I expected better things of a Tuesday

Tuesdays are generally my favorite day of the week, so thus far, this one has not measured up. Had a fight with Jess over which dress she was going to wear (not that I really care what dress she wears, but she wanted me to pick it out, and then insisted that the dress I was describing didn't exist in her closet - it did, she's wearing it now) and then Marc randomly decided to draw a line in the sand and was about to head off to Walmart to buy a lock box for his tools to keep Sam from going thru them. I pointed out that telling him to stay out of them would work out as well, and involved less time and money. Everyone is grumpy today and unpleasant, with the exception of Sam, who's perfectly content playing with his little Star Wars guys, and Julianna - and she's got every reason to be cheerful, she's nursing on demand (which for her means about three minutes of nursing every half hour or so). My nipple is KILLING me - I know it's getting better because I can at least bear it when she's nursing on it without the shield. But it's sore before, majorly sore during the latch on, and then drops back down to just painful during the nursing and afterwards.

I'm not sure what to do with Julie. She's really a VERY frequent nurser. If she starts fussing and I pick her up, she immediately starts rooting around to nurse. She won't take the pacifier from me, and because she's nursing so often, she's not drinking very much at all, she latches on and off and on and off again. Which is a problem on the right side, as the latch on is the worst part. Marc came home early last night, and I actually showered. I had nursed three times in the hour before he got home, so I knew she wasn't hungry and I handed her over and dashed to the shower. She screamed herself to sleep in his arms, and then slept for at least hour. She startled herself awake and each time, he gave her pacifier and soothed her back to sleep. So when I nursed her that next time, she nursed, really nursed, for a long time and then fell asleep for five hours.

I don't want to let her cry, and I'm a big believer in nursing on demand, but I don't know that letting her nurse as frequently as I do is good for her. Or for me, for that matter - because it hurts. So I'm trying to let her go longer, fussing a little more, and not just relying on nursing to calm her down. Carrying her facing out, going for more walks (she naps really well in the carriage). I'm not planning on depriving her if she really does want to nurse, but going to really work on distraction occasionally. Just occasionally.

Brilliant girl and mean mommy is back...

Jessica's school conference was this morning. Marc went to it, as I was home with millions of children, and just reported in. We didn't really have any concerns going in, but wanted to touch base because she had missed so much school this year. Between strep throat twice, a week long bout of H1N1, all the Jewish holidays seemed to fall mid-week, plus some major drama around getting her there sometimes... she had missed more than she should have. She's doing wonderfully! Her math skills are right at grade level, not behind, but if we're going to work on anything over the summer, it would be that. Her reading is way above grade level. On the end-of-the-year reading test, the 1st grade standard is looking for a reading speed of 45 to 50 words per minute with an 80% comprehension level, and Jessie read 90 words per minute with a 94% comprehension level. I'm thrilled by this - I have been such a bookworm since I was little, in fact, I distinctly remember learning to read and being just so thrilled and amazed at all the BOOKS that were out there that I could look forward to reading. I'm really happy that she'll get to have similiar experiences. Plus, I've always felt like if you like to read, everything is easier. History is a much easier class, even science is more interesting because you enjoy reading the texts. And she'll pick up so much more info - I know all kinds of stuff about all kinds of things, not because I've got a great education - I only made it thru one year of college before I ran out of money, but because I LOVE reading. Her teacher (who I adore) recommended that we continue reading more adult books to her, because at this point, she's working on building her vocabulary and that's the best way to do it.

In other news... I'm cracking down. I've become a super pushover mom, and my kids are really starting to suffer as a result. Bedtime is one area where I need to be a lot stricter. Jess fights sleep, and I've been letting her doze off in the living room and lugging her into bed after she falls asleep. As a result, she's not getting enough sleep and suffering because of it. She cried this morning because all her clothes made her look stupid - and you know it was just that she was so tired, she was completely irrational. I need to get her back on a routine with a regular bedtime so that she gets the sleep she needs. Even though it's going to be a lot harder in the beginning, she's going to hate it, but this isn't good for her or for me.

Sam and I had a forty five minute battle of wills this morning - he was just screaming and mean. Jordyn was over, and he didn't want her to watch the television with him. It was his show and he didn't want her in the living room, let alone watching his television. And I put him in his bedroom until he could calm down and be nice. Over and over and over again, because he kept coming out, screaming. I was ready to kill him. Or myself. But eventually, he calmed down and stopped. And honestly, he's been angelic all morning, because once he understands that he can't get away with it, he stops. Clear rules, consequences they understand and follow thru. I know how to do it, it's just easier to be the nice mommy who indulges and makes her children happy. I don't like making miserable, but by letting them get away with crappy behavior, I'm not doing them any favors. Short term gain, long term loss.

