Blogger's dilemma

So I read a lot of blogs. Most of them are written by other women with kids, and mostly they're about their kids and motherhood and the shit you get as a mom/woman/blogger. They get probably hundreds if not thousands of hits a day, which is something I would like to have, someday, but along with those hits they get trolls. Nasty, brutish trolls who like to hide behind their anonymity and say truly horrible things. So. Do I want to share things that will outrage and inspire hateful comments or do I fly below the radar and only post innocuous things that family and friends will read?

It's a hard call. I guess I'll post whatever strikes me and see what happens.

SnotFest II, The Sequel

Yeah, so both kids are producing amazing quantities of unnervingly green snot, none of which is easily vacated. Sure, the bulb aspirator helps, but what it's mostly doing now is getting the leading edge of snot just to the entrance of their noses, then crapping out. It's like the stuff is attatched to a tendon or something. Argh!

NB: Broccoli + breasfed newborn = HELL. I made Husband go to the co-op and get a ($13) bottle of gripe water in my desperation. Lo and behold, either the timing was perfect or that shit works, 'cause AMP finally shut down around 7 or so and slept, get this, until 6:30 this morning. !! I had to wake him up a few times to nurse and to snorkle out his nose, but aside from that, he did some heaving lifting, sleepwise. Good baby! Oh, look, Perp just sneezed a giant gobber of snot onto her sleeve. Perhaps giving her yogurt every morning is a bad idea right now...

SnotFest 2006

has struck our 'umble abode. I had it. P has it. A may or may not be getting it. Either way, he's a snotty little thing who must have his snout snorkeled out with the aspirator several times a day. Note: if you need to do this with a child, plug up one side while you suction the other side; you won't believe how much more crap you get out that way.

The things you learn.

Can we keep it?

Picture 287
Originally uploaded by SmackyTime.

So, she still likes him. Over/under on when that ends?

This is probably a Bad Idea

Every book, magazine, baby show, talk show, and friend I've encountered (oh, and let's not forget every person in line behind and in front of me at the store, who also felt it necessary to regale me with their sister-in-law's friend's cousin's wife's birth story "Forty-seven hours of labor and she split in half!" Thanks.) made me think the first few weeks with a newborn was about equal to signing up for a lovely hiking holiday in Bataan.

Not so, I say.

Okay, maybe I have extraordinarily easy kids. Or maybe (and far more likely) I'm fucking them up beyond belief with my parenting style, but I am not one of those sleep-deprived zombies you see wandering around the mall moaning "Caffeine... coffee... dying...". The house is not any more wrecked than usual, and with a toddler and a newborn in residence, I consider that Quite The Achievement. I get laundry done. I can take a shower (okay, this I do before bed so Husband can wrangle AMP). I even brush my teeth. Most days.

So what is this line we're forever being fed? Is it to ease the pain of perhaps not getting enough sleep, being able to scrub the kitchen floor (as if!), or being able to keep up with the copious laundry? Is it a preemptive strike?

I have a friend with a baby exactly two weeks younger than AMP. I'm so going to pick her brain. If she ever fucking calls me back.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that I have like no recovery time from labor. I mean, I feel fanTASTIC afterwards, and I have to pace myself or I would end up doing something awful to myself, physically, because of course I DO need recovery time. So let's rephrase that and say that I'm insane and would pop up out of bed and rearrange the furniture if I didn't have orders not to do so. Because that would be bad. So right off the bat I think I have a leg up on a lot of women. Then I have the World's Best Mother-In-Law. Seriously. There is no way I'd still be even relatively sane at this point if she hadn't taken the Perp just about every day for the last two weeks (hell, call it four) of my pregnancy.

I dunno. If anyone does, please let me know.

Perpiversary

246
Originally uploaded by SmackyTime.

HBD, PRP!

Today is Perp's second birthday. How the hell did that happen? Last thing I remember, she was this teeny little lump attatched to my teat 24/7. Now she's this teeny little toddler attached to my teat a bit less but not by much.

I've been seeing a lot of posts at CM about whether or not the poster's child is delayed or not, and inevitably the responses are along the lines of, "Every child is different and you should trust your instincts about it. If you think you need intervention, then you probably do."

