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I felt brave today, and on top of things. I was a super mom. I woke up well rested because Athena slept from 12-7. I took a shower with Morella and got clean while Athena took a quick nap. I dressed everyone, myself included. I made a batch of my awesome chocolate chip cookies before Toddler Time at the library. I attended Toddler Time and Morella had a blast while I managed to keep a non napping Neeners quiet. I let Morella play with the library stuff afterward before giving up the battle with Athena and went home. Athena feel asleep on the way home so I was able to have a peaceful lunch with Morella while baking two trays of awesome chocolate chip cookies, with walnuts for those “nut lovers.” I then packed everyone in the car and … this is where I really outdid myself … I drove all the to Cross Plains (like 20 miles) to visit an old college friend who just had a baby two weeks ago. I brought a tater tot casserole I had made the night before — I made a double batch so we would have dinner when I got home, an upside down orange cake (kind of bitter), and the cookies because the cake was bitter.

Anyway. It was a great drive. I did it! That was the farthest I have ever driven by myself with just the girls and I rocked it! Had a great visit. Drove home and missed all the rush hour traffic. I put the casserole in the oven, and watched “Ahh Aahh” (Curious George) with Morella while nursing Athena and then Karen came over and played with Morella while I … oh I am getting bored writing this.

All I needed was to hear “It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight…” Ha ha. I also imagined that I was in a cut scene in a Lifetime movie about a courageous woman who turns her life around and makes it more fantastic than it already is.

So you know how I talked about not wanting to tackle Athena and the cosleeper? Sometimes all I need to do is publicly say something to give myself the motivation to do something. You know, it’s the classic “Why wait for the perfect time that may never exist when I can just do it now?” Plus, Tim came back to bed after spending a week or two on the futon because of a terrible cold he had. I found the diminished space to be less than restful. My baby is huge and likes to spread out.

Today is day three of having her to go to sleep in her cosleeper. So far the trick is to leave my arm in there next to her for awhile. Sure there is usually one misfire or so where I have to take her out to re-nurse her into submission, but in the end she is asleep in her cosleeper like a good little baby. Just gotta take it one day at at time.

During one of the misfires last night, I looked down at her and she as nestled in the crook of my arm, sleeping peacefully and radiating contentment. She was just beautiful. I wanted to capture it forever and hold her all night long but then thought “No, this is just a ruse to trick me.” No, I didn’t really think that. But it does show you how easy it is to justify not sticking to something. “She’ll only be little for short time. I should be enjoying this — everyone tells me I should be.”

Nursing a baby instead of spending two – 4 hours a day pumping for a baby is so much nicer. A thousand times nicer. How the heck did I do that for a year? No wonder I felt like I had no free time. I didn’t.

Morella’s newest thing is to take the squirt/spray bottle we use for getting the flannel wipes wet and going after the cats. I told her she could because Tim and I were sick of getting sprayed. I don’t think I will ever forget how she learned it though. I was laying on the floor of her room while she puttered in the corner. I picked up the bottle she had knocked to the floor and was playing with and said “Morella…” She looked at me and I sprayed her right in the face. Her look was priceless. Shock. Bewilderment. Tears. I called her over and gave her a hug, apologized and wiped her face all while trying not to laugh. Exactly one hour later I got sprayed in the face and started laughing manically.

I am so tired. It’s not very often I am afflicted by the tired side effect of having kids, so this is not a welcome feeling. One other other has been waking up all hours of the night or getting up at ungodly hours in the morning. Yesterday it was Neeners who wanted to play at 4:30. Today it was Morella at 5:45 because the milk that was left by her bedside was “no nilk!” You see, two of our local grocery stores were out of her particular brand of milk. 8th Continent Vanilla Soy. Anything else is no acceptable. I admit we dug ourselves into this hole by indulging her. It was just easier to buy that than to get her to drink anything else, especially since we were so thrilled she was drinking something. In our defense we have done some whole milk trials recently and she can tolerate dairy now. So we have been starting to mix whole milk with her soy — right now we are at about 1 part milk (maybe a little less) to 3 parts soy. We only started last week, so we aren’t ready to go full boar milk. But we might have too — because how can two stores be out of the same milk that they always sell out off?

