Indigo Girl

Development Rant

I love that C is developing normally, pretty much smack dab in the middle of average.  It is so nice to have a child like that, instead of being barely within normal range like E and L.  Rather than compulsively checking baby books and development websites and trying to convince myself that everything is okay, I am just letting her do her thing.  It is much less stressful and I AM thankful.

HOWEVER.  Remember how I said I "loved" the "mobile with intent" stage?  I LIED.  Out of ignorance.  (I can't be expected to remember anything from E and L's first year.  Everyone with multiples knows that.  I'm calling it ignorance, not forgetfulness.)

I think there should be some rule that if a kid can stand, that kid must also know how to re-seat herself.  You can't have one without the other.  I am tired of finding her standing in her crib, looking completely exhausted, with a "WTF am I doing?" expression on her face.  It's like she cannot control her body; it needs to stand up.  When I nurse her, she twists and turns until she is on her hands and knees.  Then she breaks the latch and looks confused.  I tip her over (like cow tipping!), pull her close, and she latches back on.  Within a minute, the same thing happens.  Each time she willingly latches back on and she nurses through the whole twisting process of getting to her hands and knees, so I think she wants to nurse.  She just can't make her body sit still for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES.  I've tried different positions and it is worse, because she can't get to her hands and knees and becomes frantic.  I've tried holding her firmly, like swaddling a newborn, but, um, NO.  It is the most frustrating time of my day right now and that makes me sad because she is my last child and our nursing time is closer to the end than the beginning.

My current plan to to plow through this stage, keeping my head down and treating myself to a bowl of ice cream at night, or, in the case of last night, EIGHT popsicles.  Unless you have some insight.

So I find her, standing, holding on to various things around our house~gates, coffee table, couch, toy bins~screaming because she can't get down.  I help her sit down ("Plop!" I say as her booty comes down) and she IMMEDIATELY pulls up again.  ARGH.  If we are not at home, she is flexible enough to make do with whatever pulling up equipment is available.  That second picture is from E's eye appt yesterday.  She was willing to stand and teethe on my leg for quite some time.

THEN this morning, she said "Mamamamama!" for the first time.  DAMN HER.  She knows just when I need something like that.

Fast Forward

A and I were talking about how much we have going on this month: the girls only road trip, soccer twice a week, and then a week long vacation with my family in a beach house up north.  By the time we come back and I wade through all the laundry, it will be August.  We need to cram as much summer as possible into August because in September, C turns one (!!!) and E and L start preschool thrice a week.  From there it is a short hop, skip, and jump to kindergarten, full-day first grade/C in preschool, and then they will be in school and I'LL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN.  We are together so much~in good times and bad~that the idea of not seeing them for 8 hours a day causes my stomach to cramp.  I am torn between pride and relief at how they're growing up and all the cool things they can do and how independent they're becoming and sadness at my impending uselessness and how they'll become teenage girls and grow away from me (as they should), only to come back as adults if I can do this parenting thing right.

It is so hard~and this is my constant refrain~to stand still and appreciate NOW.  Right now my attention is so desired that it causes resentment in me and makes me jealously guard my own needs and free time.  Right now E will wander over and fold her tall form into my lap and stroke my arm and whisper that she loves me.  Right now L will pester me with constant "What would happen if . . ." questions that lead to giggles from both of us.  Right now C's favorite thing to pull up on is me and when I pick her up she nestles her head on my shoulder.  I am the center and the narcissistic part of me wants that to continue forever, despite how unhealthy it would be.

But I just want them to leave me alone for FIVE SECONDS (or however long it takes to sneak a cookie) and I just had to remind E and L to be QUIET during QUIET time and C still wakes up around 2 am every night and I just want her to not need me so much.  And I would guess that E only wipes her butt 20% of the time she pees and poops and L NEVER SHUTS UP and C makes this awful whining sound that causes my blood pressure to skyrocket.  I am thankful that my marriage is strong because these kids take everything out of me and between our work schedules and A's commute and all the day-to-day running of the family, we are still keeping track of one another.  I don't want to wake up one day and find my kids living their own lives and not know my husband.  But little kids are tough on a marriage and can I use the words "thankful" and "my husband" together more often?  Because I am so thankful for him.

So I reread this and it sounds like I'm struggling, but I am not.  I think I am juggling things well right now even though I bought those perennials SIX WEEKS AGO and still have not planted them and even though I loved my sister-in-law's rain barrel but haven't done any research to find my own and even though I am still looking at my maternity dresses in the closet and admitting my Ebay aspiration failings and even though I forget to give Roland his arthritis medication regularly and even though I never inflated the pool I bought on sale and even though I have to repack for another week away from home and even though I haven't shaved my legs in forever and . . .  where was I?  Oh yes.  Juggling things well.  I think so.

