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not feeling so supermom

breastfeeding, lists you should paste on your fridge, not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Bobbly Bobblehead

November 29, 2012

So Truett and Kirsten both go to preschool in the morning and it’s great because by the time they’re done at noon, they come home with a bunch of new skills, tales of their adventures and little nuggets of academic knowledge they’ve gained that day. Like Tru came home last week and declared that he now knows how to clean his own bottom after pooping. I think he tried to clean the toilet bowl as well because I peered in to find half a roll of toilet paper stuffed into it but on the bright side, I’m sure his bottom was extremely clean after going through that much paper.

But then now that they’re in school, they also come home with other stuff like germs, viruses and bacteria. Lots and lots of them. To be precise, about 50 kids worth of them. Which would be fine if we didn’t have a baby in the house but you see, there’s just one problem. The baby is in the house, yo!

Within the first 3 months of baby Finn’s life, he’s already been ill 4 times. And that’s after factoring in a diet of my super-immunity-building breast milk.

The past 2 nights, baby Finn was fluish again and the virus was causing his sleep pattern to regress. He woke up every 2 hours for a feed and each time, he’d flail and struggle to breathe while latched on with his death grip for almost 40 minutes.

In other words, he was pretty much attached to my boob the entire night. Times two.

In my sleep-deprived stupor, I noticed several things.

1. Lying down is the best position to breastfeed. It is also the single most hated feeding postion for baby Finn. He’s all like “THIS IS NO WAY TO DRINK MY MILK AND I WILL NOT STAND IT.” Instead, he likes to be cradled in my arms while I’m sitting upright because he’s a tyrant and a slavedriver.

2. Falling asleep while breastfeeding is very bad. For boobs. The husband can keep his head perfectly straight while sleeping upright but I unfortunately do not possess that particular ability. Once I doze off, my head rolls around like a bobblehead doll and one time, it rolled to the back, causing my boob to be yanked backwards. Instead of letting go of his grip, baby Finn bit down even harder and let’s just say that the yanking + biting combination = a very effective deterrence to falling asleep.

3. Marathon breastfeeding through the night makes me very hungry. And sitting there in the dark gives me a lot of time to think about food. After the 5am feed, I had the most massive craving for a bacon sandwich so I raided my fridge only to find some milk & cereal. Which was nowhere near as good but when you’re starving at 5am, it’s pretty darn tasty.

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kids in motion, not feeling so supermom

Sharp and pointy all in a row

October 26, 2012

The kids are off school today so we’re doing something constructive like COLORING!!! My level of enthusiasm warrants a caps lock and 3 exclamation points but they didn’t seem too enthusiastic about my genius idea.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they do it in school everyday or that coloring is in fact, as they call it, “so boring.”

So instead we decided to round up all the blunt colored pencils hidden in various dark corners of the house to make them all sharp and pointy again. And while I was sharpening them one by one, I suddenly realized that I haven’t done this in over a decade. It felt so old school using a tiny retro sharpener. They’ve got all these gigantic electronic sharpeners that do the job in half the time but where’s the fun in that?

Because the whole point of sharpening is to make the longest unbroken twirl of wooden pencil shavings, amirite?

Plus now I have a row of pointy colored pencils for the kids to go do their thing.

My job is done here.

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not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Today, I’m happy

October 9, 2012

Finn’s been sick again, this time with a stomach bug and all the usual symptoms. Projectile vomiting, diarrhea (of the particularly explosive variety), bloatedness, gas, the whole works.

Twice, he pooped all over my shirt. Once, he vomited into my shirt while I tried to burp him on my chest. It’s like he got all upset with the milk and was aiming it back at my boobs to make a point. Like “here, take it back, this milk isn’t working for me, mom.”

That’s alright though. It’s just vomit.

The really tough part is the stomach discomfort. He would clench his little fists and scream like he was in pain. I tried carrying him and nursing him and distracting him but he’d just cry and cry until he got tired and fell asleep in my arms. Once I put him down, the cycle would start again. This intense exhaustion, it’s like the parenting equivalent of waterboarding and it gets to you. A few days in, I got frustrated with all the screaming and immediately I’d be frustrated at myself for being frustrated at him because he’s just a baby who’s in pain.

