Random

Do you ever get words or phrases in your head the way you get songs stuck in your head? Or am I the only one? Because I am constantly getting phrases and names stuck in my head. And lately, I get the names of other people's facebook friends stuck in my head (esp. if I see them crop up frequently). And then that makes me wonder if other people are walking around turning my name over in their brains a thousand times, the way you rub your tongue over a rough spot on your tooth, for a whole day. Kind of the way I wonder how many strangers have pictures with me in the background or accidentally in the frame. Like that.

Trust me, I'm an expert

I decided today, that after parenting not one, but two very fussy babies (one quite fussy, one UNSPEAKABLY fussy), I am An Expert. At least as much as the Baby Whisperer and the jackhole that wrote Babywise. (Um. Y'all know I already thought I was smarter than them even before Gracie was born. But like, now I KNOW.)

And you know, as a Very Important and Also Smart Expert, my biggest problem with those books, and I'm sure plenty of others, is the whole stupid idea of forming bad habits. They tell you not to do things like co-sleep or hold your baby all the time or feed on demand or anything like that because you will form bad habits and it might be okay now but one day? Oh, you will PAY.

Katie was two months old today. We've handled her reeeally differently from Gracie. With Gracie, we lived in perpetual fear of forming bad habits. We did everything in our power to avoid it, and stressed endlessly over how much we held her, how much attention we gave her to stop her from crying, the amount of time she spent in the swing. Katie? Partly out of necessity and partly from experience, we just hold her all the time. It's what she needs right now. We WOULD put her in the swing except she hates it with a fiery passion, so we don't, but we WOULD. She sleeps in my bed every night. That one, I'm working on fixing, and guess what? Last night, she slept in her cradle until 4am. I mean, no, she woke up twice, but when I put her back in the cradle, there was no vortex that opened up out of her head to suck in the entire room. She didn't kill me with death rays from her eyes. And she also, um, slept. Not every night has gone as smoothly, and tonight probably won't either, if I have to place a bet (she's been EXTRA ticked off today). But how is that different from Gracie? Only in one way: neither Stephen nor I want to jump off the roof and die. We're as rested as we can be with a baby and a toddler (and for Stephen, with a job that requires him to be up all night and attempt to sleep during the day). We can see straight and operate motor vehicles safely and again, I cannot stress this enough: we do not wish we were dead. In terms of Katie's behavior, though? She is in *exactly* the same place Gracie was at this age. So much for bad habits.

But let's just say I'm wrong (which I'm not, trust me, but let's just SAY I'm wrong). Let's say I'm forming all kinds of terrible habits with Katie that I will have to fix one day. You tell me: would you rather work on things like sleeping independently and nap schedules and eating every three hours and not being held all the time when you're ALSO torn and bruised and swollen in one location or another from pushing out a baby and riding the Postpartum Hormone Roller Coaster and your entire life has been flipped upside down by the addition of another human being? Or a few months later when you're physically healed and your hormones have stopped beating you up and you feel like maybe one day your life will feel normal again?

Exactly.

And I'm pointing this out for free on my blog. And you'll never get bedbugs from my blog.

That one was my fault.

I've come to accept in the last two months, that I just make high-maintenance babies. I don't make babies that sit in bouncie seats or sleep in cradles or nurse without striking or live without hours of screaming. It sucks, but what are ya gonna do? They grow into pretty awesome kids, so whatever.

Today, Katie would not. stop. screaming. I mean, she was a handful even by Katie standards. The kind of screaming where her head gets sweaty. Inconsolable. I was entirely fed up and frustrated.

While Gracie and I were eating dinner, Stephen was watching a show about chocolate on tv. He commented on the caffeine content in chocolate- it's actually pretty low.

But let's say, theoretically, that someone- we'll call her Piggy- ate an entire one pound bag of M&Ms yesterday. A bag intended for her toddler, but hello, that kid doesn't need any more cawkit, so I will eat it for her. THAT? would result in significant caffeine consumption. And if Piggy had a baby daughter, I bet she would be reeeally caffeine-sensitive.

Oops. My bad.

At least it's healthy?

My little Norma Rae continues her strike today- she did pretty well overnight, but was on and off today, mainly refusing lefty like it was spraying poison, but better than yesterday.

One of the things you're supposed to do with a striking baby is to avoid letting them get too pissed off. Get them nursing before they're screaming with rage, because once that happens, you've missed your chance. Sooo, when Katie started crying while I was making lunch today, I knew I had to drop everything and feed her. Gracie was not necessarily on board with this plan, as she stood at my side screaming, "Wahermelon!! WAHERMELONWAHERMELON!!!!" I sliced a piece off the wedge I was chopping, rinsed off the knife and put it away, handed it to her, and rushed off to feed Katie.

While Katie was grudgingly accepting FOOD I made WITH MY OWN BODY (no, no, don't mind me, dear. just put me in the first nursing home you find...), Gracie was munching away at her wahermelon. AND THEN SOME. Because after I left the room, she pushed a stool up to the counter, scooped up the seriously enormous chunk of watermelon I'd left on the counter, and chowed on it like a cartoon character.




You guys. She ate the whole thing. When she was done, the rind was entirely white. I really should've taken a picture of it, I was really very impressed.

She was pretty impressed with herself too (and in case you're wondering, she also ate a bean and cheese quesadilla and an entire container of strawberries for lunch. I'm thinking maybe she's growing...)

