Thursday, January 31, 2013

Trial and Error...And Madness

So, remember how W used to fight his sleep as a newborn?  It was misery.  Pure freakin misery.  And I still don't know for sure who was more miserable, him or us.  Well, I regret ever complaining about it because it turns out there's a whole nother level of misery shoved underneath that one.  Sucks balls!!!  N not only fights his sleep, he doesn't sleep for more than an hour at a time.  He hates his crib and wants to be held and rocked to sleep.  But wait, it gets better.  You have to walk around holding him.  God forbid you sit down in a rocking chair... you know, to "rock."  Nope, gotta walk.  Gotta walk my fat ass back and forth in a small room, in the dark while holding him as he snoozes away.  This is barely tolerable during the day when I'm awake.  The middle of the night is truly a test of patience.  I can see why enemies attack at 4 o'clock in the morning.  There is no normal functioning going at that time.

Let's try to see the brighter side of things as well.  Otherwise I'd go crazy, right?  Okay, so here goes.  Nursing is getting easier.  N eats much faster now so I don't have to do those hour-long sessions.  I was dangerously close to dropping him a couple times because I had fallen asleep while nursing at night.  He's gaining weight and looking more and more like W every day.  If I didn't look at their pictures side by side, I think it would take me a second to figure who I was looking at.  Crazy.  What else?  Oh!  He smiled!!!  He smiled at P 3 times in a row and tried to coo at him.  He smiled at me just now, too, but we also smelled something rotten. So I'm pretty sure he was fart-smiling. He's starting to stay awake more, which is a bit of a relief because I don't know how you'd fix their days and nights if all he wanted to do was sleep all the time!!  And I hate to admit this, but I feel a tinge of jealousy when I watch him sleep.  Only because I'm THAT tired.  Jealous of my sleeping newborn son.  The shame.  

Awake and checking out his mommy's face (or camera)
This is N at one month.  Smiling in his sleep. Why the yarn?  Why not?!
W loves being face to face with the baby.  If only he would stop touching him with his booger finger.
What do you think?  Next year's Christmas card?  LOL!  He'd kill me!

Right now, we are conflicted with the whole CIO and No-Cry Sleep Solution.  We made W cry it out so much, we're not sure we didn't damage him.  So we decided with the next baby, we weren't going to do that.  But here we are again, at our wits end, letting N cry.  It's the most horrible sound.  I HATE  THE SOUND OF BABIES CRYING!!!!   I've always hated it.  Never able to ignore them when we're out. In fact, in my version of hell, there are babies crying all around me, while I stand in an unmoving line for the bathroom, in the heat and wearing heels for all of eternity.  You know when people say, "oh it'll be different when it's your baby.  You won't mind the sound so much."  SHUT UP!  It's worse because it's coming from my baby, you idiot!  I would definitely use a time machine to go back and smack that person in the face.  (if you can't tell, I'm incredibly tired and cranky.  N has been crying on and off for the last few hours and I don't know why.)

One major blessing through this crying ordeal is that W can't hear it when he's sleeping.  We always have white noise playing in the background and it totally blocks out N's crying even though they are one wall apart.  Thank you, Jesus!  Every day I kiss W on the head and thank him for being such a good boy and sleeping through the night.  Again, a tinge of jealousy that he gets to sleep.  Shame.  Shame.  Shame.  

It's only been a couple of years since W was a little bitty baby.  So you think I'd remember what it was like to deal with these newborn issues.  But I don't remember much at all!!!  In fact, I'm surprised at how frustrated and lost I feel with these issues.  I find myself asking these same questions and am completely baffled that the answers don't come to me naturally.  Again, I'm sure it's because I'm so tired.  What the hell am I doing blogging if I'm so tired, right?   Well, I can't stand regret more than that I can't stand being this tired and I'll be damned if I don't keep some sort of record of what life was like as a mom of two babies.  Besides, my baby is crying and there's no sleeping with that sound in my ear.

Hopefully in a few months, this will pass and N will be a much better sleeper.  If anything, that is the one trait I hope he has in common with his big brother.  Two good sleeping kids.  Is that a myth?  Can it become a reality?  God, I hope so.  


Friday, January 18, 2013

Oh Crap! It's Croup!!

It has been forever since I've stepped into a museum or gallery.  A friend had told me about this great exhibit featuring cars and trains.  Instantly, she thought of W.  He dreams, eats and breathes cars and trains.  Seriously, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he ended up having a career that deals with something on wheels!   We also got these cool passes for the kids that allow one adult in for free per child.  That's right, P and I got in for FREE!!!  Awesome!  I'd never considered LACMA a place for children but there's actually quite a bit for them to do there.  They had this fun noodle installation outside, which was a huge hit.  I was a little nervous about letting W play in because it is cold and flu season but it's pretty hard to resist when you see all these other kids having so much fun in it.