I Guess I'll Do A Tutorial

Enough people have emailed or commented and asked how I attached the personal info cards to my kids' car seats.  I started to copy/paste an email to everyone, but I'm a visual person, so pictures work better for me and I can tell you all at once, rather than one at a time.  Since I try to keep my last name off the Internet as well as the names and phone numbers of ALL MY RELATIVES, I made a dummy card as an example.

Notice how I've punched a hole in the corner and threaded an old, never-to-be-used headband through it.  A rubber band would work just as well.

Then I threaded the headband through itself and pulled it tight.  Next came the problem of where to attach it.  All car seats are different, so you'll have to do some investigating, but I'm willing to bet all car seats have some place to attach the card.  You want it to be fairly obvious, but not interfere with how the car seat works.  The brown seat below is a Britax Regent.

 

The card is still visible when the car seat cover is down, but it's not in the way.

 

C's car seat (Britax Marathon) is different and had a handy bar on the side.  I debated for a short time about which side emergency personnel would be more likely to come from, but that would depend on the accident scene and there's really no way to guess.

Many years ago when I took the Emergency Nurse Pediatric Course, we learned that as long as a kid appears stable, they should be brought to the hospital in their car seat.  I'm not sure if that is still accurate, but if it is, the card would be obviously available to staff.  Otherwise, I assume that police or other emergency responders will look for identifying information after we are transported, if necessary, and better late than never.

We all have our own little issues, don't we, and because of my background, emergency situations are mine.  I have friends who work with sex offenders and are much more aware/paranoid about child molesters than I am.  (It's obviously on my radar, but not quite at the forefront.)  If you have been part of a natural disaster, you might have a couple dozen gallons of water in your basement at all times.  We can't prepare for everything and I try not to buy into this culture of fear that seems so pervasive at times.

HOWEVER.  I will tell you a story (without any identifying details) that I will never forget.  I think I have told this before, but you are just going to have to sit there and listen again.  I took care of a handsome, young, college-age man who took an intentional overdose of aspirin.  During my shift, we intubated and ventilated him, I started him on multiple blood pressure medications, and we tried to use dialysis to clear the drugs out of his system.  He was too unstable to tolerate it, so we tried to start him on a gentler form of dialysis.  He had been in the hospital for part of a day before we needed to put him on the ventilator, and in all that time he refused to tell us how to find his family.  We had various social workers trying to track people down and they went into overdrive as he became more unstable.  We reached his dad and sister who arrived at the hospital just in time to watch us attempt to resuscitate him for the third time.  This time it didn't work and he died.

About an hour later, I had to escort his mom back to see her beautiful dead son.  It was one of the worst things I've ever had to do.  I wasn't even a mom yet; if I had been, I don't know if I could have done it.

Our situations are not exactly alike, but I'm always aware when A drives away with our kids that my entire heart is in that vehicle.  If anything happened, I want to get to them as soon as possible with minimal delay.  I do not want to be that mother being led back to see her dead child, missing the chance to say goodbye.

Team Navy

Navy isn't as flashy as, say, Team Azalea, but it's a perfectly respectable color.  Classic even.  E and L are not wearing their navy t-shirts in these pictures, because they weren't passed out until the end of Practice #1.  We're going to miss a week of Tiny Tots soccer when we go up north, but it will still be worth it even though I had to make awkward conversation with a former high school classmate.  She was very nice and had a cute son and lives just one street over so maybe we'll end up being best friends, but I hate the initial "What are you doing now?" and having to sum up my life in a few sentences.  SOCIALLY AWKWARD AM I.

The good news is that there were no amazingly talented 4-year-olds and no freakishly competitive parents like I read about in those (so truthful) parenting magazines left in the pumping room at work.  The nine kids on Team Navy seemed to have average gross motor skills and parents who realize that it is not all about winning.  Although MY kids were superstars from the get go.

At the end of the first practice, the coach laid a few ground rules like all kids get equal playing time in games and parents have to stand on the opposite side of the field from the players and no barrettes or earrings.  He advised me to get a athletic band for E's glasses and while I nodded obediently, I was mentally rolling my eyes and thinking, "How violent are these 4-year-olds going to get?!"  That will probably come back to haunt me in the form of a pair of replacement glasses, won't it?