Deja Vu All Over Again

When Grace was two months old, she went on a hard-core nursing strike. (well. saying it was hard-core is rather unnecessary, since EVERYTHING Gracie has ever done has been hard-core, a pattern which continues to this day, but I digress.) We eventually recovered, but it took a LOT of blood, sweat and tears to do so. (Two out of the three of those cliched terms are entirely literal here, by the way.) I never could figure out the cause, there were so many possible choices. She was getting lots of pumped milk, because she screamed all the time and never slept, and I had to occasionally sleep. Since she happily took bottles during her strike, and part of getting her back on the breast involved using bottle nipples like nipple shields and tricking her, I thought maybe that played a role. I started the mini pill days before she went on strike, and I thought I noticed a drop in my supply, maybe that was why? Also, Gracie was just an intense, pissed-off mess, so maybe THAT was why. In the end, even my kick-ass lactation consultant could only guess what was going on and offer emotional support. There's not much to do with a striking baby besides offer the breast without forcing it and pump to maintain your supply (and, apparently, trick them with bottle nipples.)

*****

A few weeks ago, I was really not feeling breastfeeding. If you've breastfed before, you know this happens a lot. I say all the time, breastfeeding is the most counterevolutionary process on earth. That particular day, I was feeling exhausted and stressed about never being able to be away from Katie, about not having enough pumped milk ready for me to go back to work. I cannot lose weight when I am breastfeeding- with Grace, that meant I fluctuated somewhere around 5-8 pounds above my goal. This time, it means 15 pounds. That's a LOT. Enough to need new clothes. And on this particular day I'm referring to, I discovered that after a week of eating absolutely perfectly, hoping to at least drop five pounds before returning to work so I won't need new work clothes, I'd gained three pounds. I was DONE. Totally fed up. I met a friend for lunch and tried not to think about it. Noticed a pair of women at a table behind us talking about healthcare-related issues. Thought I overheard them refer to the lactation consultant's agency that I'd used with Grace. After lunch, I picked up Katie, nursed her, and popped her on my shoulder to burp her. The women commented on how cute she was, and told me they were lactation consultants. It opened the floodgates, so to speak. I tend to get really serious verbal diarrhea under the best of circumstances, but I was feeling so stressed and frustrated, I just felt the need to tell them all about how a lactation consultant was the reason I'd nursed my first child for a year, how my kids were so different, etc etc blah blah blah. About 2/3 of the way through this explosion, I felt utterly mortified and tried to back my way out gracefully. Like all good lactation consultants, they smiled warmly and let me ramble on. Women who look at other women's boobs for a living need to be maternal and non-judgemental. Anyway, I took it as a sign from the universe. I needed to stop being so vain about my stupid weight, stop stressing so much, and just enjoy nursing my baby.

*****

Last night, Katie slept in the cradle for two hours. When she woke up, I promised myself I would attempt to get her back in the cradle after I'd nursed her. I HAVE to break this habit. I HAVE to get her sleeping on her own.

I woke up an hour later with her jammed in the crook of my arm, with the most smug little smile on her face, and my boob hanging out in the breeze.

Best laid plans and all.

*****

I noticed today that Katie was very, very fussy nursing on the left. She's always been noisier on that side, just like her sister, and also like her sister, strongly prefers to nurse on the right. It was frustrating, but not shocking. I was out at the mall with a friend and her new baby, and by the end of our shopping trip, I noticed she was also fussing a little about nursing on the right. She was fussy overall, so I didn't think much of it.

When we got home, she refused the left side entirely. A few hours later, she was completely refusing to nurse and screaming with rage at the mere suggestion. I pumped while Grace was in the tub and Stephen gave her a bottle, which she chugged in minutes, grateful she didn't have to debase herself by, gross, nursing. GOD, Mom, WTF do you think I am, some kind of dirty HIPPIE?!??!

An hour and a half later, I was able to get her to nurse on the right, with a LOT of support and focus. She kept leaning her head back, but she did it.

*****

Of the many friends I have that live inside my computer, one has mentioned a relative in Chicago who is an IBCLC. Today, while checking out the website for my beloved IBCLC from Gracie's newborn days, I realized her relative works for the same agency as my lactation consultant. Suddenly, things started to come together. I was so sure I had heard the two women at the restaurant allude to the agency I'd used when Grace was born. There were only four IBCLCs with that agency. Neither of those women was my IBCLC, so it was likely that one of those women was my friend's relative.

Yep. It was.

I feel like that is a huge, flashing sign from the universe, that I put all of that together today. Hell if I know what the universe is telling me, though, since, as I learned with Grace, there's just not that much to do with a striking baby. But it's pretty amazing nonetheless.

*****

That story about falling asleep with Katie in the bed doesn't really tie into anything else here. I just thought it was funny.

Wait...

I was supposed to do tummy time with EACH kid?

....oops.

Gonna get right on that.

Tomorrow.

How is this possible?!

I blinked, and she went from this



to this




That'll teach me to blink.

And to breathe. When we got home this morning, I was seriously overwhelmed. Gracie was a tornado at breakfast with the bunny, tearing around and getting lost in the crowd, photo-bombing the other kids' easter bunny pics, trying to take all the eggs in the hunt, and I ran after her while wearing Katie on my chest. We got home with Gracie hopped up on sugar and Katie just DONE with being dragged around. I was still overheated from running around with a human strapped to my chest while carrying the diaper bag and trying not to lose my phone or my keys and for a second, I felt totally irritated with myself for even leaving the house, and just wished that the girls were old enough to visit the bunny and wait in line nicely and participate in arts and crafts and not run away from me the whole time. But for once, I stopped myself and remembered not to wish my life away. That the days are long but the years are short and one day, the absolute last thing either one of them will want to do is visit the Easter bunny with their stupid, badly-dressed mother.

It was a really, really good morning.