He's Got My Number

Fiver (after asking me about seven hundred questions in a row): Thanks for the answers, Mom. You're a pretty good little talker.

Foolproof Method?

I have discovered the secret to getting Bun to sleep, and, true to form, Bun has picked the most mobility hampering method possible.

I have to swaddle him and then lay (lie? lay? help me out, ye English majors who are not sleep deprived) on my left side in my own bed (not the couch! never the couch!) with him practically tucked up into my armpit. Then, once he falls asleep, I have to give him about ten minutes to see if he is really asleep or if he is faking me out. This is a crucial step because I have fallen for the fake-out in my haste to get up and do something else. Like go to the bathroom or stop Sally from unwrapping all of the Easter chocolate.

Once I have determined he is asleep, I slowly drag my arm out from beneath him and roll him into the warm spot I've been occupying, because we all know that cold sheets mean your mother is trying to sneak out the back, Jack. If he is still asleep, then I slither down off of the bed shaking the mattress as little as possible and, I will admit it only to you, my friends, I have been known to hit the floor and crawl away from the bed. Because even though he can only see things that are a foot away from his face, Bun can sense my upright presence, you know.

If I can escape the room without being detected, I can usually count on a good little nap from him, especially in the afternoon. If not, then we are back to square one.

Heaven help me when he is older and can't be left on my bed anymore, since I'm pretty sure my days of climbing in a crib are long gone.

Bun's Tale: Part II

And the saga continues . . .

My quiet thoughts were interrupted by the nurse telling me to roll over since Bun was having some decelerations on the monitor. It probably meant that the cord was around his neck, and since Fiver had had the same problem, I knew I needed to switch positions.

It was when I was rolling over to the opposite side for the seventieth time that I felt the change in pressure that let me know it was time for someone to check the business end of Aimee. Just as I was calling my nurse, she appeared and then called my doctor. I was completely dilated, and after a trial push, they told me to hang on while they got the bed ready and put the spotlight on Baby Central.

I remember the nurse slipping the oxygen mask on my head, just as they had with Fiver, so I knew that Bun's cord was definitely being yanked on his way out. I could feel his head very low in my pelvis, and after a few minutes and two sets of pushes, he was born. At 10:11 in the morning on my father's birthday.

I remember thinking, as I heard him cry and they put him on my chest, that I could finally put the worries of a long pregnancy behind me. Then I looked at him and listened to him and my heart skipped a little beat. Something was not quite right.

Bun was small, and I said as much to the nurses, but they assured me that he was a normal size. Seven pounds and twelve ounces is a good size baby, they told me. What they didn't realize is that it was not his weight I was talking about. To me he looked thin and sort of scrawny. His arms and legs were like sticks, with none of the usual baby chub to round them out. His head looked small (although it sure didn't feel small), and the only way I can describe it is that he looked a little undercooked to me. Of course, I thought that maybe I was just comparing him to Sally who barrelled her way out at over nine pounds.

He was still on my chest, just a minute old, when we all heard the grunting. I watched as he sucked his whole chest in trying to take a breath, and it was then that I was scared. One nurse turned him over and started thumping and massaging his back, while the other nurse whipped the oxygen mask off of my head and started passing it over his face.

They took him over to the warmer to work on him, and across the room I could hear him laboring to breathe. I heard suggestions as to the cause of his distress fly around the room: He might have gotten a gulp of amniotic fluid! It's probably transient tachypnea of the newborn (TTN)! Maybe a pneumonia!

All I could see were his little arms and they were turning blue.

They brought him over to my chest for a little skin to skin time while they put the oxygen monitor on him. I noticed that the blueish tint that started in his hands was spreading to the rest of his body. And he was cold. Before they could even tell me, I knew that he was not getting enough oxygen. Babies should not be blue and cold and grunting.

My doctor, one of the sweetest and most cheerful people I know, came to my bedside and touched my arm and said, "Aimee, we have to take him. I want him to have some blood work and some xrays and I want him in the NICU." She wasn't smiling. Even then, my brain was not completely registering what was happening. I knew he needed to go, but I still thought they would be bringing him right back.

About ten minutes later, the neonatologist came down from the NICU to give us the news: No pneumonia on the xray, and no TTN. (Yay!) But he was in respiratory distress (Boo!) due to lung immaturity (What?!) He asked how far along I was, and when I told him I was in my 38th week, he flat out said "No, I don't think so." Bun had some very common markers of being a smidge too early: his obvious Respiratory Distress Syndrome, he had no developed cartilage in his ears, he had no eyelashes, he was still covered in his downy, protective hair shirt, and there was also something about the creases on the soles of his feet. I don't know what the doctor had noticed about his feet, because my brain had checked out. I didn't seem to be absorbing anything except the fact that this doctor was telling me that I most likely would not be going home with my baby.