All Is Forgiven

I hate when people offer up their misbehaving kids to others.  It's disrespectful to the kid and as an infertility survivor it makes my stomach curl.  That said, C was a little shit last night and I agreed with A when he said, "If she wasn't so cute, I'd set her out in the front yard."  It was an unusual night and she slept like a dream while we were at my brother's and I was alone, so I can only complain a little.  And it was sort of our fault by going to bed late and then A randomly decided to try to comfort her instead of just letting me do our typical 3 minute nursing and that PISSED HER OFF.  If we are going to make middle-of-the-night changes, the game plan needs to be laid out ahead of time, not spontaneously decided at 3 am when we've only been asleep for 2 hours, you know?  But like I said, it was unusually bad and I wonder if it was the amount of blueberries eaten or maybe that fourth top tooth coming through or a missive from the mothership.

She looks so sweet and innocent, doesn't she?  DO NOT BE FOOLED.  Okay, never mind.  I just looked closer at the pictures and she is so gobble-able.  I just want to inhale her.  It must be those mother hormones.

I think we're going to have to move puzzles to the higher dining room table.  Loving this new mobile-with-intent stage.

Girls Only Road Trip

Pictures and a mini-recap here.

Our trip went extremely well.  (Criteria: I did not want to leave them there and only raised my voice TWICE!)  Also: you people are way more creative than me.  I wish I had had more time to implement some of your suggestions, but I've filed them away for next time.  Like, oh, TWO WEEKS from now when we take our family vacation up north.  A few other things I did:

-I typed up some info on each kid: name, birthday, address, the words "No Known Drug Allergies" and "No Significant Medical History" followed by every single phone number for me, A, my in-laws, and my siblings.  Then I laminated them with clear tape and attached them to each of their carseats.  If we are in a car accident and I am unconscious or dead (or A is), I want my family to be able to get to the girls as soon as possible.  It is awful when someone in the hospital is dead or unable to give information and we are scrambling to find family members.

-I had a bag of stuff for E and L with all the typical things: books, toys, paper/crayons/pens, BrainQuest cards, stickers, etc, but then I had MY super secret stash to bring out when necessary.  Also, because I didn't want to shoot my wad all at once, I set aside a few secret stash items for the trip home as well as half of the new books and stickers.  The SSS included things like (probably toxic) glow-in-the-dark sticks and CANDY and stuff with TINKERBELL on it.

-I went to the McDonald's website and used their trip planner to make a note of every single McD's between our house and my brother's that has a play area and is less than 2 miles from the road because I did NOT want to be pulling off the interstate only to discover NO PLAY AREA.  What a brain aneurysm that would be.  And I have not driven this route enough to know them all automatically.  If I had had more time, I would have found and marked all the exit numbers on my map.

(Listen up, Burger King.  I would have done the same for you, but you don't offer that helpful trip planner on your website.  Losers.)

-I lowered my standards.  I got through about 45 minutes of drive time by handing french fry after french fry back to C, who was itching to get out of her seat and move around.  E and L spent quite a lengthy period of time painstakingly unwrapping chewy taffy-like candies and smacking their lips happily.

-Despite all the doom-and-gloom forecasting a DVD player as a necessity, we were fine.  C was the only problem child, I think because she's at the developmental stage of crawling/pulling up, and a DVD player wouldn't have helped her.  E and L happily played/colored with all the stuff I had packed and I could have sprung new distractions on them more often if there was another adult in the car.  As it was, changing CDs and handing toys back to C and fielding the typical random questions was all I could do while still driving safely so they only got new secret stash items when we stopped.

The stories on tape were a huge hit, so much that I listened to Curious George Goes To a Costume Party about a zillion times.  At four, they just don't seem to have the attention span for a longer book on tape, but the short stories were perfect.  I'm going to get a few more from the library for our next vacation.

It Will Be Fine. I Have Candy Necklaces.

Seriously, they still make candy necklaces!  How fun.  If only I could find candy cigarettes.  I loved those when I was little.  I stopped by a place in the grocery store that I never go: the wall o' candy stuff.  Little battery powered machines that turn your sucker for you and candy rings.  I also bought nutty bars and swiss cake rolls to add to my pretzels and granola bars and graham crackers.  E and L were given purses that contain some sort of candy for their birthday and I put them away before they noticed.  We already have little desks for their carseats and crayons/stickers/coloring books.  (Every time they get those for gifts, I put them in a restaurant package: toys that can amuse them at a table.  I also have some paper dolls with paper clothes I can pull out.)  I had them each pick out a notebook at the store since they can spend a long period of time writing their names and other words if I spell for them.  They love to draw people and I get several drawings a day that consist of me, a tulip, the sun, the ground and sky, worms, and manhole covers (?).  Or they'll each draw dozens of No Parking and Don't Turn Left signs.  I bought 2 Tinkerbell notebooks that come with markers that claim they can only be used with those notebooks and are "mess free."  I have 12 new books plus CDs that I got for a steal and have been hoarding until the appropriate time.  I cannot emphasize enough the putting away of extra toys and pulling out later move.  Awesome.

