and then there were five

Since some people are apparently sick of reading about dead squirrel parts (hi Carla!), I figured it was time to bump that post down with an update.

It’s the girls’ birthday season - The Angel (A) turned 3 last month, The Princess (E) will be 5 next week, and their joint birthday party is fast approaching (I really should be shopping for and putting together party favors right now).  The Boy (M) is growing like a weed.  Since he started talking he hasn’t stopped, but he’s now stringing words together and it’s hard to believe he’s growing into a little boy.  The best was just a few days ago when I was getting him dressed and the hubby (D) walked into the room.  As soon as he saw him, he said “Hi Daddy”.  Cracked us both up and I know D’s heart melted into a puddle at his feet right then and there.  He’s also big into “No” these days, both shaking his head and saying it when faced with anything that doesn’t appeal to him at that particular moment.

I’ve been trying to get back into crafting which I used to love to do but since having kids have never had the time to.  As far as scrapbooks go, I’m 15 months into E’s life, and up to A’s birth announcement.  I’ve been meaning to get cracking on that, but have been more obsessed with interested in sewing lately.  I had been wanting a little point-and-shoot to keep in my purse that I could whip out at a moment’s notice and got it for Mother’s Day, so I’ve whipped up a little cozy for it:

The camera has a hand strap on it that hangs out of the side, so still easy to carry but becase I quilted the cozy I don’t have to worry (too much) about it getting banged up.

While I’m at it, here’s a purse I made a couple weekends ago:

That may look familiar to anyone who owned that particular Gap sweater at some point.

Not bad for a novice, I must say, although I will admit that I can look at each of those and point out each and every flaw.  The important thing is I tried and got through it and completed both projects, and not how much swearing was involved during the process.

I picked up some cute little fat quarters today and tonight am going to take a crack at some little head kerchiefs for the girls to wear this summer.  We’ll see how that goes - so far seams aren’t my forte and that’s pretty much all that’s involved.

If you don’t hear from me for another 4 months I’m probably laying under a sewing machine somewhere.  Send help.

Finding a bloodied, decapitated squirrel corpse on your screened porch…

OR

Finding your dog in the yard gnawing on a furry little ball?

YOU DECIDE.

May you never lack in reasons to be silly and have a good laugh this year!

Seeing how it’s been over 2 weeks since my last post, I thought I’d better go ahead and get something up here.  People can only look at my feet for so long.  Although admittedly, they are nice feet. 

Things have been winding down around here somewhat.  We’re back to having a little free time on the weekends after the madness of the Spring/Summer season with the neverending invitations from family and friends (not that we’re complaining).  I must say I’m thrilled the summer is technically over and we’re moving into the Fall, which is by far my favorite season.  Soon Fall/Halloween decorations will go up, and we’ve got a big 1st birthday party to start planning here soon. 

More immediately though, I’m about halfway through the DIY kitchen reno I started weeks ago and need to finish that so our birthday guests don’t feel like they’ve just entered a war zone when they arrive.  We’ve also got a trip to NC coming up in a few weeks for the girls’ first stints as flower girls in their uncle’s wedding, which means I’ve got to get cracking on having their dresses altered, and in 10 days, The Princess will start ballet classes.

OK, I realize that doesn’t sound very much like winding down, but if you knew what our lives become once warm weather hits, you’d be breathing a sigh of relief with me.

Enough of my to-do list, though.  Photos seem to keep you all happy, so here, have a few more.  These are from the kids’ visit to their grandmother’s house this weekend - The Dad got them out of the house for a bit so I could work on the kitchen (next we need to work on him getting them out of the house so I can get a pedicure, take a nap, eat bon bons, etc.):

Just shootin’ the breeze

(I love how The Boy seems to be trying to get in on the girls’ conversation)

I’m thinking it’s time for his first haircut

When babies attack

(this is a regular occurrence, and the attacking goes both ways)

Striking a pensive pose

Here, have some pictures…

The apples don’t fall far…

We’re hoping he has better coordination by the time he’s ready to date. 

Rub-a-dub-dub, three babes in a tub…

East siiiiide!

Because the last thing I need is for new readers to be scared off by a long-winded post about my female bodily functions.

So how about we talk about my kids!  They’re so cute, don’t you think? 

The Boy is now 9 months old, and last week during our vacation he decided to add 3 more teeth on the top to his pre-existing 2 on the bottom, and he quickly learned how to grind those teeth so as to send his mother into nervous shivers, just like his big sister The Angel does.  His crawling also took off seemingly overnight and he went from the army crawl to full-fledged running on all fours.  He’s also pulling up on everything that will hold him, and occasionally tests his limits by letting go.  He has yet to stand on his own once he does, but he’s not far off.  It’ll be interesting to see if he walks before his sisters did (14 months for The Princess, 15 months for The Angel).  He babbles like a maniac, too.  His favorite words right now are “Dadada” and “Mamama”.  He claps when you say “palminhas” (the portuguese word for “applause”), and if you’re patient and do it long enough, he’ll mimic shaking his head “no no no”. 

He’s such a happy boy, it doesn’t take much to get him going into a full-blown giggle attack.  He smiles immediately at every familiar face, especially his sisters’, and his culinary palette is expanding by the minute.  Unless you want to share your food, I’d advise not eating around him because he’ll demand a bite of whatever it is.  He’s eating chunks of soft steamed vegetables, macaroni and cheese, bits of cheese and bread, chick peas (my mom was eating them, he insisted), and at his cousin’s birthday party last weekend he had his first taste of pizza. 

The Angel is really in the throes of the terrible twos.  She’s at that stage where she really wants to assert her independence and is testing us in every way.  She’ll do things she knows she’s not supposed to all the while watching us to see how far she can get before getting in trouble for it.  Lately at bedtime she’s been refusing to say her prayers, and then when we say “Fine, good night” and start to walk out of the room, she freaks out and says them through whimpers.  She’s also reached the dreaded refusal to eat stage, where she’ll take a few bites of her food and declare herself finished.  I usually have to try to shove a couple more spoonfuls into her mouth just to put myself at ease that she’s not going to emaciate overnight.

What gets me through this stage is knowing that it will eventually blow over as it did for her sister.  That, and the fact that she’s just too damn funny to dwell too much on the difficulties.  It’s just amazing to watch her go from baby to little girl.  Every day she says or does something that, even though we’ve already been through this with The Princess, has me in total awe of how fast they grow up.  I mean, one day she says her first whole sentence, and next thing I know, she hears fireworks explode and exclaims “Run for your life!”  I wouldn’t doubt her big sister had something to do with that.  You can see how much she looks up to her.  Her big sister is the first thing she asks for when she wakes up in the morning (followed closely by orange juice).  She’ll mimic anything she does.  At the same time, though, she’s still very much her own person.  And despite the tantrums, she’s still very much the sweet baby she’s always been.  As her Daddy says, she’s “the quintessential little girl”.

The Princess is truly living up to her nickname.  If she’s not demanding to wear a skirt to school, she’s begging to put on my makeup.  And I don’t mean she wants me to put some on her… she has to do it herself.  This results in a blotch of powder on one side of her face and a big smear of blush on the other, but if this is what makes her happy and gives me a respite from the whining, it’s fine with me.

I’m loving 4 years old right now.  She’s become quite the little helper, always wanting to help me cook, giving the baby his bottle when I need to tend to The Angel, and just generally do whatever activity that feels “grown up”.  She’s been dying to do ballet and tap dancing, so I’m currently investigating dance schools in our area to get her into a combo class this fall (it’s literally ballet one minute, tap the next - she wants to wear both types of shoes.  Now do you see why “The Princess” is such an appropriate name?).

The Princess is the physical definition of “precocious”.  The more she grows and comprehends what people around her are saying, the more she tries to test the limits as far as what she can say.  One day at dinner, I can’t remember what I’d said to her, but she responded with “Hey!  Don’t say that!” and then made her classic “embarrassed” face while guaging our reaction.  Of all the things she says, though, I think “Mommy, you’re my best friend ever” is my favorite.

That doesn’t even begin to describe the kids and what they’re up to these days, but it’s a start.  Besides, I just wanted to get your mind off my period, and you’re totally not even thinking about that anymore, right?

My son killed my vagina.

Take a minute.

Aside from all the pre-term labor nonsense, my pregnancies with the girls were pretty normal in terms of what they did to my body.  Other than gaining 60 pounds, a little nausea, and the occasional bout of sciatica, I couldn’t really complain much.  And after they were born, my body pretty much went back to normal.

With The Boy?  Well, considering he started with a yeast infection, I should have known it was all going to be downhill from there.

See, back in February ‘06, I had a yeast infection.   I knew my period was coming up right on the heels of it, so once it cleared up I had a look at the calendar to see how much time of “free and clear” we had to… well, never mind.  Anyway, when I looked at the calendar, I realized that I’d had that yeast infection during the week I should have been having my period.  Being pretty regular, I knew something was up, and immediately went out for a pregnancy test, which less than an hour later produced two pink lines and changed our lives forever.

During the course of my pregnancy with my son, I had two more yeast infections (before that one that led to the discovery that there was yet another little embryo growing inside me, I’d only ever had one in my life), tested positive for HPV, and was convinced for a two week period that I had vulvar cancer.  On my doctor’s advice, we waited all of that out until the little bugger was out of me to see if everything went back to normal.  It did.

And then when breastfeeding was tapering off, my period came back.  With a vengeance.  The first month, I thought it made sense it was so heavy after an almost two year break.  After all, I’d only had 2 or 3 periods in between stopping breastfeeding with The Angel and getting pregnant with The Boy.  But now, we’re a few months into this, and I’ve seen no change from that first one after the drought to this, what, the fourth now since its return?

When I say it’s heavy, that couldn’t be more of an understatement.  For the first two days, I’m literally gushing.  I walk around and can feel the clots sliding out of me, which is another thing… it’s way clottier than it’s ever been.  So much so that I - she who chastised her friends for wearing pads because really, it’s just an adult diaper - now choose to wear pads over tampons because I’m paranoid about “plugging up” the clots so that they build up, which I’m not sure is what really happens, but I don’t want to keep these things in my body any longer than I need to.  And I’m going through more pads a day than a newborn goes through diapers.  Think about that one.

What’s more, my period that used to last 3, 4 days tops back in the days when I was still allowed to take the pill because we didn’t know it could kill me at any given moment, now lasts for the full 5-7 days the Health teacher told me about when I was 12. 

And the regularity!  If only any other aspects of my life were so reliable!  For the past two months it’s been 28 days TO THE T.  Which is kind of nice and helps me plan to have the cotton bikinis ready to go (which, ok, I may or may not also wear when I’m not on the rag), but seriously, is all that necessary?  This month Aunt Flow was obviously trying to impress somebody by coming a full 3 days early.  That’s a 25 DAY CYCLE. 

Apparently Mother Nature hasn’t gotten the memo that I’M DONE HAVING BABIES NOW, PLEASE SEND THIS REGULARITY TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS IT.

All I have to say for the lack of posting is, well, we’re just having a busy summer.  See…

Now, back to the beach…

For the past week I’ve been going jogging in the mornings.  Me, otherwise known as “she who does not exercise unless you count walking to the fridge exercise”.  Not that you can really call it “jogging” per se - it’s more of the occasional sprint amid longer periods of walking kinda fast.  However, it’s exercise nonetheless, and after I’ve done it I feel so good about myself that for the most part, I’m more conscious of what and how much I’m eating throughout the day.  I still have the occasional unhealthy snack (it’s been a week for crying out loud), but now it’s down to one a day rather than oh, one after each meal (who knew it wasn’t normal to have dessert after breakfast?).  I’m also drinking a ton of water which, if you consider that I can go an entire day having had only a cup of coffee and a soda to drink all day long, is a big deal.

I’m getting better at the running thing.  I didn’t expect to set out on day one running a marathon, but I have to say I was surprised at how hard it is.  All those skinny women running around the neighborhood with their little iPods strapped to their skinny arms make it look so easy.  On day one, I kid you not, I could run maybe 1/8 of the way around the block before I had to stop to walk. 

On day two, I had killer shin splints, but I was determined to keep going.  Knowing I wasn’t going to be doing any running, and I had to go to the grocery store anyway, I decided to walk to the grocery store, which really isn’t too far, but still not something I’ve ever done.  Ever.  So I walked to the grocery store, and on the way home I did bicep curls with my bags of groceries.  When I told my husband about this it was clear he was embarrassed to be the husband of that crazy woman who works out with groceries.  In public.  But I decided that when my size 6 jeans are gliding smoothly over my hips and I can zip them up without having to suck anything in, the neighborhood’s opinion of me is going to be the last of my concerns.

Until today. 

Every day this week I’ve been going out for a run faithfully after dropping The Princess off at school and before starting my workday, even though it’s turned out not to be as fun as I thought it might be.  I just try to remember how good I feel afterward and that keeps me going.  That and the fact that I put on my running clothes first thing in the morning so I’ll feel extra lazy if I don’t follow through. 

Today I was ambivalent about going though, knowing how much work I had to do.  I decided that if I was going to do it, I’d kill two birds with one stone, and I decided on another trip to the grocery store.  This time, without shin splints hindering me, I jogged there (now making it halfway around the block without having to stop… wooooo!). 

Today I got considerably more groceries than I did last week.  My biceps were sure to get a good workout.  I curled and I curled.  Whenever there wasn’t another jogger or a car in sight, that is, because OK, I kind of care what the neighborhood thinks.  But not so much about that as about what happened next.

My groceries weren’t evenly balanced, and with 3 blocks left before I made it home, and my left arm feeling like it was about to rip out of its socket, I had no choice but to stop, put the groceries down, and switch the left and the right.  Besides, no one wants one flabby arm and one Popeye arm.  It’s all about balance.  Which is exactly what I could have used a little more of when I stood back up.

I don’t know what happened, but on the journey from leaning over to standing upright, my feet somehow started moving before the rest of my body was ready to, and I ended up doing some kind of stumbling move that brought my face close enough to the pavement I could see the ants running for their lives.  I didn’t hit the ground, though.  Hell, I didn’t even drop my groceries.  No, no, nothing was hurt but my pride.

I stood back up and once I regained my composure, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself because as terrifying as that whole episode felt, I imagine it was a pretty hysterical sight.  I also had to look around - praying that no one saw me and if they did, that we wouldn’t make eye contact as I looked around to see if anyone saw me.  For all I know the entire neighborhood just so happened to be sitting in their bay windows at that particular moment and will all be snickering behind my back at the next block party, but I couldn’t see that anyone was around, except for the guy in the pest control van up the block and I’m not positive he saw me. 

Too bad, it would have really made his day.

Boob.

My baby had a rough day yesterday.  I knew in my gut his ear infection wasn’t going to clear up on its own.  I got him an urgent care appointment late yesterday afternoon, and it was confirmed that his left ear is still infected.  He’s now on a new med and after only 2 doses already seems to be feeling better.  Granted, the same was the case with the amoxicillin, so we’re just hoping he doesn’t have a reaction to this one that will prevent him completing the entire course.

So you know how I announced that we were pretty much done with breastfeeding, and that I was ok with this and looking forward to having my body back to myself?  Well, apparently my boobs thought I jumped the gun a little and set out to put me back in my place.  After not nursing for a few days, last night I started to feel a little engorged.  Not rock hard, painful engorgement like the early days of breastfeeding, but just that almost itchy discomfort feeling, know what I mean?  And then that made my heart a little sad that we were done with breastfeeding.  And then I went and woke my baby up to nurse him.

OK, I didn’t really wake him up on purpose.  I went in to check on him at 11 last night before turning in myself.  I really was trying to be quiet.  I’m very anti- waking a sleeping baby, especially knowing how little sleep he got during the day, but he must not have been in a deep sleep at the time because he heard me and sat up in bed and started whimpering when he saw me.  I can’t say I was too disappointed though.  I picked him up, sat in the glider, and nursed him back to sleep. 

Even though it had only been a few days since I last nursed him, it seemed like an eternity.  He suddenly just looked so big to me and I wondered how we got to almost 8 months so quickly.  I still remember vividly laying in my hospital bed trying to rouse my little six pound baby to get him to nurse, and here I was, seemingly suddenly, holding this 2 1/2 foot long, 20 pound little boy.  I must say it was really nice though, and if he wants to continue to nurse every few days even if just for comfort, that’s fine with me.  I feel like I’ve got the best of both worlds going on right now and I’ll take it for as long as I can.

He fell asleep while nursing, and once he popped off I tried to lay him back in his bed.  He usually will go right back to bed after waking to eat at night, but instead, he woke up and whimpered for me again.  I might usually let him do that for a little while to see if he’ll go back to sleep on his own, but knowing he wasn’t feeling well I scooped him back up and offered him another boob.  This one he gnawed on a bit and I considered rescinding the offer, but then he got his act together and nursed himself into a deep, breastmilk-drunken coma.  This time I was able to lay him back in his crib without a peep, and me and my no-longer-throbbing boobs went to bed.