I spent the next two days pretty evenly divided between crying and walking the long hallway between my room and the NICU. Bun was on CPAP (pressurized oxygen blown into his nose), a feeding tube, TPN (total parenteral nutrition), and several other beeping machines. He was chock full of fluid, and he would foam at the mouth while the nurse suctioned him. Every time he would eat, he would have "residuals," which basically meant that they would have to suction him after he ate and they would get back about half of his food mixed with the mucus and fluid. He was sporting a huge cephalohematoma that he had sustained during birth, and that, in combination with his feeding issues, were causing his bilirubin levels to rise. He got a pair of baby shades, and they put him under the lights to keep him from turning as orange as a pumpkin. (He only made it to a deep squashy yellow.)

No one could hold him, we could only reach into his bed and touch his arm or his leg, and that was the worst part for me. I knew that he would be all right, but not being able to comfort him was terrible. He would give his little grunty cry so I would talk to him, and he would turn his head right toward me. I felt a huge surge of guilt and sadness every time he showed that he recognized me and I could not reach for him.

And then, in the blink of an eye, I had to go home. Physically, I was fine and my hospital time was up. Rob and the kids came to get me, and we all walked hand-in-hand out of my room, past the newborn nursery full of swaddled bundles, past other women being wheeled around with their babies, and out to the car. I felt like an empty shell, and I cried all the way home.

Over the next few days, Rob and I split our time between home and the hospital, and Bun got steadily better. He came off the TPN and the feeding tube, and he then switched to nasal cannula oxygen. After a few tries on room air, he had to go back onto the oxygen for another day, but then he seemed to get with the program. He only ended up spending a week in the NICU.

Now he's almost two months old, and it's like he's always been here and healthy. He has gone from this baby:

To this baby:
In sixty days.

And I could just eat him up.

I Can't Resist A Carnival

If there is one thing I love, it's a birth story. I love them all - easy, hard, long, gory, textbook, not quite perfect - and I'll happily settle in with a cup of coffee if someone wants to spill the whole deal to me. I also love to share my birth stories, but I find it's kind of a hard thing to squeeze into casual conversation. Oh hey, I love your new haircut! And did you know that I gave birth to Sally so fast that my doctor barely had time to catch her? Good times.

This is why I love the Momosphere: all these blogging mamas eventually spill their birth/adoption stories in some way, and I can throw mine out there without looking like a nutcase. (Well, maybe I look like a nutcase, but it's not just because of the incessant birth story-telling)

Sarcastic Mom is hosting a Birth Story Carnival, and I am stepping right up to buy my ticket. I've already written my accounts of Francie's, Fiver's, and Sally's births, so I'll just give you the links. As an added bonus, you'll get the never-before-told Tale of Bun! You've got to give the people what they want.

**N.B.: These posts are longer than most of my usual rambling nonsense, so if you want to read them straight through, you might want to take a potty break now. Plus you get to see the old nicknames I used to call my kids. Kind of makes your day, right?

Francie's Story: July 16, 1999 8 lbs, 9 oz 22.5 inches

Fiver's Story: August 27, 2002 8lbs, 15 oz, 20 inches

Sally's Story: June 23, 2006 9lbs, 3 oz 21.5 inches

The Tale of Bun: February 1, 2008 7lbs, 12 oz 21 inches

Bun's whole pregnancy was like one very long, very surreal trip. My previous pregnancies had been easy and uncomplicated, with labors that seemed to follow suit. I never took that for granted, since I had seen so many of my friends and family have much harder pregnancies, but I did, in the very back of my mind, come to think of myself as a "good pregnant person." I felt very blessed to have a body that did its thing with such competence.

So when I got pregnant with Bun, I assumed that his pregnancy would progress much the same way as the others. We all know what they say about those who assume, right?

At my 20 week ultrasound, they diagnosed the single umbilical artery defect which shot me right over to the perinatologists for monthly ultrasounds. During the course of those ultrasounds, my original due date for the end of February was bumped up to February 9, based on Bun's measurements. All the ultrasounds showed that Bun was healthy and growing well, with no other birth defects that are sometimes associated with SUA.

The farther along I progressed, the less the doctors worried about growth restriction from SUA and the more they worried about my amniotic fluid. It seems that I had a tad too much water in there. Well, maybe more than a tad - Bun was living large in an Olympic sized swimming pool.

