I should be asleep, but I am having trouble relaxing tonight. I left Travis with the girls tonight while I went out and did a few social things with friends, and even though I got home at 8:30 I'm still having trouble unwinding. I missed bedtime for the first time since Clara was born!!! I have rocked her, nursed her, and laid her in her crib every single night of her existence, except tonight. I am really pretty sad, even though I did still get to kiss her sleeping head when I went to bed (initially). I'm actually looking forward to hearing her squawk at 6AM tomorrow, and then snuggling with her in bed until another little girl tells me it's time to get up.
Anyway, this blog started when I got pregnant, and since that time there have only been a few months where I was not pregnant or nursing. Three babies, ZERO formula!! Yeah!! It's crazy the amount of dedication my body has put into these little creatures, and how much I love them. I'm proud of myself, too, because for as many things as I get wrong, I'm doing my very best in other ways, too.
So, tonight I go to bed as just another post-childbearing-aged woman. And, the mother of 3 very special little people. I'll try to focus on the latter, not the former.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Um, June!
Does anyone even read this anymore? :) I guess at this point I'm just keeping going so that Clara knows I was delighting in her milestones as much as I did in Emily's and Audrey's. So first off, what my littlest love has been up to:
She took her first steps on her birthday, just a little shuffle towards me, after we had taken her 12-month cupcake pictures in the backyard. The next day was her birthday party, and just as guests were coming, Travis went to take her picture next to the Happy Birthday sign, and she decided to walk over to me instead! So we have picture documentation of her first steps. Since then, she's gotten to the point where she generally prefers walking, although if she's upset or in a hurry or someplace weird (long grass in the backyard) she'll resort to crawling. She has given up morning nap, but has held on to nighttime nursing. She tried to get me to nurse her to sleep for nap a few days ago, by pulling up on my shirt and spitting out her pacifier, whimpering pathetically. But I didn't cave! We can't be adding feedings back in! Although it's tempting, considering her tummy troubles as of late. I don't know what will help, but breastmilk couldn't hurt. So that's the other reason I'm not arguing with her wanting to nurse at night. My suspicion is that she may not be getting enough fat in her diet. I read that a toddler is supposed to get 30% of her calories from fat, and since she's eating all the same food as the rest of us, I doubt she's getting that (heaven forbid we put mayo or butter on anything!!). This is another reason they say to give toddlers whole milk and not anything lighter, but I took it a step further and have been feeding her straight-up half & half. Why not?? :) If you've gotta learn to like drinking something else, why go with anything except pure deliciousness? And she's coming around to it, so I'd call it a success. Especially if I get her back to producing logs again. It's been a very, very stinky week.
Anyway, enough about poop and more about my delightful daughters. Clara is very good at making her preferences known through shrieks and grunts, and is still very much attached to me, and to her pacifier. Audrey is having a fantastic time being 3 and a half. She seems to float through each day, happy and smiley and telling me every so often that she loves me, which is nice although I think it's probably more just a sign of her general contentment. Tucking her in at night, I marvel at how beautiful and happy she is, and how could another day of her 4th year be over and gone?? Emily asked Travis to take her training wheels off her bike, so that was a pretty special Father's Day for him. She can really go, now! Audrey can still coast down the hill on her balance bike, and they look so happy and carefree, sailing down the sidewalk in their cool summer dresses (backless, of course!).
They are signed up to go to a summer class next week, about fun science stuff. I am pretty excited for them. It had better be cool, considering how expensive it was, but I love the idea that they can go together (it's for 3-5YO's) so I splurged. They are having a great time now that summer is really here. I got out the wading pool tonight, and they all 3 enjoyed that and Clara's water table that she got for her birthday. Our backyard is so shady and pleasant on summer evenings, that it makes it easy to just chill out together. I also signed them up for swimming lessons during the first two weeks in July, so we'll see how that goes! Emily has almost no experience swimming in anything other than a wading pool, and she's very "first child" cautious. But on the heels of the bike success, maybe it'll go really well!
Travis has continued his crazy work schedule, with this week and a few weeks ago dedicated to people who are in town from all over the world. Due to Des Moines' lack of public transportation, he gets to shuttle them around to places, and shmooze with them at I-Cubs games and other events. tonight he is on his way back from Moline with another group of them. He was gone by 6:15 this morning and won't be home until 10:00, probably. He said he might take tomorrow afternoon off to spend some time at home, but it's a crock that he'll probably actually take vacation to do that. But he loves his job, and will be going to Singapore in early July so I guess a person would say that it's all going well. We realized, a week after preschool had ended, that one of Emily's friends in her class that she talked about all the time had the last name of Israel - yeah, the granddaughter of the president of JDF. But Travis is in such a position that he actually had a chance to talk with him, and chatted with how Emily is friends with his granddaughter. I am so impressed with Travis, professionally (and other ways too, of course!). I think it's really incredible what he's done with his career and how he manages to make me and the girls a priority, too. We have such a happy little life here.
