Survival Mode

With two babies under eighteen months, one acquires tailor-made resources to get through the minutes, the hours, and the days of taking care of two little babes.

The following are but a few of the resources that have made my life livable.

Jericho

There's too much to list for why Jericho is essential to my survival. I shall be brief. One morning Jericho left super early to travel out of town for the week. I came downstairs hours after he left, groggy and grumpy and grumbling. I discovered that before he left, he'd unloaded the clean dishwasher. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I actually teared up.

Grandparents

As with Jericho, wayyyy too much to list in a blog post of the never ending service the GPs render. They babysit so Jericho and I can have nights out with friends or even just a quick bite across the street before making the one-hour drive back home. The GPs Smith asked if they could come over for dinner one Sunday. I told them I didn't have much to supply us all for dinner. They brought it all from their house. I decided to take a nap before they got here and I woke to my mother telling me dinner was ready. They'd come over, made dinner and helped take care of the babies. Why did I ever move out of their house?

Friends

I have visiting teachers/friends/neighbors that comes to my need at the drop of the hat. They steal my babies from me at church. No arguments here. I have this one friend that had a baby about the same time as me. We share many things. We have adorably crazy little babies. We have the same post-pregnancy physical ailments. We run into each other at Wal-Mart at the same odd hours at night in our sweats. We both cry for legitimate and humorously illegitimate reasons. We don't fold clean laundry. And we both hold very dear the remedial powers of a greasy cheeseburger.

McDonalds

[Speaking of greasy cheeseburgers]

I received two words from a cashier at McDonalds I never knew I'd hear and never knew would make me so sad. Two words that made me want to exclaimed, "That don't mean you know me!!!". She said to me, "Back again?" Two simple words that made me want to cry. In my defense, my McD's runs are not that frequent. I didn't recognize her so I'm making myself feel better by thinking this cashier just happened to be there both times I went within those couple of weeks. Or maybe it was within one week. It's all a big Diet Coke blur.

Does this gross you out to hear that I frequent McDonalds? Why do I even go to McDonald's? I shall explain. I generally have the attitude discussed by Jim Gaffigan. It represents all that is wrong with the stereotypical fat American. In my world, I go for survival. I go because it's practically in my backyard. I go on a morning when sleep was fleeting the night before and the babies are on the same fussy/noisy/need-to-go-to-sleep schedule. I call them our Family Drives. We listen to Harry Potter. I get an impressively large Diet Coke. Sometimes a biscuit, depending on the hour. Sometimes two cookies [for a dollar], depending on the level of emotional turmoil. And then I drive through my wonderful little town until the Diet Coke is gone. Everyone always chills out. The babies always go to sleep. I get to see their sweet faces while they sleep and while I listen to a book and wind down from some of my stress.

That is why I go to McDonald's. If there was such a thing as a drive-through Panera, I'd go there. But until they make one in my town, I'm sticking with the McDonald's. Judge as you wish.

It's called survival mode. It's something I heard other moms talk about but never truly understood until I was in it. I have a feeling mine might last a while. Now if only I could figure out how to incorporate the gym as a survival mode resource.

Four Months Ago

Four months ago, we had another baby. We had a teeny little spitty beautiful baby boy.

Now we have a four-month-old, still beautiful, still spitty, bigger baby boy.

Every time we hit a month milestone I think, "Wow, another month, and I've still never done a monthly update on my blog." Not that my readers are sitting on edge wondering how much Holden now weighs. I do intend on publishing this stuff one day for my own records and I need to record this stuff so that he doesn't feel less loved than his sister, who has a diligent monthly update for the first year of her life. Man those firstborns can really kill it for the follow-up siblings.

I thought that Holden was big for his age. He seems to be growing out of his clothes faster than Sydney did and he's bigger than my friend's baby who is two weeks older. But according to his stats, he's 25% for height and weight and 75% for his head. Those measurements should indicate that Holden resembles an orange on a toothpick but as you can see, he's a studly little man with no likeness to oranges or toothpicks.

He's made four months worth of physical progress but my most significant status for him is that I love him to pieces. Some days, I wake up and look at him and think, "I don't know how he did it, but he's cuter today than he was yesterday." He's warm and cuddly and lets me hold him and rock him to sleep. He lets me kiss his cheeks a thousand times a day and smell his sweet little angel baby smell. He's completely mellow. Although his mellowness is probably accentuated due to the contrast to his completely nutty toddler sister. Aside from the fact that he spits like a llama, he's perfect. Even the pediatrician told me so and you know she only ever tells that to me.

Holden is so lovely and sweet and makes me so happy that I look at him and think, "I can't wait to have another one so I can be this happy times three." [Don't worry. We're still on pregnancy hiatus.]

My favorite thing about him is that he loves to smile and giggle. You hardly need to look at him and he bursts into the biggest little baby grin. Look at that face. Seriously. If you need a pick me up, come on over and give Holden some snuggles and he'll smile and bury his little face in your neck.

He's pretty much awesome. 

Resolutions? ME??

With the new year comes new goals. At least that's the premise. We probably aren't making new goals but revamping our drive to accomplish the same goals from last year. That's what I do anyway. Maybe there are some people out there that they make 20 goals every year and accomplish them with dramatic flourish. I am not one of those people.

For example, I failed my goal last year of not being pregnant. I will remake that same goal this year. If I only accomplish one thing this year it will be:

1) Not be pregnant.

Seven days in. So far so good.

I have previously written on the subject of goals and resolutions. Go read those if you want. I'll wait.

My mindset from those posts has not drastically changed since writing them. I hate making new year's resolutions. They seem weak and like I'm only making them because that's what everyone else does this time of year. Plus I'm sure there is some statistic out there that says that like 86% of resolutions fail. Actually, I just looked. It's 78%. With that kind of failure rate, what's the point? Then I'll have all these resolutions mocking me yet again.

But I still make them. I can't help it. I get this motivation to start anew. It's the only time in my life that a true transition period is obviously marked. I have no school or job to break up the space time contiuum of a stay at home mom. Heck, half the time, I don't even know the date or day of the week. This year in particular I feel especially defeated. I had two babies back to back and my ability to maintain control in this world of infantile chaos lies in question almost daily.

This year will be my year. I hereby proclaim this year the year of Kelley!!

Here we go. I will make my goals in the secret public journal of my blog. [In no respective order of importance, except for the aforementioned #1.]

2) Take more pictures of baby #2 [in my defense, I mainly took more pictures of baby #1 because daddy was overseas]
3) Blog more. Lots more. All the time. Get those creative synapses firing. Churn out the cathartic prose.
4) Be healthier.
5) Be happier.
6) Be spiritualier.
7) Use my beautiful new sewing machine that Santa Jericho brought this year.
8) By this time next year, have Sydney potty trained. [Gack!!!]
9) Implement and follow a structured family budget.
10) Play sports. [I miss them so much. My heart aches to run up and down a basketball court. But must get going on #4 first because my ab muscles can no longer support my core in the act of running.]
11) Read lots and lots.

There we have it. I will put them in written form around my house to stare me in the face. Glaring their critical eye. Daring me to abandon them. I wish you tenacity with all of our goals, if you make them. Perhaps you're an inherently better person than me and don't need change. If not, cheers. Let's make the most of this year! Feel free to join me in any of our shared pursuits.

So You Want to Know How Things are Going?

The other day a friend I haven't seen in a while said he was glad I was blogging again. I think he was being facetious.

I used to think blogging was hard when I had one baby. Psh. Way wrong.

More than two months since my last post. I hang my head in shame.

Mentally

Part of the reason why I haven't blogged, and probably the biggest reason, is that I think my brain has died. I'm in this constant fog of poor memory and fragmented thoughts and sentences. I tried reading a book a few weeks ago. I reread the same pages over and over and finally gave up because I had no idea what I was reading. It wasn't even a hard book. I also have pregnancy induced dyslexia. I read words as another closely spelled word, i.e. "peace" was actually "beach". I missed a church meeting this week because I've forgotten how to read calendars. An attorney friend of mine is convinced I will at some point work for her part time. I keep telling her that the academic part of my brain that enabled me to do my awesome paralegal-ing is gone. I worry it may be permanent.

In my defense, I have two babies under 16 months. Two babies. Not two children. Babies. We put our trash out the other day and the trash people brought it back to the house and dumped it out on the front porch because we'd reached the weekly limit of rank diapers. [Okay that's a lie but don't think it hasn't occurred to me it might actually happen.]

Physically

I am the heaviest, most out of shape I have ever been in my life. If I tried to play basketball right now, I would die. Luckily my pre-Holden-pregnancy jeans still fit. But I could maybe fit a leg in my pre-Sydney-pregnancy jeans. Some overly cheery OB doc said that your body is its healthiest right after you have a baby. Bahaha! Where'd she get her degree?!?!

From my favorite TV show: "You joined a gym??" "Yeah." "When??" "After I had Rory to lose the baby weight." "Did you go?" "Heck no. I was WAY too fat."

Sleeping

I've told Jericho on a number of occasions that he shouldn't expect anything substantial for dinner until Holden starts sleeping through the night. We have a somewhat working system for nighttime Holden duty. The first plan was for me to take duty on the nights during the week when Jericho works and he would take the weekends. After the third night of doing this, I woke in the morning to Jericho saying goodbye as he left for work, crying before I could even say anything. I was practically sleep crying. I'd reached a new area of ways to cry.

We now share the nights. Consecutive nights is what brings on the psychosis. Sometimes we do every other night. Sometimes we each take one in the same night. Sometimes the plan falls apart during the night because one of us has become immune to the sounds of the waking babies. One of us being me. Seriously. Some mornings I have to ask Jericho if/when Holden woke up. Holden sleeps five feet from my head.

Eating

Holden eats all.the.time. Sometimes during the day he eats almost every hour. I'm glad I decided not to nurse because it would have killed me. At his two-month check-up, he weighed in at one pound shy of doubling his birth weight. The average time for babies to do this is 6 months. I worry what his teen years will be like.

Outings

I've managed to venture out of the house with both babies. My first destination: Target. It was awesomely therapeutic. I made it out to the van with two happy babies - Syd in the cart, Holden in the Bjorn- looking around for my Mom Award. My next destination: Harris Teeter. I have a Wal-Mart and a Lowe's Foods two seconds from my house and the Harris Teeter is twenty minutes in an entirely different city. The twenty minute drive was so worth being at my favorite grocery store and, the real reason I made the drive, to get Sydney to fall asleep. The cashier asked me how old my babies were. One month and 14 months. She said I had my hands full. Why, yes, I do. Thanks for noticing. She didn't even ask me if I needed help out. She called over a nice man named Lee and he wheeled Sydney and my groceries to the mom-mobile.

[Aside: Do you hate the comments about having your hands full? Sometimes I want to respond with things like- "Actually, not really. I'm practically a superhero at this whole mom thing and it's total cake. I'm thinking of going on fertility for the next pregnancy so I can have triplets. I'm that good at this."]

This is my world. Jericho asks what I have planned for the day. Oh ya know, feed babies, change diapers, and if I have time, I'll eat something, maybe go to the bathroom a couple times, and if I can swing it, shower.

My world may often bring me to tears or cause me to drive around my town for half an hour listening to the soothing sounds of Harry Potter while both babies chill out. But every day I get to see these little faces. Sydney is a nut that constantly makes me laugh at her nuttiness. And Holden is the most angelic little stud. He smiles and sleeps and eats and smiles. I know every parent thinks it but I know my babies are the best.

Birth Story/Timeline

I'm on the fence when it comes to birth stories. Do people really care? Should I post it anyway so I have the record somewhere? I usually just skim through others' because they typically contain lots and lots of details. Some of which kind of gross me out.

Sydney's birth story is more or less in my personal journal so I never put it on the blog. Perhaps we'll give it a go for Holden's story since it's much simpler.

In reality, I could probably sum up my delivery with Holden in about 2 sentences.

We'll stretch it out a little more for dramatic effect.

