Big and small

Last night I got very little sleep.  Not surprisingly, this was a combination of my toddler and infant needing me, in addition to my persistent postpartum pain.  My pelvic bone separated, either during pregnancy or childbirth, and will take a unnamed "very long time" to heal.  Needless to say, when I finish putting my daughter to bed and it's already 10 pm, then I'm needed at 1:30 am, 4:10 am, 5:00 am, and 6:23 am before getting up for the day close to 7 am, AND I have to soak my entire lower body in a bath of piping hot water before going back to sleep because that's the only way to mitigate the pain, I get very little sleep.  But I digress, this is not the intended content of my post.

My big girl on a ride at the Del Mar Fair

My little man and his sweet smile

This post is supposed to be about my big girl and my small boy, an update.

Elijah is still my relaxed baby, for the most part.  The past few weeks brought some witching hour behaviors, that are mild in comparison to his sister's antics at his age, but can definitely pose challenges  between the hours of 6:30 pm and 9 pm.  Still, I am able to put him down for at least one nap a day awake but drowsy -- he'll drift off in his crib or swing unaided.  He smiles and talks, talks, talks.  His big blue eyes are bright and inquisitive, especially when he stands up and tries to put his head in swivel mode to see everything, before realizing that his head still flops forward and backward without his permission on occasion.  He's definitely staying awake longer as the days go by, and it's so much fun to watch him gain awareness of his surroundings, especially when a certain someone is always an inch from his face.

At the Mission in San Juan Capistrano

I love this age.  His needs are fairly simple and I feel that I meet them to the best of my ability.  He loves his ma ma, as evidenced by the fact that his little striped friend, which lives inside my shirt on occasion so that it will smell like me, is a great help in putting him to sleep.

 

And Abigail, oh my Abigail, is so funny.  She converses like an adult, knows what she wants, has generally reasonable expectations, loves to laugh (even at nothing, just for the sake of laughing), and is my constant companion.  I recently went on vacation with my three sisters, our annual sister weekend, and brought the baby along.  The drive up to San Juan Capistrano was so quiet, which I thought would be a nice change, but it wasn't.  I missed my little chatterbox in the back seat.  Last year's sister weekend I left her with her daddy and was sick to my stomach, knowing how hard it would be for her to miss me for three days.  She cried so hard at bedtime the first night that she threw up.  This time I was nauseated for a different reason.  I knew she would be fine, that they would have a fantastic weekend of infant-restriction-free-fun.  I also knew that I would be missing out on the very little alone time I get with her.  On weekends, Jake and I can take turns with the kids in such a way that I can play with her without restrictions.  This probably only happens for 2-3 hours a week nowadays, while it was previously a constant perk of her life, and mine.  Giving up those hours was much harder than I thought it would be, as sister weekend is something I am completely committed to, and look forward to every year.

 

I keep coming back to the fact that my transition from mothering one child to mothering two has been most difficult in regard to my Abigail.  She's a very perceptive person, and I understand from her actions and her language that she has very complicated emotions toward me right now.  I was (and sometimes still am) her sun and moon, her everything.  She wanted to do everything with me, be with me all the time.  Now she is more independent.  She chooses not to need my help because I'm holding the baby, or just because it's exciting to do it on her own.  But at times, especially when we have company or she is feeling somewhat insecure, she will lash out at Elijah for my attention or refuse to do things that she did on her own even before he was born in order to assert her needs.

Running fast on the trampoline at YMCA gymnastics

Holding out her own ticket on the Balboa park carousel

I guess my struggle is that I love to watch her grow, but I want it to be a positive choice, not a necessity.  I understand that it's healthy to grow through normal life circumstances (like having a baby brother), and I surely have done that myself, but for some reason it feels hard to watch her make a choice based on the fact that her options are now more limited.  Still, I think she has turned a corner in her adjustment to Elijah.  She is in love with him, and she's much more gentle than she was to start.  Her newest play activities include breast feeding, swaddling, rocking, and shushing her baby dolls.  When she announces that one of her babies is 2 or 3 weeks old she expects to be congratulated.

 In the end, life is good.  There's no denying that.

Progress

Lately I've begun to feel more like myself at home with the kiddos.  We aren't late to everything.  I'm not always covered in spit up and breast milk.  I only occasionally find my daughter getting into something she shouldn't while I nurse her brother.