I should dedicate at least a paragraph to the major family event, in The Greek Wedding! Travis's brother got married to a wonderful girl, and they had an amazing party to celebrate. Her family is Greek, so the ceremony was in the Greek Orthodox church and it was really interesting. There was a lot of repetition (3x, for Father, Son, Holy Spirit) so it seemed a little OCD at times but mostly just adventurous. Mark's godfather is a retired Catholic priest, so he participated in the ceremony by providing a blessing for the couple. It was one of many, many emotionally moving moments on the weekend. The girls did a fantastic job as flower girls -- I sure hope the photographer got some pictures of them because I only have a few from snapshots that other people took and while they're cute, they're not truly representative of how adorable they were. I wasn't in documentation mode that day, or I would've at least gotten my phone out and snapped a picture of all those curls I worked on... oh well, it was definitely not the most important part of the weekend, by far. :) It was really fun to welcome Lea to the family, and to feel like truly one of the welcomers. Over the past 10 years, I have truly gained a family, and she's lucky she gets to do the same!
To be honest, it's been hard to want to blog lately. It took weeks to get a replacement computer, and it's not like I didn't have internet access, I just didn't want to be using equipment that reminded me of that stupid, stupid blunder of leaving the back door unlocked. And there have been a few stressful things in my family of origin... my sister's ex-husband took her to court for contempt, as a violation of the divorce decree because she wrote the wrong date on a tax form. That asshole spent thousands of dollars in attorney fees, and forced her to do the same, to get a ruling that said she had to pay his $80 CPA fee because he's too dumb to know how to file for an extension from the IRS -- which is FREE. Forunately, the court realized that the other 2 things he was charging her with were completely bogus, but she still had to pay the $80 to him, plus $500 of his attorney fees. That stress is over, at least, but it stirs everything up again, and for as anxious as it makes Jenny, it makes her girls, too. And my mom was a lunatic for a few days - who can blame her, right?? The court could have found her guilty on 3 counts, with a punishment of 90 days in jail. So yeah, Mom was out of her head, and I was spending time talking her down, going through Jenny's emails trying to prove that Jenny had done her very best in the situation, and talking her through what to discuss with her attorney, reassuring her that the $580 fine is money well spent to make it go away, and all the other emotional turmoil on it. It's exhausting. Why can't their divorce just be done and stay done?
And I don't know if it's appropriate to mention here, because some of you personally know the peopel involved, but I think if you're reading this I can trust you to be discrete with the information. It's going to get out at some point, anyway. My sister-in-law told me, on my birthday, that she has been cheating on my brother, for at least 10 years, their entire relationship, with many many different guys. She has been formally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a misleading name because it implies that it's on the line between sick and well, but it's not, it's the border between two different kinds of mentally ill. And the diagnosis fits, now that her behavior is coming to light. She is apparently a tremendous liar, which is a testimony to her incredible intelligence, and armed with that she has been able to nearly function through her adult life. Until she finally got cornered into a mess she couldn't lie her way out of. In coming clean to her therapist, it's been a very ugly unraveling of lies. There are a lot of details more to it than that, but basically they are separating, with a divorce probably on the horizon (she has moved out of the house, so Dan lives there with their son). Personally, I am crushed because I have truly loved her like a sister. I feel personally betrayed and distrustful and... then guilty because she's truly ill, and am I turning my back on her, because the Kerri I loved is still there, somewhere, separate from the BPD? Or do I betray Dan by wishing I could support Kerri too? And then more guilt because really it's not about me, it's about Dan and his son. I have my own happy little life with delightful daughters and amazing husband, but, I can't begin to dive in to sort it out... it's just too much to digest, at times. The contrast between my life and my siblings' lives is blinding, really. I've been trying to be supportive of Dan as best I can, but there's not much I can do at this point. There's also the guilt that I have supported Jenny constantly throughout her divorce, aware of every action she took, whereas Dan found out about Kerri's history and diagnosis nearly a year ago, and I only just found out about it, and there's nothing I can do anyway.
So, I didn't know if I should include this kind of thing here... but it's what's going on in my life. I love my brother, and it stings to see this happen to him, just as much as it does to see Jenny dealing with her things. In the ultimate of ironies, Jenny's ex has been insisting for years that she has BPD and should be kept from her children because she's so mentally ill. He even spent most of his time on the stand during the contempt hearing railing about how controlling and awful she is, though it had nothing to do with what he was formally accusing her of doing. She absolutely does not have BPD, and it's clear to see when compared to someone who does. It is the most awful of awful things that I can now make such a direct comparison.
When I was 13, my dad's sister got married, and she was the last of my dad's siblings to do so. I remember thinking that then I finally had 4 aunts and 4 uncles on that side of the family. Two weeks after the wedding, my dad's brother died, so it was back to 4 aunts and 3 uncles. The math was a sufficient way for me to wrap my 13-year-old mind around such events. So now, at 33, I have basically gained and lost a sister-in-law in the same month. It's just too weird, and the math doesn't help.
So when Clara wants to stay attached to me, and snuggle and have me hold her, I really don't mind at all. I'd say it's therapy for both of us. I'm going to love her and protect her while I can, before I have to send her out into the world to try to avoid all the awfulness that seems to be always lurking nearby.
She took her first steps on her birthday, just a little shuffle towards me, after we had taken her 12-month cupcake pictures in the backyard. The next day was her birthday party, and just as guests were coming, Travis went to take her picture next to the Happy Birthday sign, and she decided to walk over to me instead! So we have picture documentation of her first steps. Since then, she's gotten to the point where she generally prefers walking, although if she's upset or in a hurry or someplace weird (long grass in the backyard) she'll resort to crawling. She has given up morning nap, but has held on to nighttime nursing. She tried to get me to nurse her to sleep for nap a few days ago, by pulling up on my shirt and spitting out her pacifier, whimpering pathetically. But I didn't cave! We can't be adding feedings back in! Although it's tempting, considering her tummy troubles as of late. I don't know what will help, but breastmilk couldn't hurt. So that's the other reason I'm not arguing with her wanting to nurse at night. My suspicion is that she may not be getting enough fat in her diet. I read that a toddler is supposed to get 30% of her calories from fat, and since she's eating all the same food as the rest of us, I doubt she's getting that (heaven forbid we put mayo or butter on anything!!). This is another reason they say to give toddlers whole milk and not anything lighter, but I took it a step further and have been feeding her straight-up half & half. Why not?? :) If you've gotta learn to like drinking something else, why go with anything except pure deliciousness? And she's coming around to it, so I'd call it a success. Especially if I get her back to producing logs again. It's been a very, very stinky week.
Anyway, enough about poop and more about my delightful daughters. Clara is very good at making her preferences known through shrieks and grunts, and is still very much attached to me, and to her pacifier. Audrey is having a fantastic time being 3 and a half. She seems to float through each day, happy and smiley and telling me every so often that she loves me, which is nice although I think it's probably more just a sign of her general contentment. Tucking her in at night, I marvel at how beautiful and happy she is, and how could another day of her 4th year be over and gone?? Emily asked Travis to take her training wheels off her bike, so that was a pretty special Father's Day for him. She can really go, now! Audrey can still coast down the hill on her balance bike, and they look so happy and carefree, sailing down the sidewalk in their cool summer dresses (backless, of course!).
They are signed up to go to a summer class next week, about fun science stuff. I am pretty excited for them. It had better be cool, considering how expensive it was, but I love the idea that they can go together (it's for 3-5YO's) so I splurged. They are having a great time now that summer is really here. I got out the wading pool tonight, and they all 3 enjoyed that and Clara's water table that she got for her birthday. Our backyard is so shady and pleasant on summer evenings, that it makes it easy to just chill out together. I also signed them up for swimming lessons during the first two weeks in July, so we'll see how that goes! Emily has almost no experience swimming in anything other than a wading pool, and she's very "first child" cautious. But on the heels of the bike success, maybe it'll go really well!
Travis has continued his crazy work schedule, with this week and a few weeks ago dedicated to people who are in town from all over the world. Due to Des Moines' lack of public transportation, he gets to shuttle them around to places, and shmooze with them at I-Cubs games and other events. tonight he is on his way back from Moline with another group of them. He was gone by 6:15 this morning and won't be home until 10:00, probably. He said he might take tomorrow afternoon off to spend some time at home, but it's a crock that he'll probably actually take vacation to do that. But he loves his job, and will be going to Singapore in early July so I guess a person would say that it's all going well. We realized, a week after preschool had ended, that one of Emily's friends in her class that she talked about all the time had the last name of Israel - yeah, the granddaughter of the president of JDF. But Travis is in such a position that he actually had a chance to talk with him, and chatted with how Emily is friends with his granddaughter. I am so impressed with Travis, professionally (and other ways too, of course!). I think it's really incredible what he's done with his career and how he manages to make me and the girls a priority, too. We have such a happy little life here.