You can still offer me travel advice over here.  Remember: we don't have a DVD player in our car.  THERE IS NO SAFETY NET.  I think I am PMSing and definitely need to get over that before I take a road trip with 3 kids.

The hair colored I ordered is called Streekers.  There are a wide variety of colors and it's $10 a color.  It comes in a small nail polish like container and you essentially paint streaks into your (kid's) hair.  L wanted her chin length bob red all over and based on the amount left, I think I could do it 4 more times, so approximately $2 an application.  E just wanted the orange around her face (which was my original plan for both with the intention of getting more mileage) and we could do that a bunch more times.  My kids have light brown hair and the color shows up well enough to make them happy.  If your kid has extremely light hair, you could probably use even less color.  If your kid has really dark hair, I would opt for yellow or pink; I doubt the darker colors would show up.

These are marketed as an accessory to young people who go out at night instead of collapsing in a heap on the couch, exhausted from a day of childcare.  Like, get new earrings AND a new haircolor for your evening out!  It is supposed to wash out at the next shampoo, but we haven't tested that yet.  It's definitely faded just overnight, so I suspect that that will happen.

It washed off their foreheads with a little elbow grease, but it will stain fabric.  I was careful not to let them touch the furniture with their heads until the color was very dry and I had brushed their hair (the color shows up better after brushing).  We had no leakage onto fabric or bed sheets, but you'd have to be careful if you put the color on and then went swimming or something.

When  I googled "temporary hair color for my kid," I found a blog where the author had a 6-year-old who wanted to color her hair.  I skimmed through the comments and was surprised to find that very few people thought any kid should change their hair color, even temporarily.  Some were quite vehement in their disagreement.  I guess I think of it like dress-up and a normal part of pretend play.  I wouldn't do it before I send my kids to my in-laws for the weekend or we visit the great-grandparents, just because I assume that they're in that camp and I don't want to deal with the overly polite horror.  I think the colors we chose combined with the natural color of my kids' hair makes it subtle and we didn't get any comments (positive or negative) at the grocery store, but I was aware that it could happen.  I wouldn't let them do it permanently because they're FOUR, but I dyed my hair a bunch of times in high school and just thought of it as fun.  I definitely have a tendency to overthink things, but this is one of those times where I'm like, "WTF?  This is an issue?"

We put up the gate to keep C from the bathroom and it also blocks her access to the office, where E and L play with their baby-trachea-sized train and spend most of their coloring time.  Kind of sad, huh?

Traveling With Three Kids. Five Days. No Husband.

On Sunday morning I will return home from work, sleep 4 hours, get up, nurse C, and load all three kids into our van.  Then I will drive 6 hours (adult time. Kid time=unknown) to visit my brother and hopefully my sister if her work schedule allows.

Facts:
     I have kid-sized aerobeds for E and L. I have a mini-high chair and pack-n-play for C.  The older two will be upstairs in an office.  C and I will be downstairs in the basement.
    Within 30 minutes of my brother's house is a big zoo, a children's science museum, and a new water park with Cedar Point-like rides and non-scary sprinkler fun.
    I am no longer pregnant like I was when we traversed Cedar Point. THANK GOD.
    My to-do lists are growing like weeds.  I have to work Friday and Saturday night, so I need to have everything done by Friday lunchtime.  Or the tasks need to be delegable to A.  I am packing clothes straight from the dryer into the suitcase.  Brilliant!
    I have never traveled this far with all 3 kids and no support.  I have never been away from A with any number of kids for this length of time. 
    My cell phone battery no longer works.  I will need the charger that works in the car.
    Last summer I traveled 1.5 hours (one way) with E and L.  By the end, we were all pretty crabby.
    Our van does NOT have a DVD player. 
    I have a bunch of new-to-us kids books on CD, plus our regular rotation of music and scintillating conversation.
    My brother and sister-in-law are great and do not add any stress to traveling with kids.  In fact, they do a great job of alleviating it.  Their boys are older, but they remember life with smaller kids.
    My brother has coffee, wine, and vodka.

Ideas? Thoughts? Advice?  I will take it.

I am extremely far behind with any and all correspondence.  July is looking to be a very busy month.  Please stand by.

