I am an avid “status” updater… but do you ever wish you could post updates that you really wouldn’t?  Like:

Grass just had her IUD inserted… OUCH!

Grass is feeling guilty for ignoring her toddler

Grass is mildly hurt that she wasn’t invited to the playdate featured in all those photos you just posted

Grass is perusing through Facebook pictures of her high school crush, and DAMN!  He still looks good

Grass is wondering if she looks old

Grass is relieved her baby is much cuter than that biznatchio’s from university… why did she even friend me?

Grass is picking off her baby’s cradle cap

Grass’s kid just figured out how to retract his foreskin!  Keeps him entertained for AGES!

Grass is off to get her mustache threaded.

I had a horrible parenting moment today.  I almost don’t want to write about it because I’m so embarrassed for myself.  I don’t want you to think I’m a screamer, I’m not.  But I told my kid to shut up today.

I’m away right now, visiting my brother up the coast.  And I’m on my own with the kids.  I mean, the brothers help, but they have no kids of their own, so they’re that familiar with a two-year old’s capabilities.  Today when he was playing with the speakers and I was busy with WO, and they just kept telling him 99 times not to do it.  But he was deathly bored as they were busy doing other things, and I was nursing and at no time did anyone try to engage him elsewhere.   So of course he continued playing with them because, quite frankly, there was nothing else to do.  But it’s hard – I don’t do well without my co-parent.

It’s funny – I can hold it together during tantrums, of which we have A LOT.  The other day he had an screaming, throwing himself to the ground, grabbing items off store shelves freak-out tantrum, and I was able to remain calm throughout.  I was even pleasant.  Maybe it’s because I so vividly remember how frustrating and insane they feel.

The sleep issue is one we continue to struggle with… it’s where I always lose my cool.  It just drives me bananas when he won’t sleep because I keep thinking how if he doesn’t nap, then he’ll be a tantrumming mess all evening, and dinner will be a battle, and he won’t sleep well at night, and plus an hour of life is being wasted getting him off to sleep.  It’s a vortex.

He was SO tired from early in the  morning.  And yet he REFUSED to nap, just lying there playing with his car, talking, rolling over, fussing, asking a million questions, calling me.   For an hour.  I should have called it quits and thrown him in the stroller, but instead I lost it and told him to shut up.

Ugh.

And then I ended up nursing him to sleep out of guilt.  At least it worked.

I was just reading a book at my midwife’s about how young children sometimes remember their birth experience and can identify certain details with surprising accuracy, such as being handed to mother, who was in the room, what their motivation was for coming out, even where they have never discussed their own birth or seen photos.  So I decided to ask LM a few question about his birth.  As a preface, LM had a home water birth.  His birth was fastish and smooth and his cord was wrapped around his neck.  I wondered if any of these would be revealed in his recollection.

Me: Do you remember when you came out my tummy?

LM: Mmmm.

Me: What happened when you came out?

LM: I was borned.

Me: Was it warm or cold in my tummy?

LM: It was cold.  And then I came out.

Me: Do you remember who was in the room when you came out?

LM: Mmmm.

Me: Did a man or a lady help you out?

LM: A man.  Nooooo, you silly.  A lady.  It was Liz [our midwife].  Liz helped me out.

Me: And did she give you right to mummy, or to someone else?

LM: She give me to mama.

Me: And then what happened?

LM: I went to Grandma’s house.  And I went to gymnastics with Grandma.

Well… okay then.  Maybe Wee One will have a clearer recollection.

Yesterday, I watched my little guy get rejected.

We were at a party at a close friend’s.  It was a kid-focussed one – lots of children from the neighbourhood and then us.  Almost all the kids were the same age, hovering around their third birthdays, and most of the others knew each other well, so it wasn’t that surprising to me that LM wasn’t really playing with them much – he was mostly hanging out with one of us.

We left early, because the wee one was fussing and I was feeling guilty that I’d had her out all day.  We’d been outside, and on our way out the door, we walked past the kids playing ring around the rosie.  Little Man LOVES to sing and dance, and seeing them, he threw himself down on the floor with all of them just as they cried “husha!”  Then they all got up again to form the “ring” and he held out his little hands and the kids on either side pulled their own arms back, refusing to hold hands with him.  “It’s okay!” said one of the mothers, and she nodded and pushed and finally lifted up the kid’s arm to make her hold hands with him.  He went on, oblivious, and tumbled on the floor again in a happy heap.

