the neck squeeze

The problem with not blogging consistently is that I don't know what I've covered and not.

So first a memory: when the boy was very small, he would cover his eyes and suck his thumb. Adorable. And hysterical.  Here's a good shot:

Then as he got bigger, he stopped covering his eyes, and instead started burying his head in my neck, so his face wouldn't show. Here he is last winter, at a friend's house. He didn't open his eyes the entire time we were there, but did hold his hand out for a donut when he heard the bag rustle. He ate it with his eyes closed.

And for a season he grabbed his neck and sucked his thumb.

And then it was his armpit, which was really funny.I don't think I ever got a picture of that, though I tried.

And now his comfort item of choice is... our neck (mine or my husband's, whoever is holding him).

Head on shoulder (sometimes facing out, sometimes facing in) with hand firmly there. Sometimes he squeezes a little. He used to squeeze a lot, but it hurt so we convinced him to be gentle.

The other day a friend was saying something to me, then stopped mid sentence to laugh, "I just noticed you were being strangled."

I really don't notice any more; it's what he does. As I said to her, "Yeah, it's weird, but I know I'll miss it when it goes away."

Then there's the story my husband told me. He puts the boy to bed most nights. The other night the boy was very restless. He tried to climb down from the chair they were rocking in, he tried to climb off, and finally just sank down as low as he could on my husband's lap to protest the going to bed. Then suddenly the Boy's hand shot up, grabbed my husband's neck, squeezed for a bit, then he quickly fell asleep.

the first decade

In August, my good husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. Although we spent months considering what we should do for this major event, we finally decided (okay, I decided, and he didn't disagree) that we would wait and do something special another year. After all, isn't 11 (or 12) years of marriage just as impressive? This year seemed too busy, and too awkward with a baby, who isn't really a baby, so he can be uncomfortable with others, and miss us.

I meant to wax poetic about my lovely family and my amazing husband, but I have a child who can't fall asleep, so I'm going to be a mom, instead of just talking about it.

"He's coming!"

My son was born a week ago today. It was both my longest and most exciting labors. He checked in at 8 lbs 11 oz, and 21.5 inches long. This makes him "large for gestational age" (born at 40 weeks, 1 day), so he had multiple blood pricks in his first 24 hours to make sure his blood sugar levels were appropriate. It should be noted that he is skinny, like all my babies, because he is ridiculously long to go with his "great" weight.

After approximately 8 hours of contractions (both my other labors could have fit in this time frame), some at home, and some at the hospital, we decided to break my waters so I could finish up.

As I stood to move to the hospital bed, my water spontaneously broke. I felt a huge pushing contraction, yelled "he's coming" and out came his head. (It sounds so simple. It was not.) In retrospect, I keep thinking it's miracle this happened when the midwife, nurse, and medical student were all in the room. I wonder if my husband realizes how close he was to having to catch the baby. But the midwife was there, and he (literally) caught the baby as I pushed the rest of him out. It was an intense two minutes. He emerged face first, thus the bruising in his first day photos. But, as we were deciding to break the waters, I turned to my husband and told him I was anxious to be done, but was scared about the pushing that still needed to happen. Then it finished so quickly, and that was a blessing.

They gave him to me, and labor was done. Now the real work begins.

***
Two postscripts:

A. I labor without drugs. But I labor with my husband's support, help, and presence. What I do would be impossible without him there. I'm so grateful for him. I'm sorry about his shoes though. As I continued to labor with an intact bag of waters, I kept worrying that they would break at an inopportune moment, and get my husband's shoes all wet. That fear was realized. (But the pushing fear was not, so I feel I got the better end of the deal.)

B. As the contractions kept coming, I often called up this picture in my head, of Babs after she had fallen asleep in my bed the night before the boy came:

Remember to be relaxed like Babs, I would remind myself. It helped a lot. (Not as much as  my husband helped me though.)

the question for the calendar

Every night as I go to bed, I look at the calendar and wonder when this baby will come. He's not late. My due date is still five days away, but I thought (hoped?) he'd come early, which he really hasn't. Now I'm just hoping he'll come soon. Perhaps right after my mom arrives tomorrow night...

Both my sister and sister-in-law who had babies in the last year had a scheduled birth, which right now seems really great. Except I want to schedule my naturally-starting/let-my-body-be-in-charge birth. I know you can't do both, so I stare at the calendar and wonder.