I never thought Perp needed intervention, but I was a little surpised by her language lagging as it was. Then again, she's got mad manual dexterity skillz, so I kind of figured that she was concentrating her efforts on that instead of language.

Then came The Explosion. Seriously, she's adding like a word or two a day. Sure, only I understand them ("Bunnng!" means balloon, for cute example). I noticed, as well, that she's a total klutz now and falls down many, many times a day, so I guess the physical advances are on the wane.

Along with Perp's birthday, today is AMP's 18th day On The Outside. He seems to be okay with it, for the most part. I've got him snugged up in my no-sew wrap and he's sleeping like he went out last night and tied one on. I can't get over how much he sleeps, compared to his big sister. She was the mistress of the 20-minute nap. This one, he's either asleep or eating, basically. Okay, so he wakes up and makes his constipated old man/baby goat noises at 4:30 a.m. Every. Fucking. Day. but if that's the worst he has to offer, I can only say: Bring It.

Oh, it's broughten.

Power to the boobies!

As of today, AMP has gained 13 ounces. He is only expected to have returned to his birth weight (9 lb 2 oz). Instead, he weighs 9 lb 15 oz. Rock star!

I think even Perp has put on a bit more weight than she would have otherwise.

Hey! I leak food!

The weight

Today, at two weeks old, AMP has surpassed his birth weight. By 10 ounces! He's a mad man. I'm totally stealing from HomeFireBlue and dubbing him the Incredible Bulk.

Welcome to the world, baby boy

Thursday, March 2: My mw, Monica, came over for a prenatal/pep session to try and get the baby repositioned and keep me from pulling my hair out. Perp was a week late, and I was well past that milestone by now, so I was more than a little depressed/pissed at still being pregnant. From now on, I'm using the outside EDD and ignoring the 40-week one.

I did inversions, squatted, Monica jiggled my belly with a rebozo, I had chamomille tea, and she took me on a forced march through the knee-deep snow in our field. Twice. She also did a VE and said I was around 3-4 cm, about where I'd been for the last two weeks or so. She did a membrane sweep and it was so different from the ones my OB did. Didn't hurt one little bit!

That night I woke up with some af-like cramps, but they went away as soon as I got up (as always). So, back to bed.

Friday morning, MIL called and said, "Hey, there's a sale at Younkers, let's go and we'll run Perp around the mall." This is a nearly-closed mall in town, where you could fire a cannon on most days and not hit a living soul, so it's perfect in the winter for exercising toddlers. Plus, there's a saddle shop with a huge plastic horse and if THAT isn't exciting, I don't know what is.

We trudged around two circuits and I decided to try and pee, since, hey, I had to go ALL THE TIME. I went into the bathroom and sat and waited and strained and waited and didn't have any luck, so I suited back up and went to find MIL and Perp. We got to the car and my phone rang. It was Monica, calling to have me come in and have an adjustment to see if that might not help move Smacky into position. MIL and I decided to go into town and have lunch before hand so that we could leave Monica's and just pop Perp into her crib for her nap.

We got to the restaurant and sat down and I decided to have another go at the toilet. I was sitting there, miserable, squeezing out a drop at a time (didn't matter what position I tried, even the stand-n-sit, which had served me so well before, didn't work). Then this bitch came in and sat in the stall next to me and whizzed away like a freaking racehorse and it was all I could do not to bust down her door and rip her hair out.

Back go the clothes. I waddled back to my chair and we watched Perp play with straws and sugar packets until our food came. I think I got about half way through it before I realized that *these* were real ctx and I was not going to be having that adjustment, after all.

We went to Monica's office and I told her we needed to go, and she did a quick check (5 cm!), and we boogied on out and back to my place. Kinda funny that I was two minutes from the hospital when I finally did go into labor. I called Husband and told him to go hook up the hose 'cause we were in business and he hopped into his car, but MIL and I passed him up on the way out of town. I think we beat him home by about two minutes.

Monica and Deb, the assistant, were right behind Husband, and we all piled into our room to fill the tub and find me a good position to labor in. I mostly did the same as with Perp, leaning on the bed with my belly hanging off, feet on the floor. The ctx were really weird, I don't think many of them were much longer than a minute or *maybe* a minute and a half, and I never got out of my head. I'd be telling a story, have a ctx and have to concentrate/breathe, then go right back into the story, so I figured I was going to be at this a while.