I looked at D, who had missed the scene and said “We’ve got to go, NOW.”  I was wearing sunglasses and I could already feel the tears spilling down my face.  It wasn’t just that moment – although it did provoke me to think “Who-the-$%&*-do-these-little-twerps-think-they-are?”  It was just that the scene made me realise that every time LM was in the pool, the other kids were out, or when he was inside dancing alone to the music, the other kids were outside running around.  When they were all in a group eating snacks, he was at the opposite end of the yard lying on a lawn chair with his dad.

D asked what was wrong and I tried to explain to him in French as I didn’t want LM to understand or be aware of it.  From the back LM giggled and said “Mummy, are you speaking ENGLISH???”

I’m not sure why it provoked the reaction it did, especially since LM didn’t seem to care much anyway.  It wasn’t even the first time I’ve seen him be rejected.  At the park he often approaches kids who spurn him.  But they’re usually older and that seems to me part of the usual pattern – younger ones are interested in older ones and not the other way around.  This was a group his own age.

I know part of it was me projecting.  I was always a relatively well-liked kid.  Not popular, but able to straddle the line and likely to get along with most.  But I’ve always felt rejection very keenly.  Even a week or two ago, I called D in tears because a close friend hurt me.

I know it will happen again to both my little ones.  And I mustn’t burst into tears next time.  Really, I’m not sure what I’ll do.  I know what my mother did one night when I was 11 or 12 and hurting over some sort of slight.  She said, “I never wanted to tell you this, but you’re better than them.”  I’m not sure if it’s what you’re supposed to say in those situations, but it helped a lot more than the “kids can be cruel” kind of lines she usually tried.

Light posting only because of the incredible pestilence that hit our house in the past 2 weeks.  Newborn sick.  Then better.  Then toddler sick.  I think every surface of this home has been hit by vomit.  Little Man even vomited ON the baby once.  She didn’t like that too much, but she did enjoy the bath afterwards – probably the first she’d had in about a week since I have been so busy either feeling vaguely unwell myself, or dealing with the miserable mess of a sick toddler.

The Wee One and I struck out on our own yesterday, leaving the sick toddler with Grandma.  We went to a mom and baby group.  I enjoyed those with LM, and it’s always nice to recognise the mothers in the neighbourhood with babies around the same age as your own.  Going the second time was somehow different.  For one thing, all those mothers who sit down and just talk to their babies for about seven minutes without acknowledging you?  I no longer had the thought “Gosh, can’t believe she knows THAT many nursery rhymes!  Must catch up!”  Instead I thought, “Um, well, this is kind of awkward. Helloooooo!”  And the five month old who was crawling (there’s always one!).  I wasn’t staring at her wondering if I was giving my own baby enough tummy time.  Instead, I was observing the other mothers who were all staring at her wondering that about their own babies.  There was a mother of a five-month old next to me who was definitely not crawling, and honestly, the mother had the most overtly jealous look on her face that I’ve ever seen.  There were daggers in her eyes.  I felt like whispering “Trust me, a crawling five-month old is nothing to envy.”  Or else “Well I’m sure your son excels at fine motor skills” (which is what I always told myself!).

I really don’t think most mothers are intentionally competitive, but there is something about that firstborn newborn stage and these mothers groups that bring it out.  There must be some sort of biological element to it, I’m convinced.

It is SO much more relaxing this time, sitting back and staring at my baby who still has a total jelly neck and thinking, you know, having a kid who crawls at five months?  Not something I’m itching for.  Not walking until 18 months?  NOT SUCH A BAD THING!

And overall, the positives of the mommy group (namely, social interaction, a pleasant walk, leaving the house, collective learning) outweigh the negatives, so WO and I will be back. Oh yes we will!  And next time I’ll remember to bring my cute minky Etsy blanket and lie her on the floor so she can get some tummy time… or not.

The wee one (WO) and I had an eventful night.  For the first time in a few weeks she slept all evening, leaving D and I free to watch TV in peace without one of us bouncing on the ball.  But when she squawked at 11, I unswaddled her to find her hot and sweaty, with little beads of sweat on her lip.  I have a built-in fever detector and on taking her temperature, she was above normal.  I called the midwife who suggested we undress her and see if her temperature went down over half an hour, which we did.  Unfortunately it did not go down, so WO and I headed to the Children’s ER, which is thankfully just 10 minutes away.