While I'm waiting, a brief update on the homefront:

Three weeks ago I took Kiddo to the store so we could buy some things for the baby. (Specifically a blue based bed sheet. This was really important to me. I have it now, but from a different store. They're washed, but not on the crib yet. Blegh.) While there, she saw an E-Z-bake toy, make your own cupcakes or something. She felt she couldn't live without it, and so I bought it for her, and she has been working on earning it ever since. Each day she has various chores, and it's been good and hard for both of us.

It's hard, because I have done much less that I wished in helping her learn how to help out around the house up to this point, so there is a lot of learning/teaching going on. Each of her chores requires work from me too. But it's good, because she's learned how to do things like "feed the vacuum", help more with the dishes, wipe down the bathroom counters, and of course, put away toys. But she has learned these things. And she's had the satisfaction of earning this toy, not just getting it. So I can live with yet another thing coming in our home.

I've also had the chance to tell her that not all chores are fun. Sometimes work is work. She is fond of telling me, one or two minutes into a chore, how overwhelmingly tired she is, and how she cannot continue. My responses are not terribly compassionate. Work is work is my basic answer. And if you want your reward, you do the work.

Yet you can't keep this child down. Within moments of complaining how she is too tired to lift another fork out of the dishwasher, you have to watch where you're stepping, because she is dancing back and forth between the dishwasher and where the fork goes, explaining that she is so happy she needs to dance.


Babs got one of her fevers last week. We spent the next few days with her in our bed at night, terribly sad during the day, and saying pathetic things like, "I can't, I've got a feber." I hoped that the baby would wait until she was better. (She's better, so he can come any time now.) She sings all day long, telling stories through song and playing through song. Kiddo does the same thing, sometimes they sing little duets. They are happy children, and I appreciate that.

I also met with the mothers who will be working with me to put together a little preschool for Babs and some other kids this fall. I can't actually believe I'm doing this, but I am grateful for other mothers who are willing to work with me on this. There are five little kids, but four moms, because there is a set of twins. I'm really grateful they're fraternal so it's easy to tell them apart.

Babs still loves her baby dolls, and has a line of them, in beds of various sorts, in her room where they spend a lot of time sleeping. Today we found another doll that had been packed away, and that was what she was truly grateful for in her prayers tonight.

The thing I am most grateful for right now is my diligent, good, helpful husband, who works, seemingly tirelessly, to continue to get us settled, to take care of the house and yard, to work, and to serve at home to a group of females who seem to need more of him every day. And he continues to give. Plus he teaches Sunbeams. I am so blessed. (In fact, right now, he's doling out cheese and crackers to the three-year old who took a nap today, so isn't as tired as we'd like her to be. Instead of watching TV, which is what his tired body and mind would really like to be doing.)

we do exist

During Kiddo's picture phase she took this beauty of my husband and I. So, I'm pregnant. This was his sick day this week. So there we are, looking tired. But we are here. (Kiddo explains that she thought she should take a picture of us because we love each other. Don't we look it? And yet, we do. We really do.)

we're okay

Let's be honest. I'm exhausted. My husband is exhausted. And these two kids just keep moving merrily along in their life, with enough energy to make me wonder...

I'm now almost 7 months pregnant, and he is a mover. I failed my preliminary gestational diabetes test, and basically fretted for two weeks until I heard back about  my longer test (which made me sick, sick, sick), and know that I do not have gestational diabetes. I am so grateful. During the interim I had my second ultrasound (since I'm of advanced maternal age and all), in which I was offered undeniable proof that he is a boy. Maybe someday soon he'll have a different name than "baby brother." All this does make me less functional than I wish I could be. But, I am meeting my primary goals of feeding the children every day, and that's all I can ask for.

My husband is wishing that this move would actually end. Because of Memorial Day, our physical possessions should be removed by the end of the weekend, so then we can just clean, and be done. Did I mention we found some mold, actually quite a bit, as we moved out? We're grateful that's not our problem. My husband is an amazing worker, and just keeps getting this project done. (He's also primarily responsible for the unpacking on this end, so that's energy sapping too.)