Plus, there was the added bonus of Bun flipping all over the place. My doctor and I would watch as Bun, during the span of one ultrasound, would flip head up and then roll over to put his head on my left side. The he would rotate counter-clockwise until his head was on the other side. My uterus was one big hamster wheel for him, and he never stopped rolling.

As we got closer to my due date, the perinatologists were getting nervous about the amount of fluid and Bun's position. They were lobbying hard for an elective c-section at 37 weeks. I was lobbying just as hard for letting nature take its course as long as Bun was healthy. My family doctor (who was the one to deliver Bun) had the unenviable task of walking the line in between.

She and I talked everything over, and we had decided that if, by Monday February 4, Bun was still in the incorrect position, she would bring me into the hospital and would try to do a version to get him to flip around. If the version worked, I would be induced immediately to make sure he didn't flip around again. If it didn't work, then I was headed for a c-section anyway. I was happy with that plan, and we made my final "regular office" appointment.

Everything we had so meticulously planned was thrown out the window when I went in for my check-up on Thursday, the 31st. My doctor had scheduled my version/induction time slot, and I remained busy with our weekly therapy appointments and school schedules. Given Bun's predilection for odd positioning, I figured that I had the weekend to pack my bag and get the other kids schedules set.

Rob, half-jokingly, said that I ought to make sure my bag was packed before my appointment on Thursday. I laughed it off, and told him that the only way I would need it was if Bun spontaneously turned vertex and my doctor rushed me off to the hospital.

Apparently that defective umbilical cord carried my voice straight to Bun's ears because . . .

My doctor, lovely woman that she is, decided to skip right to the ultrasound and spare me the waiting and wondering. We were laughing and offering guesses on which part of Bun would be presenting when she moved the wand around the bottom of my belly.

We stopped laughing pretty darn quick when we saw Bun's head resting there above my cervix. We just could not believe that he had turned so completely on his own, and that grainy little picture set a whole lot of wheels moving.

My doctor, wanting to strike while the iron was hot, suggested an immediate induction before Bun decided to flip around again. Since I was in my 38th week, and it looked like we could avoid the stress of a version, Rob and I agreed. I was put on the schedule for a four o'clock induction, and that left me roughly seven minutes to get my kids home from school, return the overdue library books, get them set up with my mother, pack a bag, shave my legs, and brush my teeth.

I'm fast, but I'm no Flash Gordon. Leg shaving went out the window in favor of having a bag with clothes in it. Ever the optimist, I did not pack much because Bun was moving like a madman for the whole drive home and I was convinced that he had flipped back around. I didn't feel like dragging a huge bag over to the hospital just to be told to go home because he had moved. Again.
When we met my doctor at the hospital, she did another ultrasound just to make sure that there was nothing else between Bun's head and my cervix. No foot, no cord, no little hand waving hello, nothing. We had the green light.

Since my cervix was closed tight as a drum, I had to have some Cytotec for cervical ripening. It took about three doses to get some contractions going, and while we were waiting for the Cytotec to bring the pain, Rob and I got to watch the Lost season premiere and hang out with the L&D triage nurses.

You may not believe me when I say this, but with Fiver and Sally, my labor rooms sounded more like a party than like anything else. Rob managed to keep us all laughing and upbeat, at least until the hard labor and transition set in. We have always thought that labor would be such a nice date if I wasn't in so much pain: semi-private room, no other kids hanging around, ice chips and Popsicles on demand, no cartoons on TV. Who wouldn't want love that?

With Bun, we were still joking and having fun, but in the back of my mind there was only one thought on a continuous loop: Is this really happening NOW? In retrospect, I can see now that I had a pretty clear sense of apprehension about the whole thing. I chalked it up to the fact that all my other children were late, and I just wasn't accustomed to having a baby before my due date.

The Cytotec and my body finally got it together, and I was having pretty regular contractions all through the night. They didn't feel too intense, so I was wondering if they were doing anything, but they were and I was moved from triage to a delivery room around 4 AM.

Despite all the contracting and breathing on my part, Bun was still "floating" above my pelvis and churning like a turbine. The nurse couldn't even get accurate tracings from the fetal monitors because he was so active. She kept pressing the monitor into my contracting belly and looking up at me, and I wanted to tell her, Lady, there's nothing I can do. This kid has ignored me from the get-go, so good luck to you.