I know two of the other stores do not have it. The Hippy coop does not. Copps pick and save does not. Savers does not. Hy-vee does … so that is where we are headed this morning. OH and you know, we did buy another brand of vanilla soy that we hadn’t tried yet (and we have tried them all). Same result. A big part of that reason is that they claim it’s vanilla, but it’s only lightly flavored whereas 8th Continent means business whey they say vanilla. I even tried sweetening it with honey – nope. Trust me folks, we have tried every other option. I did get her to be quiet this morning by giving her some strawberry milk, but she only sips it. Treats it like a cup of coffee or tea, or a milkshake. Not life sustaining milk.

I am just to tired to face this battle right now after the week we have. Morella’s high fever, thinking she might have had a UTI (she didn’t, she was just afraid to pee), and then Athena getting sick, and me going out on my birthday (I don’t regret that, but it did make for a late night), and that wretched headache I had all weekend that drained the life out of me all contribute to me wanting to put this battle and others off for another week. The other battle — Athena needs to really start sleeping in her cosleeper. She is getting mobile in bed, and big. I want my space back. It’s just so much easier to have her sleep right away though than to constantly put her down in it and go there five minutes later to take her out, recalm her and blah blah blah. I know. Think of the end game. The whole bed 1/2 bed to myself is reward enough…or is it? I hate this not having sleep thing.

Morella has been battling a fever all day. So far the highest has been 104.7 taken this evening at 8:00. Of course we called the doctor — twice. First I did this afternoon when the two hours after a dose of tylenol her temperature went up almost two degrees and made an appointment for tomorrow morning at 10. Plenty of time to see if anything changes between then and now. The second time was tonight when Tim called. We got all the same information – give motrin and make sure it goes down. Weather through it. Kids get high fevers and it’s normal. They also consider a fever of 104.7 to be only moderately high.

It’s going to be a long night. Instead of foolishly going to bed at 12 like I did last night and waking at 2, 4, and then 5 for the day, I am going to go bed by 10. I am finally starting to feel the tiredness now. There is something about having a sick kid that gives you energy.

I think having a sick kid is one of the hottest fires imaginable in the tempering of parenthood. Sure there are the sleepless nights and exhaustion and uncontrollable and sometimes embarrassing tantrums, vomiting, spit up, poop and pee accidents. However, the most frustrating aspect to parenthood for me so far is when they get sick. Then you have all of the above plus a distinct feeling of helplessness. You just want to make it better but can’t.

I got Morella some dvd’s from the library to help cheer her up when she is feeling like watching some TV — two Melmo (Elmo) dvd’s and a story book type thing with Goodnight Moon. We just watched it a little while ago and it made me sleepy. One of the stories was How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight. I gotta say, this kid is pretty good natures because both Tim and I thought it was a creepy, scary story!

I also got her some subway cold cut trio meat, a snickerdoodle and ginger ale. She has a full cup of crushed ice with enough soda to fill in the spaces in her extra special Boppa (grandma) sippy cup with a straw. Now if only we can keep the Doctor (she renamed Arkham the cat) and Meyo (Migo) out of her room and off her bed. Especially that darn Meyo.

I hope she feels better tomorrow. What a rotten start to a birthday weekend.

PS. The fever did go down after the last Motrin dose at 8:10. It was down to 101.6 at 8:50. we are mostly worried about how high it will be before the next motrin dose.

Tim took a 1/2 day today so that he could come home and hold down the fort while I went to the DMV to renew my driver’s license. This wasn’t just any old renewing though — this was me getting my permanent DL’s! Yeah! I’m a real adult now! I get a few more fuck up points added to my card! Hurray! The picture is awful. However I am comforted by the fact that by the time I need to renew it again at the age of 42 — I am 100% positive I will think I looked awesome. Hows that for a convoluted sentence. I would try to fix it, but it’s super late and I gotta get to bed. I celebrated by going to a grocery store some chocolate cake and coffee and got pizza for dinner. When I returned home Athena was howling a desperately, Morella had red rimmed eyes and Tim look relieved. It took me about 1/2 an hour to calm Athena down. I told her I wasn’t sorry for the 1 1/2 hours of freedom I had though and it was her fault for always waking up 5 minutes after I leave.

While Tim was at his Thursday night gaming thing, I went through photos and deleted most of the ones that were bad, relooked through them to try and narrow it down more and eventually uploaded 4 months worth of photos to Walgreens (total 370 photos) and ordered them. Then I shared the album with family so that they could order whatever pictures they wanted … and then remembered I had four nursing photos on there. I went and deleted them but I am not sure if the family will see them or not. The Walgreens FAQ was hazy on the issue. It’s not like they are distasteful. No nipple is showing — they are very nice in fact. However, I don’t need them all seeing that as the photos were for me. Sigh. Anyway. Let it go.

So here are four pictures from this month.

Sarah, Nicol, Me and Athena. I am fairy certain that Athena weighs more than her son who is seven weeks older than she is. It’s so strange to have a big baby now considering how flimsy nature of Morella. Though Nicol is much sturdier — Neener is still pretty soft and squishy.

Morella didn’t want to get out of the bath. This is the most wrinkled, and pruny feet I have ever seen.
Athena the sitter upper.
Noah and Morella on their first drive in date.

This week has been strange. First I hosted playgroup on Monday and a bajillion people and kids showed up, enough for the neighbors to notice. It was cool though because for the first time ever having that many people over did not stress me out one bit. I guess I figured the house was clean enough from over the past week and what wasn’t clean I can pawn off on having kids. Maybe it was being prepared ahead of time that allotted me that easy, stress free feeling.

I had a new friend over on Friday morning with her two sons, one of which is about two weeks younger than Athena. Since she had never been to my house I was on high alert and spent the week before that using her visit as a catalyst to get things done like put curtains up and redo elements of organization in the bathroom. Once those things were done it was easy to keep the house clean over the weekend. The visit went well and is worth repeating, especially since after March most playdates will have to be at her house because of her older son’s schedule.

The day before that one of the playdate ladies came over with her son and we had a nice visit. Morella and her son had a blast until it ended very abruptly near Morella’s bedtime because she was bitten. She had two round little bite marks on her pipecleaner arm, one with red and blue near the skin. No skin was broken but Morella was very upset. She ended up regaling the entire story of what happened to us several times over the course of the night (she stayed up until 10) and the next day. She made sure to reenact the entire experience by walking us to the kitchen and taking us to her room where the crime of passion occurred (near her bed). She was so serious — it was much like the Owl incident. Tim had taken her outside to listen to an Owl and for the next week we heard all about the Owl. In sum, I am glad that she was bitten by a friend rather than some bully at the park. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and this way we were able to talk about it and deal with it as an accident rather than the world being a cold, cruel place.

Let’s see, then Sunday we had our out of town friends, Sarah and family stop in for a visit in the evening. Morella and their daughter Ruth played beautifully together. Morella was very excited and happy to take Ruth’s hand and lead her off to her room to show her around. In truth, Ruth is just old enough that Morella was enthralled by her older girl status. For the record, Ruth is 7 months older that Morella — practically a cool, older teenager in toddler speak. Tim took the girls downstairs to play in the playroom while we stayed upstairs and had Athena and Nicol play with each other for awhile. Okay, we layed them on the floor next to each other. What else are you going to do with little babies? Ha ha. After they left I felt awful that we didn’t offer to have them stay for dinner. God, sometimes I wish I could be more prepared. All the dishes were dirty and in the dishwasher, I didn’t know when the heck dinner would be done and it would have been too late for them to drive back. Still, I like to imagine that I am capable of gracious hosting — I guess that is a skill I will have to perfect. I apologize for not having thought ahead!