The triage nurse asked if I’d noticed her rapid breathing – I hadn’t but it was fast.  Soon she was hooked up to all sorts of nodes and dials that beeped when her heart rate soared above 200 (as it occasionally did) or her breaths got too high (as they did too).  A very nice resident came in and asked me a bunch of questions.  He didn’t seem to think it was anything too worrisome, so I put my feet up, drank some apple juice provided by my lovely nurse, and watched Gilmore Girls on my own private TV.  (Who says public health care can’t be swish?)  Then the attending came in and he was far more gruff and dire, talked about her alarming vitals, and possible infection in her cerebral fluid.  He wanted to do a lumbar puncture, a urine test, take blood.  I burst into tears at that point.

While I am a huge proponent of our health care system, the bottom line is that ER doctors don’t have the time to spend discussing every pro and con of each procedure and getting to know the mindset of each patient’s parent.  So over the next hour, the WO was poked and prodded… they stuck a catheter in her urethra and tried to find veins.  Luckily her veins are not as hard to find as mine, but it still took two tries to get an IV and a third try to draw blood. When you’re at this newborn stage where you’re trying to anticipate every need and be so responsive, it feels awful to watch your newborn scream in pain and rage for 10 minutes while they try to find a vein.  At least the crying was a good sign.

Finally, there was the lumbar puncture.  I was very nervous about this part, and told the nurse so, so the attending came back and said the risks were negligible.  He said it was just like an epidural, had I had one?  Clearly he didn’t know that I am someone who is more scared of a needle than of a baby coming out of my body.  I told the doctor I wanted someone who had done it many, many times before.  He told me the resident had done it many times before, and that he himself  had done it many, many, many times, and he would be supervising.  Um, no.  In my most polite, typically Canadian way, I told him that while I knew it was a teaching hospital, she was too young and I was too nervous for someone to be learning on her.  I think I had just enough grit between the stammers that he agreed.  I do believe in teaching, and have let myself be stitched up by med students, or prodded by first year residents.  But I also know my friend who is a psych resident and my friend who is a GP regularly do peds shifts.  I don’t need some wannabe radiologist (even though he was lovely) experimenting on her spine.  After the resident left, the nurse nodded and said “Good for you.”  The puncture was less traumatic than I thought and over pretty fast. The prep and the lidocaine shot seemed to be the worst part, at least for me.

Once the testing was done antibiotics were started and her fever broke almost immediately, her breathing went back to normal and her heart slowed back down too.  She still had the x-ray to do and was so tuckered out she fell asleep in the restraints they put on her.

We were then back in our little isolation area watching crap TV and sipping juice in a more comfortable chair that the nurses had brought… machines kept beeping and over the next hour people kept coming in to adjust things.

My gut told me the testing would be negative and thank god I was right.  Preliminary diagnosis: virus.  But until we get final results of the cultures, she’ll keep going back for more antibiotics.  While I hate the thought of poking her unnecessarily, at least now we are snuggled up secure in bed knowing that she’s almost certainly just fine and that on the very off-chance she is not, that there’s a hospital right nearby that can help.

Experiences like these remind me of how very lucky I am to live in a place where I don’t have to wonder if I can afford to bring my child to an ER.  I don’t have to walk 8 miles to a clinic, and I don’t even have to wonder how I’ll cover the cost of a co-pay.   I will remind myself of that when I have to drive over there at midnight for another dose.

Still getting the hang of this WordPress thing.  Feeling mildly guilty that I haven’t updated, but that’s only because I have little to write.  No, that’s not true, but it’s mundane stuff.  Our latest addition continues to be a very mellow thing.  She enjoys diaper changes, sitting upright, lying in her crib, being put in her carseat, riding in a moving vehicle, being bounced rapidly and getting kissed on the tummy.  She despises evening, from approximately 8:30-10.  But not as much as Little Man used to despise it.  She can be appeased.  She still sleeps most of the day, particularly in the morning which is very lovely.  Sadly LM still wakes at 6, which puts a slight damper on it, but on his daycare days I can go back to bed because even when she wakes for about an hour, she is then is back down for two.  The last few days she has been awake a good chunk of the afternoon and will just catnap through that period.

Little Man still adores her.  He is too rough at times, but he loves kissing her, and saying “Woojie, woojie woo!” right in her face.  Apparently some character does that on Dinosaur Train, his favourite show.  He tells me he misses her and the other day said he would marry her when he got bigger.  Would be a great savings on wedding expenses, although it makes me worry about the grandchildren a wee bit.

