A Big Accomplishment, and Seedy too.

Today is The Babe's birthday; he's five months old. To be honest, that makes me a little bit sad, because it seems like he was a newborn just yesterday. He's my last baby, so I'm doing my best to cherish every moment with him. I know before long, all my babies will be big kids in school like EJ, and I will sit here at home all alone, wondering what to do with my time.

It's not just Babe's birthday - it's also a big day for him developmentally. Today, he rolled over for the first time! You might think he's late for that. He might be. But he also weighs 23 pounds and spends all of his time in my arms, so he hasn't had much chance to learn how, and even if he did, he had to get pretty strong to heft all that weight over.

Of course, now that he's getting so big, I get people all the time asking when we're starting solids. Even the pediatrician, at his four month check up, said we could start cereal. I was like, are you kidding!? I don't care if he's "big enough" - he is not ready. I am a very big believer in baby-led solids, and there is no way I am going to shovel spoonfuls of nutritionally inferior processed "food" into my baby's mouth, fighting to get it to stay down. No way. I've been down that route and am still paying the price, with EJ. I figure, by the time he's in kindergarten, The Babe will most likely be eating solids. Probably. So why worry about it?

Another thing happened today. I found out what "Seedy" means.

Beastie has, for about a week, been holding my face and screaming "SEEDY!" when I'm singing to her. (For some reason I spend a huge amount of time singing to my kids. Probably four hours a day, if you put it all together.) So I'll be singing "Twinkle Twinkle" and she'll grab my face and scream down into my mouth "SEEDY! SEEEDDDDDYYYY!!!"

I tried to figure out what she wanted. "You want Sister?" I'd ask. She'd get so mad and yell again. "Do you want me to stop singing?" Nope, not that. She'd grab my cheeks even tighter. "SEEDY!"
I could not figure this one out. I tried and tried, but without fail, she'd yell "SEEDY!!" every time I sang.

Then, today, a lightbulb. I started singing the Alphabet Song. "Seedy!" Beastie yelled, gleefully. "Seedy!!"
I stopped singing.
"C D?" I asked her. "A B C D?"
She was downright exuberant. "Seedy!"

So now when we sing, we start with Beastie's favorite song - The ABSeedies.

RSV = ER Trip. My favorite place to be.

I haven't posted for awhile, because my friend Amber came up to Michigan from Iowa to see me. It was so much fun - we played board games and laughed till we peed our pants we cried. Our kids are close in age - she has a daughter who's three, a daughter who's 18 months (3 weeks older than Beastie) and a son who's four months (eleven days younger than The Babe.) The kids all played and had a good time, and our friend Julie came and saw us too. She has a whole passle of kids, and the youngest is two weeks older than Beastie. So it was a crazy house, but it was also totally awesome.

However.

On Thursday, The Babe had his 4 month well baby checkup. He had had a little cough for a day or so, and I asked the doctor to take a close listen to his chest. He was wheezing, but not too bad, and with all his symptoms, she diagnosed RSV.

All weekend, poor Babe coughed and coughed and cried and fussed and was generally miserable. He started feeling better yesterday, Saturday, but was still coughing. He really seemed to be getting better, though - laughing and playing like normal.

This morning when I woke up, I saw that The Babe's chest was sucking in as he breathed, and he was making the most godawful wheezing sound. He was breathing between 60 and 72 breaths per minute. That's a lot of breaths. You try it and see how you feel. I gave him an emergency inhaler treatment and called the doctor, and they could hear him wheeze and cough too. The nurse counted his breaths with me and told me to get him to the emergency room as soon as we could, and to call 911 if he turned blue. I said okay, but what I was thinking was no shit, asshole.

So we packed everyone up and headed into the hospital, where the nurses and doctors proceeded to completely freak out over his ridiculously fast breathing, and also, make me feel like a total idiot for not bringing him in sooner. They didn't believe that he had just started doing this out of nowhere.

Luckily the respiratory therapist was kind and understanding, and he took The Babe's pulse and checked his O2 levels and all that, and then the doctor gave us a different medication, and the respiratory therapist showed me how to give the inhaler, and within thirty seconds of getting that new medicine, The Babe was breathing normally.

We're home now, and he's in his pack 'n' play, talking to his stuffed panda. Now I'm just praying it doesn't happen again. I can't handle that kind of stress more than, say once a year. Or less.

Two out of Four Ain't Bad

Whiney, whiney Wednesday....

