Turkey Trot

Alice and Robert ran their first "race" this morning at the 47th Annual Turkey Trot. They've been "training" for weeks, once running 200 laps in our house. The Turkey Trot is a local 1-mile fun run/walk put on by the park district that happens every Thanksgiving morning. Today was FREEZING, though not the coldest Turkey Trot on record :) Bobby ran with them. Here they are showing off their participant ribbons at the end:
 

Erin and I stood with James as spectators. Grandma stayed warm at home and Matthew stayed with her. James was interested in the animal mascots. He followed them as they moved from the start line to the finish (about 200 ft), but wouldn't get close enough for them to actually interact with him.

In other news, James has learned that Grandma's computer can show him video clips of motorcycles, helicopters, and other vehicles. Any time she has the computer out, he's right there asking to watch. Sometimes their video adventures take them elsewhere...like the Teletubbies. All three kids watched, but only James thought it was awesome: 

He was especially fond of the laughing baby in the sun and the honking seats. The rest of us found the experience pretty mind-numbing :)

$25,000 Baby

We just received the hospital and physician bills for Matthew's birth: $25,000. Fortunately, we're insured through Bobby's work and this hospital stay pushed us past our annual deductible. We only owe them $350 for the whole experience.

A few picts from recently:

James showing off a few snowflakes he had captured.

Grandma wanted a picture of Matthew's hands here, but all I see is a big, pink pacifier (purchased in desperation for form and function, not style...I don't like pink).

New family photo #1

New family photo #2

Matthew turns 1 month old this week. I'm still stuck in October. He's about 10 pounds, getting softer and fatter every day. He spends his conscious hours calm and happy (as long as you're holding him). He spends his daytime sleeping hours in the midst of the noisy activity that is life at our house. He sleeps through it all, dear boy. Nighttime is a work in progress. He eats every 3-4 hours and sometimes stays awake for an hour or so afterwards. Thank goodness for Grandma to take him so I can go back to bed :) Matthew holds his head up pretty well. He's smiled once really big for Grandma and once for Alice and tons and tons as he's falling asleep. It's a charming smile. Sometimes I watch him falling asleep just to catch a glimpse of it. I wonder how it will feel when he finally uses it intentionally.

Matthew skipped his first night feeding on Monday and I promptly came down with a short bout of mastitis (another one of those "oh yeah, now I remember this" moments). I'm so glad to have my mom and sister in town. The kids absolutely adore Erin. She makes everything more fun. Everything. She's taking them out on dates one-by-one, giving them lots of personal attention and special treats. Even James has decided that she's alright to smile for :)

Robert spent much of yesterday afternoon making paper snowflakes. While I was out of the room, he told Erin that she could buy him and take him home with her. She asked him "How much?" and he said "$5." Erin asked about the other members of the family and he said they would be $5 each, too, or *pause*think*think*think* $30 altogether.

WHAT?! Did that boy just do multiplication in his head?!

What if Robert turns out smarter than I am...can my pride handle it?!

James spent much of yesterday in time out. I wonder if he misbehaves sometimes just because he wants/needs some alone time. He plays and sings so happily all by himself that it's easy to leave him be. I've forgotten him in there more than once :) Do we have another introvert in the works? Time will tell.

I hear Matthew squeaking in his seat. Time for another feeding. 

One step forward...

...two steps back.

It's been one of those days. I'll spare you the infuriating details and just ask you if you know of any good 5-day preschools around here. Robert and James just couldn't seem to get along today.

I think things will feel better once I stop comparing this time to what I remember life was like before now. For example, I went back on this blog and read what it was like to have James as a 3-week-old (October 2012), and it was nothing like I remember. I had forgotten so much of the hard stuff. And now I'm living the hard stuff again, thinking this is the first time in my life I've ever felt this way. Sooooooo wrong. I need to forget what I think I know.

Therefore, my goal for this week is to stop reminiscing in an idealized past and just accept today. Accept the hard parts as normal, do the best I can, and look forward to forgetting them in the future :)

A little more progress

James spent half the day in time-out yesterday for the same three offenses over and over: hitting, kicking, and biting. I haven't been 100% consistent enforcing those limits before, so yesterday was the day to make it 100%. And I think I did pretty well. I count that as progress. Today, he's only hit once and that was after some teasing by his older brother. Still got a time-out.

I've also decided that it's not helpful to argue with him anymore. I don't remember Alice and Robert arguing with me much when they were two. I set a limit and they followed it or crossed it and faced the consequence. They didn't stand there and yell "no!" over and over again. So I got sucked in with James:

"Not in your mouth, James."
"Yes mouth!"
"No."
"Yes!"
"That would be a sad choice."
"No sad choice!"
etc.

