Weekend Adventures of the Throw-Away Child

We spent the weekend having fun in the sun.  Or at least, as much fun as you can have in the upper-80's-that-feel-like-upper-90's-because-of-intense-humidity. 

It was all made possible by a Walmart kiddie pool.

Sam and I set it up for the kids right after breakfast on Saturday morning.  The instructions said you needed 3 adults for setup, and we quickly found out why.  You needed at least four arms to hold the sides up as it filled with water, and you needed (at least) one adult to keep the three year old and one year old from laying on the sides, letting all of the water out, and completely counteracting any progress you had previously made.  Unfortunately for us, we had two adults....and Ben, who was absolutely convinced that someone needed to physically hold the hose at all times.  So really, we had two adults and one of Ben's arms.  Needless to say, there were no extra arms available to take pictures of this particular endeavor.   

Abby was verbally coachable for the most part.  Sarah not so much.  That's when we resorted to a high-chair and all you can eat Cheerios for the one year old, as provided by her older sister.

Hours of fun were had by the two older kids in the pool.  It was the perfect diversion for them as Sam and I capitalized on Sarah's naptime to work on the continuing playground project.  Undertakings of this magnitude always take longer than we anticipate, but especially when you are working around three children one of whom is a one year old.

It didn't always work out that the one year old would sleep as long or as frequently as we had hoped.  We tried letting her roam about freely for a bit to see how she would do.  While I think she loved it, we decided that free roam was probably not the way to go after removing countless acorns, grass, and an entire handful of Georgia red clay from her mouth (the latter of which Sam contended was at least good for her iron level).

By the end of the evening, our beloved third child had played so hard, her clothes had started to fall off.

She loved every minute of it.

(This picture earned her the nickname "Throw-Away Child".)

And the older two had an okay time too...

And whether it looks like a good eight hours of work over the course of two days or not, the playground project continues to progress...

It was a perfect weekend.

(And now...It's Monday.)

Flashback Friday - Compare/Contrast Edition

It probably goes without saying that yesterday was my baby's first birthday (because I've said about approximately 1,293,948 times already).

What better way to celebrate that than with a fun series of flashback photos?  There simply isn't a better way.  Don't even bother wasting time considering it.

On May 13, 2009 at 6:03pm, we welcomed our newest baby girl.  She weighed 8 pounds exactly.

Now she's a healthy little girl with smiles aplenty and an insatiable appetite.

On October 2, 2006 we welcomed our first baby girl to the family.  She was born at 1:42 pm and weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces.

By one, we already knew we were in for an exciting ride.  She had boundless energy and a grin that could win anyone's heart.

On September 5, 2003 at 10:55am, our lives as parents began when we welcomed our firstborn to our world.  He weighed in at a hearty 8 pounds 13.7 ounces.

By one year, he was already such a little man.  We didn't realize that not all one year old's are capable of or interested in helping around the house, but we sure capitalized on it.

We celebrated their first birthdays in different ways, but the one common denominator between the three was the presence of the beloved one year old smash cake.

Ben was not a fan.  (Would you call that a grimace?)

Not surprisingly, Abby was all over it.

And in an unexpected twist of events, Sarah didn't dig it at all.

 

This concludes today's edition of Compare/Contrast Jennie's Kids.  I assure you there will be many, many more in the future.  In fact, I'm already contemplating the creation of a graph for my next one.  (And if the promise of a graph doesn't drive my readers away, I'm not sure what will.)

Happy Friday, everyone!  Eat some cake in Sarah's honor!  (And on my behalf.)

So much more than just #53 on a list

One year ago today, I gave birth to a beautiful princess.  She stole our hearts from the minute she was born.  Those perfect, pink lips.  Those big, bright blue eyes.

Despite my best efforts to go au naturel, I caved and got the epi.  Had I known I was dilated to 10cm and ready to push, I probably wouldn't have done it, but what's done is done.  I had the epi for three contractions and one and a half pushes, after which we got to meet and hold our precious little girl.

It was my first time delivering a baby with this particular obstetrician.  The one who delivered my first two was a man.  A very confident, slightly-disconnected man.  I have no doubts about his abilities as a doctor, but he lacked any, oh, I don't know - emotion.  My new OB was a woman, also a mother.  She cheered me on, encouraged me.  I think she was as excited to meet our new baby as we were.  After the final push, she caught the baby, strategically covered the sensitive areas with a blanket, looked at Sam and said, "You ready, Dad?"  Sam took a peek under the blanket and declared, "It's a girl!" 

