Ponderings

I started this blog for 2 reasons. 1)I had just lost my best friend and I wanted to write my memories of him down. 2)My then 3 year old daughter was a challenge and a joy. I needed a place to write down my feelings.

Now my daughter, 8 years old, is a challenge. Joy? Not so much. In fact I'm close to disliking her. She speaks to me in the most disrespectful ways. I don't even have to raise my voice. Her answer is, "STOP SHOUTING AT ME!!!!!! YOU DON'T LOVE ME." Makes me want to scream in her face to show her what a shout or a scream is.

This morning I told her twice to get dressed. Third time I yelled. Fourth time I yelled. Her response was, "Don't yell at me." I told her that I asked her nicely 3 times. She replied, "No the third time you yelled at me."

What's up with that? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

While driving her to school she said that I wasn't excited to have had her. I told her that I was the only one that was excited about her birth. I told her that everyone around me was offering me sympathy and condolences at my pregnancy. But I was happy and excited. And I was. I remember being so happy that I was pregnant again. PF wasn't happy. In fact he was trying to give himself a heart attack. It was one time that I seriously considered filing for divorce because he was soooooooo ugly during the pregnancy. I remember one time I screamed at him, "WHAT?!!!!!!!!?????? DO YOU WANT ME TO GET AN ABORTION?" If he had said yes I think we would no longer be because I loved her so much! I would have gone out there on my own. It would have been hard but I would have done it.

Now, I have this child that seems to think she can get away with anything just by shouting at me that I'm screaming at her and that I don't love her. Her tone of voice is frequently soo ugly sounding. She is soooooooooo negative.

There are days where I wonder where that cute, delightful child is. She didn't always talk so harshly all the time. She had a wonderful way about her. Between the ages of 1-4 she never seemed to care what others thought. She did her own thing. She was her own person. Yes. That caused some tension from time to time but really it wasn't bad. Starting in Kindergarten she suddenly began to care what people were saying about her. She wanted to play with other kids. We no longer have our little Tom boy who plays with boy toys; or wears Spiderman socks and underwear or shoes; or dresses up in fancy play dresses to catch bugs. Nope. She's gone. In her place is a horrible monster. A growling; mean ogre. A girl that will change her likes based on the group of kids she wants to play with at the time. A once avid Beiber fan now dislikes him horribly. So much so she's willing to be ugly to those that do like him. I can't seem to get through to her. I am at a loss.

I no longer want to interact with her. I will because I do love her but I'm finding it hard to see any good in her. Oh... there are times when she can be charming and she's doing well in school but the home life is not good. She won't help with the meager chores I ask of her. Alas, I'm sorry to say this but this girl is my mother-in-law through and through. What's even sadder is these behaviors come from my side of the family too. I have 2 aunts that are very similar. My coping mechanism is avoidance. I avoid my aunts and a I avoided my mil when I had to be in her physical company. (We did great over the phone.)

This morning on my drive to work I told myself that MI will be the one there for me when I get too old to care for myself. That she will turn out to be the best of the bunch. My prayer for her is that she will change into a delightful person again.

A Challenge

So by now I suppose most of my siblings know that I'm in Tae Kwon Do classes. My mom found out yesterday evening. I'm sure my mom had a lot to say about this. I know because my mom is pretty forthcoming with her opinions.

Guess what! She doesn't think I'll make it to black belt! It's kinda of funny. She knows the best way to get me to do something is to say I can't do it. It's a challenge. Now I wonder if my mom is basically using reverse psychology on me. But you know it doesn't matter. I'm going to make it to black belt. I already have a pretty good axe kick. The only thing I need to work on is my extension.

What I'm finding out is that my ballet training is inhibiting some of my movement. My main problem is the tenets of ballet is to keep your supporting leg totally straight; whereas, in TKD a bent knee is EXPECTED on the supporting leg. Bent knees are the total premise of this martial arts.

Last night I learned that you are expected to "stay" low. Once you are in fighter's position STAY there. Grant it makes sense. But muscle memory is hard to "erase" after years-- no decades of training.

Another draw back for me is my knees. They aren't so good anymore and I have to wear braces to keep them in proper position. My petella often roams around. Despite this I've been doing well. Only a little aches here and there.

Here's a funny for ya. One of the masters is a twentysomething young man. HE is GORGEOUS! Eye Candy. I swear! Now don't think I have crush on him I don't but he does make the class more appealing. I think he has an ego to go with his looks, too.

As I departed from my mother she told me that I would have done better in Zumba. I like Zumba but it's hard to get to class and since I don't have to pay for it I often skip it. I pay for this so I go. I mean I'm not going to lose that money. Plus I sweat ever so much more in TKD than I did in Zumba. Yep, Mom, all you did was make me more determined to make black belt. I'm only on white but I'm closer to yellow than I was when I first started. I think I might even get some private lessons. I need to catch up after all. Oh are you wondering why I joined the Black Belt club? Well I was trying to keep MI interested in TKD. She wants to quit. I'm not letting her quit because she needs to understand comittment. Tough you say. Damn betcha. She needs some toughness in her life. She needs to achieve something.

Summer plans

So, here's the back story to this posting, my husband and I grew up in families that were in no position to take the proverbial family vacation. My husband's family were farmers and there simply no way to go very far for a vacation. My family's vacation was to get in the car and drive practically non-stop to my parents' birthplace to visit their families. On the surface that sounds fine and you know it was but it sure would have been nice to stop and see some of the sights along the way. We never did because my parents wanted to have as much time with their families as possible. I understand that and appreciate it, too.

I'm excited about this year's summer vacation because we are going to do something we never got to do as kids. We are going to go Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We get to see some of the majestic West! Never thought I would. I want to see the Morning Glory pond at Yellowstone and of course Ol' Faithful but there are still so many things I want to see.

The best part of this trip is we get to stay in a yurt! This way we get a kind of camping experience but it still seems civilized enough for our dear DQ. She wanted to stay in a motel. This is about the same cost and I don't have to figure out how to stick all the camping gear into the mini-van and I don't have to buy a tent. These yurts do not have TVs! I'm so happy. I want the kids to run and be free (with supervision) like it was when I was a kid.

The link between Temperance and Women's rights

There was a time when I looked/viewed at Temperance Movement as silly and stupid; however, today I had an epiphany. I finally understand the movement. These ladies suffered under the hands of men. Most of the men were their husbands or fathers. Gosh! Now that I figured it I'm so ashamed of myself. Why? Because I was looking at them and judging them on my days standards and situation.

Guess what folks?! the Temperance Movement was a necessary action for Women's Rights. Those ladies back then realized that much of the male abuse they received were while those men were drunk. Their men worked hard. They played hard. They got drunk. They got violent and depressed when they got drunk. They hit women and children in drunken rages.

So now I can see why they felt that outlawing alcohol was a good idea. To them they thought alcohol was the root of the problem. An easy solution.

As we know it isn't an easy solution. Alcoholism is a disease. It's a horrible disease. Ok. I'm not going to beat a dead horse here but I'm amazed I never thought of this before.

DQ Blizzard.

DQ. DQ is going through some changes. She is so emotional these days. It's really quite funny and pathetic all at the same time.

I feel for her because my mother and my sister, I don't get mad/I get even, really aren't sympathetic. I think they think I baby her too much but really I remember feeling similar things when I was her age. I feel her pain. She so wants to be grown up but she knows that she won't be anytime soon.

It's funny to watch her get upset. Things upset her and she doesn't understand why. I remember that too. Gosh those darn hormones are such pesty things.

DQ, is so tiny still. She can fit into size 4t clothing and the only thing wrong with them is the length. She needs size 10 clothing but even the slim pants are too wide for her waist.

So some of her favorite sayings are, "I hate this family"; "I hate my sisters" ; "I hate you" ; "I hate daddy". Pretty typical stuff for her age but I know this is all just the beginning.

I just hope she knows that I love her. I love her and I'll be waiting for her at the end of this tunnel with open arms.

Labor Day

This was started on March 31st. I'm going to finish it tonight and share with you all.

A year ago today I labored to give birth to my 4th child. And I mean labored. In my other deliveries I never sweated or at least it never poured off me like I had run a marathon. I remember how the sweat just kept coming. My labor was induced. The waves of contractions never let up. There was no rest. I did the most during this labor. I sat in a rocking chair. I bounced on the labor ball. I did the labor dance with PF. I don't have fond memories of the birth like the others. This one really was difficult. I shouldn't complain because so many other women have harder times than I have had. But compared to the other 2 births this one was harder for me.