In other LM news, he is learning letters at a rapid pace and wanders around the neighbourhood looking for “A”s and “Ps”.  He’s quite good at telling us what words start with those letters too – O for Octopus, S for Snake.  This habit all started from Sesame Street, which I now put on regularly during dinner preparation.  Naturally, I think he is quite spectacular, but maybe if I’d started TV sooner I’d have had a real prodigy on my hands.  I know there are kid who have done it younger, but I love that the learning letters is entirely on his own initiative (well, his and Elmo’s).  We have never pushed him or quizzed him or played Hooked on Phonics into the womb.  Who said TV never taught a kid anything?

I joined a boot camp – I know, very ambitious for 5 weeks post-partum.  But it’s not a very intense boot camp, more like a sort of mellow workout with a bunch of other mothers.  Plus we do it outside about a two-minute walk away from my house, which is highly appealing.  I pee myself constantly throughout which is not a good thing.  I must say peeing when jumping  has been my only real lasting “issue” arising out of birth. (Aside: the other day at the park, I heard a five-year old say to another “Um, I need to talk to you about some issues we’re having.”  Ha!)  Well, there is also (obviously) the tummy, but that’s sort of inevitable.  And I’m not that vain, so I still feel like bikinis could be in my future sometime.  Not this summer perhaps, but sometime.  Anyway, back to the main thing, if the peeing doesn’t improve I am going to the “continence clinic” at the local women’s hospital to see if they can help improve things.  I know most people think the occasional “leak” is inevitable after childbirth, but I am determined to skip rope without a maxi pad at some point in my future.  I am optimistic that way.  Although I hate skipping rope, but it’s the principle of the thing.

I’ll leave my musings on “two-ness” for the future, and leave you instead with some photos of my beautiful children.  You get two of Little Man, one pre and one post-haircut.  Only one of the newest because I need to download some from my camera.  Isn’t it a strange coincidence how I had the two most beautiful babies of all time?  (Present company excepted, of course).

It’s amazing how quickly the days slip by – she’s closing in a month already!  Wow.  Someone told me that it races faster the second time and she couldn’t have been more right.  The little scrawny newborn arms are buried under plump, so it looks like she’s got little elastics around her wrists.  The weeks fly past.  I’m not sure if times moves faster when LM is with me or not – on the days he’s here we careen out the door in the morning, Little Miss sleeps in her carrier (note to self: must think of less-gender-stereotypical pseudonym) and then we all come home and collapse into naps.  On the days he’s not here (daycare) Little Miss and I nap, take a bath, lie on the sofa and before we know it the day has come and gone.  Not yet done: making dinner, planting recently purchased-shrubs, deciding on a middle name.

She sleeps so much more than LM ever did.  They say newborns can sleep 18 hours a day, but I think it is closer to 21 for Little Miss.  Of course this worries me.  When I walked out of the pediatrician’s office the last time he told me to forget I ever had the ultrasound results… because she is a “normal” kid.  But I am a natural worrier to begin with, and I think I’m still recovering from all the pent-up worry on the pregnancy.  The birthmark on her face – could it be a sign of some rare neurological disorder I learned about on Dr. Google?  The sleeping too much – is she coming down with thing?  The ridge on her head – is it some sort of cranial malformation?  The pregnancy worries, though obviously slightly more serious than my silly diagnoses, were totally abstract.  But now she’s a reality, and I’ve fallen head over heels in love with her.  No other baby will do – I want this one, and it hurts to think of anything being wrong with her.

The other thing that I wonder about is whether this will be our last time having a child.  Will this be the last little baby of mine that I cradle?  The last maternity leave?  Will there be another boy to wear Little Man’s dinosaur rompers, or another little girl for the yellow flowered booties?  I don’t think we’ll make this decision for some time, but part of me just wishes it was made.  I’d like to know if this is the last newborn neck I’ll nuzzle.  But maybe it would hurt too much if I knew right now, or maybe I wouldn’t savour it enough.

Anyway, she’s lying now in her fencer’s pose snoozing, and I must go to give her a kiss.

So far the transition from one to two has been a lot easier than the transition from zero to one.  Part of me is wondering why this seemed so hard the first time, but I do remember a little.  The mindshift to motherhood is pretty overwhelming.  But I’m already there now – I already tote the diaper bag, wipe away the boogers, and, well, am responsible for another human being.  Compared to the initial shock of a first baby, this little sleeping, pooping munchkin is a breeze.

That said, at two weeks LM erupted with what I now realise was a raging case of colic so I suppose we could still be in for it.  Today at the drug store this little one let loose a loud scream that was vaguely reminiscent of those times – the kind of scream that even stresses other people out.  “I’ll get you out as fast as I can!” said the cashier as she threw my package of light-day maxi pads into a plastic bag.

