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: