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.

Avery Quinn arrived yesterday morning at 10:36 a.m.  She was much larger than I expected, at 8 lbs 15 oz and 22″.  She has dark, straight hair, the opposite of her big sister’s light, curly hair, and her eyes are still the uncommitted baby blue-gray.

She lost some weight before we left the hospital, but is still strong like bull.

I will post pictures when I get them uploaded and I’ll give you all the labour and delivery details when I’ve rested up.  I’ll warn you; there might be more than a few people who hate me out of pure jealousy after they read it.

I haven’t had the baby yet.  My doctor goes on vacation beginning July 5th and the way things are going that means I won’t get to have him deliver.  It would have been nice to have not only someone I’m comfortable with and know and who knows me and my history (not that there’s anything complicated to know), but also the same doctor who delivered Eirinn.  But at this point, I’ll just be glad when the baby is born (healthy, of course).  I’ve tried begging, pleading, praying, more begging, and this darn kid seems like she’s in there for good.

Also, if I don’t have this baby soon, I’m going to blimp up like…a blimp.  Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I have no self control.  For lunch on Monday I had two peanut butter cookies and an ice cream bar.  Tuesday was McDonalds.  Yesterday was healthy, but that was only because my mom packed the picnic lunch.  If it were up to me it would have been cookies again.

I’ve been reacquainting myself with stay-at-home parenthood.  Not that we’ve done much “staying at home”.  I think if I stayed at home all day everyday, I’d lose my mind.  And Eirinn would turn into the Hulk with the fury and the tantrums and the gross misconduct.  We need time (and lots of it) out of the house to stabilize her mood swings.  And it’s also a challenge to find activities that are fun for toddlers and that a woman carrying around a very large, painful belly which is getting extremely difficult to maneuver, what with the sciatic pain and the “down there” pressure and the complete lack of energy can handle.

Monday and Tuesday we spent the mornings shopping (in toy departments, so it was fun for her, too) and the afternoons napping (both of us).  Yesterday, after a terrible, horrible early morning spent with the Hulk, we went to a park with a creek and a splash pad and had a picnic for lunch.  This was more fun than the Hulk could handle and we got our Eirinn back.

Today, we planned on going on a long (labour-inducing, perhaps?) walk, but the weather doesn’t look like it wants to participate.  Or maybe a walk in the rain with our slickers and rain boots is fun too?  We’ll see, because staying at home all day isn’t an option. 

I’m in it to survive, people, not excel.  And survival involves vacating the premises, rain or shine.

Eirinn has matured from typical toddler Jackson Pollock arteest.  She’s entered into the talent field occupied by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci or Michaelangelo or, my favourite, Salvador Dali.  In other words, she’s bloody brilliant.

Or at least her mother thinks so.  Keep in mind she is 2 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 1 day old.

(Entire world, meet Anonymous Arm and Anonymous Knee.  I’m sorry AA and AK to have ‘outed’ you.  It couldn’t be avoided.)

Seriously.  She did that face (it’s so obviously a face - if you can’t tell, you must be drunk on absinthe) all on her own.  She started with a blank Magnadoodle and told me about the face, then the eyes, the nose, mouth, ears and hair as she drew them with her own little hand.  It looks a bit like The Scream to me, but with hair.  The drawing, silly, not the kid.

I’ve seen 5 year olds draw less realistically than that.

And I’m not just showing you in order to brag about a new-found talent.  I’m spreading the joy of art to the world because it would be selfish of me to keep it to myself.

The end of work, that is.  But that’s something, right?  I brought a box to pack up all my personal stuff - pictures, my calendar, a kettle - and that makes it all official. 

Come Monday morning, my desk will be occupied by someone else and they’ll be messing with my stuff and doing everything all wrong.  But what do I care?  I won’t have to deal with the rescue and recovery of it all for 13 months!  I get my 17 weeks of pregnancy leave, 35 weeks of parental leave, and I tacked on 4 weeks of vacation time to the end.

With Eirinn, I only took 10 months.  Well, I scheduled myself to only take 9 months, but her agenda and mine were not quite synchronized.  Going back to work when she was 10 months kind of sucked.  Ten months is the age when milestones start appearing at lightening speed.  She started walking at 10 months.  Her vocabulary exploded at 10 months.  But at the time, it was a financial necessity.  We were moving to a house with a larger mortgage and larger bills in a few months and we needed that time with full pay to save.

This time we’re planning on our finances being a little tight.  Tight, but hopefully manageable.  We’ll have to make some sacrifices here and there, put off some larger purchases until next summer, but we’ll make do.  I think the benefit to sacrifice ratio will make it all worth it.  Not only will I be able to spend those few extra months with Baby, but I’ll also be spending more time with Eirinn; the time I didn’t get to spend with her before.

And while I’m immensely excited about the end of work and the arrival of Baby, I know that by the end I will be glad to come back.  I’m not cut out to be a full time stay at home mother.  I think those who are are much stronger than I am.  I need to get out of the house - alone - and do something not mommy related for an extended period of time.

Plus, I don’t think my Anal Retentiveness will allow me to let someone else occupy my desk, mess with my stuff and do everything all wrong for any longer than that.  I’ll need to get back and deal with that situation.