Also, today I colored E's hair orange and L's hair red.  Their requests.  Temporary color.  Details and pictures soon.

Five Minus Three (Edited)

A left this morning for a wedding up north (his college friend~no need for me to go!  I mean, I have to work!  So sorry!) and my in-laws took the girls this morning.  They brought C back after lunch because we are still firmly enmeshed in each other*, but they are keeping E and L overnight and then taking a trip to the family farm tomorrow.  ETA back home: Sunday evening.  For the rest of the day it is just me and the baby, who I found SITTING UP IN HER CRIB when I got her from her nap.  Didn't I just do her 9 month review on TUESDAY and make a point of documenting: Can get from sitting to crawling, but NOT back to sitting?  And who opened the kitchen cabinets this week, coming very close to pulling the quesadilla maker down onto her perfectly-shaped, soft and fuzzy, amazing smelling head.  And who can crawl several feet on her hands and knees before collapsing into the currently more efficient army crawl.

*Maybe it is more accurate to say that she is enmeshed in my boobs.  Speaking of which, E totally cracked me up this week by caressing said breasts and sighing, "I can't wait to have boobs."

Now I am thinking of the worst things I could say to C (provided that she could understand).  Things along the lines of "You're like the daughter I never had."  And I am writing this because she is way more interested in getting into crawling position and then getting back to a sitting position over and over than playing with me right now.  Occasionally she looks at me and grins, "Da! Da! Da!"  I can hear a voice in my head screaming, "TOO FAST!  It's all happening too fast!" but the other part of me is doing a cheesy fist pump and cheering, "Yeah!  Now we're getting to the good stuff!"  And the fact that I get to do this again, after the miracles of E and L . . . well, that just makes the lumpy baby stage worth it.

Minus most of my family, I considered curing cancer or creating peace in the Middle East, but instead I find myself doing normal chores~running the dishwasher, throwing in a load of laundry, giving a bath, emptying the trash~because as soon as C is in bed tonight, I am pouring myself a glass of wine, parking my butt on the couch, and reading my book for hours straight.  That is my idea of a perfect evening.  That and Taco Bell for dinner.

ETA: THREE HOURS after posting this, C pulled herself to standing while in the bathtub.  She looked very pleased with herself and then peed in the bathwater.  Then looked confused and slightly concerned.  Then pissed because she couldn't get back down.

I'm Silently Judging You

Can I tell you how much I am loving Twitter?  I can jot notes to myself or A (who reads at work) and later check back to see if there's anything I need to blog about or if it's all stand alone random musings of 140 characters or less.  If you are not following me on Twitter you are missing gems like:

The secret to home fries: precooked potatoes + onions + butter + salt/pepper + ONLY TURN ONCE. Also: MORE BUTTER.

and

GO FLUSH THE TOILET AND WASH YOUR HANDS! GO FLUSH THE TOILET AND WASH YOUR HANDS! GO FLUSH THE TOILET AND WASH YOUR HANDS!

and

Earwigs in our A/C. Some part needs to be replaced. BARF.

It is addicting.  I love sharing my thoughts immediately in a non-pressure format.  There is no need to expand!  I only have 140 characters!

Follow-up:  Remember the fellow preschool mom who had 2 girls and was pregnant again and vocally hoping for a boy?  She was at the library today and had her 2 girls plus a clearly female infant.  We sat by each other and made small talk and yes, she had her third girl: a supercute blond baby, maybe a couple months old.  I hope they're happy and over the lack of penises on their kids.  I wanted to ask her how her husband was, but it's none of my business and she looked tired.  It's hard to know what to do in that situation and balance minding my own business with overwhelming curiosity/nosiness.

Speaking of the library, the other day we were there and I saw the woman who needs to be my bestest friend ever.  She had 4 girls and by looking at them, I would guess their ages to be: 5, twin 3-year-olds, and 1.  Plus she looked normal, not intimidatingly thin or pretty or perfect.  I went to the library magician time today hoping a little bit that she would be there and we could meet and hit it off and live happily ever after.  We are meant for each other!  She just doesn't know it yet!

Anyway, in reference to judging people: I used to always think badly of parents when I saw a kid falling asleep on the run.  Like, "Being at the mall/restaurant/Target/wherever is SO IMPORTANT that you are dragging your exhausted kid around with you?!"  I was huffy and indignant and~clearly~CHILDLESS.  Now I understand that some kids only nap on the go and maybe being at the mall is the only thing that is keeping that parent from walking away from her child and working at a winery in Tuscany (my recurrent fantasy).  And now that I have kids of differing ages and nap schedules, I am that parent sometimes and isn't that just the way of life?