Tiny Humans

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Birth Story Part II - Active Labor/Birth

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Despite willing it to be true, I didn’t have a baby by morning. Both E & G were born on a Sunday at 2am, but this baby decided to be different. I also didn’t get a ton of sleep either. I wasn’t feeling painful contractions, but lying down was uncomfortable. Unless I was sitting up or walking around, I’d get a little crampy, just enough that I couldn’t fall asleep. I think I managed to sleep from 11:30 - 1 am and again from 3:45 - 4:30 am when contractions slowed down a bit. Because they slowed down, I got a second dose of medication at that time.

I was feeling a bit frustrated and impatient (as was everyone who knew I was at the hospital waiting for updates!) but I managed to eat a granola bar and some apple juice and started to get my mind around the fact I might be here for a while.

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Welcome to the World

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To complete our little section of the alphabet, please welcome baby F! She arrived just in time to ensure our children will be spaced out every 2 years in school, and thoughtfully saving us a year of daycare expenses.

We’re home trying to figure out how to be a family of 5, so while I will definitely write up our birth story, it may be a few days.

For now, we’re super happy, tired, and embracing the chaos.

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Not Quite Perfect Storm

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We had a rare hurricane headed our way recently, which caused a small bit of worry. Hurricanes aren’t a normal thing around here, and we mostly just worry about flooding and power outages (neither of which are really a problem at our house fortunately), but with the added stress of being pregnant, we worried slightly more. Or got excited - there was a bit of joking that the hurricane might send me into labor. Not that it would have been ideal, but when you get towards the end any thought of it being over can be exciting.

It didn’t happen though, and mostly the hurricane was nothing. Hardly any rain and it wasn’t really windy except for ONE single gust that caused some damage to our patio.

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Bits and Pieces

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Just a quick update of some random phrases that have been said recently and I want to remember.

  • Recently I was playing with E and his Legos, when I noticed one of the little Lego dogs was in the car he was driving around. “Is that dog driving a car?! Dogs can’t drive!” I told him. Except he had a great comeback and told me, “It’s okay, she’s 16, so she can!”

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A New Nursery

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There's a lot of different questions you get asked over and over if you're pregnant - one of the more benign topics, though, has to with the nursery. Have you picked a theme? Is it done? What does it look like? It’s certainly an easier topic than symptoms or complications.

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Belly Art

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A few years and pregnancies ago, a friend gifted me a copy of The Belly Art Project book - signed and personalized, no less! It’s full of super cool pictures of women with their pregnant bellies painted with all sorts of creative ideas. It’s super cute, and something I always wanted to do, but a few things were holding me back.

First, I wasn’t sure who would do it. Could I paint my own belly? Talk a friend into it? And then if I did, I wasn’t sure what I should paint. So many of the ones in the book are either super personalized or very clever, and I was having a hard time coming up with something that wouldn’t be completely random.

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Water Water

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So I’ve always felt a little bad about how poor my swimming skills are. To be fair, I’ve never really enjoyed the water, I don’t want to get my face or hair wet, and so I don’t mind that I can’t swim very well. But it’s still a bit embarrassing (especially since my best friend, husband and both parents are life guard level swimmers). Now that I have children, though, it’s come to the forefront again.

One, because I don’t feel like I can swim strong enough to save a drowning child, which means they need to learn how to swim ASAP. And two, because watching my children has made me realize that children really may just be born predisposed to loving water or not. And it makes me feel better about myself - because maybe it’s not all my fault.

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Vacation Week

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So our lovely daycare decided to close for a week, with not a ton of notice, which meant there weren’t a lot of options for us. All vacation homes within a few hour drive were booked or too expensive or missing something essential. So instead of meeting my parents at the beach somewhere, we decided to just head to Vermont. Honestly the kids probably enjoy Vermont better than the beach anyway. There are tractors and land to run around on, and they can eat all my dad’s peas from his garden.

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A Few Firsts

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So these probably aren’t the normal first that we usually celebrate, but we’ll mention them here just the same. They’re still a part of life, and worth documenting.

Starting with, a first for our eldest tiny human - E’s first bee sting! For some a childhood rite of passage, while others reach adulthood without ever getting stung. Oddly enough I had just been talking to my best friend about how her daughter (and one of E’s best friends) had stepped on a bee two days earlier and gotten stung. I never imagined that he’d be following right behind her!

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Let's Do an Update

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So here’s what I’ve learned about iron infusions (which I’m still in the middle of - not done yet!). They’re amazing and have given me a lot of energy back. I can actually stay awake for most of the day now, which I couldn’t say before them. They’re also super weird, and do things like make my limbs heavy and feel odd as the iron flows through my body - and yes you can feel it. My arm was getting uncomfortably heavy and feeling a lot of pressure when the nurse was inserting the iron one day, and she flushed the IV with saline and I could feel the iron leaving my arm.

The iron also sucks all the water from your body, dehydrating you like crazy. (Which is also what the baby is doing). Knowing this, I drank about 60oz of water before my appointment, and still needed to drink another 60oz after until I finally felt hydrated again. It’s a lot of water.

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Official Start to Summer

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There haven’t been many food cravings lately, but there was one thing I was looking forward to. Strawberry season - specifically strawberry shortcake season! So I’d been watching my favorite small farm closely for news of their opening. And when it came, we just so happened to not have any plans. We had to go!

It’s definitely not the flashiest farm in the area, but that’s why I love it. I get too overwhelmed at the big places, especially with small children. This one opens early, has yummy food, and plenty of space to run around. It also has enough animals that it keeps the children happy. Remember that zoo trip we tried? It has nothing on farm animals!

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Another Weekend, Another Hotel

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Look at us! ANOTHER VACATION!?

Partly because we have a year to make up for, and partly because we won’t be traveling this fall once the baby is here, so we’ve got a lot of vacation days to take this summer! And why not? It’s gorgeous out, we’re feeling a bit more comfortable, let’s do it!

So this time, we traveled about an hour from home to visit a zoo! No real reason, Tom and I both don’t really like zoos but apparently kids do, we were just looking for an excuse to get away. We’re also trying to get the kids used to riding in the car again, since about 2 minutes down the road the “Are we there yet?” starts. Seriously, who teaches that to a kid? Or does it come pre-programmed?

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A Weekend Away

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Well that feels weird to write. After a year+ of mostly staying home, we went on an actual vacation recently. Considering G has been to Maine once when he was not even crawling, and Vermont over a year ago, it was a big accomplishment. Both kids were equal parts excited and confused.

But we had a four day weekend and so we figured that going somewhere for a few days and dealing with whatever crazy that would bring would be better than being trapped at home and dealing with the crazy we knew would come. So we packed up and drove into the city. It seemed like such a funny vacation to take normally, but we all know these aren’t normal times.

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Orange Frazzle Birthday Party

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Even if you watch Sesame Street and consider yourself and expert, you might not know who Frazzle is. We were first introduced to him via the “Fuzzy and Blue” song (which I’ll admit is hilarious), and E quickly fell in love. I’m pretty sure the Frazzle book we own is the only merchandise in existence right now, and we’ve only managed to find a handful of videos on youtube where he exists. He simply isn’t used that much or at all anymore. My theory is because he’s super scary looking and doesn’t speak English, but that hasn’t stopped E from loving him.

And so every time I asked E what he wanted the theme for his birthday to be, he would tell me “Orange Frazzle Party.” And yes, I tried to suggest other things, wait to see if he’d change his mind, anything. Nope, this is what he wanted.

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FOUR

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I think I have to stop calling you a toddler. You are suddenly so grown up, and I have no idea how this happened. I miss my baby a bit, but it’s also a lot of fun to watch you become who you are.

You are still my sweetness, completely. You often come up to me and tell me that you have four things for me, and then you give me a kiss, a hug, a squeeze and a cuddle. While you fight with your brother often, you are just as often sweet and caring to him as well.

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A Sad Day

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Daycare during a pandemic is really hard. We’re not allowed in the building, and we’re not supposed to chat with the teachers when we pick up or drop off. That leaves us knowing very little about what goes on in the classrooms. I used to know the name of every kid in the room, and would spend 10-15 minutes in the room when I picked E&G up. Checking how many diapers they had, if they needed a change of clothes, picking up their artwork, but also seeing how the room functioned and getting to know the teachers. I could see who E&G were friends with, how they interacted in the room, and I felt like I knew what was going on.

All that’s gone now, of course. We get pictures and daily reports, but it’s not quite the same. I have to rely on what E&G tell me directly, which is partial information at best.

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Mother's Day

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I was having a conversation recently about Mother’s Day, and how I don’t feel like it’s for me. Which is weird. I obviously feel like a mom – I spend a good portion of every waking hour focused on doing mom things and thinking about my kids. I’m deep in all the mom stuff. I’m currently pregnant with our third child. So why does Mother’s day make me feel so odd? Is it all the commercials of breakfast in bed and specialness of the day? Is it seeing everyone else so focused on brunch reservations and fancy family photos that makes me feel like I should be doing something I’m not interested in? That I’m not living up to my Mother’s Day potential?

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A Slow and Small Return to Normal(ish)

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Not a ton of time has gone by, but the last post I made had snow on the ground. It’s slow, but things are changing, and for the better. After a year of stagnation, it’s both amazing and unsettling to witness change again.

The weather is definitely warmer, which means more time outside, and with that comes playground dates again. Such a simple thing that we’ve taken for granted in the past, but makes the kids so happy, and tires them out like nothing else. Combined with spending the rest of the day outside at home, they sleep so well too.

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Out of the Mouths of Toddlers

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The older E gets, the more interesting it is to talk to him. It’s gone from demands to short sentences to stories. Sometimes they’re true, sometimes they’re completely made up, and sometimes I’m left confused wondering.

E: Mama look at my boo boo
Me: Oh no!
E: I told it to my teachers yesterday
Me: Oh yeah? And what did they say?
E: The scooped me up and threw me in the trash!
Me: How did that make you feel?

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Another Pandemic Birthday

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Not that we would have done much different, but they are all starting to blend together a bit. Overall it was actually really nice. As we were all sitting down at the table and eating dinner together, I had a moment when I looked around and felt such contentment. I was truly enjoying myself and my family. It wasn’t stressful, I wasn’t jumping up to get something every few minutes or correcting any behavior. It was just a really nice family meal.