Waiting to cross the street, holding daddy's hand.
A noodle exhibit.  W LOVED THIS!!!
A smile that can level me.
Daddy!  You gotta get inside the noodles!


Where's W?

O.M.G.  Could this be any cooler?!?!

He stood like this forever, trying to take it all in.  


Needless to say, W was enamored by the exhibit.  I have to admit, it was crazy cool!  I can't even imagine how long it took to design the piece, let alone install it.  It's one of those things you can stare at for ever and ever and still feel like you haven't looked at it enough.  Truly amazing.  It runs for an hour and then off for an hour throughout the day.  When they stopped the cars for the break,  we tried to leave like the rest of the crowd, but W was sooooo not done with his observation.  We literally had to drag him away.  And the only way to get him out the door was to promise him that we would come back after we had a snack.  Normally, I always keep my promises, especially to W.  Kids remember this stuff.  But I had to break this one because it was freezing, I had to feed N, and I thought we had caught the last run of the exhibit, only to find out later there was one more hour of run time.  But we'll be going back for sure.  

Time for a snack.



Well, I can't be sure that this outing was the reason W got sick.  All those germs on the noodles, perhaps?  We've been taking him to lots of places.  He doesn't go to school yet and he gets a little stir crazy at home.  Plus, he's been such a great big brother, he deserves to go out and play as much as he can.

He got real sick, real fast.  We thought it was whooping cough because...well, he was coughing and whooping.  He was vaccinated for it so chances were really slim.  But then again, he was vaccinated for chicken pox and still got a mild case of that.  A visit to the docs revealed that it was croup.  Even the name sounds awful, right?  Poor guy coughed so hard he threw up.  It was all downhill from there.  And to make it worse, he wouldn't take the medicine we got him to relax his throat.  He's much better now but man! It makes you wanna keep your kids indoors and hibernate.  Bears are smart.  The hardest part was keeping N and W apart. Especially since W always wants to touch and cuddle with the baby.  Thank goodness P is still on paternity leave.  Stupid croup.

I guess it's only a matter of time until the boys start passing viruses back and forth to each other.  That oughtta be fun.  Then we'll get sick, too.  It'll definitely be a family affair.  



Saturday, January 12, 2013

The More The Merrier


It could be that I'm utterly delirious from the complete lack of sleep.  But I'm pretty sure that my happiness is real.  It's true.  I'm really happy.  I look at my little baby's peaceful  little face and I melt.   I see how much W loves his little brother (or as he says "little budder") and I melt some more.  Then I see how happy and in love my husband is with his sons and it's hard to believe that life can get better than this.  

It's already been 4 weeks since N joined us.  I swear, it feels like I just gave birth to him.  Recovery is taking longer this time around, which is probably due to the fact that I don't get as much rest with a toddler running around.  And while I'm so excited about our new addition, I am drained of any energy and find myself being... cranky.  I mean, I will bite your head off.  Just ask P.  Cranky pants.  Crank momster.  That's me these days.  I can't wait for the days when the boys are old enough to play with each other and be each other's best friend.  Then maybe I can get some sleep!!!

Mufasa and Cimba.





























Do the boys look alike?  Well, they have the same ears, chin and hair.  But that's as far as I can tell.  And the funny thing about N is that he's really red.  It's getting better but when he was jaundiced, well, yellow and red make orange, right?  So he was orange for a while and now that the jaundice is going away, he's just red.  I read on a forum that Mexican babies are red for weeks.  Ummm ... I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any Mexican blood.  My mom's theory is that really red babies usually end up being really fair-skinned.  I honestly don't know where she gets this stuff.  I always think that it must be a magical world she lives in.

Can't tell you how happy W was when I he got to hold his baby brother.  Now he wants to hold him all the time.



One of my favorite pictures.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Toot Toot!!!

I know, I know. We shouldn't be taking the baby out during flu season. But poor W, what about him? He can't just stay cooped up at home all day every day. And I don't wanna split up the family. And I'll be completely honest. I need to get out of the house, too. I spent most of my pregnancy stuck at home. Now that I'm ALMOST back to my normal self, I'm raring to get things done and hang out with my big boy.

 With P home for paternity leave, we're trying to take advantage and expose  W to as much fun activities as possible. Poor guy was stuck at home because I was such a sickly and sucky preggo. We met up with some good friends and headed to the one place we knew W would absolutely love. Travel Town!! TOOT TOOT!!!
 

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle life as a mom of two once P goes back to work. I would probably be terrified if I weren't so darn tired. I figure, it'll get crazy and I'll probably cry myself to sleep once in a while, but at the end of the day, I come to the same conclusion. I wouldn't trade this for anything. I may wake up cranky from too little sleep, but it only takes one slobbery kiss from my boy to make me snap out of it.