When it came time to actually push I had to wait for my doctor to make it across 2 parking lots to attend. They had me panting. I panted for so long that my whole body started to tingle. I never felt anything like it before. I kept thinking to myself that "I didn't need any stinking doctor. I had given birth before without one I could do this again." But they all kept forcing me to pant. When my doc finally made it into the room I was so ready to push. She wanted me to move further down the bed. I just didn't want to. I wanted to push. Anyway she got tough with me and I finally did as they asked and moved my butt down the bed. I pushed and out she came. I remember my doc saying, "You're no longer pregnant." Then came the other stuff that's really not all that fun and most don't want to hear about it but I have to say that her partner is much better (gentler) at cleaning up the afterbirth. It must have been gauze that she put up there but it felt more like a wire brush. And when she went to stitch the small tear that occurred she ran the cat gut back and forth before actually making the sutures. So I guess in away I wish I had her partner there after all. Doc O, delivered all the others and this was the first time that my doc made it to one the births.

I took a shower after the birth. I was so icky feeling. I forgot how messy labor and birth is. I surprised my nurse. She came into help me shower and she found me all done. My older children came by that evening to meet their youngest sibling. They were all so proud and excited.

Toilets + baby=Interesting times

Imp drives me to hate toilets. I have 3 older children who don't seem to be able to remember anything except whether I treated their siblings better than them.

Here is the problem: Imp can raise the toilet seat. Imp loves to play in the water of the commode. Yep, splashing is the best. Of course then things progress to putting things into the toilet. One night I came into the bathroom and there in the toilet sat a frog. Ok. A toy frog. But still it took me a back for a moment or two.

Although, I have to admit this is much better than some of the other things I've found in the toilet. Use your imagination folks. It's gotten to be quite a chore at times cleaning up after Imp. I'm living in dread of when Imp discovers how to flush the toilet. Don't you know I'm going to have some really fantastic plumbing bills in the near future.

Oh I can hear you now... "Buy one of those child safety products that lock the lid." Need I remind you I have other children in the house? They tend to leave the chore of pottying to the last second. I still hear some of my kids saying to their waste on the way to the toilet, "Hold on pee pee. Hold on." I don't think a lock on the toilet is the answer. For right now closing the door is adequate.

When Imp progresses to opening doors then we'll put those door handle covers on them. Hopefully by the time Imp can disable those covers she will not be playing in the toilet.

All I can say is Imp is horribly attracted to toilets. I'm hoping that this is a good omen that potty training shall be easier than it was with the others. I can only hope, right?

Imp

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything about the kids. So I'm at home with my eyes running and my nose running down my face. Imp is home with me because there really isn't any point to her going to childcare. So here is the story of Imp.

Imp is a delightful baby. She is now 10 months old. Things she enjoys...

First, magnets. She loves to pull the magnets off the refrigerator and take them around to different surfaces to see if they will stick to them. Unfortunately she hasn't found anything yet. I'm waiting to see how long it takes her to find the metal back door but right now she is content to continue to try the wood cabinets in the kitchen.

The kitchen holds a great many things that fascinate her. Open the refrigerator door and she goes into hypercrawl. It's amazing how fast she can crawl to make it into the refrigerator. Another part of the kitchen is the pantry. When the doors are open she crawls over and starts taking things out of the pantry. My spices have hit the floor so many times now. I had mustard seeds rolling around the floor for days. Do you think I'm done? No. Imp loves the dishwasher. It's a great teething toy. Recently Imp had a run in the bottom basket. She pulled too hard on it and it came flying out and knocked her over. Poor thing hit her head and she cried and cried. When she was all calmed down I went back to stuffing the dishwasher and she, with great deterimination, plucked the flatware out and threw them on the floor. As you can see I get a lot of work done around the house. Not.

Next, comes her sister's easel. This easel has a whiteboard and a chalkboard on either side. Imp loves the chalk. Everyday we must return all the pieces to their home in the little compartment shelf of the easel. I'm starting to think about moving the easel down to her sisters' hall way. Imp also enjoys chewing the chalk.