With each protest, he gets more and more agitated until something happens...often a hit or kick or bite. See a pattern here? Yeah, I finally got it, too.

No more arguing.

"Not in your mouth, James."
"Yes mouth!"
***end of conversation***

If he actually crosses the limit, then he receives the consequence. I don't have to argue with a 2-year-old to set enforceable limits and follow through. Saves a lot of my energy. Thank you, Love and Logic.

Meanwhile, Matthew is making excellent progress on his cheeks and double chin.

He only smiles as he's falling asleep.

Alice has finished another short round of Indian Dance. I am always surprised at her gracefulness. I never felt graceful. I didn't think anything graceful could ever come from me. But there she is. It must come from Bobby's side of the family.

Robert has surprised me quite a bit lately, too. He thinks about things and how they work. He's making progress with phonics and has proudly read his first short reader to us. This morning, he figured out how to spell clock: "K-L-O-K". And the other day, he explained to me the difference between a lie and a trick. Apparently, it depends on how long you allow the person to believe the untruth...which is pretty much spot-on.

I can handle three...

Still figuring out this fourth kid thing. I went to church with the three older kids today, leaving Matthew home with my mom. It was not the kids' best church day. I was glad I didn't have Matthew to manage on top of it all. Driving home early (to swap my mom), I realized that I'm not yet convinced I can handle all four. I'm in over my head. Not a pleasant feeling.

My mom then left to go to church. I was alone with Matthew. I can handle Matthew, gassy belly and all. My mom brought all the kids home from church and James had fallen asleep in the car. We nuked some leftovers for lunch and the two oldest ate. They played. Matthew woke up to eat and I told the older kids to start quiet time. Everything went smoothly...because James was out of the picture. So, I realized that Alice and Robert weren't the major source of my anxiety. Their needs don't often conflict with Matthew's demands, especially when they have each other to play with.

No, it turns out that the major source of my anxiety with four children is James. Sweet little James. I can handle any combination of three kids as long as James and Matthew aren't grouped together. It's helpful to realize that, actually, because it means I'm not in over my head ALL of the time, just some of the time. James' needs are very hands-on. James wants me, and me only, to work with him on everything (eating, dressing, diapering, bedtime, reading, buckling, outings). That kind of attention doesn't mesh well with a baby right now.

So, what does this mean? I don't know. It just feels good to have the problem better-defined :)

James and Matthew

Remember when I mentioned James loving Matthew so much that I feared for his life? James has learned to be more gentle, but his chunky, wet, loud toddler love simply overfloweth. I need to share these moments before I forget them:

• Matthew was hanging out in the baby swing. James comes by and gets really, really close to the front of it. Just close enough that the swing kinda taps him in the belly. James throws his hands in the air and staggers backwards shrieking and hitting himself on the head, then falls down onto the ground with a grunty sigh, eyes closed. He's still for a moment before he opens an eye and peeks at Matthew, then busts out laughing. He repeats this several times, always checking for a reaction from Matthew. I think James is trying to get Matthew to laugh/play with him. He will be thrilled when Matthew actually starts smiling at him...or anyone.

• James wants to be with me while I nurse Matthew. Constantly. He climbs on the nursing chair to get as close as possible. He copies the squeaking and sighing sounds Matthew makes while he eats. Most often, James hovers around looking for places to hug and kiss Matthew and give him "blowfishes" or "raspberries." When his big, wet kisses leave a slobber spot, James says, "Uh-oh, wet!" and tries to dry him off. Again, he's learned to be more gentle, but the sheer number of kisses and head hugs and shrieking greetings must be shaping Matthew's perception of this older brother.

• James' interactions with Matthew haven't been 100% loving. The other day, Robert excluded James from some fun game he wanted to play. James got really frustrated at Robert, but Robert ran away before James could exact his revenge. James turned to me and a nursing Matthew, raised his arm and said, "Hit Baby Massew!" He tried once or twice before I sent him to time out. It was a chain effect. James probably would have hit anyone at that moment. I wish I could force Alice and Robert to include James in all their games, but he just can't play the way they do yet. I need to work with James more, developing more agreeable coping strategies.