Friday
10:00 am-        Weekly OB check. No dilating. No nothing. No signs of early delivery.
Sunday
7:00 pm-          Parents over for dinner. "I wouldn't mind having the baby early just so long as it doesn't happen this week and keep Jericho from going to Rob's wedding." [Rob=Jericho's BFF and he's in the wedding].
Monday
12:20 am-        Woke up yet again to discomfort and random contractions. [Been happening for a couple of weeks].
1:00 am-          Go online and re-read "real" versus "fake" contractions. Concluded still fell into "fake" classification. Cursed at fake contractions for not letting me sleep.
1:00-3:00 am-  Awake... time for cereal. Remember after I poured the milk that there's ice cream in the freezer. Blast!
3:30-                Sydney wakes up. Cause that's what she does now. Feed and play with Sydney. Put her back to sleep.
4:00-                Call midwife on call with explanation of mystery contractions. "Take a bath." "A what?"
4:15-                Take bath for 45 minutes. Woke up Jericho to update and explain why I was taking a bath at 4:00 in the morning. Read book. Timed contractions. Amazed I was able to fit in the bathtub with minimal water displacement.
5:00-                Contractions even out. Call midwife. Leave message.
5:00-7:00-        No call back from midwife. Contractions further apart and inconsistent but get more painful and like I could pee fire. Half-heartedly start packing my hospital bag, tell Jericho to do the same.
7:00-                Call back midwife.
7:00-9:00-        No call back. Put friend on alert to watch Sydney for the day. Put on makeup in preparation for gross post-delivery pictures.
10:00-              Call midwife. Talk to her this time. Tells me to come into the hospital just to get things checked out [since office is closed due to holiday] and since my contractions are so... whatever.
12:00-              Get to hospital. Check in. Meet with midwife. Checks my progress [Most painful part of the entire delivery. Imagine getting a tooth pulled via your sphincter]. Turns out I walked in there at a 5. "Good. If you'd said I was only at like a 1 and sent me home, I would have been so pissed." Smile at the comments of my obvious high pain tolerance. 
1:30-                Get epidural [b/c I'm not that tough]. Broke water. Dilated to 7/8. Let me sleep some with my happy, happy epidural. Jericho runs home to get all the stuff we didn't pack. Frown at my ugly toes that never got their pre-delivery pedicure.
4:00-                Check back. Dilated to 10. Wait it out a little because baby is still sitting high. "Page me when you start feeling pressure."
5:00-                Can't feel a single thing. Check to make sure baby hasn't come out without me knowing.
5:30ish-           Check back again. Baby time. "Push right here." "Where?" Laugh because still can't feel anything and have no idea if I'm pushing. "Am I doing anything??" Push as best as I can figure and then we have a baby. Done and done.

And that's pretty much it. The worst parts all happened before I even got to the hospital. I don't know how many times Jericho has pointed out how different this delivery was from Sydney's. I've had more complicated dental procedures. Clearly this baby knew it was time and got here without any fuss. Plus it also helped that my epidural was still there for the actual tough stuff this time. My first go round it didn't make any sense to me why people got epidurals because I still felt everything when it came time for the actual delivery. Mad props to all those that go sans-epidural the whole time.

Things were so different for this delivery. Not just the logistics but the overall emotions and atmosphere with this baby were so different. Nobody cried [except for Holden]. Nobody was leaving in a couple of days. Nobody was strung out on anxiety and lack of sleep and hormones. Nobody hesitated to send the baby to the nursery for the night. Nobody forgot to bring the Harry Potter DVDs.

 

This little boy was ready to get here. He started out without us knowing. And he pushed his way into this world two weeks early with no notice. My friend said of her two youngest that are closer in age that maybe in the pre-existence they were so close that the younger one couldn't wait to join the other here on earth. What a sweet thought. I hope that's the case with Sydney and Holden. I hope this means they'll be the best of friends and never ever fight and spend their days holding hands and singing Carpenters songs.

We're bottle feeding again and I'm totally fine with it. Nursing is beautiful and wonderful and instinctual for some and for some it produces panic attacks. Sydney was bottle-fed and she's a rockstar and so will Holden.

Welcome to our world Baby Holden! We love him so much already [even though he was way squishy newborn alien-like when he was fresh out].

And do we like the name Holden? I've concluded that I don't identify my babies with a name until they're more than a week old. Holden is still just "baby", "little guy", "buddy", "honey".