I should dedicate at least a paragraph to the major family event, in The Greek Wedding! Travis's brother got married to a wonderful girl, and they had an amazing party to celebrate. Her family is Greek, so the ceremony was in the Greek Orthodox church and it was really interesting. There was a lot of repetition (3x, for Father, Son, Holy Spirit) so it seemed a little OCD at times but mostly just adventurous. Mark's godfather is a retired Catholic priest, so he participated in the ceremony by providing a blessing for the couple. It was one of many, many emotionally moving moments on the weekend. The girls did a fantastic job as flower girls -- I sure hope the photographer got some pictures of them because I only have a few from snapshots that other people took and while they're cute, they're not truly representative of how adorable they were. I wasn't in documentation mode that day, or I would've at least gotten my phone out and snapped a picture of all those curls I worked on... oh well, it was definitely not the most important part of the weekend, by far. :) It was really fun to welcome Lea to the family, and to feel like truly one of the welcomers. Over the past 10 years, I have truly gained a family, and she's lucky she gets to do the same!
To be honest, it's been hard to want to blog lately. It took weeks to get a replacement computer, and it's not like I didn't have internet access, I just didn't want to be using equipment that reminded me of that stupid, stupid blunder of leaving the back door unlocked. And there have been a few stressful things in my family of origin... my sister's ex-husband took her to court for contempt, as a violation of the divorce decree because she wrote the wrong date on a tax form. That asshole spent thousands of dollars in attorney fees, and forced her to do the same, to get a ruling that said she had to pay his $80 CPA fee because he's too dumb to know how to file for an extension from the IRS -- which is FREE. Forunately, the court realized that the other 2 things he was charging her with were completely bogus, but she still had to pay the $80 to him, plus $500 of his attorney fees. That stress is over, at least, but it stirs everything up again, and for as anxious as it makes Jenny, it makes her girls, too. And my mom was a lunatic for a few days - who can blame her, right?? The court could have found her guilty on 3 counts, with a punishment of 90 days in jail. So yeah, Mom was out of her head, and I was spending time talking her down, going through Jenny's emails trying to prove that Jenny had done her very best in the situation, and talking her through what to discuss with her attorney, reassuring her that the $580 fine is money well spent to make it go away, and all the other emotional turmoil on it. It's exhausting. Why can't their divorce just be done and stay done?
And I don't know if it's appropriate to mention here, because some of you personally know the peopel involved, but I think if you're reading this I can trust you to be discrete with the information. It's going to get out at some point, anyway. My sister-in-law told me, on my birthday, that she has been cheating on my brother, for at least 10 years, their entire relationship, with many many different guys. She has been formally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a misleading name because it implies that it's on the line between sick and well, but it's not, it's the border between two different kinds of mentally ill. And the diagnosis fits, now that her behavior is coming to light. She is apparently a tremendous liar, which is a testimony to her incredible intelligence, and armed with that she has been able to nearly function through her adult life. Until she finally got cornered into a mess she couldn't lie her way out of. In coming clean to her therapist, it's been a very ugly unraveling of lies. There are a lot of details more to it than that, but basically they are separating, with a divorce probably on the horizon (she has moved out of the house, so Dan lives there with their son). Personally, I am crushed because I have truly loved her like a sister. I feel personally betrayed and distrustful and... then guilty because she's truly ill, and am I turning my back on her, because the Kerri I loved is still there, somewhere, separate from the BPD? Or do I betray Dan by wishing I could support Kerri too? And then more guilt because really it's not about me, it's about Dan and his son. I have my own happy little life with delightful daughters and amazing husband, but, I can't begin to dive in to sort it out... it's just too much to digest, at times. The contrast between my life and my siblings' lives is blinding, really. I've been trying to be supportive of Dan as best I can, but there's not much I can do at this point. There's also the guilt that I have supported Jenny constantly throughout her divorce, aware of every action she took, whereas Dan found out about Kerri's history and diagnosis nearly a year ago, and I only just found out about it, and there's nothing I can do anyway.
So, I didn't know if I should include this kind of thing here... but it's what's going on in my life. I love my brother, and it stings to see this happen to him, just as much as it does to see Jenny dealing with her things. In the ultimate of ironies, Jenny's ex has been insisting for years that she has BPD and should be kept from her children because she's so mentally ill. He even spent most of his time on the stand during the contempt hearing railing about how controlling and awful she is, though it had nothing to do with what he was formally accusing her of doing. She absolutely does not have BPD, and it's clear to see when compared to someone who does. It is the most awful of awful things that I can now make such a direct comparison.
When I was 13, my dad's sister got married, and she was the last of my dad's siblings to do so. I remember thinking that then I finally had 4 aunts and 4 uncles on that side of the family. Two weeks after the wedding, my dad's brother died, so it was back to 4 aunts and 3 uncles. The math was a sufficient way for me to wrap my 13-year-old mind around such events. So now, at 33, I have basically gained and lost a sister-in-law in the same month. It's just too weird, and the math doesn't help.
So when Clara wants to stay attached to me, and snuggle and have me hold her, I really don't mind at all. I'd say it's therapy for both of us. I'm going to love her and protect her while I can, before I have to send her out into the world to try to avoid all the awfulness that seems to be always lurking nearby.
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