• And finally, James is stringing together sentences of four words or more. His vocabulary is expanding and he's able to express some of the more complex thoughts he's had. It's still difficult to understand him if he's talking about something out of context, but I like that he thinks about things from other times and wants to share. Here are a few of his latest expressions:
• "no climb mine seat" (when I used his chair as a stool to get into the cabinet)
• "hold it, Baby Massew" (whenever he wants to hold Matthew)
• "no, me open it" (when he didn't want help with his string cheese)
• "wah some oh-enges" (any time he sees Clementines on the counter)
• "oogar!" (he saw frost on the grass for the first time and thought it was sugar)

Post-op Approval

I had my post-op appointment on Monday. The doc who performed the c-section was with a laboring patient, so they managed to squeeze me in to see the midwife on-call who happened to be Vanessa. She checked out my incision and said I could rip off the surgical tape any time I was ready (it wasn't as painful as I had feared). I've got a little more healing to do (cramping inside and itching outside), but I'm off the pain meds altogether and able to get around better. I asked Vanessa if I was approved to drive and she uttered one of the most profound and empowering statements I've ever heard:

Without a hint of sarcasm, she simply said, "Feel free to act like a normal person."

I laughed at that in the moment, focusing on the verb "act"...yup, it takes serious acting to make me look normal.

It was when I was heading home that I thought about it more. She had actually given me permission to stop seeing myself as fragile, broken, different, and in need. And THAT is an empowering string of words.

From that moment on, I actually stood up a little taller. The pain bothered me less. I wasn't afraid of bursting at the seams any moment. I stopped giving myself excuses to bow out of difficult situations (discipline stuff with the kids at home, mostly). I was healed because I had permission to be healed.

This wasn't the first time I've felt something so profound and meaningful from the midwives' advice. It's happened twice before. Once when I was pregnant with Robert (Vanessa), and the next when in labor with him (Kathy Easter).

Due Date

Tomorrow was Matthew's due date. Now he'll be just shy of two weeks old. It's surreal to me how fast and slow the last two weeks have gone. I feel like I'm getting a handle on things, but I have yet to 1) make dinner myself, 2) try to get somewhere on time, 3) re-adopt any of my previous routine, or 4) take Matthew anywhere with or without his siblings. I also haven't left the house in 7 days. Not even to check on the chickens (thanks to my friend watching over them for a while). But hey, I'm getting used to everything else :)

I'm healing well from the c-section in every way. My 2-week post-op appointment is tomorrow morning. Hopefully, I will be approved to drive again. Sometimes, when I'm alone and it's quiet, I get labor flashbacks. There are just a few specific moments that I'm still trying to figure out. I have so much more empathy for laboring moms these days. Alice's birth experience was a golden, unmedicated, hippie dream. Robert's birth was a rough and tumble unmedicated torture. James' was a slower, calculated, and well-medicated bliss. Matthew, well, you know how that went...somewhere in between all of those and yet nothing like any of them. There are several reasons I feel compelled to share my birth experiences with other moms. It's partly therapeutic, like treating post-traumatic-stress, and it's partly the drama and chaos of it all. You never know what's going to happen next.

Anyway, Matthew has been a great eater, sleeper, and pooper so far. He's not as needy at night as I remember my other newborns being. Sure, he gets bouts of gassy pushing and grunting, but he doesn't need to be comforted through them. We tried something new this time around. Bobby sleeps in our room and I sleep in the guest room with Matthew's crib. That way, Bobby gets a full night's sleep so he can handle the big kids better, and I have a quiet place to keep sleeping once all the big kids are up and running around. Something like a newborn suite. Kinda nice.

I can tell that the big kids are stressed. Alice bursts into tears at the slightest provocation (even more than usual, I should say). Robert takes delight in pestering Alice and James in subversive, passive-aggressive ways (again, more than usual). And James, well, he's a whole new creature these days. He's soooooo affectionate with Matthew, that I fear for Matthew's life. He's soooooo sensitive to correction and soooooo stubborn about everything that I find it exhausting to help him with anything. James and Matthew are almost exactly two years apart. It's the shortest gap between any of my kids. James is just too young to understand certain things, and I don't have the time and attention to work him through things as thoroughly as I could his older siblings. It's frustrating for both of us right now.

And then there's the realization that we now have four kids. Four! The other evening, our whole family was playing in Matthew's room while I nursed him. Everyone. All six of us. It felt SO full. I just kept counting us over and over, wondering how it could possibly have come to this point just one day at a time. Time progresses so quietly.

Just for fun, here are newborn-ish picts of Bobby and me to compare to Matthew:

Bobby

Bobby

Susan

Matthew

10 Days

A more detailed update on all things to come soon. This post is all about one cute baby face:

Arrr!!!

