Growing pains, growing smains

I really would like to blog more, if only to clear out some of these goopy half-finished thoughts of mine to make room for others. But here are the facts. I have a three-month old baby who currently refuses pacifiers, bottles of pumped milk, and sleeping longer than two hour stretches. She has also refused to stop growing. Her and I need to have words I know. 

Also I have two other kids. Boys. They are noisy and dirty and whiny a lot of the time. They make light saber noises all the live long day. They get angry at each other for things like "he's standing too close to me" and "he's looking at me." One of them is in the throes of potty training but refuses to have a bowel movement unless he's wearing a diaper. I spend my day going between nursing the baby and asking the boy to sit on his potty chair, then doling out jelly beans as a reward, then asking the other boy to do his homework and asking both boys to be quiet while baby girl sleeps, usually a fruitless request. My house needs a good cleaning but being potty chair monitor/teacher/ref/chef/broken record/milkmaid/zombie takes precedence at the moment. Most mornings I wake up in a daze covered in baby spit-up, eyes crusted over, precariously close to the edge of the bed, and the baby sleeping next to me because she won't sleep in her crib. I dare not move and wake her up since a calm slumbering baby is better than a loud screaming baby. I just stay still and try not to fall off the bed. When she wakes up (probably after hearing the light sabers); we snuggle. 

I kiss her cheeks more times than I can count and I also sniff her . . . a lot. I'm not even mad at her for how she acted the previous eight hours. She's magical. The boys think so too. They say things like, "Oh mommy she's so cute," as if it's almost too much to bear. They gently (sometimes not gently enough) stroke her face and pat her head and reassure her that, "It's not so bad baby. You'll be okay." I wonder if she knows how much they treasure her.

I make mental notes to remind her of this when in the future they don't allow girls into their forts. I make mental notes about a lot of things since time is fleeting and these sleepless, exhausting, yet innocent, soft, and sweet days will not last nor should they, probably. I know written notes would be better though since it's the only hope I have of actually remembering them. So I make plans to do just that. I also eat my fair share of chocolate.

And these are the facts. This is why it took me about three days to put this little post together. My mind feels a little less goopy now though. And that's a good thing. My stomach does still feel like a nice roll of cinnamon bun dough however. Ah well.

Lightning just struck my brain

It’s very rare to have to tell someone my age these days. It’s not like I’m dating ya know, unless you consider marriage one big long date but that guy already knows how old I am so . . . I digress. Usually nowadays if someone needs to know how old I am they just ask for my birth date and let the computer do the math. So yes I admit that for the majority of my thirty-first year I forgot how old I was since I never actually said it, out loud. It wasn’t until I was in the hospital recently after the birth of my daughter that I was reminded of the sum of all my years. There it was on a piece of paperwork, clear as snot “Mother’s Age: 31” Whaaaat? No I’m not. Wait, am I? Oh my gosh I am cause there was that birthday I celebrated a year after I turned thirty. But that means now I’m almost 32. Wait. What? Horribly confusing day obviously.

Well, here’s to you thirty-two. Sure snuck on me you saucy little minx. Maybe I’ll try to say my age out loud more this year so as to avoid such a shock to the system. I guess I could blame my blur of a thirty-first year on pregnancy but I’m not the kind of person to milk pregnancy for all it’s worth. Please.

Speaking of milk, I wrote the following list of Things I Want For My Birthday before the mastitis struck me down while I had three kids to tend to. Blurry photo as proof!

So (Husband) please double the amounts of everything requested. Bijous.

 Ahem. On this the dawn of my thirty-second year I hereby request the following: 

-Two hours of solitary uninterrupted sleep, preferably between the hours of  8 and 10 AM      

   --“Solitary” meaning no one else can inhabit the bed, including the Husband and the baby  

   --All other children must be kept out of earshot* 

-One large cheesecake 

-Fifteen minutes of no one talking to me after I wake up 

-A large plate of steak and shrimp

 That’s it! That’s all I want! Forget diamonds and pearls, just food and sleep puuuh-leeease!**

 

 

*I’m not totally for sure what this word means but it sounded right in context. Basically I don’t want to hear a peep from them oh those lovely little boys I love them I love them I love them I just don’t want to hear them, for a bit.