Then she laid my newest naked baby girl on my chest for a moment of skin to skin contact while Sam cut the cord.  It was the perfect start.

Within fifteen minutes of birth, Sarah nursed for the first time.  She was perfect at it.  She was hungry (almost incessantly) and a very eager nursling.  She must have nursed every hour for the first two or three days of her life with a longer stretch here and there when she decided to sleep for maybe two hours.  Yadda, yadda, yadda and one week later, we were sitting in my OB's office waiting for a prescription for mastitis, which would end up as nothing but a distant memory and a minor (at most) stumbling block.

I nursed Ben to four months, Abby to seven, and I was determined before Sarah's birth that this time I would make it to one year.  I have regrets about quitting with Ben when I did, but I was preparing to go back to school full-time, going back to work part-time, and he was starting at daycare.  I had a lot on my plate and couldn't fathom pumping.  I guess I can cut myself some slack on that one.  With Abby, I had not one single regret, only pride that I made it to six months of exclusive breastfeeding, all the while battling supply issues.  The day she turned six months old, I put the pump in the bag and didn't even glance its way for three more years.  We morning and night nursed for another month.  I remember how hard I cried our last nursing session.  I rocked her in her room and held her, and just cried because that chapter of our lives was over.  I know that probably sounds crazy, but there is something to be said for those feel-good hormones that nursing provides.  And I was kissing them goodbye.

I struggle a little bit with an all-or-nothing mentality.  Most of my stress (and in turn supply issues) with Abby came from my determination that I would get to six months...that I refused to give her formula until I had "made it" to six months.  My brain can repeat to itself over and over how ridiculous this is, but it can't seem to convince itself.  I guess it's a little bit of stubbornness.  I suppose I can't complain about that trait in my kids, huh?

Either way, that mentality kicked into gear when the idea of nursing to a year came into play with Sarah.  I "made it" to six months, then all of the sudden we'd made it to nine.  She started eating a lot more real food and sleeping through the night around that time, and by ten months I was feeling the pressure at the pump during my work day.  I just wasn't keeping up.  I tried all of the traditional remedies for milk supply; oatmeal, Fenugreek, binging on water, increasing pumping time and frequency.  It didn't seem to help, but it wasn't getting worse.  Ultimately, I remembered the stress I put on myself with Abby and how counterproductive that was, so I tried to tell myself not to worry.  For once in my life, I adopted and applied the "Que Sera Sera" motto.

And it worked.  We made it.  To one year.

It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life as a mother.  However many times a day, I've been able to snuggle up with my princess and enjoy her...just the two of us.  Is it always in peaceful solitude?  Of course not.  But whether there are a million and one distractions or not, it's our time.  And that can't be substituted...for either of us.

When Sarah was just a tiny baby, we would nurse laying side by side, our tummies touching.  Her little legs would come down just to my belly button.  She just fit right in that little spot next to me.   I would watch her eyes slowly drift shut as she succumbed to the so-called milk coma.  

Now that she's older, she doesn't succumb to the drowsiness, but rather stares at me with the big, bright blue eyes, plays with my face, and even grins a devilish little smile while doing so without skipping a beat.

I can't say for sure whether it's because of the breastfeeding or not, but there is a correlation between the length of time I nursed my babies and their overall health.  There is also a correlation between the length of time I nursed them and their willingness to try new foods.  Without question, Ben is my pickiest child and Sarah is no less than a vacuum cleaner when it comes to food (and even non-foods, as I removed some pebbles from her mouth just last night). 

I couldn't have done it without Sam's support and encouragement.  And, also, my friends who were no less than my personal breastfeeding cheerleaders (this means you, Kat!).  I know for many, there is a stigma associated with nursing.  Shoot, I had to overcome that in myself.  Growing up, I knew of one woman who nursed her children, and well, quite frankly, we all thought she was a little weird.  If you had asked me before I had kids if I would even consider breastfeeding, I would have probably said no.  Like I've said before, becoming a mom changes you.  I never imagined I would become a lactivist, and yet here I stand. 

It was on my 101 list, and while I'm thrilled to be able to say, "#53 - Breastfeed Sarah on her first birthday...consider yourself checked!", it's been so much more to me than just an item on a list.

Happy Birthday, Little Girl!

It's been an incredible year!

well it's wednesday again!

Which can only mean one thing...time for some more Mom Things.

It warms your heart to see your older child reading to your younger child at bedtime, especially when he's willingly reading a book of her choosing about Disney princesses.