That brings us to Monday with the playdate. Well the all the kids must have tuckered Morella out because she took a nap. For the record, she has largely given up naps. It sucks because I have had to adjust for the extra 15 hours a week in my work schedule entertaining and keeping track of a toddler. I’m getting there, but I still am really tired by the end of the day. I was enjoying the unexpected free time catching up on the internet (which has sadly suffered since the Death of the Nap) and … I am so embarrassed to admit this. *deep breath*

I almost got suckered into an online phishing scam. This one was via Facebook — the good old “I got Mugged in London by Gunpoint” scam. It was only because Western Union has bulletins on their website that warn of fraud, scams and ruses that I thought to ask a personal question. A question the “friend” couldn’t answer. In the the end, no harm was done. No money was lost, no personal information revealed and the world didn’t blow up. No the only real lasting damage was to my pride. I emailed the friend and told her of the hacking and then tried to get on with the rest of the day. But you know, I just feel like such a rube. A maroon if you will.

You know, since then, I have been trying to think of other times I have done really stupid things and only two really come to mind. First and foremost was the stupid cruise I bought into over the phone. Thank goodness Wisconsin has a refund law that ensures you get 48 hours to change your mind. Secondly, was the time I left my camera at the outlook tower while camping. By the time we went back it was gone. Hey that reminds me of another one — the time I forgot my camera in my bag by the car last October when I went to get pumpkins. Thankfully I was able to get that one back unscathed. I blame Morella for that. You know, that whole leaving things in a rush and you forget things. I can’t tell you how many times I have locked us out of the house because I forgot to bring my keys with me.

Okay. It’s Fringe time — no more wallowing. I just wonder what my horoscope would have to say about this weird week. Probably something very cryptic. Yesterday aside, this month has gotten much better. I guess I need to start the New Year off with a major case of the blues so that I have something to shake off. The darkness before dawn. It’s nice. This is going to be the year of unfinished business, I think. Finish things. Return things. Fulfill obligations. Fulfill promises — at least those that I can remember. Have the whole year in which to wipe the slate clean. Maybe this should be my new years resolution.

Yeah. That it’s. Brilliant.

I was tagged to do a meme of “10 Things that Make me Happy” by Lapnoodle. Of course in the blogger realm they do this in form of awards — but I don’t think I’ll pass that on. For one, I am only aware of maybe 20 of my readers, they don’t all have journals and many of them are over in livejournal land. Thanks for tagging me!

That said, here are 10 things that made me happy *today*.

1. Successful play date this morning with Emily and her two sons. Athena slept the entire time, Morella was great and the house was fairly okay.

2. Letter from Sarah and a lovely family New Year’s card.

3. Grocery shopping with no meltdowns and exited with food.

4. Grocery pickup (uh where you drive to the store and they load your groceries for you — for free! In fact, I use this service a lot with two kids because I feel like I am keeping these guys in a job by utilizing the service).

5. Newly assembled last night bathroom space saver looked good this morning. I was afraid I might have buyers regret. A space saver is one of those cabinets that go over the toilet and is on legs.

6. Morella got into my package of gum. Took the plastic off, opened it and took out a piece of gum. After going through all that work I let her keep the piece she took. At first she played with it for about 5 minutes and then walked away. I followed her a minute later to see that she had finally gotten around to putting it in her mouth (like everything these days) and was chewing a little bit of it. She held it up to me and said “Yum.” She was telling me that it was good, like it was something I didn’t know. She later spit out the gum and handed me a tiny remnant. Yum.

7. Watching how active and happy Athena gets when she’s diaperless and on the floor. She really came close to rolling over! She’s such a lovely little baby. Sometimes I wish I could see more of her during the day rather than the back of her head.

8. News that one of my old IF (IF-infertility) friends is pregnant *naturally* with her second. I am so excited for her.

9. That box of chocolates that Tim got me the other day.

10. Neighbor brought by a beautiful hand made Christmas basket centerpiece/decoration type thing that she crafted and two books for Morella/Athena. A Disney princess book and a Cars Book. Morella really likes the picture of Belle and was quick to memorize her name.