Which leads me to the next characteristic of Imp. She is completely oral. PF and I don't remember the others being quite so orally fixated. EVERYTHING. Goes in her mouth. Cords are her most favorite thing to chew. It's like having a puppy in the house. Yes folks I know it's important to child proof the house but really it's really hard to do it with 3 other children in the house. Also this child finds things... The childcare center is baby proof yet she finds paper and small twigs and sticks to stick in her mouth. We spend our day constantly sweeping her mouth with our fingers to get the stuff out. Sometimes she tricks us because it's only her tongue she's chewing on occassionally. Other times she stores things in her mouth. She's like a chipmunk.

This is a really adorable little one. She has a way about her that takes your heart and squeezes it. Her smile melts your heart. Such a wonderful happy baby.

Friends / Enemies

"Never explain — your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you anyway." Source unknown.

How my dad tried to get this through my head.

Opinions.

You have the right to your opinions; as long as you keep them to yourself. Says a friend...

Ignorant vs. stupid

According to the Webster dictionsary ignorant is uninformed or without education. Stupid... showing a lack of sense or intelligence.

I write this because I've been trying to explain to my children that when I corrected something they say it is not to be critical... at least not in a negative way but to help them sound like the intelligent young ladies that they are.

Buffet; ballet-- neither of these words are suppose to be said with the t sound at the end. DQ often insists on saying buf fet. GRRRRRRRRRR. "Buffe with the short e sound DQ", says mommy. DQ responds with a bunch of eye rolling and sighing.

Recently I explained to her that when she speaks and mispronounces things she sounds ignorant. It's okay to sound ignorant at times because there is something you can do about ignorance. Ignorance has a cure. It is education. It is enlightenment. Ignorance does not have to be terminal.

On the other hand, there is stupid. Stupid is terminal. Stupid. There is nothing one can do about being stupid. And forgive me folks there are stupid people in this world. Bless their hearts, all they can do is their very best and that's it. They are lucky if they can find something in this world that they can do well. Sometimes they can and you know what most times they're happy.

I work at a community college where we believe in student success. I do believe in student success. But there are times when I help someone, and I seriously have issues with the college, and their belief that every student that walks through our doors will leave with an associates degree. What I mean is I help people who just don't get the education process. They are trying really hard. I mean it. They are working their butts off. But they just can't process all the information that they are expected to learn and know. I see them struggling. And I always try really hard to help them but sometimes I really, really get the feeling that they just don't get it. My heart breaks for them because I know they are really trying. But I also know they will never become Einsteins or even above average. I hate to say that but it's true.

On a personal note, I know my girls are smart. Not one of them are stupid. So I'm going to continue to correct their pronunciation of words and their grammar. I'm going to insist they look things up in the dictionary or the encyclopedia. I am determined that my children will not be ignorant of general knowledge stuff. Of course they will have those subjects that they are ignorant of as we all have subjects we are ignorant of due to disinterest or not being exposed to those ideas and concepts. But ignorance is not terminal folks... Given a reason to explore and learn my girls can do it. I just want them to know they can do it.

I'm in love

I'm in love! It's the greatest thing! The flutters one feels with the first flush of love. How you anxiously await to see your beloved's face and their beautiful smile. Yes, I feel all these things and more!

I live to hear the laugh and to see the smile. I feel complete when my beloved blesses me with a smile. That toothless grin the precious giggles. Oh how I love all of that.

Yes, I'm speaking of the New Baby. I have also found a name for the new baby. From this day forward new baby will be Imp. That's right Imp. Why Imp? Well I'll tell ya...

First, Imp has a look that comes over her face that can only be described as impish.

Second, I can tell when Imp is storing something away in the long term memory to be tried out when she gets more mobile. Adorable.

Mobile! Imp is crawling now. Yep c.r.a.w.l.i.n.g. Ok, it's only an army type crawl-- you know the drag the belly on the ground crawl but she's still able to get where she wants to go. She's the only one of my kids to do this.

Imp is also sitting by herself. She's been doing this for about 1 1/2 months. She can't get herself into it but if you place her down in a sitting position she can sit.