Can you go back?

Is it worth it? I wonder... my father recently got in touch with me. And I don't know quite what to do with it. Him. The whole situation, I guess. My parents divorced so long ago, and he hasn't been a part of my life in such a long time, I'm not sure where to put him now. I'm not sure if I have room, but how do I say no to someone who wants to love me? Someone who's last name I shared for a long time, someone who's skin tone I've inherited, someone who's DNA I've inherited? Do I pretend the last twenty years didn't exist, do I dredge up old memories and hurts that I've managed to push down far enough that I don' t think of them anymore? Do I owe loyalty to the parent who was there, the one who loved me and supported me and did her best every day to make up for the fact that he wasn't there? Is loyalty even required in this instance? How is it loyalty to turn away from a parent? Can you still call him a parent when he wasn't there? But if he isn't a parent, what is he? Because he's not a stranger... I'm perplexed and on the edge of some serious emotional baggage that I really, probably, would have preferred not to be reviewing at this point in my life.


How do I explain this to my kids? Do I explain it? Do they need to know that there's a grandfather out there that hasn't met them? That - and this is the cold hard truth that I'm trying to avoid, didn't care enough to know that they existed. That missed their babyhood and toddlerhood and early childhood. Because in the end, there's no way to whitewash that - he wasn't there. Not just for them, because you know when I'm talking about them, I'm really talking about me. Only he was there for the babyhood, etc for me - it was the tween years, the adolescence, the whole rest of my life that he missed.


But he's here now. Vaguely. If by here, I mean, halfway across the country, asking to call once and a while to see how I am. And I'm ... just confused. Confused and feeling like, really, I'm just on the edge of digging up some major emotional issues that I didn't know how to handle when I was a kid and haven't gotten any better at figuring them out. He loves me. Or the idea of me, because he doesn't have a clue who I am now. But I think he'd like to - and he's sorry and sad and regretting a lot of what happened. He wants to go back, or go forward with things being different. I just am not sure how I feel about it. I don't know how to go forward with a father, I've done so much of it without him. I don't NOT want to have him in my life, I just... I guess, in the end, I've got to acknowledge some anger and some hurt, and figure out if I want to move on beyond that. Or just say, sorry, you had your shot. I'm thirty six years old, I needed a dad when I was a kid, I needed a dad when I was in my early twenties, when I was trying to figure out my life. Now that I've got it pretty much arranged the way I like it, healthy marriage, three great kids - I don't need a dad. But then I think, is that really what I want to say? Really? Do I want to shut him down the way I feel as though he did to me? Do I want to be the sort of person who can turn away from someone who honestly regrets the way he behaved in the past and wants to have some sort of relationship with me? Don't I want to see what happens? I'm not sure - there's a part of me that feels like I've been down this road before and it didn't lead anywhere good.

Singing in the rain

Sometimes, I'm just not up for the weekend. I try, really I do, but I have extra kids here all week long and sometimes on Saturday, I just hit my limit. Today, I lasted about ten minutes after my stepdaughters arrived, I also had my friend's daughter Glennys here. Julianna had fallen asleep on the chair with Jessica, and it was peaceful and lovely... then the other four kids came slamming in and immediately, a little circle formed around the baby. They all love her so much, and suddenly she was getting stroked and kissed and loved and the poor kid was sleeping. I tried to coax them to let her be, let her sleep, and then a bunch of them started wrestling and jumping around... and I gave up. I picked up Julie, stormed into my bedroom, and spent the next hour and a half dozing and nursing. Julie had the best afternoon - because she was right up against me, nursing whenever she felt like it, and in the end, the kids were actually pretty happy about it too, because after I took the baby and disappeared, they all went out and ran around in the rain. They were grubby but blissfully happy. There's little more fun than playing outside in the rain on a hot day.

I'm pumping again - the cut is still not all the way healed and Julie is refusing to nurse on the shield anymore. I don't blame her, but it does make it a bit more challenging. Especially because she won't take a bottle from me, so I have to nurse her during the day. But now that Marc's here, I'm taking advantage of the weekend and hoping that it'll heal faster if I give it a break with pumping.

Falling in love

I have three children, so you'd think I'd have been expecting this, but it caught me by surprise this time. I think I expected to just roll Julianna into my family and love her just like I love the other two. I remember this stage now with both the other two. There's a period of infatuation, I think, with a new baby and Julie and I are head over heels these days. She's reached the point where contentment is mostly found in my arms, it's her favorite place to be. And I'm lost in her big blue eyes, fascinated by the expressions on her face, and awed by the personality that's peeping out at me more and more.