I started to have some back labor, I suppose while AMP's head was rotating, maybe, and I sat on the ball and had Deb do some furious counterpressure, which felt AWESOME. If I only felt the ctx in the front, they really weren't that bad. But with back labor, I can totally understand how women are calling ahead to have the epidural waiting when they arrive at L&D.

So poor Husband is kind of pacing around, not sure what to do, and Monica sent him down to boil water on the stove. He actually needed to, since we used all the hot water in the heater, but it was also a nice job for him to have. With the drained water heater and enough cold to make it temperate, the tub was only about 6" full, so I couldn't get in until the stove water was added and then more cold. But as soon as there was enough in there, I just about dove in. HOLY. COW. I can't believe the difference. Unbelieveable. So I think I got in about 3:00, and around 3:30, my water broke. What a weird sensation! I mean, it's not part of you, it has no nerves, and yet there's no mistaking it when it happens. Moderate meconium in the fluid but at 10 days past EDD, I guess that's no surprise.

Monica warned me that ctx tend to get pretty intense after the water breaks (oh, how I remember that with Perp), but these really didn't, at least they didn't get more painful. I had a couple more ctx and thought that maybe, maybe I felt a bit pushy, but I wasn't sure, and Monica said, "Well, if you feel like pushing, push." So I waited and then it was like I was on this locomotive hauling ass down a huge hill and there was NO WAY I wasn't going to push, no matter how hard I might want to hold back. So this is what all those TV women are trying to get across! Aha!

Pushing this time was so different. I could feel him move down, probably because he was rocketing out. It was so intense, so overpowering, all I could do was hang on and shove when my body told me to. When he started to crown, I yelled, "This kid's got a big head!" and then another push and the head was out. Bliss. Those little turkey necks are a real blessing right at that moment.

Monica had me scootch back and sort of squat (I'd been on my hands and knees until then) and I was terrified I'd sit on his head and mash him back in or hurt him, but I managed it enough, and we waited for the next ctx, which seemed like forever. Then, one push and he just slid right out.

He had a nuchal cord and was the color of a blueberry, but as soon as we unwrapped the cord and suctioned his nose, he coughed and pinked right up.

I never had the chance to use those damn antibiotics I fought so hard to get, though with the speed of it all, the research basically says don't worry, and I never could have had the second dose in the first place. Hell, getting the first one probably would have led to him being born in the waiting room. We charted his temps for 24 hours and they were all fine, and he's certainly perky, so unless the ped wants to do a WBC, I think we're out of the woods. Not having an IV was certainly a nice experience, I have to say. And I didn't puke!

I did lose more blood than average (my hgb was below 7!), but I felt fabulous afterwards and I can pee, pee, pee anytime I want to. I'm like a freaking fountain. There are no words for how great that is. I did the math and I have peed off around 2.5 gallons (GALLONS!) of water.

I had two tears, but not enough to require sutures if I wanted to refuse them, so I did. I just have to remember not to drink anything acidic... yipe!

God, I'm going to be such the homebirth pimp from now on, I'm probably going to lose some friends over it. But one actually wanted Monica's number! Wonder if I get a prize for referrals...?

A. M. P., 3/3/06, 9 lb 2 oz, 21.5"

Ew, is all

My almost-2-year-old daughter just handed me a gift, which she made herself. In her nose.

She just handed me a BOOGER! A booger! What is the proper response to such an offering? Does presentation of all bodily fluids, solidified or not, require polite acceptance and joyful frolic? May one refuse and reach for a kleenex? So much to learn.

My friend K-Dog just called and announced that her c-section, which was originally scheduled for the 24th, has been moved up to today. Today! She's having a baby today! It's not fair that anyone should know the date (down to the hour, even) that one's baby is arriving. And I'm not saying this because I'm bitter. Really.

Out, damn'd tot! Out, I say!

When you want to have a homebirth, but you also want someone to Do Something to Get Things Rolling, is that wrong? I actually bought a bottle of castor oil and hoped that mere proximity would kickstart labor. She's a no-go. I spend an inordinate amount of time on the PT ball, rocking, rolling, bouncing, hoping...