This box of mini-cakes was actually empty.  She was licking the wrappers

 We have found a few activities that are enjoyable for her on afternoons when we are house-bound because her brother is sleeping.

I boil water and mix it with hose water to make her a warm tub

She loves this box and calls it her sky-fari (like the cable car at the zoo)

Elijah is, for the most part, a happy little dude.  We just had his 2 month appointment, and I was surprised to hear that, though he is bigger than Abigail was at this age, he's in the 15th percentile for height and weight.  Little guy.  He seems so big to me!  I do try to spend afternoons at home, to allow Elijah to get a good nap, but that is only the result of always going somewhere and trying to do something for Abigail in the morning.  Be it music class, art, play group, or just the park, Elijah would probably rather be relaxing at home instead of snoozing in his car seat with the sleep sheep blaring wave sounds at him.  I just purchased an ergo carrier, which is going to really improve his sleeping situation, because it's much better for hands-free carrying than the moby wrap that I used with Abigail.  So at least I won't feel guilty that the little guy spends the morning strapped into a chair.

My little angel

Still my blue-eyed boy, for now

He spends a lot of time putting up with his big sister's loving attention.  It makes me laugh every time she holds him and he looks like this....

while she announces, "he loves his big sister".  To which I always reply in the affirmative.  Of course he does!

Her favorite photo subject

My mom visited last week to give me a little help for a day.  I went for a run while Abigail napped and Mom held the baby, then I got to take my little princess for a beach hike, just the two of us.  She said "I want to do this again" with a huge smile on her face about half way through our trek over the rocks to get from one beach to another.  

It was her idea to bring the camera

A photo I know I will always cherish

She's so grown up, and while I know I am not missing a moment, I see the difference in her since Elijah was born.  She's more independent, which means that she needs me less, and also that she wants me to do fewer things with her.  She wants to do things herself.  I am so proud that she is growing up and making positive improvements since her brother was born, but it makes me sad that she sees my holding Elijah as my being unavailable to her.  I know that is literally true, in the sense that I can't use two hands to pick her up, but there are things that I could do that she only wants me to do if I put the baby down.  It's my daily juggling act.  Which child do I want to feel guilty about in that particular moment, the one who is sitting on his changing table just a little longer than he wants to so I can get his sister off the potty, or the one who wants her ma ma to swing across the monkey bars at the park like she did before the baby was born.

I try to remember that they are a gift to one another.  It's getting easier to see that by the day.

A Whole New World

I can show you the world (do do do do do), shining, shimmering, spleeeendid. 

If you have a princess loving child, you might find it funny that I have that song stuck in my head; anyway, it seemed appropriate as a title for my experiences in the past few days with my little munchkins.  Plus, Jake told me that he was singing it randomly in the hallway at work the other day when one of his coworkers joined in.  I love daddies who aren't afraid to sing princess songs.  

Snow White was on the floor, so she didn't make it into the picture.

Abigail loves princess music, coloring books, dolls, figurines, stories...everything about princesses.  While she's only watched a few princess movies thus far, she loves to listen to the music and put the stories together in her mind.  Her memory is incredible.  We've read the books enough times that she gets upset if I use the wrong phrasing (i.e. when I am half asleep and accidentally say "Now sing, Ursula said" she will correct me, "Ursula cried, ma ma, what did you say?").  Of course it's often annoying and sometimes infuriating to be subjected to the exacting standards of a not-quite-three-year-old when one is sleep deprived, desperate for the child to go to bed, and aware that a crying fit may ensue if similar errors continue.  Still, I love this age.  She's surprises me with her language daily, and she really is a good girl, even when it's hard.  

 Blue-eyed boy

And it's been hard.  My little angel boy wants to be held constantly when awake, but isn't quite ready for carriers.  I can't seem to get him comfortable in the moby wrap, which is what I used day in and out with Abigail.  I'm working on it.  Still, this new development, along with Jake going to work and then heading out on a business trip, has left me laughing at the fact that I believed meeting the needs of one child was difficult.  Of course it was, at the time, but it pales in comparison to my unsuccessful attempts to care for Elijah as I desire to, while negotiating and wrangling with my willful toddler. 

I sat down to write this post because I just finished putting both the kids down for their naps, and the sequence of events leading to this rare moment of quiet really drove home how different my children are in temperament.

