girlfiend

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.

I gave it a try but I’m just not that into Twitter. Occasionally I log in and read updates, but for the most part I don’t bother because Facebook is more my speed. So it really annoys me when my feed reader is cluttered with Twitter posts in lieu of blog updates. Can’t you just put them in the sidebar so I don’t have to unsubscribe?

Still on for tomorrow. I’m not feeling 100% about it, but the idea of waiting another week is even more painful than the idea of a chemical induction. I’d be getting an epidural anyway, so it’s not like I’m giving up the natural birth I’ve always wanted. I don’t know. I’m nervous. The two other women who were scheduled for inductions tomorrow delivered over the weekend. They both had due dates after mine. I am anxious.

I have an induction scheduled for Tuesday but I may chicken out. We’ll see what happens. I have an appointment tomorrow morning to discuss the induction. As of Friday I was 2cm dilated and 60% effaced. Which means nothing, but it’s better than the previous week when I was high and closed.

Initially my due date was yesterday. An early ultrasound dated me close to a week ahead, but not a full week ahead so they didn’t change my due date. A later ultrasound dated me way ahead of my due date, so far ahead that the doctors at the perinatal testing center told me that I needed to have this baby by the end of April. But by the end of April the baby was measuring so small that I needed an ultrasound to confirm everything was okay with growth, my placenta, etc. Everything was fine. But now it’s not a problem that I’m overdue. The baby is small, I have plenty of fluid and if I decide not to go with an induction Tuesday I can schedule one for the following Tuesday if I still haven’t had the baby. They’ll just see me more than once a week.

But T was a full 8 days early. So we’ve all been expecting this baby since April. Even my OB said, my god, I can’t believe you haven’t had this baby yet. I have been on edge for weeks, trying desperately to keep the house in some semblance of order so it’s not a disaster after two days of my mother in charge. I’m winning the laundry battle, the floors are swept and/or vacuumed daily, the refrigerator is stocked and clean. Even my bedroom is orderly. It’s exhausting. And I’m so uncomfortable.

I do not like being pregnant. I do not like the foot protruding from my right side. I don’t like the contractions and the cramps and the sharp, stabbing pains. I do not like being aware of my cervix. I don’t like peeing every fifteen minutes then peeing again a minute after I’ve peed the first time. I have weird rashes, dry skin, my hips keep going out on me. I want this to end.

I fear that if they induce me something will go wrong. I’m afraid that I won’t progress and I’ll have to have a c-section. I know that the odds of that are pretty slim: I’m already dilated, I’ve done this twice before, my body knows what to do, I trust my OB and she said that she’d send me home if the induction failed. But if they break my water I’ll be stuck and that is what makes me nervous. I just don’t know if I can deal with this for another week.

It is never okay to call a pregnant woman and ask if she has had the baby yet.

Guess what?

Yup, you got it. I’m still pregnant.

And I’m so miserable and cranky and short tempered that I considered calling my mother and asking her to come in to the city now to watch the boys for a few hours during the day so I don’t emotionally scar them with my fits of irrational rage. Then I remembered that I would probably be even more cranky, miserable and irrational with my mother around. The few hours of child-free time would not be worth the psychological pain and suffering.

Even better, after a lovely nine month stretch of wearing them every day, my feet have swollen out of my shoes. Good thing I got a pedicure last week. It helps draw attention away from the shapeless blobs that used to be my ankles.

I have another acupuncture treatment tonight. Wish me luck.

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
Evening Primrose Oil
Pineapple
Eggplant Parmigiana
Spicy foods
Sex
Acupuncture
Acupressure
Massage
Walking
Lunges
Steps

Nothing. Not even a little bit dilated. I left my appointment this morning in tears. If the baby doesn’t make an appearance sooner I can be induced on May 11th. But I don’t want an induction, I just want labor to start now.

The Fiendling continues to be awesome. He still has his moments, but since his birthday he’s been quite reasonable.

Yesterday he was helping me unload groceries and he came to the bag that contained my pregnant woman impulse buys- two kinds of ice cream and a box of ice cream sandwiches. His eyes grew wide an he said, delighted, “Mommy you remembered that I really like ice cream sandwiches. And you bought them, even though we still have push pops in the basement! I love you, mommy.”

He really likes to kiss the baby in my belly.

He’s unable to pronounce Rs and Ls in most situations. Though he can pronounce the R at the beginning of the name Rusty, he is unable to pronounce it when it follows another consonant. Today he was singing, “The gween gwass gwows all awound all awound, the gween gwass gwows all awound.” It was adorable.

His vocabulary is surprising. The other day he and the baby were both wearing camouflage pants. I believe that F picked them out for the both of them. He was telling me about some dinosaur who is camouflage. I asked him if he knew what it means to be camouflage. He told me that the dinosaur blends in with his surroundings to protect himself from predators like other dinosaurs who want to eat him. Later that day we were playing outside and we heard some birds chattering. He said, “Mom, the birds are having an observation.” I asked if he meant conversation. He said, “No, observation,” in that teenager-like ‘you are an idiot’ tone of voice. He continued, “They are watching me ride my bike and play baseball.”

The baby is going to be 2 next month. He still seems like such a baby compared to F at the same age. I know that as soon as the new baby is born T will seem so big. But for now, even though he’s losing some of his pudge and getting so much taller, he is still such a baby. Maybe it’s because he’s still not talking much. His vocabulary hovers around 20-25 words and still mainly consists of animal sounds. He’s recently added “bubble” to his repertoire, and though I thought for sure B was making it up when he said he heard it the first time, T did say “love” last night when we were hugging and kissing before I put him in his crib.

T does say any numbers but he practices counting by pointing to his fingers one by one and saying, “More, more, more, more, more.” It’s super cute.

He brings me books to read and DVDs he wants to watch. He loves to play outside with the bikes and the balls and the assorted ugly plastic play equipment that lives in our yard. He adores our neighbor’s daughter and lights up when she comes outside to play. He goes running to see B when he gets home and says woof every time he sees a dog.

The boys are at a great stage right now where they play nicely together, sleep in the same room together, and generally entertain each other. They are difficult, as small children tend to be, but manageable, and if I wasn’t so goddamned pregnant and cranky all of the time I’d enjoy this stage so much more. Soon there is going to be a baby and it’s going to completely screw up the equilibrium. I’m hoping that it will all be fine. That F will keep it together and T won’t lose his shit completely the way F did when T was born. But who knows what’s going to happen. I just know that I want this baby out.

This is just to say that I would like very much to not be pregnant any more.

We’ve been relatively shit-free since I complained about T’s disgusting new habit. I may be jinxing myself here, but aside from cleaning dried feces that I’d somehow missed off of the wall going up the back stairs (it could have been mud or chocolate, but I tend to assume the worst) and fresh feces off of his hand during a diaper change, he’s been good enough to keep his little hands out of his diaper.

But his new habit is also unsavory. The new thing is that he likes to put food in his mouth and leave it there for a very long time. Until it dissolves. At which point he opens his mouth and lets it drip down to the floor. Are girls this disgusting?