Imp loves to vocalize. She can be pretty darn loud. But why should she be any different from the others? I swear she's saying dada; and mama but PF refuses to believe it. I also think she is saying Hiiii. It's an adorable tone to it too. Kinda of a high pitch. Ohhhh. High pitch! Let me tell you about the scream Imp has. It is a high pitch, ear shattering scream. Luckily she does not share this with us very often.

I'm trying to think if there is anything else I ought to share with folks. At this time I can't think of anything. QueenB and Adjective Queen I really appreciate your comments from my last post. It so nice to know I'm not alone in the world of bedtime angst.

Time

This year I'm having the hardest time getting the older girls to bed by 8:30PM. I don't know what the problem is. Do I lack motiviation? Are they rebelling? Has the New Baby messed up the rhythm of the household so much?

I try to get them to bed. I really do. But then there are other nights where I just don't feel up to the fight. And yes bedtime is a fight.

Professionals all talk about having a bedtime ritual. They say do not deviate from it. But really do these people live in the same world as I do? I mean... what about the school event scheduled for 7PM. What do you do then? Tell the school, "I'm sorry but that is conflicting with the bedtime ritual I've created for my children." And yes to get them to bed for 8:30PM you must start the ritual by 7PM.

Frankly we lost what ever ritual we had. I don't know where it went to. All I know is that by 5PM I'm ready to shut the house down but the kids are not. In fact their schedules are so that we don't get home until after 5:30 most days.

Today I got lucky and got dinner in the crock pot. In fact today is our longest day. We won't get home until after 6:30PM. In fact Wednesday we won't get home until 8:30PM. I love Wednesday nights. I get to meet with some mothers that I absolutely adore. These are the neatest young women. We sit and talk and watch each other's children. Between the 3 of us we have 13 children. One of them wants a 5th child so bad you can see it shining in her eyes. I just love watching us herd our kids around together. We make quite a group. Plus it's like herding kittens. It's impossible.

What's really funny is to see the disapproving eyes of folks. They don't like our children at our church too well. They think we have too many. Funny that, since we are all Catholic. Our kids aren't bad. Okay. There are times when they get a little loud and run but hey they are kids! Kids do that. Those rich bitch kids at the Catholic school are ruder than our kids ever are. Oh well. Money smooths everything over I suppose.

Sorry for the tangent. Anyway, I'm just wondering if I'll ever get back into the swing of things. Bedtime. How very difficult bedtime is for me these days. If only PF won't bellow so. I don't know. I'm just feeling very mellow these days. I'm wishing the kids would just get motivated to go to bed on their own. Pipe dreams.

A Point of Convergence

I have a spot in my house where people just naturally end up gathering. A couple of years back I celebrated my birthday with friends. My close friends. Anyway, I'm in the kitchen cooking the meal. Where do the folks all gather to talk? It's in front of the refrigerator. There is only about 49 inches between the frig and the counter. Yet people always stand there when I'm having a party and even when I'm not.

Here's a thought for everyone--Could it be that the frig is a magnet? A people magnet? I mean I know magnets go on the frig but could the frig be emminating a tractor beam? Are people drawn to this appliance out of sheer helplessness?

Why does this even bother me? Well it is very difficult to get in the frig when there are people standing in front of it. When you are cooking a meal you frequently need to be in the frig. Hence this is a pet peeve of mine.

There's more to the story, too. I mentioned magnets earlier. I have 2 children that sit in front of the frig to play with magnets. They tell elaborate stories to themselves or each other. Again this inhibits getting into the frig. I'm forever shooing them away from the frig.

I'm going home early today. I'm going to drag out the magnetic boards I made a place them around my kitchen. Probably against the bar. Maybe that will help with the kids sitting in front of the frig. Don't know but it's better than never trying.

Pacifier

Long ago when my older daughters were babies they would not take a pacifier. PF would put one in and out it would pop. I would look at him with a face that I fear could only be described as triumphant. See I'm not a great proponent for pacifiers. I hate the way they look in a child's mouth. I hate that people seem to try to plug up their children.

PF tried to use a pacifier with all three of the older girls. None of them would take a pacifier. I remember how relieved I was. I would never have to worry about dealing with the missing "Binky". I would never have to watch my child walk around looking like there was a plug in her mouth.