Because the Baby Lo-Jack couldn't get a good fix on his heart tones, and also because he wasn't moving down into my pelvis, my doctor wanted to break my water. She felt that all the extra fluid was keeping him from descending, and she wanted to really put the screws to him with an internal monitor (seriously - they screwed it into his head.) My doctor is a patient person, but she ain't no dummy. It was Go Time and Bun wasn't getting on board.

I knew that once my water was gone, I would have a huge surge in pain from the contractions. With Sally, I went so fast that the increase in pain was manageable since I was hurtling toward pushing at breakneck speed. This time around, I had a feeling that I would not go so quickly. Bun was taking his time, and I was exhausted by the worry and stress of the pregnancy, so I opted for the epidural.

Since they knew I had excess fluid, the nurses rigged up a little Hoover Dam at the bottom of my bed. They put a couple layers of those absorbent pads beneath me, and then rolled up blankets and towels and created a perimeter around the bed to catch the overflow. It worked, because after my water was broken it created a little lake before soaking into all the padding. The nurses did a great job, but I had so much fluid that I just felt like I was constantly laying in a bed that I had wet. (well, I was laying in a bed that I had wet, but you know what I mean.)

Once the internal monitor was placed, we got Bun's heart tones loud and clear. He looked healthy and strong, and since I was only six centimeters, I took the opportunity to rest. I was in between sleeping and waking, in that drowsy state when everything you hear comes to you in a muffled, filtered way. I knew people were coming in and out of the room, checking this and poking that, but I just did not care. I once again returned to my thoughts of I can't believe this is happening. I looked up at the clock and saw the date written on the board below it: Friday, February 1. Two of my older children had been born on Friday, and today was also my father's birthday. I took it all as a good sign.

To be continued tomorrow . . .

Happy Easter

I never attended the Easter Vigil Mass while I was growing up, mostly due to the fact that I had siblings who were too young to attend. We always went to Mass on Easter Sunday, after a few dozen chocolate eggs and before a few hundred jelly beans. (All I'm saying is that I put a big hurt on the old pancreas. Big.)

I knew that the Vigil was when people who were seeking full communion with the Catholic Church were accepted into our faith family, and I knew about all the cool parts (the darkness, the big fire) from reading about them. After I attended my first Vigil, as a senior in high school, I came away thinking it was long. And, I am sad to say, that was about the extent of my impression.

After we married, Rob and I followed my childhood tradition of attending Mass on Easter Sunday. When the children came, we clung even tighter to that tradition since our gang seems to implode when they are kept up late. If you keep them up for hours past their bedtimes they revert into little snarling, crying masses of hair and teeth and nails. It's not pretty, and it's better for us to go in the morning, at least in this season of life with small children.

But now I always go to Sunday morning mass and the Vigil, since I am in the choir and almost everything in the Vigil is sung. Last night was my third Vigil in this parish, and it was beautiful. I mean bring-a-tear-to-my-eye beautiful.

During the Vigil, the church remains in darkness while we listen to readings, prayers, and psalms. Then the lights come blazing back during the Gloria, revealing the splendor of the church now that Christ is risen. This is a pretty big moment, since the church has been barren for forty days: no holy water, all of the statues covered in heavy purple cloth, no adornment of any kind, as a fast for the senses. Because the choir members need to see their music in the dark, we get to bring little flashlights with us. That "let there be light" moment sometimes passes by me too quickly.

There was no way it could have passed without notice last night. When the lights filled the church, as the organ started the Gloria, Monsignor nodded to the altar server. She picked up her bells and began to shake them, a little timidly. As soon as her bells sounded, every member of my parish family pulled out a bell and started ringing it wildly. Children stood on the kneelers with their bells, little old ladies pulled huge school bells out of their purses, and our bells in the steeple were ringing out into the night. While the church resounded with "Glory to God in the highest," hundreds of bells were echoing in my chest. I was so moved that I had to stop singing because I was smiling so hard. I could only smile and breathe a prayer in and out.

I'm still smiling today. That's the joy of Easter, my friends, and I wish it for all of you.

The HomeFront Gang in all their Easter finery. (And that is a wad of Tootsie Rolls in Francie's cheek, not chewing tobacco. She knows she can't start dip until she's at least ten. Even if she is a widow)

A little sign of Spring on our dinner table, since the kids did their Easter egg hunt in their
Tundra gear

"Here GeeGee ('Grandmom'), I think these potatoes might need a little
something extra."

Three guesses as to who wrote "HORSE" on their egg before dyeing it, and the first two don't count.

Gangster or hardscrabble newsie with a heart of gold?
You make the call.

Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil

Rejoice, heavenly powers!
Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God's throne!
Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!
Rejoice, O earth in shining splendor,
Radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered!
Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes forever!
Rejoice, O Mother Church!
Exult in glory!
The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
Echoing the mighty song of all God's people! . . .

It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices
We should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father,
And His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with His blood,
And paid for us the price of Adam's sin
To our eternal Father!
This is our Passover feast
When Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
Whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.
This is the night when You first saved our fathers:
You freed the people of Israel from their slavery
And led them dry-shod through the sea.
This is the night when the pillar of fire
Destroyed the darkness of sin!
This is the night when Christians everywhere,
Washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
Are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night, when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death
And rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us,
Had Christ not come as our Redeemer?
Father, how wonderful Your care for us!
How boundless Your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away Your Son.
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
Which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

Most blessed of all nights,
chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!
Of this night, Scripture says:
"This night will be as clear as day:
it will become My light, My joy."
The power of this holy night
Dispels all evil,
washes guilt away,
Restores lost innocence,
Brings mourners joy,
It casts out hatred,
Brings us peace,
And humbles earthly pride.
Night truly blessed
When heaven is wedded to earth
And man is reconciled with God!

Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night
Receive our evening sacrifice of praise,
Your Church's solemn offering.
Accept this Easter candle,
A flame divided but undimmed,
A pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.
Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
And continue bravely burning
To dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets
Find this flame still burning:
Christ that Morning Star,
Who came back from the dead,
And shed His peaceful light
On all mankind,
Forever and ever. Amen.

- from the Exsultet (Easter Proclamation),
traditional chant, arranged by J. Michael Thompson

HAPPY EASTER!

**Originally posted for Easter 2007, but the Exsultet is one of my favorite parts of the Easter Vigil so I brought it back for an encore. Happy Easter, my friends.

Good Friday

O vos omnes

Qui transitis per viam

Attendite et videte

Si est dolor similis

Sicut dolor meus.

The Crucifixion

Andrea Mantegna

1431-1506

Holy Thursday

"Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.

He took a towel and tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Master, are you going to wash my feet?"

Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later."

Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me."

Simon Peter said to him, "Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well." Jesus said to him, "Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all." For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, "Not all of you are clean."

So when he had washed their feet (and) put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them,

"Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the scripture might be fulfilled, 'The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.' From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." When he had said this, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, "Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."

John 13: 1-20

The Candy Man

Oh, I thought I was so slick this week. But slick has never been my strong suit, so I should have known better.

I had to send a dozen candy-filled plastic eggs in to Fiver's school for their egg hunt, as well as a few bags of donated candy for our church's egg hunt this Saturday, so I bought a couple of big bags of assorted chocolates at Tar-jhay last week. I knew I had to get that candy out of my possession fast, or I would scuttle my two weeks of hard work at Weight Watchers in a matter of minutes.

Because I have no self control, I filled all of the plastic eggs with my very favorite pieces of chocolate, capped them, tied them off in a plastic bag, and then locked them in a safe and threw it to the bottom of the river. (Okay, I didn't throw the safe in the river, but I did have to remind myself not to pilfer chocolate from a preschooler. Repeatedly. Clearly I have no shame.)

There were still a few pieces of candy left in the bag. Danger Will Robinson! Even though they weren't my favorites, I have never let something that trivial stop me from eating chocolate. Don't judge me, but since I have been known to pick wrapped food out of the trash, I took the bag and threw it in the outside trash can with all the ripe diapers. Angels wept, but my hips were safe.

When I picked Fiver up from school today, he could not stop talking about the egg hunt. There! were! so! many! eggs! full! of! candy! He proudly showed me all of the eggs he collected in his basket.

Can you guess what was in the basket?

Of course you can.

My darling child had gone through and picked up all of the eggs we donated. All of the eggs filled with my favorite candy.

Those eggs came back to me like a Fat Boomerang.

You know what they say: If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, eat it. Right?

Thank goodness that it is still Lent. Maybe by not eating this candy I can make up for the shoddy Lent I've had so far. Most of it went by in a blur, and I can't blame it all on Bun. I've just been out of it on so many levels.

I plan to scale things back during the Triduum; to keep things quieter and (hopefully) holier.

As Francie said after her class finished watching a movie on Jesus' life, death, and resurrection: "I liked the end - it was really good!" I need to focus on getting to "the really good" part.

To tide you over until I return with the mediocrity you've come to rely on, you must check this out. All I'm going to say is make sure you are not eating, drinking, or sitting around with a full bladder. Don't say I didn't warn you. (h/t to Bun's godmother.)

See you in a bit, my friends.

A Pictorial

Even Elton John needs to take a break.

"Uh, now what am I supposed to do with him?"


"Fiver, can you believe they let me have the baby? Suckers!"

Photographic evidence to prove the existence of the Sleeping Bun in his natural habitat

Hard Times at The HomeFront Corp

Sally and Francie have been pushing a doll stroller full of dolls and toy food through the kitchen and living room.



Francie: Hi, Mom. Sally and I are on our way to the market.


Me: Okay, hon.


Francie: We are playing sisters who live together.


Me: Sounds nice.


Francie: We always take our children with us.


Me: That's good.


Francie: And we are widows. But we are okay with that.

Slightly depressive imaginations? We're full up, thanks.

All the Cuteness the Postal Service Has to Offer

I got a treat in the mail this weekend in the form of some very cute shirts for Francie and Sally. A vast improvement over the bills that usually show up, I must say.

These shirts were designed and made by Karen over at The Rocking Pony. In addition to her amusing blog, Karen runs an Etsy shop, also named The Rocking Pony. Plus she has four kids and about eleventy jillion cute dogs, so how she finds the time to make all these clothes is beyond me. I'm still writing myself notes on the bathroom mirror so that I won't forget to brush my teeth.

The Rocking Pony provides "modern, trendy gear for hip little ones," and all I can say is that Karen's stuff is cute, cute, cute. Think expensive boutique baby items at a fraction of the price -- and handmade by a mom to boot!

She does everything: shirts, blankets, custom crib bedding, fabric toys, bibs, burp cloths, and a sweet little number called an Essential Diaper Case (anyone who has kids who've outgrown the giant diaper bag, but still need to carry a diaper will love this.)

Karen wanted to incorporate more girly designs into her catalog, since she was mostly showing more boyish items (although that's a nice change from the girl-centric clothing at every other store), and I was only too happy to volunteer my girls as guinea pigs. Karen's shirts are better than what they are wearing right now. I mean, Sally's been running around in midriff shirts for the past few weeks because I am too busy (and too cheap) to buy her new shirts before the season changes. So what if she had a growth spurt.

The great thing about The Rocking Pony is that it's all custom made. As Karen says:
"The great thing about handmade is that I can customize it. Please feel free to ask me to make something in another color, style or even to make your ideas come to life." I told her told her that my girls liked horses and I gave her their sizes, and voila! a box of cuteness appeared at my doorstep.

(Sorry about the awful picture of Francie's shirt - my camera is enduring a slow, torturous Death By Ferocious Toddler):

And as you can see by the first picture, Karen threw in an adorable ice cream cone onesie for Bun. It's so sweet that I cannot be held responsible if I actually lick him while he is wearing it (plus, I am highly untrustworthy around ice cream of any kind. I love it immoderately.)

You should get over to Etsy and check out her shop, if not for your own little ones, then for a sweet, personalized gift. I know I'll be there since Fiver has now put in a request for a shirt of his own. Plus, how cute are these? (Oh, Lord, please tell St. Anthony to hold off on helping me find my credit card until after the paycheck.)

Thanks, Karen!!

A Little Perspective ** Updated

Thank you, thank you for all of your encouragement. I knew that if I surrounded myself with positive comments, then pretty soon I would be thinking positively myself.

This past week just seemed to hold a lot of non-supportive or unhelpful comments from the universe. Granted, many of these comments came from people I don't know very well (or from people I don't know at all), but when you are tired and vulnerable, those things seem to stick with you a little longer. I started to doubt myself, and worse, I started to doubt the kids.

Aimee's takeaway lesson from this week?: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. (Thumper's Dad had it right, my friends.)

Also, thanks for all of the great suggestions, from swaddling to white noise. We do swaddle Bun quite a bit because he seems to enjoy that "close" feeling, but what he enjoys even more is when I hold him. All day long. And all night long.

Rob and I believe it's because Bun was not snuggled at all in the beginning. Maybe we sound like kooks, but you always read how important physical closeness is for babies, and Bun just didn't get it. I held him for five minutes after he was born and Rob didn't get his hands on him for a week. Granted, a week is not very long in the grand scheme of life, but who knows? (or maybe he's just figured out how to play us already)

I think white noise might help us out as well. Bun has always quieted down at the sound of the vacuum or the hairdryer, and when he sleeps, he sleeps better with the TV or radio on at a very low volume in the background.

We were pretty happy to discover that our alarm clock makes some nature sounds/white noise, so I tried that with him today. My friends, he slept for an hour and a half! I swear the heavens parted and I heard angels singing, because I managed to get a shower, get dressed, clean the downstairs bathroom, empty the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, throw in some laundry, and drink a cup of coffee. And I did all of that with two hands!