So last night, The Babe decided one eye was better than two, so he took his pointy little finger and tried to gouge out the left one. He literally stuck a finger in his eyeball and tried to pull it out.
Really what he was trying to do was rub his eyes, but since he's only 3 months old, his finger got stuck like freaken Jack Horner. He screamed this weird high pitched cry for like ten minutes, and I called my mom in a panic. "Mom! Please tell me you can't pluck your own eyeball out..." I seriously lost ten years of my life last night. I could just envision my beautiful, perfect little boy with a creepy glass eye and tunnel vision. After the screaming, he went to sleep and in the morning his eye was fine.



So, this morning, The Hub walked EJ down to the bus as usual. Four went with, as usual. And I stayed inside and got the babies dressed, as usual. EJ got on the bus and Four and The Hub came back in the house. Four took off her boots and threw them at me for no reason at all, other than she is wildly undisciplined. "Four! You pick those up right now!" But a wildly undisciplined child does not give two shits what Mom has to say about anything at all, especially boots on the floor, so she ignored me.



Beastie was in the bedroom and came running out, headed right for the melted snow and boots in the middle of the foyer. (Yes we have a foyer in our 1000 square foot two bedroom house. Don't act like you're not impressed.) I wasn't even really paying attention to Beastie, to be honest. I was watching the Today Show, to see who was 2008 Person of the Year. (It was Barack Obama, but anyway.)



Cue suspenseful music.



Beastie slipped on the melted snow (read: water) and then tripped on Four's boots and fell face first on the floor, which happens to be ceramic tile. She let out this bizarre animal-like scream, and really dark, almost black, blood started spurting from her lower lip.



I've never seen anything like that, except maybe on Mortal Kombat, and it scared the hell out of me. My child is hemorrhaging from the lip and screaming like a hyena and I am just panicking and can't do a thing about it. What I ended up doing is calling my mom. "Mom, please tell me you can't cut off your lip on a pair of pink Polaris boots..." My mom told me to wash it with a washcloth, which I did, kind of. Really what I did was gingerly touch the cloth to her lip, and when she screamed harder I just held her and let her bleed all over my new green sweater. She quit screaming after a minute or two, and her lip is completely huge and gross looking, but not cut enough to need stitches or anything.
That incident took at least another ten years of my life expectancy.

At least Four and EJ haven't injured themselves. Two out of four ain't bad. But then again, the day isn't over yet.

The Babe is my fourth baby, my thirteenth pregnancy, my first living son, the first baby who looks like his Momma. He was born on a stormy evening in early September, in a dark hospital room in Grand Rapids. His birth was glorious - calm and quiet, exhilaratingly fast without being rushed. In between pushes, I looked out at the rain beating against the window, and could not believe I was here, in this place, birthing a baby.

I remember reaching down and touching his head. It was damp and soft and bunched up, and I marveled at how warm he was, and then all of a sudden, his whole head was out, and then a split second later, the rest of him. The doctor helped him to my belly, and he looked all around until he found my eyes, and then he screamed his head off. A few moments later, his daddy cut the cord, and the nurse took him to weigh him. Eight pounds, eleven ounces - just a tiny sprout for the woman who births ten pounders with ease.

He didn't nurse for a long time. He just cuddled in my arms, looking at me. His eyes would sort of roll back in his head, and then he'd look at me again, and then he'd close his eyes for a long time before opening them and rolling them back in his head again. An hour went by, but it felt like three minutes, and the nurse told me it was time to move to the recovery room, but I could take a bath or shower first if I wanted to.

I remember bathing with the door open, watching the nurse clean my son and take his vitals, and then his daddy took him and it was beautiful.

The next night was Celebration on the Grand, and from my hospital room I could see fireworks bursting over the Grand River. It was so quiet and so dark in the room, and I looked down at my baby boy, sleeping on the bed, and I couldn't imagine ever being any happier.


So today I am cleaning. I've sorted through The Babe's clothes, and I'm sad. The newborn clothes, the soft sleep gowns and the fuzzy booties, the tiny knitted caps, all in the box. The next size up, three-to-six months, all in the box. Those tiny blue jeans lined with flannel, the miniature tennis shoes, all in the box. And then the next size up, six-to-nine months... almost all in the box. The polo shirts, the dinosaur pajamas, the little blue socks with white pawprints on them. In the box.

I'm sad. The Babe is most likely my last baby, and I've cherished his babyhood, like I did the girls.' I'm thrilled to see that he's growing and thriving, but sad that he's losing his infancy so quickly. He can't be three months old, can he? He can't be nearly eighteen pounds already, can he? He can't be, he can't be. He's my tiny little man, the baby boy I prayed for my whole life.

I know he needs to grow, and it's the normal, natural way. But I can't help but long for time to slow down just a bit, so I can savor these moments before they're gone.