We had a very busy morning, probably too busy.  Abigail had a spring performance at school, which started at 9 am.  She didn't want to go, so I had to bribe her with bagels to get her out of the house.  I got the three of us dressed and looking pretty nice for the performance (this took over an hour), then we went to the bagel shop with 20 minutes to eat bagels before we would need to head to the school.  Just as we sat down to eat, Elijah spit up a stomach full of milk all over himself in his seat.  He felt better, but I ended up cleaning the seat, changing his clothes, and trying to strap him in without getting the wet straps on his skin while Abigail ate her bagel.  Of course then we were cutting it close on time for the event.  We went to the concert (parked on the street with a red curb up through the back wheel of the car).  Abigail was extremely adorable in her 2 minutes of singing Happy Birthday to the school with her classmates.  Elijah fell asleep in my arms at least 4 times, only to be awoken by the loud applause.  The class had snack afterward, and then we went to our Friday play group.  Abigail had a blast with her best little buddies and didn't want to leave.  Elijah was once again awoken from a lovely slumber (in the arms of one of the play group moms, since they all wanted to hold the newest little cutie) in order to go home and feed his sister lunch.  She melted down about various things due to tiredness.  (I closed the kitchen door.  She wanted the box of driftwood that I'm using for an art project to be dumped on the floor as I was cleaning them up.  She didn't want me to hold the baby.  She wanted macaroni and cheese from the microwave [meaning leftovers warmed up], not from the pan.  All tragedies of epic proportions.)

Once we were finally ready to get into her bedroom, she stated that she did not want baby brother to come.  I told her that we were the only ones home, so if we went into her bedroom and left Elijah outside, who would take care of him?  She said, "no one".  

Ok.  So I ignore her statement of protest and ask her to pick out books and get into bed.  I place Elijah, clean, swaddled, and fed, on the window seat cushion in her room.  He likes to look at the light from the windows.  I figure I will just leave him there as long as he's cool while I try to get her to sleep.  So we read one, two, three, four princess books.  He gets fussy and I start to rise from the bed.  She screams "no, don't pick him up!".  I ask her not to scream at me and I walk over to the baby.   He's already settled back down on his own.  So I lay back down and finish books.  She's closing her eyes, almost asleep.  He cries out again.  I get up.  She yells at me again.  I give him a pacifier.  His eyes are droopy.  I lay back down.  She falls asleep.  I wait three minutes, then head over to pick Elijah up and give him his much deserved rocking time.  He's fast asleep.  I can't leave him on her window seat when I leave the room, so I pick the poor guy up and he opens his eyes.  Little man really can't catch a break.  I rock him for 20 minutes even though he's asleep in 3 min, just so he can be against my skin and hear my heartbeat.

Honestly, I have a better understanding for why people are able to allow their children to cry-it-out from watching this new baby and his mannerisms.  If crying for a few moments and then settling was all it took, then I would have done that ages ago.  Abigail has the endurance of a marathon screamer, and she doesn't even settle down after the finish line.  But not Elijah.  He somehow finds a way to make the situation okay, even if he doesn't like it.  He makes his complaint known, and then moves on.

It makes me wonder what they'll be like as adults.  I hope they use their differences advantageously.  They might be able to give each other good advice, based on very different ways of dealing with life.

Flying a kite 

Daddy is coming home tonight!

With her beloved Ursula doll

Transition Part II: Siblings

I have a hard time beginning the story of my children as siblings.  The past few weeks have been challenging for me as a mother, more emotionally than physically.  Yes, I am sleep deprived, but that's nothing new.  While I knew that this enormous change in our family would require patience and a period of adjustment, I feel unprepared.  Some things are easy, others hard.  We have much to be grateful for: healthy, thriving children; loving family and friends; a beautiful home.  I try to keep things in perspective when things get hard.

My infant son is so, so much easier than my memories of Abigail's early weeks.  I distinctly remember falling asleep in a tub of hot water during one of the few moments when Abigail was not requiring every ounce of my attention, and startling myself awake when I heard a phantom baby cry.  