There you have it! I have to get to bed now. It’s almost my new bedtime of 12. Oy vey.

Tim bought me a box of chocolate AND made his futon bed in the office this morning. Is it my lucky day or what? I woke up this morning with a bit of congestion but it’s since gone. I think we all had a mini cold. Oh I did take Morella to the doctor last Friday and she was fine, absolutely nothing wrong with her. The doctor did say the classic “It’s a virus,” blah blah blah, and that she might show signs of congestion over the weekend. She didn’t though, but we did.

Anyway. I am stressed out with this whole parenting thing. Morella is not eating. Is it because she carries her sippy cup around her as a glorified bottle? Is she drinking too much milk and not having enough room leftover to eat? Is she sick again (Tim said she is following the progression of his illness)?

Hm. Tim just said no. She is sick. She is coughing a lot tonight. But is that because she is sick or because of the one hour screaming tantrum she threw this afternoon during a major nap fail? Has she given up naps for good? IF that is the case why did she fall asleep in the car five minutes into it this afternoon?

Is Athena ever going to sleep through the night? Is she waking at 12 because I am going to bed then? (I don’t think so because on nights I go to bed late she still wakes up at that time to cry and eat). How am I ever going to get them to share a room together? The other night she was up every TWO hours. If she was in Morella’s or another room, I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep at all. How will she ever get Morella’s toddler/bed crib since Morella is so attached to her bed? Will we have to buy a toddler bed even though we have a perfectly fine trundle bed with a rollout that they could use? Will she never get to use it because she will be in my bed until she is one like our parents did (my Mom and Tim’s Mom both kept their babies in bed until 1).

Sigh. It’s so different having a bottle fed baby (with thickened EBM) versus a nursing baby. And a first born versus a second born.

Oh there is my laptop battery telling me knock it off, watch some TV and calm the fuck down.

It January. I get caught up in television during this time. We finished watching season 4 of Dexter and I was … well… I feel a little embarrassed to admit this, but I got too involved. I got caught up in the life of a fictional character. In the early months of two under two, I would often think about how Dexter was handing fatherhood. It was something that got me through the day, you know? So when this season ended, the way it did, I was emotionally upset and it took a couple days to shake it off. I really don’t want to talk about it further so I don’t give anything away. Let’s just say that I felt like one of those crazy people that believe soap operas are real and spend way too much time thinking about their lives.

Now we are watching Fringe, and of course I am going back to catching up on How I Meet Your Mother. I have also been watching movies — tonight it was Grace Is Gone. An indie movie with John Cussak that was really rather unremarkable. Not to be a movie snob, but I’ve seen a lot of independent and foreign movies and this was just another classic example of american’s doing a lackluster job on a slow drama. Enough of that, I am not a movie critic nor do I aspire to be one. I just know what I like and don’t like, and I knew what kind of movie that was going to be five minutes into it.

On the positive side, I finally finished an afghan that I started two years ago before Morella was born for a friend of mine. Hurray! I can get it out of my living room.

I am on a quest to dejunkify and get things done around this house. Yesterday we went out and finally bought curtain rods for the office and girl’s bedroom windows. The solution that I have used for the last five years just cannot stand anymore. That solution being safety pins on the end of “curtains” hung of a little nail at each side of the window. Oh wait, one of the windows I actually strung some jewelry wire for them to hang on. Real classy.

Now that I have the rods, I hope to actually install them sometime before the next five years are up. No really, I hope to do it this week sometime. If these kids ever take a nap. Morella opted not to today. Please don’t let nap times go the way of the Dinosaur Train. I don’t have a time tunnel to go back to the good old days of three hour naps.