We've moved out of the newborn baby stage. The stage where there are only really four needs, she cried only when she needed a diaper change, a burp, or to nurse to sleep. And she was always either crying, actively getting one of those needs met, or sleeping. She'd have brief stages of alertness, but mostly, that was about it. But now - now she likes to be chatted with. She likes to sit on my lap and gaze contemplatively at me. She likes laying on the floor, in the center of the living room, with all the action going on around her. She likes lullabies and her ducks on the swing. She's so gorgeous, just so incredibly, drop dead beautiful, that it takes my breath away.

Sam's really grown into himself lately as well. Suddenly, he's this big huge boy, with these little pools of tenderness and sweetness hidden among all the superheros and shooting the bad guys and wrestling with Daddy. He's still endlessly interested in his sister, and wants so badly to be a big helper like Jessie. He's desperate to change her diaper all by himself, and loves announcing "I think her wants me" when she starts crying. He loves being her big brother. He's very focused on the boy next door these days, Brian is seven and Sam's developed such a boy crush on him. Brian is his hero these days, he's got super cool shoot guns and runs and plays and fights the bad guys and Sam can't get enough of him.

Jessica is such an amazing help to me. She's totally going to morph into being this child's second mother, because she just assumes that it's her job to step in when I don't do it fast enough. If Julie starts fussing in the swing, Jess picks her up automatically and calms her down. She's perfectly capable of changing a diaper, really, she does a great job. I have to remind myself that she's only seven. She's still capable of a full blown temper tantrum, but more and more, she's growing up. She's smart and sweet and funny and I am still surprised by how much she's capable of.

Just some of the reasons I love my husband...

- he can always tell me the names of the people who's photos flash up on the show Lie to Me.

- he knows that dogs have four toes on their front legs and five on the back. And knows why.

- he never complains about the state of the house, if it's messy and cluttered, it makes me nuts, but he's never once come home from working all day at a job he hates and bitched about the messy living room.

- he's never hinted in any way, shape, or form, that he's even the slightest bit not completely attracted to me all of the time. First thing in the morning, hair everywhere, grubby clothes, smelling of breastmilk and still pudgy from pregnancy, he always makes me feel beautiful.

- he can sit with a crabby, crying seven year old girl child, and talk patiently with her until she smiles again.

- when I'm sobbing hysterically over nursing problems with Julie, he's very calm, very rational, and never points out that I'm overreacting. Even when I clearly am.

- he's delighted whenever anyone comes by, I never hesitate to make plans because he's always thrilled to betsy to do just about anything - the more people I include, the better.

- he really, really is my little boy's best friend.

- he looks at my little baby girl and tells her all the time how much she looks like her mother.

- he's never really lost. Even when he is, he won't admit it, and just keeps driving until he figures out how to get to where we need to be.

- he makes me coffee every morning, never thinks to make me do the trash or clean the bathroom.

- he loves me, loves our children, and if I wanted to have seventeen more kids, he'd be more than willing.

- he's my best friend, my reality check, my first call whenever anything happens.

Did it again

I've created a little Mommy's Girl. It didn't take that long, about six weeks. (which is ironically, six weeks longer than it took for me to create a Mommy's Boy, as Sam came out of the womb with separation anxiety). Julianna was very much a "pass the baby" kind of girl. She liked being held by pretty much anyone for the first several weeks, but now that's she's almost six weeks, she's developed a hard core Mommy preference. Poor Marc said to me this morning, "She really doesn't have much use for me." And I felt so sad for him, because mornings used to be his special time with Julie, he'd take her from me when he first got up and hang with her until I managed to choke down the first cup of coffee. And now she just fusses thru that time, or screams hysterically until I take her back.

Not sure if it's the kids or if it's me. There's a part of me that loves being the end all, be all for my babies. I love that I can quiet them with just a touch of my hand, or my voice is enough to make them feel safe and relaxed. With Jessie and especially with Sam, I had this incredibly tight bond with them from the very beginning. Sam, in fact, was only calm when he was latched on. And for as much as I panicked at the thought of Julie not having that connection with me, on that day that she wouldn't latch on, she's as fully attached as the other two. Today's a rough day for Julie, she's been alternately crying, nursing or spitting up all morning. She has dozed off a few times, but never for long. Right now, she's laying face down on my lap, bouncing. It's one of her favorite positions, and when I know that she can't possibly be hungry, and my breasts are so sore from nursing for hours, it's the best way to hold her and not have her up against my chest. If she's near the boobs, she wants them :-)