Kiddo is, of course, doing great. She seems absolutely fine that preschool is done (possibly because this week has been very, very busy) and play wells with her little sister every day. I've signed her up for swimming lessons, which she loves. She gave the spiritual thought in primary last week, and did a fantastic job. She even added a portion of her talk from when we practiced (not really a surprise) so she could show the picture that she had drawn in Sacrament Meeting. She drew a picture of "Brave CTR girl. It's me." She wrote that entire caption herself (I probably helped her spell brave), including the apostrophe. I love that girl.

This week we did kindergarten orientation. Kiddo is ready to go, and loved her whole experience in the classroom. I am not. First off, I don't worry like other parents (and of course, that worries me). But my real concern, and this is serious, is Who will entertain my three-year old while Kiddo is at kindergarten next year? Babs and I don't have a together time routine. I guess we should, because Kiddo has been in preschool for a year, but we don't. Maybe she'll be really good with baby brother...

And Babs. She has thrown significantly less tantrums this week. But, she's also had a nap almost every day, which means she doesn't fall asleep until 9 or 10 (which may be driving her father crazy). Because of the very busy week we've had she's been primarily in pull-ups (oh, and she's still reluctant about the 2nd half of the process) and we have seriously backtracked in potty training. I am giving us this next (considerably quieter) week to get things back under control before I give up again.

She is also signed up for swimming lessons. The first week she participated, but looked mad and betrayed most of the lesson, and told me afterward how scary it was. The next week she refused to even enter the pool. I offered a lot of bribes, none of which enticed her. (That child won't be bribed. It's just something about her.) So the manager and I discussed our options. We then took the kids to family swim that weekend. By the end of an hour in the pool, Babs loved the water. And, week three of swimming lessons went fine. She still wasn't sure about all of it, but at the end told me how brave she was to participate, not how scared she was. Plus, she got her "dunkin donut" so that also helped. (That would be the bribe that didn't work until she was ready for it to work.) (And Kiddo, ever a good sport, gets the reward if Babs earns hers. Kiddo asked if she got a donut after swimming lessons, and I had to tell her it depended on Babs, because I'm just not mean enough to stop and get a donut for one kid and leave the other kid out, especially when the first kid doesn't need an enticement to go spend 30 minutes in the pool.)

And Babs wears a silly hat (sometimes). You can see it in the picture above. My ever wise husband got it off before church by insisting that we don't wear hats when we pray. She is a funny little girl, with a real sense of humor, and uses it a lot. Which is good. We need to laugh.

thoughts at the end of the week

I had surgery on my eyelid this week to remove three chilazions (kind of like little cysts). It was pretty miserable, but not as miserable as the last time I tried this procedure. On the plus side, it seems to actually be working this time. I will be so excited in another week when both my eyelids are flat, smooth, and lump free. And, something about the surgery experience woke my boy up. He has been kicking up a storm, and much more expressive about everything since that day. It is nice to never worry how he's doing, but if he were kicking from the outside, I'd have a seriously bruised abdomen.

Grandma is here! She has allowed me to largely check out of the mothering business for three or four days while I try to rest my eye, and rest my soul for the craziness of our future (packing our house, closing on the new house, and moving... ).

Grandma's visit also allowed my husband and I to have a real date. We went to the temple, then a used book sale (it takes a special love of books to think you should buy a box of books just weeks before you move), then lunch. Apparently Babs pretty much fell apart while we were gone, but we are all friends again, and I loved being out with him (as always).

The day after my surgery, Kiddo came downstairs to wake me up in the morning. She was completely dressed and seemed ready for the day. She told me, "Since your eye is hurt, I'll take care of Babs today." It didn't quite work out that way, but her sincerity and desire touched my heart. I'm grateful for her kind spirit and helpful heart.

Grandma brought a T-ball set for Babs as a visiting present (Kiddo got a set of binoculars). Babs loves it. She talks about "playing with my set" and enjoys the sanctioned whacking. She prefers to whack with her golf clubs rather than her bat though - I suppose we need some tutorials soon.

one more thought

This morning I opened the dishwasher to find it empty. That meant my husband took the time before work to empty it, and I didn't have to. I am grateful. I am especially grateful because although it sounds like a small act of service, it is not. He was up at least once last night with a kid. He already gets up early to go to work so he can come home and spend the evening with us. And I know he doesn't actually like to unload the dishwasher. But he did.