But you know what helps?

Looking at this.

Well, not exactly in a basket but looking at him as he’s in my arms and knowing that the worst of it passes after a while. He won’t be this tiny forever. Tomorrow, he’ll wake up and be a little bigger, and then even bigger the morning after that. Soon enough, he won’t want me to hold him when he’s got a stomach flu.

Today, my baby needs me so I’m going to dig deep and activate the crazy mommy part of my brain that’s actually happy to do it.

Sleep can wait a couple more days. Or months.

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not feeling so supermom

All bugged out

September 6, 2012

Kirsten came home with a nasty flu bug on Monday and she’s been spreading it around like the Ebola virus. The moment she started sniffling, I tried to keep Finn away from her but she’s fiercely possessive about her little brother.

I told her she wasn’t supposed to kiss him or touch him or breathe near him until she got better, which prompted a complete meltdown.

“I just…*sob* want to…*sob* kiss baby Finn…*more sobbing* because I love him so much,” as she melted into the floor.

“Ok, drama queen. I know you love baby Finn, which is why you can’t go near him because you’ll make him sick.”

“But I…need to sayang him…*sob* promise, just one time only.”

“You can blow him a flying kiss from across the room, sweetheart. Baby Finn misses you too.”

Despite our best efforts to keep him isolated, my 9-day-old has also caught the flu bug. Just as the husband and I came down with it as well. I think it would be an understatement to say that the madness around here has multiplied exponentially.

It’s heartbreaking when newborns fall ill because they’re so small and vulnerable. The poor boy’s nose is all clogged up and he can’t breathe so he spends whatever time he’s not crying making awful grunting and snorting noises. And because he can’t breathe, he struggles at every feed, gasping for air in between gulps of milk.

There isn’t much I can do to make him feel better, except carry him to keep him upright and offer my boobs for comfort. Well, at least the boobs seem to calm him down. He suckles for a few minutes, then falls asleep so I pat him on my shoulder to help him breathe.

Like Lionel Ritchie, all night long.

I feel like I’m going to pass out from exhaustion.

After his feed at like 3-ish last night, he had a particularly bad screaming fit. Every position I tried carrying him in didn’t seem comfortable. 20 minutes in, his face was all red and blotchy from all that yelling. He was grabbing my shirt with one of his tiny fists and he suddenly stopped and opened his eyes to look at me. Then he slowly closed them back and drifted off to sleep. After that, he slept for the next 4 hours. And so did I.

That’s 4 whole hours. 240 minutes. I haven’t slept for 4 hours straight since he was born.

Honestly, best. sleep. ever.

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Finn, not feeling so supermom

Soldiering on

August 31, 2012

Day 5 postpartum.

I’m in the twilight zone – my days and nights have fused into one giant ball of sleeplessness.

I’ve forgotten how exhausting it is to take care of a newborn. I keep hearing infant-crying noises in my head, and it turns out that 90% of them are real, which at this point is possibly worse than hearing imaginary crying sounds.

The postnatal blues is not helping either. It’s not nearly as bad as the first 2 kids and I was mentally prepared for it but it’s still tough to deal with sometimes.

Days like these, I get through each day by reminding myself to be thankful. And not just a perfunctory “ok, let’s be thankful” but to spend time focusing on all the things I’ve got to be grateful for.

1. Finn is healthy and growing well. Every time he cries, it’s a reminder that God gave him to us and he’s everything that we could have asked for.

2. Truett and Kirsten are amazing older siblings. They kiss him and pat him and cuddle him whenever he’s awake. It’s a real joy to watch.

3. The return of Superdad. He’s always been super but with the new baby, he seems to have leveled up his powers. He takes the 2 bigger kids off my hands, helps out with Finn, does the chores and spends whatever time he has left doing actual work. Then at the end of every day, he gives me a hug and tells me that everything is going to be ok.

4. My mom and my mom-in-law have been a tremendous help, taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and being around to watch the kids.

5. The benefit of experience. Knowing that the madness is temporary and things will get better in a couple of weeks.

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not feeling so supermom, stuff best described as not safe for parents

Toilet Training – fun times

June 21, 2012

All my life, I’ve always preferred vaginas to penises. Wait, let me clarify that. What I meant was that I’ve always preferred HAVING a vagina than a penis. Not that I’ve ever had a penis for comparison but it’s just that I’ve never wanted to have one.

Like we can sit cross-legged for hours without squashing any sensitive bits. There’s no obstruction when we wear pants. And no need to worry that it’s too big or too small because I’ve never seen women fuss about the size of their lady parts. Also, penises seem to itch a lot more. Why else do dudes always have a need to scratch/adjust/grab their junk in public?

Except for when it comes to toilet training.

Boys have an inherent advantage in the peeing department, so much so that it’s starting to make me a little envious. When boys pee, they just need to follow the 5 Step Rule – whip it out, aim it, fire it, shake it off and put it back.

Girls, on the other hand, are a nightmare to toilet train.

When Kirsten did her first pee in the toilet bowl, she wanted to do it standing “like kor kor”. I told her it was impossible unless she wanted it to end up all over her legs. The only way to do it was to have full-on butt contact with the toilet seat, which is fine at home but very tricky in public toilets.

One time we were at a coffeeshop and the moment she walked into the toilet, she was all “EWWW SO GROSS. Mommy you wash it.”

WHAT?? HELL TO THE NO.

I’d do a lot of things for the kids, like donate a kidney or a retina, but there has to be a line and from where I stand, that line is scrubbing a pee-stained public toilet with my bare hands in preparation for contact with her royal bottom.

We settled on a compromise of a half-squat where I had to prop up her thighs in mid-air and she basically peed all over my hands.

And then there’s the wiping, which is an art form in itself. It has got to be done right – front to back, with a double-folded 2-ply square of toilet paper in order to cover the right amount of surface area. Because you can’t shake dry or air dry a vagina.

So you’d think that after all that trouble, the actual peeing would be a breeze. With Truett, the downside is the aiming issue which does take a bit of target practice to perfect, so I was expecting that Kirsten would at least be able to pee straight into the toilet bowl without any fuss.

Um, not quite.

For some reason, she’s got a special skill which allows her to pee up into the air like a fountain while sitting on the toilet bowl. Instead of going down and in like most regular people, it goes up and out onto the floor. It’s quite a remarkable talent and I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time I witnessed it. I’m just not big on having to wash my toilet several times a day.

Long story short, she’s physically capable of (attempting) to pee in a toilet bowl but I’m reluctant to take her off pull ups because let’s face it, it’s so much easier just changing diapers.

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not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Sick Leave.

June 11, 2012

I’ve been careful to not fall ill during this pregnancy but after 6 months keeping germ-free, my body has finally succumbed to a particularly nasty flu bug that one of the kids gave to me. I can’t say for sure because they were both ill over the weekend but I’m pretty sure it’s Kirsten since she’s the one who insisted on holding my face to sleep and then sneezed globs on her germs straight into my mouth.

The poor girl was grouchy and miserable and the only thing that helped her fall asleep was being 2 inches away from my face. It was an unusual request but she seemed to really want it and according to my parenting manual, when your sick kid needs to breathe into your face in order to fall asleep, you just do it.

Now when you’re that close to somebody’s face, you can tell when a sneeze is coming. Her face scrunched up and I was about to take cover but she had like an iron grip on my cheeks so I froze, closed my eyes and took the hit.

I’m typically more dexterous in dodging germy sneezes but these kinds of point blank ones are almost impossible to dodge.

On the bright side, it did help her fall asleep and she woke up feeling much better but on the not so bright side, no amount of mouth-scrubbing and vitamin-popping could undo the damage that one sneeze did to my immune system.

Now my head is throbbing and my throat is on fire and I just want to lie down and make terrible groaning noises.

While I lie down, I’m going to think about whether this was a heroic or incredibly stupid move. Probably both.

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