I set the alarm clock to play the Mountain Stream sounds, since I started out with the Ocean Surf sounds and it scared me and made me jump. Sounds weird, I know, but there's some kind of distortion problem with the Ocean Surf because it sounds more like a killer rogue wave. Since I don't want to give the poor kid any kind of Poseidon complex, I'll just stick with the Mountain Stream.

And now that I've bored you to tears, I'll leave you to start your weekend -- have a lovely one!

Someone out there needs to tell me that a cranky, sleep resistant baby will eventually turn into a child of superior intellect with a winning personality. Who also finds the cure for cancer.

Seriously, someone needs to tell me that right. now.

Regale me with your stories of sleepless nights that have passed; of fussy babies who have become fun children; of settling down at night without having a baby draped on your chest.

Of course, I have my own stories like this - especially about Francie, the Girl Who Sleeps With Her Eyes Open - but I am in the thick of all the sleeplessness and I am feeling foggy. I am a little too "forest for the trees" right now.

It's been a long day, and Bun, for some reason that I cannot discover, has been fussy for about 20 of the last 24 hours. The Pennsylvania Dutch have a word for this: "grex" or "grexy." This is a great word because it sounds just like Bun's grunty complaints. Not screaming, not inconsolable, just cranky. The truth is, he is very consolable as long as he is on me. The sling has been great, but even that is starting to wear on me (ha! I can still make a pun.)

But here's the tricky thing about the mother's mind: it doesn't take very long for these very days to become the fuzzy memories once the baby grows and gets in sync with the normal household rhythms. He will become a kid who puts himself to bed, and the physical burden will ease, and still I will be caught red-handed missing the baby he was.

So I know that all I need right now is a little change of perspective, a mental pick-me-up, and I'm asking you to throw me a bone, my friends. Just remind me that this too shall pass.

(And if it hasn't passed for you yet -- don't remind me!)

Told You

These pictures merely serve as an illustration of what I was talking about here. I hadn't even thought to give Francie her own spoon at this age. Clearly, the times have changed.

This also proves that I didn't eat all the fat-free pudding cups by myself.

Just most of them.

"I'll Take Potpourri for 200, Alex"

In the inimitable words of Robert Plant: "It's been a long time since I rock n' rolled."

Or posted to the blog. Whatever.

Things here are . . . well, they're here and that's about the best I have to say for this week. I've been grappling with some familiar demons this week, as well as a baby who has decided that sleep is for sissies. And he ain't no sissy, my friends.

So while I sort some things out, I'll leave you with some bits and pieces for the weekend. Maybe I'll even get the chance to write some kind of cathartic post this weekend, but don't hold your breath. It's pretty hard to type with Bun the Symbiotic hanging on my arm.

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First up, some awards. For what, I don't know. They certainly can't be for blog content, and they sure as heck aren't for graceful parenting. But you know what? I take 'em where I can get 'em, my friends.

Karen from The Rocking Pony, gave this award to all of her readers whose last names fall in the A-L range. Hey, that's me! (Like I said: I take 'em where I can get 'em)

I will pass this along to anyone who reads this blog; if you can't be called "True Blue" for sticking with me through all this mediocrity, then I don't know who can! If you want it, here it is come and get it, but you better hurry cause it's going fast. (name that tune . . . seriously, name it, because now it is running through my head and I can't think of the title or the artist.)

Muddy Mama has given me:

Now all I have to do is link to Ukok's Place, and pass it along to five bloggers. Easy, breezy, lemon squeezy! First, I'm zinging this right back to Muddy Mama. I know she technically got it already, but I believe in blog award reciprocity. I am passing the other four slots along to some blogging women who have been my friends since grade school and high school, and who have made my little corner of the world a better place. I'm a Capricorn - I'm all about the longevity, people! They are T With Honey, The Misadventures of Mom, Blog My Memory, and Life in the Circle.

Muddy Mama also gave me this:

I am excited to see that I still retain my Excellent rating, even though I've been more like an absentee blogger these days. However, in my first posting, I did not realize that you got to award ten people! I only awarded six, so I've got some ground to make up! (Of course, all of those blogs I previously tapped as Excellent still stand.)

I am going to bounce this over to Alexis at Love Life, Barbara at Praying for Grace, Jennifer at Et Tu?, and Amy at RC Mommy.

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From the "My Mama Don't Raise No Fools" File

(scene: Fiver assembling a puzzle at the dining room table):

Francie: Oh, I'll help you do this puzzle, Fiver.