Eirinn has suddenly transformed from a rough and tumble tomboy into a prissy little diva.  Just since Monday.  It was a rapid transformation.

Her wardrobe once consisted of pants, shorts and t-shirts and a pair of brown Dora sneakers.  All necessary when spending the day dumping sand over your head, skidding around in the grass, and purposely letting ice cream cones drip down your shirt.  If people mistook her for a boy, she didn’t care.  And she was happy, so we were happy.

Now (2.5 days later), new things make her happy.  Dresses make her happy.  Pretty dresses, to be exact.  Today’s dress is navy blue, with a pink sash and a matching sun hat.  With crinoline.  Oh, and her finger and toe nails are painted a nice shade of fire engine red.  And if they get chipped, she requires a touch up.

In the evenings, she gets extremely upset, to the point of temper tantrum, when we have to change her out of her pretty dress into pj’s.  She doesn’t see why she can’t sleep in her pretty dress.  She’s willing to sacrifice a comfortable sleep for fashion.

In the mornings, she is so excited to pick out the day’s pretty dress.  We’re lucky she’s been given a hefty supply as gifts.  She’s good for a couple of weeks without having to re-wear any.  And when I dress her, she has to run to show Daddy how pretty she looks.  She says “Look Daddy!” and does a beautiful ballerina spin.

I suppose we’ve taken a few steps back in the progress of feminism.  Her happiness pivoting on how pretty she feels, and all.  But you know what?  It’s probably a phase.  Probably a very short phase.  And the important part is that she is happy.  And she is.

We’ll save the bra-burning for her next phase.

Totally Wicked Cool Things We Did This Weekend Without Eirinn (in chronological order)

Friday

• Had ice cream for dinner (yes, we’re 5 years old)
• Rented movies and started them at 7 (normally we have to wait until Eirinn’s in bed)

Saturday

• Slept in until 9am (pathetic, I know, but we got such a sound sleep during the night, we were magnificently rested by 9am)
• Ate breakfast on the couch (when Eirinn’s around, we try to be good role models and eat only at the table)
• Went to the movies (Iron Man.  Loved it.)
• Ran errands in the afternoon (during Eirinn’s nap time we’re usually stuck at the house.  Errands are generally jammed into the morning hours)
• Went to a real, live grown up restaurant, with no crayons at the table and real, live cutlery (The Keg, where we had dinner and dessert and no one was embarrassing us with their incredibly inappropriate “indoor voice” or tempting management to kick us out)
• Rented more movies and watched them early again (we also watched them louder than usual because there wasn’t anyone to wake.  Unless you count lazy Bosco.)

Sunday

• Slept in until 8:30am (again, a satisfying sleep meant we didn’t need to sleep for as long)
• Had a big, ol’, greasy, homemade breakfast-feast (but not until noon - skipping the meal schedule - we are wild and crazy kids, I tell you)
• While AH spent the afternoon playing some ridiculously violent video game, I shopped.  All afternoon.  Awesome.

 All Weekend

• Missed Eirinn terribly

What We Didn’t Do This Weekend Without Eirinn:

• Go into labour

I don’t want to jinx it by getting too excited, but…

My unbelievably generous and supportive mom and dad have “volunteered” (and by “volunteered”, I do mean “agreed after I begged and pleaded and cried”, but same thing) to take Eirinn to the trailer for the weekend.  That means that Anonymous Husband and I can have a child-free weekend for the first time in exactly 2 years, 3 months and 5 days.  And probably the last one for even longer than that.

This was my idea, after realizing my impending doom that I’ll soon be required to parent two offspring; the thought of which sent me into a panicked meltdown.  Don’t get me wrong; I love and adore Eirinn more that anything else in this world, but, as all parents know, toddlers are an immense amount of work.  And in a short period of time, we will be in the heat of toddler/newborn chaos.  Tantrums and breastfeeding.  Potty training and diaper poop-splosions.  Requirements of mass quantities of attention and…requirements of mass quantities of attention. 

I didn’t realize that this weekend is Father’s Day until after I had totally scheduled my weekend in my head.  I ran the idea past AH and he agreed it might be nice, just as long as he can see Eirinn by dinner time on Sunday.  I nearly cried with joy.

I plan to fill the 46 hours of responsibility-free time sleeping in BOTH days (we take turns now), running errands DURING NAP TIME (instead of cramming them into the morning, pre-nap), going to a GROWN UP RESTAURANT (one that screaming banshee children would be frowned upon), and maybe even catching a movie (in a theatre; not Wizard of Oz in our living room 3 times in a row).  

My hopes are that this weekend will rejuvenate me, re-energize me, and give me some much needed rest.  In a matter of only a couple or three weeks, I can include “rest” in the long list of Things I Used To Enjoy In My Youth.

But I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch.  There is still 26 1/2 hours left before departure time.  This is plenty of time for things to go awry.  Like the weather forecast going from blah (as it stands now) to hideous.  Or for my parents to come to their senses change their minds.  Or for Eirinn to suddenly become uncharacteristically attached to me and AH and refuse to go without us.  Or for our house to fall into a sinkhole or the trailer to be crushed by a falling meteor.  Nature can have a nasty sense of humour sometimes, you know.

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…