Now we're on to our 4th child. Life is much different. I don't know how New Baby took to pacifiers but I think the younger children are far more persitent than her parents are or ever were. Apparently the older girls would hold the pacifier in NB's mouth until she would start to suck on it. Then they would run to me proudly to inform me that the pacifier was in NB's mouth.

Guess what? I now see the value of a pacifier. I still don't like the looks of them. I tend to feel a bit guilty about using a pacifier. But they really come in handy. See NB tends to sort of wake in the middle of the night and cry and fuss. She's really not hungry. I've just fed her. If I get that pacifier into her mouth before she's fully awake I get to go back to sleep. So I know think of pacifiers as my friends. I still don't use them as much as most folks do. I don't mind NB sucking on her fingers. (Stastistically she will need braces with or without sucking on her fingers) But they are my night time friend.

Now before I go to sleep I make sure I have a pacifier sitting in the corner of the crib. Then I know I'm ready for the night time routine. Two feedings during the night and one up to insert pacifier and go back to sleep. All are happy with this routine. Yay for the persitent children in my life!

Toe nails

Ever since my dad died 5 years ago I've let my toe nails grow. I was a ballet dancer. To wear pointe shoes you could not have long nails. My father use to get so angry with me because I cut my toenails so short. I understand he worried about in-grown toenails. My family has horrible problems with them. My dad suffered from the especially.

Now I'm letting my nails grow. Althoughs years while I danced I never had any problems with in grown toenails. But the past few years I've had more of them. They are not pleasant. One winter I had to wear sandals because of a flair up.

While I was pregnant, my toenails grew so quickly. I got so large I couldn't cut them myself. I was at the mercy of PF. It was funny; he would cut them short like I did while I was young. It would drive me crazy because it caused a funny feeling in my toe.

I'm back to being able to cut my own nails. It's time for them to be cut. In bed the sheet drags on them and pulls them down. I laugh to myself and think of my father. I have toe nails now. I wonder what he would think of them.

Limerick inspired by new baby

Not my creative writing here but I wanted to share this wonderful limerick that New Baby inspired. My sister, Sister Sister, wrote this this morning.

Limerick Number 1



There once was a babe at the breast

Who knew that was only the best

When offered a bottle

She cried at full throttle

Until Mommy gave up on the test.

The Booby bottle

Are you curious about the bottle I mentioned in the second to last post? It was suppose to mimic breastfeeding. It looks like a boob. I call it the booby bottle.

Here's the result: New Baby tolerates it to a point and then cries for me. I love it! I still get to leave work for a while to see my little one. I like going down there to take care of her. I don't feel like I'm missing so much of her life doing it that way. Plus it's just a great feeling to know that she needs and wants me. No one can replace me.

Last week got a call from the childcare place-- New Baby didn't want anyone but me. Come get her. When I walked in the office her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She was so excited to see me. None of the other children ever reacted that way to me. Of course I was a stay at home mom but still it was a great experience for me.

Travelling with new baby

We went on a short vacation. We traveled over 600 miles by car one way. Here's my question... Have you ever been on a trip where you became concern whether you should have ever gone on it in the first place.

Well this was the trip for me. It started out with a car accident. Not ours! Thank God! but it took close to 30 minutes to travel just one half of a mile. Then we had a crying baby. The new baby didn't sleep very much on the trip. In fact she spent most of her time crying and screaming. She has this high pitched scream... most unpleasant. We stopped for the baby several times. We ended up in the bad part of a city to fill the ol' gas tank up. We followed that up with getting turned around and confused and then the street signs themselves were poorly placed.

Instead of driving through the night like we planned we stopped overnight to rest hoping that the morning would bring better results. Well. Whaddya think happened? That's right you guessed it. The baby continued to cry and scream. The new twist to the tale was the severe thunderstorm that stopped us in our tracks because of the driving hail stones. It was so loud in the mini-van that we had to yell and shout to be heard, and we could still barely hear one another. Only later did we discover that the wind had driven the rain into the back of the mini-van wetting those objects on top.

Some highlights to this frustrating trip was MI yelling at ST to "Tame her." in reference to the crying baby. ST was so frustrated that she couldn't "tame her" that ST started yelling back that the only person she can control is herself. Seems like that lesson just make take with ST.