Fiver: No, I can do this myself.

Francie: No, I said I'll HELP you with this puzzle.

Fiver: I don't want you to do this puzzle.

Francie: I AM doing this puzzle with you.

Fiver: Well, then you have to pay me money to do this puzzle.

Francie (incensed): No way! I'm not paying you any money to do this puzzle! (stomps off)

Fiver: Okay.

From the "I Wish, Kid" File:

Since adding Bun to the mix, I have approximately 3.2 seconds to eat my lunch everyday. Plus, I have hauled my flabby butt back onto the Weight Watchers wagon so I have 3.2 seconds to eat my tiny portion of bland food. This makes me loathe to share what I have. (I know, it's pathetic. Sue me.)

I guess the kids have caught the drift that Mommy is grouchy when she's hungry. To be honest, they probably got the picture when I stiff-armed Fiver and hurdled Sally on my way to the refrigerator to get the last fat-free chocolate pudding cup. Usually I happily share with them, but now I think they are afraid to reach out their hands to my plate for fear of drawing back a stump.

To wit, this exchange:

Sally (reaching for me and my cup of coffee): Me? Juice?

Fiver (running in and grabbing her arms): No, Sally! This is Mommy's drinking time!

Maybe a little heavy on the Dickensian overtones, but I figure it's good to keep them just a little afraid of me.

And with that I say: Have a great weekend, my friends!

The Wild One

Sally is looking more like a feral child by the day. I'm talking full on Nell, except with a better vocabulary.

(Well, marginally better.)

As I formulate this post in my head (but way, way before I will get the chance to actually type it out), Sally is sitting in her high chair with an English muffin. She's not eating it; that would be too prosaic, too pedestrian. She is using it as a powder puff and rubbing its jellied veneer all over her cheeks and forehead.

Then she licks it, and proceeds to rub it across the front of her shirt. I'm guessing that she's finished with it.

It used to be that I would have never let an English muffin be abused in such a way. I would have taken it from her tray and eaten it myself cleaned her up before the jelly got to her hair.
I would have changed her into a new outfit and pre-treated her stains on the first one.

Now? Well, I'm not going to lie to you. She will wear the same jellied shirt all day, and I don't pre-treat anything anymore. (I can't even bring myself to admit the shameful science fair experiment that met me in the laundry room today. All I can say is that I had to throw some things away. Oh, the horror . . .)

Gone are the days of Francie, the Only; the days of matching tops and bottoms, with coordinating hairbows. Even the less coordinated, though still very clean, days of Francie and Fiver are gone.

And why? Because Sal's the third one, and the third child is where you crest the hill and hit the downward slide. Three is where, to quote The Greatest American Hero, you are operating pretty much on a wing and a prayer.

Ask anyone with more than two children, and they will tell you that things start to go a little haywire with the third one. Some may disagree, and swear that it is the second one who does it, but I am here to tell you the truth, my friends: The HomeFront Corp. took it on the chin with Number Three.

I don't know why it is, because I certainly don't remember feeling like having two kids was a cakewalk. Heck, I remember being overwhelmed at times by Francie alone, but bringing home our third baby was like throwing a nine pound monkey wrench into the cogs of the family machine. We've recovered, just with a lesser degree of decorum. If that's at all possible.

With two children, I still felt like I had a good hold of most situations, and I mean that in the literal sense. If worse came to worse (and it usually did), I knew that I had at least one hand for each child. I became an expert at tucking each one under an arm and heading for the nearest exit like a broken-field runner.

With three, I simply ran out of arms. No matter how full my hands were, I knew that there was always a free agent on the loose that I could do nothing to deter.

For me, the bump up to three kids was a little like finding out there is a skunk living under your deck: sometimes there is nothing you can do until you get some back-up. Or some professional help. Either way.

I've been pleasantly surprised to find that bringing Bun home did not require nearly as much juggling as bringing Sally home. I have learned to turn a blind eye to anything that does not require medical attention. Or a fire extinguisher. (That means the matching outfits and cute accessories were some of the first things to go.)

I don't mean to imply that having three children is unmanageable or frightening or terrible. I'm not trying to scare those people who are pregnant with their third or contemplating a third addition. If you're thinking about it, then I say, yeah baby! go for it! Sally has added immeasurable joy to our family. If you're already pregnant, then it's too late to worry about it anyway. It will do you no good now, and remember: Sally has brought immeasurable joy.

I'm just saying that it really helps if, in the midst of all that joy, you don't care what they look like. For a little while anyway.