, or forbidden object) if you don’t move quickly enough. He points with such enthusiasm and nods his head yes when I get it right so earnestly that I don’t even have the heart to try to get him to speak. He is just plain bashful about attempting to repeat words. He’ll shake his head no and avert his eyes.

He’s not great at staying with me when I try to get him to walk instead of ride in a stroller or shopping cart, but he is getting better. He loves to push a shopping cart, and though every trip takes three times as long when I let him, it is worth it to see how much fun it is for him.

Finally, after many long months of wondering if this kid was just not a reader, T has fallen in love with books. He wants to read them before his nap and before bed, he wants to read when he wakes up and every time he sees a book he likes throughout the day. He’ll pick up the book of choice. Hold it extended in one hand and say “Eh,” which I assume means, “now, woman,” then turn around and back his butt up until it lands in my lap. Like most toddlers he has favorites and wants me to read the same book repeatedly. And by repeatedly I mean shoot me now, if I have to read that stupid motherfucking Cheerios Play Book one more time my head may explode, but I then I read it again because I’m just so damn grateful he is loving books. At least he switches them up every few days.

He is still a really good sleeper. He takes a two or three hour nap every day and sleeps through most nights. There are exceptions- molars, illness, sleep regression, moving bedrooms, brother screaming and waking him up in the night, but 90% of the time he is dependable. I can bring him up to his room, read him a story, put him in his crib and he’ll go to sleep. Sometimes he cries for a bit when I leave, but he usually realizes just how exhausted he is and goes to sleep pretty quickly. On rare occasions I’ll have to go back upstairs and hold him for a bit. He hasn’t nursed in a few days now. He seems pretty content for me to hold him. I’m hoping he’s done for good. F weaned right around the same age.

He loves to play with trains and cars and trucks. Unlike his brother he is not solely a railway enthusiast. He plays with his parking garage and with the race track and the train tracks contentedly, right up until his brother decides that other 7000 vehicles in the house aren’t good enough and he needs to take whatever T is playing with right out of his hand. T has caught on to F’s shenanigans, and at times he will preemptively run away from him, clutching whatever toy he is playing with at the moment. If he doesn’t see the attack coming he sometimes strikes back. And though I feel badly about cheering him on at his brother’s expense, F really does deserve to have his hair pulled, face scratched and legs bitten some times.

T loves to tackle and he loves to be tickled. He also loves when I play Criss Cross Applesauce with him, which is a back tickle that is a little more G-rated than the summer camp version we used to play that involved stabbing someone in the back with a knife.

He sings. Not words, but he hums the tune of several songs. At night when I sing to him before he goes to sleep he’ll often hum requests. Joshua Giraffe, Baa Baa Black Sheep (which he always requests over the other songs with the same tune), and Lovin’ You are his favorites right now.

I’m forgetting so many of the things I wanted to write about when I started this yesterday. I’m sure I’ll remember more and want to add it later. He is a good, sweet boy. He is such a good time. I love him so much.