** I guess you could throw in some massaman curry while your at it and some diamonds and some pearls. Whatevs.

Mama bear leaves her cave

Why hello there!

Just thought I’d come out of hibernation briefly to carbo load and to do a blog post so as the date stamp will be 12.12.12, the last repetitive date I will e’er see in my lifetime. I know, sad to think that this is my motivation to blog and that I am not immortal.

Some may wonder what I’ve been up to. Well, I am no longer pregnant. It no longer takes a three-point maneuver to get into bed. Yep, I done did had a baby! This baby has very tiny precious fingers and toes, which I nibble daily.

And this baby is very female, meaning she is not a male. What what!

Sometimes I accidentally call her a he or a him. Old habits die hard. But she doesn’t seem to mind. She doesn’t even seem to mind that sometimes I dress her in her two older brothers’ baby clothes. She’s easy going like that. What she is not easy going about is keeping her drink down. This lady cannot hold her milk. None of my other babies spit up this much, except maybe they probably did and I’ve just forgotten. The mind is tricky like that. See I remember with my other babes how lovely they smelled and how soft their hair was. I did not remember the goopy baby eyes or just how funny yet heart wrenching Cheaters is when watched at 3 AM. Or how it felt like my arms were going to fall off and how hard it is to open a jar of anything with only one hand. But I did remember how nice it is to have my own personal heater. This is only nice of course when I’m not having hot flashes.

I also have to say that having three children under the age of six is its own special kind of crazy. Good and bad. Wonderful and maddening. Lovely and terrifying. I think I will need the next several months or years to adapt to being outnumbered by offspring. A recent outing to Target proved this to be ever so true.

I’m already learning quite a bit though. For example in my search for great time savers, I’ve learned many that simply do not work (i.e. putting on socks whilst taking a potty break). And I’m determined to invent a couch that has a way of making a baby feel like the person holding them is standing up when in actuality the person is sitting comfortably on that couch. Ha! Fooled ya baby! It will be a mind blow when I finally come up with a prototype.

Well my friends, I’ve fully exhausted myself and my reservoir of thoughts. Plus the babe grows weary of my ramblings. Just in case you don’t hear from me for awhile I wish you the merriest of Christmases. Peace and pa, rum, pa, pum, pum.

My mind is in the early stages of hibernation, also known as super silly.

There's no way I could write a coherent post right now. I'm almost forty weeks preggo. Enough said right? But then again when has a crazed mind kept me from writing. Never.

Of course I can't blame all my current weirdness on growing a human being inside of me. Some of it I am convinced has to do with the political atmosphere that is swirling amongst us. The other day I had to ask Bosco's kindergarten teacher a question and when she gave me the information I needed I gave her a thumbs up, all Clinton-style, instead of just saying thank you. I may have even bit my lower lip. Man I sure berated myself on the drive home and pledged to keep my thumbs in my pockets to stifle this surprisingly forceful urge. It's been pretty challenging. I can't say I haven't faltered again.

Also the Halloween season cannot go unblamed for my state of mind. Costumes, pumpkin carving, trying to find the will power to stay out of the Halloween candy (the Twix did not make it unscathed). It's taking up a lot of my meager mental reserve. And I always find myself trying to find a way to put my widow's peak to good use, since right now is about the only time it could been seen as an asset. No need to even buy a costume. But usually I just end up thinking about what life would be like without this thing.

Would I be better at everything? I'm convinced it is so. My widow's peak is the only thing keeping me from being a morning person and I don't really have the stamina to explain how this is so but it is so. I thought it all out one day, in depth. And of course my inability to be a morning person is more or less the root of why I am unable to reach personal perfection as a wife and mother. If morning time came around noon my kids would get pancakes every day! And I probably wouldn't see red every time I heard the Husband chomping on chips. MY chips! That's all I'm saying.

So wish me luck with all of THAT.

P.S. Please excuse me if I disappear for a bit longer than usual. I sense a very heavy two month postpartum fog lingering ahead of me. A fog which consists of nothing yet everything. Some may even call it hibernation. I'm almost there right now as I'm sure you've already gathered.