But overall, this little one has been a very laidback baby who will happily lie in her pack and play while we eat dinner, who loves sleeping on our chest and who just starts smacking her lips when she’s hungry instead of yelling.  She has a sweet little heart-shaped face and sweet skinny baby legs.  She’s eating tons and is already 10 ounces above her birth weight.

Little Man is adjusting well, at least as well as I expect most siblings do.  He adores her and wants to cuddle and kiss her all over.  He is a little rough with her at times.  He’ll run and get his stool to peer into the pack and play and then try to yank her closer by her little skinny arm.  He’s a little jealous at times, but when D is home I try to put as much attention as I can on LM.  He is coping well with sharing breastmilk – he’ll even tell me “Mummy!  The baby’s crying!  She wants milk!!!”

Overall, I think we’re settling into the new normal.

I’m just back from the pediatrician, who confirmed that all looked well with our little M, so it seems like a good time to update with the “story”:

I went into work on Wednesday, although I was desperately counting down the days I could go.  A partner came into my office and said I looked really tired, and suggested that maybe I go home.  I had a few things to do but she said she’d talk to the people who assigned them.  Literally, ten minutes after she left my office I was gone out the door without even a goodbye, so grateful to be gone.  I had been burning the candle at both ends and was so looking forward to just resting in my own sweet little house.

I got two good days of rest before labour began.  It didn’t start with a bang this time.  With LM, I KNEW after the first contraction that it was labour.  This time I had so much false labour it was hard to tell.  The cramps started to feel lower down and more menstrual, but I wasn’t sure.  A week of false labour also inspires some doubts.  I finally started thinking it might be the real thing and called D and my mother (who was on LM duty) to let them know.  Apparently my mother still didn’t get it entirely because after about 3 conversations with her updating her on my status, she texted me to ask if I thought she could go to her music class that night.  Umm. NO!

I had a midwife appointment already, and wanted to keep it since it was with the midwife who’d deliverd LM and I was hoping to see her and possibly have her at the birth.  We went in, I told her I was in labour.  She offered an exam, and confirmed I was 4 cm with “bulging waters”.  She also told me  I was GBS positive again despite much effort to get negative.  I was already feeling a little apprehensive about the potential health of the baby given our ultrasound results, so I decided to treat pre-emptively rather than just for risk factors.  We went to the hospital where I had an IV of penicillin, although it took them about 45 minutes to get an IV into my uncooperative veins.  Labouring and being poked behind an exam curtain, even by three very kind people, is no fun.  I was also worried I’d get too far gone to leave, so I was trying to keep myself calm and slow things down.  Finally they got it in, and I was able to go home (with six band-aids up and down my arms from all the failed IV attempts) and D driving at lightning speed.

At home there was already lots of activity, as my mother, brother and LM were all home.  I could tell my mother was not going to handle the labour calmly – she seemed very anxious and was fretting, so I encouraged her to go downstairs with LM and watch a movie, which she did.

After that, labour moved quickly.  I laboured in the living room, then got in the bath awhile.  I had originally planned to give birth in the water, but I was starting to flag and really wanted to just lie down in the fetal position.  I was getting to that weak ‘I can’t do it anymore’ stage, but I was trying to be more positive, so I was saying things like “I just want it OUT!!!” Around this time my mother came in to tell me LM was falling asleep, and I said “okay, but can you just make sure he has a pee first?”  Everyone had a laugh at that – a mother’s mind is never empty.

During another pause in contractions the midwives asked me if I wanted my water broken.  If was a very low-pressure choice – you can keep going, or we can break it.  If we break it the baby will be here in 5 or ten minutes as you are pretty much fully dilated.  I thought about it for about 10 seconds – I must admit, I was a bit worried about the mess on my bed (mattresses are expensive!) but they assured me there wouldn’t be a mess (which was true!).  There was no urgency to decide, but I was eager to get things moving along, so during the next contraction (or in between? I can’t recall) she used a ‘hook’ and broke my water.  Then I had one really intense painful contraction before I needed to push. The pushing hurt, but it was such a relief after the contractions and I felt far more in control.  It took three or four pushes to get her head out.  At that stage I wanted to pause, and there seemed to be a lot of activity at the foot of the bed.  I found out later, Miss M’s cord was wrapped quite tightly around her neck.  That was quickly sorted out and a few more pushes and she was born.

She was placed on my chest and I could see she was perfect.  All the stress of the pregnancy melted away in an instant.

And without further ado, my beautiful girl:

Healthy and fiesty!

Snoozing under LM’s watchful eye: