So tired.  Too tired for full sentences.  Will update in bullet form.

Avery

• Loves to sleep.  During the day.  At night?  Not even close to being interested.  I remember this from Eirinn.  This part is no fun.
• Loves to eat.  ALL THE TIME.  Is a pig.  But I guess she has the whole “growing infant” thing to use as an excuse for the weight gain.  Feeding her all the time has left me with an insatiable craving for Fudgsicles.  I do not have the “growing infant” thing as an excuse for weight gain anymore.  Luckily Fudgsicles are low in fat and calories.  High on awesome.
• HATES to be naked.  Even diapie changes are reason for complete mental breakdowns.  Oh, and the breakdowns cause her to poop.  So get this vicious cycle.  She poops, so we have to change her, so she screams about it, so she poops, and so on until eternity.  Leaving for the grocery store this morning took an hour and a half and 7 diapers.  I could hear the “cha-ching” with every shriek.
• Is ridiculously cute.  Even when she’s not sleeping, pigging out on my very sore udders, and squeeling for someone to save her from the torture of a clean, dry bum.

Eirinn

• Is coping surprisingly well.  She’s trying to be helpful, although the concept of “gentle” is a little foreign to our little Princess Tomboy.  She’ll catch on.
• Has been spoiled rotten, which probably contributes to the coping.  She has been treated to many Big Sister presents, trips to the trailer, pool parties, popcicles just cause she wants them.  I’m sure if she knew Big Sister-dom came with so many perks, she would have signed up for this gig a long time ago.
• Now seems GIGANTIC.  Last week, she still seemed like our baby girl.  Size 2 clothing was still tiny.  Now she is this enormous, Godzeera of a person who just speaks with a funny accent and still wears diapers to bed at night.

Bosco

• Is feeling terribly neglected and unloved, even though literally nothing has changed for him.  He still has the run of the house, gets a treat every night, and sleeps in our bed.  Not even Avery is allowed to sleep in our bed, so that’s got to mean something, right?

Me

• Incredibly tired from the no sleeping, constantly eating newborn.  But that’s the same story heard from every mother of a newborn, so I’m not looking for any sympathy.
• Except maybe from Anonymous Husband.  It’s very easy to feel bitter at three in the morning, feeding the child, having only been asleep for a grand total of 20 minutes, when the husband is snoring away three feet to my left.  Especially when the snoring is what woke the baby up.
• Feeling, otherwise, great.

* Edited to note: Anonymous Husband has been incredibly helpful this week.  I only feel the resent at night because feeding her is something he can not do to help.  If he could, I’m sure he would.  But he can’t, so I sit on my side of the bed at all hours of the night, baby filling her little tummy, glaring at him through my tired, crusty eyes, wishing he had the boobs in the family.

On Monday morning, at 3:40 am, my water broke.  It was the weirdest feeling, if you’ve never experienced it.  There was literally a *pop* sensation and a gush.  A very large, seemingly neverending gush.  Those who confuse wetting themselves with their water breaking probably just wet themselves. 

AH called Labour & Delivery while I sat on the pot as water kept coming.  I wasn’t having any contractions or pain and the water was clear, so they told us to wait until morning to come in.  So that’s what we planned on doing, all the while trying to dry the mattress with towels and hair dryers and re-making the bed with new, un-soiled sheets.

Contractions started at about 5ish, so we called AH’s mom to come to the house so Eirinn could keep sleeping (I don’t know how she could sleep at a time like this…).  My parents had already been called because they needed 2 hours driving time heads up.  By the time his mom arrived, the contractions were getting pretty strong, so on the way to the hospital, we used the speed limit as a suggestion, only.  Oh, and we stopped at the bank first.  Might as well get some business done while we’re out.  We don’t get out without Eirinn much, so we took advantage and it was a little early in the morning for a movie.

We got to the hospital at 6:30 and I was 3-4 cms dilated, 75% effaced.  The nurse ran down the list of pain management options, and as the contractions were getting a little intense, I opted for a shot of Gravol (I was also feeling like I was going to make sick) and a shot of Morphine to take the edge off.

The nurse checked me again at 10:00 and I was 7 cms dilated and excruciatingly uncomfortable.  She called my doctor, who told her to call him again when I was 8 and he’d come in time for delivery. 

The contractions were getting unmanageable and one on top of the other, so after a long inner debate, I told AH that I thought I needed an epidural.  He didn’t know, because I didn’t tell him, but that was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make.  I was mentally set on going just as natural as I had with Eirinn (despite the induction, I only had one shot of Morphine with her).  I was extremely disappointed with myself that I couldn’t tough this one out like I had before.

AH went to the nurses station and told them I wanted an epidural.  Apparently, this is code word for “By God, she’s having the baby NOW!” so my doctor was called right away and the nurse got someone to start the fluids.  I say “someone” because I’m pretty sure a nurse could start fluids without, and I quote, “blowing the vein”, resulting in a puddle of blood on the floor that AH got to stand in during pushing.  Anyway, that was neither here nor there, because as I was bleeding to death (not really, just a little bitter sarcasm) I whispered to AH that I was pretty sure I should be pushing.  The nurse (the real one, not the vein butcher) checked me again (this was about 10 minutes after being checked at 7cms) and she said the head was right there.

The on-call doctor was paged and I started pushing.  He had some kid with him, like some 15 year old Doogie Howser, M.D. or something.  Maybe it was Bring Your Kid To Work Day, I don’t know.  Anyway, this kid did a lot of the stuff down there, but I wasn’t in a position to care.  I pushed through 4 or 5 contractions and on my last push, my doctor came flying through the door, shoved his hands in some gloves, got right on the bed, perpendicular to me, and out she came at 10:36 am.

For the record, that was 4 hours of active labour, no epidural, 10 minutes of pushing (5 in total), only one stitch internally, which was done by the on-call doctor (what was his name, anyway?) and my doctor said it wasn’t necessary afterall.  8 lbs 15 oz, 22 inches (which is exactly 2 full pounds heavier than Eirinn and almost 3 inches longer), and I’m done.  Like done for good.  It was fast and furious, but Good Lord, the whole “getting the baby outta there” business hurts like the Dickens.

I went home after 24 hours because staying at the hospital sucks.  The food is gross and usually cold (unless it’s supposed to be cold; in that case it’s warm), the bed is so uncomfortable I might as well have been sleeping on the lanolium floor, and the random nurses prodding at my baby and touching my boobs, makes the hospital a not-nice place.

HOWEVER, Avery slept like an angel at the hospital.  Last night?  Not so much. 

But, when I look at that face, I can’t stay mad for long.

Things that were confiscated this weekend:

* lip balm

* dessert

* a bathing suit (temporarily)

* a visit to Granny’s

Reasons for the deprivation:

* spreading it on the walls

* not eating homemade chocolate chip pancakes (who on earth wouldn’t eat homemade chocolate chip pancakes!?!)

* throwing it on the floor and not picking it up

* not napping after insisting she needed to nap instead of eating lunch (turns out this was a ploy to not only avoid lunch, but to visit Granny earlier)

Cause of the misbehaviour:

* lack of sleep

* lack of sleep

* lack of sleep

* lack of sleep

Eirinn had a strong distaste for sleeping this weekend, in all its forms.  Thursday night through this morning contained ridiculously early mornings, missed naps, late nights and interrupted night sleep.  I have long believed that sleep begets sleep and, therefore, lack of sleep begets lack of sleep.  If a child (namely Eirinn) has a good night’s sleep, she will likely have a decent nap, which will also lead to another good night’s sleep, and so on and so forth.  And, of course, the opposite is true.  If she has one night of restless and interrupted sleep, she won’t nap as she should (not as long as usual or not at all), and we’re in for another dreadful night. 

This cycle is difficult to repair.  As adults, we can reason with our minds and tell them to just settle down and go to sleep already because we need rest to function.  As a toddler, when our bodies and minds tell us two different things, we usually don’t know that we can argue with them.  If we’re hyper and over-tired, we usually just obey our minds and run around the house, screaming like an angry little banshee, pulling books off the shelves, not to read but to throw, because “we want to”.  We don’t realize that if we would just calm our misbehaving limbs and get sufficient rest, we would be in better form when we wake and that we would be happier and, as a result, those around us would be happier (Hi, Eirinn!  This is your exhausted, impatient mother begging sobbing speaking).

When a child (namely Eirinn) doesn’t sleep well, many people say “Oh, I bet she’ll crash!”  This is partially true.  Eirinn often does “crash”, as in falls asleep with little fuss.  BUT.  She could be up frequently during the night.  Or she’ll be up before dawn.  Or she’ll sleep fabulously through the night and have to be woken in the morning, but then she won’t nap.  It’s a hard balance to keep and in order to maintain it it takes a lot of careful scheduling and strict adherence.  Neither of which is easy.

It began on Thursday night, as far as I can tell, when Eirinn was up from 10:30pm to 2:30am puking her guts out.  She soiled all of the sheets and blankets that fit her bed, so she and I slept the rest of the night on the couch downstairs.  Well, I use the word “sleep” very loosely, because I flopped around uncomfortably, trying not to crush her with my girth, and she “slept” until the wee hour of 5am when the sun came up and announced (to her, not me) that “It’s morning!  No more sleeping allowed!”  I completely don’t blame her for that night.  She was sick from some mystery bug or she ate something that didn’t agree with her.  She had no other symptoms and seemed fine by the next afternoon.  However, it seems to me that she has yet to recover, sleep-wise, which in turn means her attitude has suffered immensely.

And so here we are on Monday.  While my mom reports that she has been fairly well behaved thus far, this morning she was up at 5:45 for the day.  She threw a tantrum about having her nighttime diaper changed and being put into underwear (in her foggy morning stuper, she thought she was already in underwear and didn’t know why I was taking them off of her).  She threw a tantrum about getting dressed.  She threw a tantrum about the way we brush her teeth.  She threw a tantrum because she had thrown something on the floor and wouldn’t pick it up.  So I threw her in my mom’s door, football-style, ran like my butt was on fire back to my car, squealed and smoked the tires as I backed out, laughing at my mom’s certain impending misfortune.

___

* Of course I know you can’t give 2 year olds Ambien.  Don’t be silly.  One can only dream…