Elijah sleeps.  A lot.  He cries when he's cold, which really only occurs when his diaper is being changed and at bath time.  He can be rocked to sleep in 5 minutes, but you can also just put him down mostly awake if he's swaddled and has a pacifier and he'll put himself to sleep.  I read in one of the many sleep books I've purchased in the past 2 years 10 months that this is possible, but my experience was never consistent with this supposed truth.  As it turns out, some of them do fall asleep on their own.  He smiles at me when his belly is full of milk and he's resting against my chest.  His big, blue eyes try ever so hard to focus on me during his waking moments, and he melts my heart.

Relaxing with Mom

They are only this small for such a short time!

Abigail is adjusting.  She is truly sweet with her brother.  She wants to check on him when he's sleeping.  She wants to hold him any time she sees him, and she plants big wet kisses on his cheek any opportunity she gets.  Today she just started pushing her cheek against his lips and proclaiming proudly, "he kissed me!".  It's sweet and adorable.  Of course she borders on smothering him every time she hugs him, and she can't be trusted not to stick her finger in his eye.  She races across the house to "check on him" and I race after her, to protect him from her well-intentioned love.  These days I can hardly get over how big she is, by comparison, to her baby bro.

With Ariel at Disneyland

Running errands with Da da ("credit card" in hand)

The part that's been challenging is managing (or lacking to manage, truth be told) the emotional roller coaster that is Abigail Wiener.  When we came home from the hospital it was immediately evident to me that my daughter was a ball of raw emotion.  Happy, sad, angry, confused, excited, loving, frustrated....all of these emotions were so obviously cycling through her being that it broke my heart.   I thought that getting her back into her routine of eating and sleeping would help, but I think she just needs time.  These past three weeks I've sometimes felt like a milk machine -- feed the baby, hand him off to Jake, and devote 100% of my attention to Abigail.  Of course it's a double edged sword.  I feel guilty for spending less time with Elijah than I did with Abigail when she was a baby.  I feel sad for every little smile that I might be missing (though I'm comforted by the fact that they are being bestowed on Jake).  I feel guilty that I can't give Abigail what she needs, what she's used to, what she knows as her world.  And tomorrow Jake goes back to work.  So we are going to have to find our new normal.  I just hope there are more smiles than tears.  Wish me luck.

Transition Part I: Birth

On April 9th at 8 o'clock in the evening my water broke.  I felt a massive baby kick, followed by a gush of fluid, and then, over the course of the next hour, I changed clothes 5 different times, put my sweet 2-year-old to bed while lying on a large stack of towels, called my good friend down the street who was willing to put her toddler to bed on my couch, called my sister who was willing to drive 2.5 hours to be in my home by the time my girl woke up from her slumber, and headed to the hospital.  It had begun.  

I do not like childbirth.  To some this statement sounds silly, of course I don't like childbirth, who does?  But others still find this sentiment limiting and dangerous.  If I embrace what my body was biologically engineered to do, then it will all go smoothly.  Babies are meant to be born naturally.  The thing is, I agree with both parties.  People are meant to die, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.  On the other hand, the intervention of medical techniques to make childbirth more controlled clearly leads to higher surgery rates and other medical procedures that I certainly want to avoid adding to my childbirth story.

So while my big girl was at home, being happily indulged and distracted,

I was trying my damnedest to birth this child without medication.  My active labor was slow in coming, and we tried to get some sleep.  In the early hours of the morning, we were walking the streets of Hillcrest, stopping occasionally to feel my pressure waves wash over me, and working the relaxation angle, in an effort to produce a more tranquil childbirth experience.  We walked up and down the 13 flights of steps inside the hospital at least a dozen times, looking at the helicopter landing pad from above, and things were progressing.  Once I was deemed in active labor, intermittent fetal monitoring, lots of breathing, and burying my head in Jake's chest were all the world had to offer.  Everything escalated quickly, my wonderful doula mother told me I was surely in transition, and this was a good thing.  I vomited on the bed and couldn't stop shaking.  After 24 hours of labor the midwife checked my dilation.  This was the FIRST and only time I would be checked, due to the fact that my water was broken and they did not want to risk infection.  I was dilated to 4 cm.  Let me repeat, 4 cm.  For those of you who don't know, I needed to reach 10 cm to give birth to the baby.  When I came to the hospital with Abigail I was 5 cm dilated upon admission.  I was crushed.  Beyond crushed.  I knew in that moment that this was not happening.  The "release" that I needed, the relaxation that I had practiced pretty diligently, was not forthcoming.  Contracting muscles is something I am good at -- relaxing them, not so much.