It's been hard for the Perp (see: above), I think. I've slowed down dramatically, I can't bend over, and playing on the floor with her is an exercise akin to landing a (smallish) whale. I'm so lucky that she is good at playing by herself. Plus, give her an apple and she'll pose all cute-like.

This is a Good Baby™

Holy cow, does she travel well. She slept in her sling the whole flight to Detroit, woke up and worked the room while we had our layover, then slept the way to Norfolk. She's had some near-meltdowns at the reunion, absolutely insisting that she be held constantly. But since no one had met her yet, it wasn't hard to convince la familia to do so.

She slept from 10 am to 3 yesterday, then from about 4 to 8 or so. We speculate it's a combination of a growth spurt and overload. I wonder what Vegas will bring.

She doesn't do her Joe Cocker imitation anymore. I used to prop her up on a pillow in the morning and watch her flail spasmodically, now she's becoming more fluid. She still can't *quite* get the thumb-in-mouth routine down, but it's getting better. She also hasn't decided if it'll be thumb, pinky and ring finger, first finger and middle, or some other combination. Or left versus right. It's making me crazy.

Man, oh, man, though, do people get a kick out of her. She does this monologue when she's really on, a whole routine that she's worked out, with this great timing. You can tell she's put a lot of thought into it, worked on it until it was just right, like Carson. I keep meaning to get one on tape. We were driving back from my grandmother's the other night and the whole trip, about 15 minutes, she went on and on about her day, told us all the things she'd seen and done, and you could tell she'd really had a great time. She's really big on "agoooooo" with lots of spit.

Welcome to the rest of your life

Today was my last day of work. From now on, until I either can't stand it or need the money, I am a SAHM. I am freaking out.

I don't know how to do this. I mean, the general mothering, the feeding, changing, shushing, etc., that I know how to do. But I don't know anyone with kids Perp's age, I don't know our neighbors, and I don't think they have any interest in us. I signed up with Meetup.com but have yet to have a meeting actually happen. I don't know how to remain sane with no one to commiserate with me.

I went to the Family Resource Center's drop-in last week and met some mamas there, but they all have older kids, toddlers and up. I went to the Mother's Milk meeting at the hospital and was the only one to show up. That was ok, the lactation consultants fondled Perp and we had a great time with them, but it's not chilling with other mamas, you know? I'm going to the Mama Gathering in Mpls next month with a friend, and I hope to meet some local mamas, but it sounds like a big group, so odds may not be in my favor.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I also don't know how to deal with the money issues. Husband totally supports my staying home with P. He grew up with a SAHM, so he has warm fuzzies about it, and that's great, but despite how much I wanted to do this, I still have this dark little corner in my mind that whispers, "You're totally dependent on someone now. You won't have your own money and this isn't a fair exchange. You get to be at home and sleep in (ed: HA!)and he has to work and what you're doing isn't as valuable as bringing home a paycheck." I *know* that's not true. This culture, though, I think--know--it sends a double message. On the one hand, you're seen as a better mother if you stay home, OTOH, your worth is tied up in how much you produce, how much you make, you know? And what I produce these days is milk. Of course, another view is that you're a better mother if you work and have professionals take care of your kids, because they know how to do this.

What's a girl to do?

Beware the boobage

I was at the grocery store today, and had Perp in her plastic tub in the shopping cart (whoever designed those pop-put carseat/base systems deserves a Nobel prize). She got fussy and seemed hungry, so I took her out and proceeded to nurse her, as I always do, whenever and wherever necessary. The woman ahead of me in line had been chatting away quite pleasantly, but as soon as she realized what I was about to do, she turned away and concentrated on reading the ingredient list of all her items. What is it about breastfeeding that freaks so many people out?

No one blinks when a mother whips out a bottle to quiet a crying child, so why, when I can do it discreetly AND it shuts Perp up quite nicely, is it so horrifying for me to feed her? Note: I've had several people come up to admire her, only to realize after they tried to pry her head off my breast, that she was eating, so it's not like I show 'em off to the world. Those days are over, sorry. You should've known me when I was 22.