I'm thankful.... (meme)

So, there are days when I get really upset about money, and get myself all worked up about what we're going without in order to pay bills. We aren't rich, let me put it that way, and sometimes it all builds up and I get so mad. Like last week, my radiator went out on my van, and that cost like four hundred bucks, and then the next day the heater core burst and started ejaculating antifreeze onto the driver's side floor. I say ejaculating, which is kind of funny, because antifreeze smells like a dirty cooter. I'm sorry, but it's true. I told The Hub we should bring it to the OB/GYN, with that smell and all.

And did you know it costs $500 to fix a heater core? Yeah, I didn't know that either. But I can't just drive around with green stinky cooter-y stuff spurting onto the floor of my van, can I? No.

So during times like that, it's easy to get caught up in what we don't have, instead of focusing on what we do have. And to that end, I am going to now list for you the things I am thankful for, because I know you are dying to read it.

I am thankful for....

1. My amazing husband, who puts up with my oddballness.

2. My four beautiful children, and my nine little angel babies waiting in heaven.

3. My morbidly obese chihuahua, Petey. (I put him on a diet though, he only ate one grilled cheese today, and part of a smoothie, and some dog food.)

4. My cross-eyed cat, who purred in my face during labor.

5. My house, because even though it is small and drafty, the roof doesn't leak and I can afford the payment.

6. My van, even though it smells like a really dirty vulva.

7. Water. Cause I like drinking water.

8. Living in the country, so I can walk around naked.

9. Skin, because it would be really gross if everyone walked around without skin on.

10. Having enough food to eat, even if I have to cook it myself.

Yep, it looks like I have a lot to be thankful for. I was going to list things like toilet paper (for obvious reasons) and elmer's glue, and coupons, but I thought that might be stupid. So there.

You can talk to them, but it's useless.

The other day was a hard, hard day at our house. The weather has been nasty for a week or so now, so we couldn't get outside, and the van broke down and has been in the shop, so we couldn't even go for a ride.

It was one of those days where all of the kids are crying for no apparent reason. When they weren't crying and whining, they were doing their best to eradicate each other. I was nursing The Babe with Beastie on my lap, a feat in itself, and all I could hear from the bedroom was "She hit me!" and then "Nuh-uh! She hit me fust!" and then "Mo-om! She's lookin' at me!" and "I'm only lookin' at her cause she's stawin' at me!" (Four can't say her r's quite right.)

It was one of those days, and I was thisclose to completely freaking out. So I called the older girls into the living room, and tried to have a heart to heart with them.

"Girls," I said, "I need you to be on your best behavior. Mommy has a migraine, and the babies are--"

"Mom?" Four interrupted.

"No, I'm talking. You can tell me when I'm done. Now, the babies are tired and cranky, and Mommy isn't feeling well. And it makes Mommy feel really angry when I hear you yelling at each other in the bedroom. So I need you to--"

"Mom?"

"Four, it's rude to interrupt. This is important. Girls, it's so hard for Mommy to do everything she needs to do, and it makes moms sad when we hear our children hurting each other. So I really really want you to try your best and be nice to each other. Because--"

"Mom?"

"Four! You need to wait! What have I told you about interrupting? Anyway, I just really need you to be big girls, and help each other and love each other so Mommy doesn't start yelling like a crazy person. Don't you hate it when Mommy yells? I do too. So let's get along, and be kind to each other, and stop hollering for mom every three seconds. Do you understand?"

EJ said, gently, "Yes, Mama."

And Four said, brightly, "Hi! I'm Lisa and I'm new here. Are you the teacher?"




Oh dear God.

Guess what, it's Saturday. Which means if i am very lucky, I get a couple hours (eeeee!) to myself! EJ and Four went to my Grandma's house for a visit, so I've just go the two babies today. And somehow they are both sleeping at the same time, and no I did not drug them. For whatever inexplicable reason, they are both taking a nap, and I am not one to question a rare Midas touch.

So I did something super-duper fun for the first half hour of the nap - coupon organizing! Whee! And then I fed the cat, because she was bugging me, and then I ate some chocolate chip cookie dough. Because I'm a grown up and I can do that if I want.
[When I was a kid I used to say 'When I'm grown I'll eat a whole cake at one sitting!' - but I have yet to. It's kind of unpalatable now.]

The babies are having their pictures taken this evening, which is another reason I am mega-grateful for this afternoon nap. The older kids got theirs done at school, and since this is my first year of having kids at school, I realize that I have seriously underestimated the usefulness of having someone else deal with your child for a few hours a day - and take their picture too, and somehow have it come out looking half-way decent. Four had ripped up jeans on for her picture day, and for whatever reason the photographer had her put her knee up for the picture, so it's real obvious. But we didn't do retakes because that's all Four ever wears on normal days, is the most ripped up stained up nastiest clothes she can find.