Of course this wouldn’t be a mommy blog (as Tim so lovingly refers to my blog now) if I didn’t prattle on about my little darlings. Morella is in a developmental explosion now! She is adding new words by the handful each day, finally started to mimic words, jumped off her slide (about 2 inches) to the ground several times without falling, figured out puzzles and how to put money into her princess crown bank and knows how to have a conversation on the phone that is more than “hi” and “bye.”

Athena has been showing remarkable improvement in sitting and playing with toys and just loves Morella. Morella was telling her some jokes this afternoon and pretty much anything that came out of her mouth had her laughing. She slept for crap today and doesn’t nurse well in public or noisy situations (would prefer really for me to be in a quiet darken room in the side lying position). But she did go to bed early and she finally had her big poopsploion. It’s been almost five days. This poop was weird too, really sticky. It sort of reminded me of the xanthum gum poops that Morella had for the first year of her life because of the Simply Thickened bottles she had to have.

Man I’m tired.

One last thing, we have tuna casserole for dinner. We had some. Morella at two peas and called it. That girl is living on air. I think she thinks that 2% body fat she has is too much and is doing something about it. Sigh. No seriously, I have to remind myself that the pediatrician assured me that children this young do not purposely starve themselves.

Athena – 5 Months

The rest of the images can be seen here in the Photo Gallery
(Yes i notice that the thumbprints seem to be missing for several of the beginning galleries, however if you click on the album and the title links the images will show. I have no idea how to fix this either short of going back to do it all over again). You can also seem them here which might be easier to see: Facebook Photo Album

–Nicknames: Neena, Neeners, Neener Beaner, Athena Beana, Kerfluff
–Can sit unassisted! She started this three days ago. She can go for several wobbly minutes, but by gum she can do it.
–Hates hates hates being on her tummy
–Won’t roll over to save her life
–Loves to pretend she is texting
–Insists on holding my hand while nursing
–Pulled the computer keyboard to her and started banging on it this week (aww!)
–Favorite joke in the world is “B…buh…buh bah!”
–Loves little bunny foo foo
–Laughs when you head nuzzle her tummy (then she grabs your hair and pulls..ouch!)
–Wearing 6-9 and 6-12 month clothing
–Barely gets any floor time because as soon as she hits the ground, or couch or bed or whatever, Morella is all over her like a wet rag. Poor Neeners hardly ever gets alone time to exercise those muscles and explore. At least she is getting big enough to fend for herself when Attack of the Toddler begins. But, you know she loves Morella and just looking at her makes her smile.
–Much better about letting other people hold her
–Goes to bed around 8:00-8:30…however I am the only one that can seem to do it.
–Wakes up between 11-12 to eat, then 3-4 and then now she is waking up at 7:00 for the day. Seems to take a nap around 9:30-10 and then an afternoon nap around 2-5.
–Must be held facing out, or you can hip hold her if she is high enough and mostly facing out. Facing in – disaster. Kind of sucky for the Ergo, but I did test getting her in it for the back carrying position and though she fussed she started to actually fall asleep. Maybe in another month it will be better. For now the Baby Bjorn is easier and more flattering to my post baby squishy belly syndrome.
–Bald spot is getting more fuzz growing in and hair is starting to thicken ever so slightly all around
–Really getting into playing with toys
–Sits in high chair with us during dinner good most of the time. The rest of the time she wants to be held and tries to pat our plates or food
–At this point in time hasn’t pooped in two days
–Still seems sensitive to dairy in my diet
–Still only one tooth (the one she was born with)
–Is an overall wonderfully easy going little baby. When she cries it’s usually for a reason and that is so nice to have. She either wants to move, eat, sleep or has a poopy diaper.

Picture time!

HA HA HA HA … oh my god, this last photo has me in stitches.

Kathleen and her daughter Daphne came over today to hang out. We played Abalone and made Valentine cards from Target Dollar bin goodies while drinking some candy cane lane decaf. It was awesome … especially the part where everyone was sleeping except us and we got do fun stuff. Anyway. Then we put them in bumbos and made them look at each other.

Some other photos since I am on the horn…Here is one of Hilary and Athena

It seems like deja vue…. Hilary and Morella