We had someone "Ghost" our house before Halloween.  They left a present on our doorstep for Alice knocked on the door and ran away.  Alice was thrilled and Robert was a bit jealous.  She got two other friends, but luckily one of the friends she got, I can only assume, got Robert back shortly afterwards.  I thought that they had just left a bag of candy for Robert, until I looked more closely, and we discovered Pirate Garb in there too.  Robert was inspired.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Baby Matthew is born:

Halloween:

Frank.


Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion


Alice wanted to show off her haul.


He got a frog trick or treating with some friends, not sure why we wanted it to sit on his tail.

Newborn Clones

Okay, I'm ready to admit it: our kids are born looking like clones of each other.

Robert

Alice

James

Matthew David, 7 lbs 15 oz, 20.5 inches long

So far, Matthew has been a calm and quiet fellow with few complaints. He's worked through the newborn jaundice and weight loss with ease. His elder siblings fight over him at every opportunity. The honeymoon phase seems to be passing more quickly for James, though I suspect it has more to do with my incapacitation than Matthew's presence.

My recovery is slow, but certainly progressing. I've been able to cut my narcotics dose by half after just one day at home. The pain is well-controlled. I'm just doing everything more slowly than ever before.

Bobby has really stepped up this week. I'm so lucky to have him and a pocket of loving friends/family/neighbors nearby. People have already watched our kids, brought food, and taken the older kids trick-or-treating.

The labor story is hard for me to tell. I get the shakes every time I try to remember the sequence of it all. But I don't think I can heal from it completely until I talk to someone about it. Let's get the healing underway, shall we?

Here's the best way I can tell it right now: water breaks, no contractions for an hour, mild contractions start, head to the hospital, dilated to 3cm, 4 hours of sporadic and funky contractions, epidural, rapid blood pressure drop, blood pressure normalized, 2 more hours funky contractions, only dilated to 4cm, start pitocin drip, back pain increasing during contractions, 2 more hours on increasing pitocin doses, sudden overwhelming feeling that something is terribly wrong, all pain gone, whole body tremors, urge to push, midwife says push, midwife feels baby's face instead of his head, continue pushing to try and orient the baby better, whole flock of nursing students come to observe (Bobby counted 12 people in the room at one point, not including him and me), baby's heart tones lost for a minute, then recovered, OB called in to consult, "can't use a vacuum on a baby's face", push for 45 minutes more, baby's position not changing, decision to perform c-section, wheeled away to operating room, epidural increased and combined with morphine, numbness moves up through my chest, arms, and hands, morphine makes me loopy, Bobby suddenly standing next to me, hear baby cry, see the wonkiest head shape as the baby is swept away, whole body tremors, tingling and numbness up to my neck, see the swaddled baby up close...

...only have enough control of my hands to barely stroke his hat, want to hold him, want the nightmare to end, lie loopy and helpless on the table while getting sewn up, ask Bobby to stay with the baby (not realizing how long I would therefore be alone), both leave the room for baby cleaning and assessment, OB finds an IUD floating next to my bowels (I did tell you this pregnancy was an unexpected miracle, yes? The IUD had somehow worked its way through the uterine wall and into my abdominal cavity, suddenly and secretly making it possible for me to get pregnant 9 months ago), more body tremors, fighting to stay conscious or slip into unconsciousness but can't manage either, wheeled off to recovery, reunited with Bobby and baby an hour after his birth, still can't control my hands, need others to hold baby to me to try to nurse, whole body tremors that just won't stop, feeling more normal as morphine and epidural wear off, wheeled into post-partum room to continue recovery.

And then I didn't have control over my bladder for a while. I'm still struggling with it a bit, actually.

My face and arms were perpetually itchy from the long-acting morphine they had given me.

The nurses, midwives, OB, and technicians were all excellent, though, and I was in good care.

At first, I wondered a lot about Matthew's funky position and whether there was anything I could have done differently to avoid that problem. The midwife assured me that my labor choices had nothing to do with this particular outcome. Kristi Higgs is the midwife who was on-call that night. Dr. Dillard was the one who delivered Matthew. Kristi said that sometimes it happens that a smaller baby born after a couple larger ones can get spun around and jammed in that little extra bit of wiggle room. If he had been able to grow all the way to his due date, maybe Matthew would be just enough bigger that he wouldn't have twisted around like that. Don't know. Won't ever know. The reality was my water broke on its own at 38 weeks and one day. Surprise! And this is how it worked out for us this time.

Dear Matthew, you are only 4 days old and already your life has been full of unexpected surprises for us. An exploding firework in our lives, indeed.

More pictures to come!