My mother and sister worked tirelessly to make this experience go smoothly for me and Jake.  My husband, bless his heart, accepted and participated in every aspect of the relaxation techniques that I chose to practice and executed his role beautifully.  Naturally, I felt like a failure, and worse yet, the baby was still inside of me.  So within an hour of having my dilation checked they administered an epidural.  I wish I could say it was a relief, but this time it was not.  Uncontrollable, awful shaking ensued, followed by vomiting and nauseated tolerance of a very uncomfortable situation.  Still, literally 20 minutes after the epidural, I was at 10 cm dilation.  They turned the epidural off, so I could feel the contractions to push, and 30 minutes later I was holding my little man in my arms.  Vaginal birth, no tearing.  Those were actually my goals the first time around.

Elijah David Wiener was born at 9:17 pm on April 10, 2013.  He weighed 6 lb 7.5 oz and was 18.5 inches long.  He didn't cry until they sucked the fluid out of his mouth, just like his big sister, and he latched on to nurse within 5 minutes of being born, like an old pro.  He came into my world from inside my body, and the intensity of my emotion is not something I can express in words.

There's no complaining about the path when this is at the end of the road.

Ten minutes after birth

Lean and long

The next day we started our journey as a family.  My sister Debi had devoted herself and her boys to Abigail's comfort for the past 2 days, and she brought Abigail to the hospital to meet her baby brother.  Clearly tentative, Abigail said hello to him and touched his head, then proclaimed that she was "all done" and ready to go home.  

We were in the middle of his hearing test when they arrived, but we probably should have taken the sticker off.

First family photo

And now we embark on Part II of our transition from three to four family members, incorporating an infant into our toddler world.  Thank you to all of my loved ones and friends who helped me birth this baby.  I could not have done it without the support and love that was poured over me.  I am a very, very lucky woman.

The calm before the storm

Actually, it's pretty stormy in San Diego today.  Abigail and I spent the morning at the zoo with a few of our play group friends who weren't afraid to get wet.  It was quite an adventure, down to the tiger who literally pounced on one of the kids who was standing right next to the glass.   Oh man, my heart stopped.  The tiger jumped from several feet away and his whole body was against the glass, scrambling and clawing, right on top of the little guy who was wedged in a corner looking at the tiger.  You know, the same tiger that you usually see sleeping in a remote corner of the enclosure, with just his tail distinguishable.  Logically I knew that the tiger could not get through the glass, but I still wanted to swoop up the kid and get the hell back.  As much as I love the San Diego Zoo, it was a reminder that wild animals don't belong in enclosed spaces.  Yikes!

The storm I was referring to in the title, however, has yet to descend, and who knows just how wet it will be.  Our little girl seems so much bigger these days, and with that come many, many funny statements and amazing developmental observations.  She's creative, interesting, musical, willful, coordinated, talkative, and loving.  She knows what she wants, and while I am thrilled at her growing ability to express that in new and more mature ways, two and a half holds a few challenges that make the thought of adding another child into the mix a little daunting.  We will adapt, I know.  We will feel that love at first sight -- I have no doubt.  And that love provides this mom with enough adrenaline to do just about anything, in my experience.  Still, this transition is both less stressful and more fearful than the last.   Though I won't go so far as to say we know what we are doing, we have cared for an infant before.  We all survived and enjoyed the wild ride.  But there seems to be more at stake, with one family member who lacks the ability to fully understand the changes at hand.

For weeks I've been meaning to take a good, sideways belly picture, for the record.  I even went so far as to set up the tripod in my room so I could set the self timer and take a photo.  Of course, that was the exact moment someone woke up from her nap and would only tolerate the following pictures.  

Turns out the best belly picture I have is from a recent ride on the carousel at the zoo (Abigail to my inside, riding the red dog).

So right now I'm 34 weeks along.  Come April (hopefully not late March, but that's when I'll be full term) we will be a changed family.  Since it took me 2 hours to get my daughter to sleep this afternoon, I should probably get to my chores, instead of sitting at this computer.  Happy Weekend!

Train expo at the Del Mar Fair Grounds with her Dad

Running around at California Adventure in her princess dress--it's getting too tight!

Family Mardi Gras Photo

One of these days I'll actually write the blog post about how to make a king cake.  I took pictures of all the steps last year and still haven't managed to get it together.