Then you get a little bit sad about it...because it kind of means they don't need you anymore.

Despite your best efforts not to, you have become one of those moms who actually thinks that people care about the silly things your children say and do 24/7.

Completely by accident, you discover that your three year old eats salad.  And here you thought she only liked chocolate and peanut butter crackers all this time.

After your six year old sings "You look like a monkey...and you smell like one too!" to your almost one-year old, your three year old chimes in with "Three!"  Apparently, she thinks it's a song about counting.

Since that song was over, your three year old began singing an original song about the intricacies of Southern word choice.  Some of the lyrics include, "Grandaddy says 'supper' and Daddy says 'dinnnnneeeerrrr'!  But dinner is the same as suupppppppeerrrr!"

When made into a game, household chores can be a blast.  For example, "Abby, would you please ride your firetruck and deliver these washcloths to the towel cabinet under my sink?!  It's an emergency!"

This is generally what happens when you say, "Hold still and let me take your picture":

You try not to convey to your children that you are deathly afraid of barnyard animals, so, unfortunately for them, petting zoo opportunities are few and far between for your family.

Your six year old tell you he knows what "curls" are because he learned about them in school.  He proceeds to explain that it's when you have more than one of something.  You explain that you think he means "plurals".  And then you realize that sometimes life is just one big game of telephone.

#88 - Fix something instead of buying a new one...check!

Remember that list thing?  I am 222 days into the thing, which means at a pace of one task every ten days, I should have completed 22 tasks by now.  And here I am crossing off my twenty-third.  Not too shabby, if I might say so myself.

This week promises to be a productive one on the list front.  At least, I hope it will be!  The first task I get to cross off is #88 ~ Fix something instead of buying a new one.

I put this on the list because we have a disposable mentality, not just me, not just my household, but our culture.  I'm pretty sure this is our generation's fault.  My dad is a fixer, rigger, and make-it-work kind of dude.  My grandfather was the same way.  My boss tells the story about his father who kept three non-working washing machines on their back porch in case the working one quit, he could just walk out back and snatch a part off.  There are lots of reasons we don't think this way anymore.  Partially, we think it's not worth the time or money to fix something, especially when we can just buy a new one for a few more dollars.  Mostly though, I think we're lazy.  It's easier not to fix things.  End of story.

We got some new neighbors earlier this year.  They live across the street and they seem to be busy bees out in the yard, sprucing it up.  They're always trimming, clipping, mowing, and planting something.  This may have been what gave me a complex about our yard that prompted the big mulch adventure a few weeks back.   Although, if I were going to have a complex about inferior yards because of neighbors, I'd already have it.  The man on the corner has always kept his yard pristine.  (How does he do that?!)  Fine, I admit it.  I covet his grass that could double as carpet and his eternally pine-poofed flower beds. 

Between the always pristine corner yard and ambitiously trimming new neighbors, I turned to my house and decided it was time to trim the hedges.  This is no small task, as the previous owners spared no expense filling the flowerbeds with abounding amounts of needs-to-be trimmed flora.  No worries, though!  When Sam and I got married, my dad donated lots of tools to help get us started.  One of these tools was a set of power hedge trimmers that had, until recently, been nestled in a cob-webby corner of our garage inside a box of miscellaneous other previously-unused items.  Nevertheless, I remembered they were there and, by golly, I was finally going to use them!

I found our ginormous extension cord on a spool, plugged the puppy in, and pulled the trigger!

They did nothing....unless you count that grunting sound.

The things were completely and totally seized up with rust.

You know what my first thought was?  "Guess I need to get to Lowe's and buy a new hedge trimmer...'sigh'"  Sad but true.

Then I realized.  It's just rust.  Surely a little rust doesn't render something eternally useless, does it?  A discussion with Mr. Fix-it (aka my dad) confirmed that this was no job some Liquid Wrench or WD-40 couldn't fix.  A disassembly, a few sprays of WD-40, and no more than 10 minutes later, that things was fired up and ready to go.

It would sit in the garage for several more weeks as wasps, high-temperatures, and that thing known as "life" got in the way for that long.  Then on a whim, my wonderful husband decided to give me yet another Mother's Day present.  On Sunday night, he pruned our entire front yard with the trimmers.  Did it matter that he ran out of daylight?  Not to Sam!  He finished the whole thing up with nary a stinging pest or high temperatures causing even the slightest hindrance.

I like to think I made it all possible...because I fixed the trimmers...instead of buying new ones.  (I'm not sure Sam sees it this way.)

And with that, #88, consider yourself checked!