The kids really did enjoy themselves at the B'nai mitvah. Baby danced her 1st hava nagila with mommy. I may be a shicksa but I at least know how to dance it. I was shocked by how many folks didn't know it. PF played his clarinet with the paid band. I ate a lot of yummy food. I also danced Miserlou in high heels and did something to my knee.

So you see. PF and I are not too excited about traveling anytime soon.

The birth

As you know I've had my fourth daughter. She was born on March 31st at 5:40 P.M. The birth experience was totally different. I was induced. This labor is horrible. The contractions are unrelenting but the positive side of the experience was a great labor nurse. She attended to me with great compassion. She made the experience really wonderful. I thank her for that because this was truly a difficult labor for me. And I stress me. I know that my labor and delivery wasn't horrible in that there were no emergencies; no excessive blood; nothing earth shaking. For me the IV was horrible. They had a hard time putting in the IV. My veins are not terribly visible and they roll when they are found.

I hate to admit it but I lost it. I became a weeping, sniveling, mess. The nurse called the doc and the doc told me we could do it another time. I told her no way. They finally got that IV in and I wasn't going to go through that again. Doc told me there was no way she was going to go forward with me in the state I was in. I had many reasons why I had to do it that day. Most importantly ST could not go through with another false alarm (March 19 I had gone to the hospital with false labor); secondly my sister, who's my doula, had to go out of town April 1 for her job. I told the doc to get my sister back in the room. Together we got me calmed down enough to start the pitocin. The contractions didn't start immediately so I was able to participate in conversation, something I never did in the other deliveries.

At some point when the contractions started to get serious I heard my sister say, "She's doing it. She's going away. She's putting herself into that 'trance'." It was true. I was concentrating on my focal point; concentrating on breathing through the pain. My nurse was good about putting me into different positions. I was good about remembering to use the bathroom. While I labor I used a birthing ball; a rocking chair and PF. PF and I did the labor dance. Poor man he didn't have a clue at first what I wanted. He felt lost. All I wanted was for PF to hold me and rock me while we stood between the rocking chair. This is also the only labor I remember where I broke out in a drenching sweat. It was pouring off me. The longest part of the labor was waiting for that little stinker to move down the birth canal. Getting up and moving was the best thing to facilitate that movement. I was glad my nurse supported that kind of labor. (By the way I did this birth naturally. No drugs, other than pitocin.)

Finally I felt ready to push. Boy did things get hopping then. There was so much activity in the room. I think there were about 10 nurses in the room. I was ready to push and I was going to push. But they told me I couldn't. They made me pant. I panted for so long and so hard my whole body started to tingle. I never experienced that sensation before in my life. It totally freaked me out. In fact I got to thinking I didn't need any stinking doctor to deliver this kid. I had done it before I could do it again. (This is why they were having me pant to keep a spontaneous birth from happening) Anyway the nurses were watching the parking lot. Then all of a sudden you could hear them cheering the doctor on her way. She was running across the parking lot. As soon as she got into the room I told them I was pushing. Again I was ordered not to push. In fact the doc wanted to readjust me on the bed. She wanted me to pick up my bottom and scoot down the bed more. I didn't want to do it but then she got stern and I did it. I finally got to push and my little baby girl was born. I didn't push very long at all-- 10 minutes tops. I remember the little head of black hair. Her hair was all wavy and she had lots of it.

Now she is 10 weeks old. She's finishing her 2nd week at child care today. The highlight of that experience is her first day. First day of child care 2 weeks ago, baby got sent home. She would not take a bottle and kept being startled by all the noise in the class room. I've been going down and nursing her. I'm so glad I chose a place close to my work. I love going down there and nursing her.

Today, I brought a different bottle and some milk for them to try. I held off going down there to give them some time to give it to her. I walked in just as she was finishing it. So the little stinker found a bottle she would take. Did I mention it's the cheapest bottle I've bought? Just 99 cents. Yep. So much for the expensive Playtex nursers. So much for the Medela bottles. There you have it.

Yesterday, I found a bottle that is suppose to mimic the mother's breast perfectly. It's even won awards. It's also the most expensive bottle I've bought so far. Wonder if the little stinker will take it?