.......and the whining has begun. Which means if I don't go get her now, it'll be screaming, not whining, and that's never good.

Typical morning at our house

So you're like, Ninja Mom, you have this blog called Two Under Two but you hardly ever write about the babies.
And I'm like, Yeah, I know, cause babies aren't all that interesting.

Don't believe me?

Wednesday, 10/29/08
7 am: Wake up. Change The Babe's diaper. Change Beastie's diaper. Wake up EJ and Four for school. Get all four children dressed. Nurse The Babe. Pour out three bowls of cereal. Pick cereal up off the floor. Pour another bowl of cereal. Make sure EJ and Four have combed hair and clean teeth. Make sure both bags are packed. Pack snack for EJ. Make sure Four has underwear on. Send Four to bedroom for underwear. Holler at Four for dawdling. Make sure EJ has socks on. Send EJ to bedroom for socks. Holler at EJ that she is going to miss the bus. Nurse The Babe. Run down to the end of the driveway with EJ. Get EJ on the bus.

8 am: Start getting Beastie ready to go. Get The Babe in his car seat. Put Beastie's shoes back on. Put Beastie's coat back on. Take The Babe out of carseat, nurse him again. Put Beastie's shoes back on. Find Beastie's pacifier. Put Beastie's shoes back on. Put Beastie's coat back on. Put The Babe back in car seat. Put Beastie's shoes back on.

8:30 am: Leave for Four's preschool. Listen to Beastie scream all the way as she tries to extricate herself from her car seat.

9 am: Bring Four into preschool. Put Beastie's shoes back on. Get Beastie buckled up in her car seat again. Take The Babe out of his car seat and nurse him in the parking lot. Put him back in his carseat. Put Beastie's shoes back on.

And you wonder why I look twenty years older than I am.

Breastfeeding in Public Part Deux

So yesterday, I had to drive 4 hours one way to pick my stepdaughter up from Ohio. Well, actually, I didn't drive. I rode. We also brought all four kids, leaving just enough room for DSD. Luckily she is big enough to not need a booster, or we'd have all been screwed.

On the way there, The Babe started hollering to eat. We were a little more than halfway to our destination, which was good. I thought we'd have to pull over sooner.

Anyway we got off US23 at an exit in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. If you turned left, there was a gas station full of cars, and if you turned right, there was an empty lot. It had been a gas station at some point, because there was still a tall Sunoco sign, but there wasn't a building or anything. The lot was dirt but appeared well traveled and maintained. I decided to make DH stop there instead of the busy Speedway, because then I wouldn't have to worry about covering up.

I got The Babe all snuggly in my arms while DH stepped outside the van to have a cigarette. Within a minute (and I mean a real minute, 60 seconds) a cop came screaming into the lot. He pulled up real close while I tried to cover up a little bit, and DH just kinda stood there and looked at him. He was a really stereotypical cop, with a buzz-cut and mirror sunglasses. We were about 45 miles West of Detroit (which is pronounced day-twa, thank you very much.)

Anyway the cop pulls his Crown Vic up next to my window and says to DH, "Can I help you out?" but not, you know, in a nice way. He said it more like, "Get the fuck out of town." (Except there wasn't a town, but whatever.) DH was really calm about it, because of course we have no reason to be afraid of the police. "My wife is breastfeeding the baby, and I'm just standing here having a cigarette," he said.
"Well," the cop replied, all huffy, "a lot of people stop in this parking lot to cause trouble." He was almost accusatory about it, and leaned out of his car to peer in my window. I didn't know if I should cover up or not. I didn't want to get hauled in on indecent exposure charges, but I didn't want the guy to think we were lying, either. I decided to unlatch The Babe and put him on my shoulder to burp him. The cop kind of glared at me and said something about "Why don't you just bring a bottle?" I acted like I didn't hear him, and he pulled off really fast, leaving a big cloud of dust.

We stayed there for another twenty minutes or so feeding, and then maybe five to change an extreme blowout diaper. And would you believe that cop drove by four more times?

I realize the cop was worried about people starting trouble, and being in a kind of secluded place. but there was no need for him to say what he said (about bringing a bottle) and no need to be such a jerk about it. He never asked us to leave or anything like that, just kind of hassled us.

I was glad to get back on the road, obviously, and I just can't help thinking about this incident, and the incident last month at WIC. Are people going backwards? Or have I, by some stroke of luck, avoided this type of people in the past?