Things That Happened This Week

1) Max rolled. He was delighted with himself. I was slightly less delighted because now I have to be super careful about where I leave him.

2) Marko ran up to me in the schoolyard at pick up time holding a plastic baggie of something brown and said, "Here's some poop, Mom!" It wasn't (I don't think), but still. WHY DID YOU PICK IT UP IF YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A BAG OF POOP, MARKO??

3)  Laurel and I had a Daisy meeting. I am a recent convert to the Girl Scouts, but I love two things about it. First, her Daisy troop is definitely bonding with each other and I think it's cool to have some good friends outside of school. Second, I think our society has degraded into a decidedly uncivil state, and I adore hearing Laurel recite the Girl Scouts Promise and the Girl Scouts Law because it reminds us to be friendly and helpful, honest and fair and so forth.

4) I became obsessed with Property Brothers. This is a tv show where a realtor and a contractor first trick an unsuspecting couple by showing them the house of their dreams...that is way out of their budget. HAHAHAHA! LOLOL. They are always mad. Then they show them ugly houses that smell like cat pee and convince them to buy and renovate. Don't worry, it always turns out great. Neatly wrapped up in 42 minutes. Personally I disagree with the "open concept" obsession. This when all your rooms are open, especially the kitchen. For "entertaining" they always say. I prefer a door, to hide the dishes from my guests. Also, what's the fuss about granite countertops? I'm saving up for butcher block.

5) I planted some green onions. I keep seeing these articles about food you can grow from scraps. We often buy things like green onions, cilantro, or ginger and usually only need a little but you have to buy the whole bunch and then some of it goes bad. Well, it goes into my compost pile, so I'm not totally wasting it, but I've really been thinking about food waste since I did a volunteer mission for 412 Food Rescue. If you are local to Pittsburgh, definitely follow them on Facebook and you too could save some food that is perfectly good, but about to get dumped!

Sleep

The 24 hour-ness of being a stay at home mom is pretty intense.

I feel like I'm underwater. Everything slightly muted and moving a bit slower than usual. Max does not sleep in long stretches and at first I was buoyed by post-partum hormones. He's a newborn, I told myself, and this is a phase that will end soon. Besides, he went back to sleep easily. But this last month has been torturous. With everyone in the house battling colds and flus, I found myself sleeping less and less. When I went to physical therapy this week and answered some questions about my activity level I was horrified to discover that I may be sleeping as little as 2 or 3 hours a night. A few nights I slept not at all, being woken by one child after another just as soon as I drifted off.

Sleep begets sleep, they say. When I have adequate sleep, I find it easy to fall asleep, or to nap when the opportunity presents itself. But when I haven't been sleeping, especially when it's because other people keep waking me up, I start to dread night time. It becomes very difficult to even lay down and close my eyes because I think, what's the point? Someone is going to need something in a minute anyway. I feel less tired when I just stay awake than if I am constantly jolted out of sleep. Of course, this is logical only to a very tired person, and in fact staying awake for many days in a row will literally kill you or make you crazy. But then I start feeling anxious about not having slept and perpetually worry that I may already be crazy. It doesn't help that over the past month we've been stuck at home a lot and the only person I'm talking to is three and says things like "I know how to swim in Spanish."

This is one of the biggest downsides of breastfeeding. Trying to pump enough to make a bottle someone else could give the baby is a lot of work if you also have to nurse the baby throughout the day. And even if you do get enough and someone else can feed the baby, you will probably be woken up by engorged, leaky breasts and then either have to pump in the middle of the night or hope the baby wakes up and needs to be fed again.

I started googling for answers - never a good thing - and almost bought the Magical Merlin Sleepsuit. Yes, that's a real thing. It costs like $40 and looks like one of those sumo costumes you put on when your company has decided your division should do some team building. It's supposed to ease the transition out of swaddling.

I also decided I should probably stop eating dairy, eggs, peanuts and shellfish. Oh and gluten. And start eating more oatmeal and brewer's yeast. (That's from the internet, can you tell?)

Later I thought I'd maybe just throw in the towel and wean Max onto formula. Until I saw what a can of formula costs. Then my commitment to breastfeeding was renewed.

I made a schedule and tried to stick to it for naps and feeding. Max slept even less.

I bought him gas drops. He seems to enjoy the taste, but farts as much as he ever did.

I tried to banish Marko from my bed, thinking maybe Max was disturbed by too many people in the room. But then Marko slept even less.

I cut down on coffee, but that just gave me a headache, and you know how they say to put on your own oxygen mask before you try to help someone else? Well, my coffee is the oxygen mask I must put on before even thinking about pouring the first bowl of cheerios.

They say the days are long but the years are short. Right now it just feels like one big long never-ending day. The good thing about this phase is if you are a person who likes hugs (which I am), there is no shortage of that. Hugs are available from my children 24-7.

Things That Happened This Week

In no particular order...

1) Laurel had her last gymnastics class for the session and I finally ended up making it to this one. She was bubbling over with excitement. Marko even got to come in and was super excited to scamper over all the equipment and try out the trampoline. I would not have been able to pull this off without the help of my friend, who also has children in this class. We met at the bus stop last year and due to similar schedules, we ran into each other a lot. Our kids play well together, so even though they aren't at the same school anymore, we've kept things going. I didn't even imagine that I would be able to go in to the class and hoped taking pictures from behind the glass would satisfy Laurel, but Valentina appeared, scooping up little Max and singing to him for 30 minutes because that was the only thing that kept him from crying.

2) Marko sneezed while having a nosebleed, spraying blood all over my face, neck and hair. It was like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie. Oh, sorry, Mom! he said cheerfully, because he gets nose bleeds periodically so they are not a super scary event to him. This was during school pick up and because we live one block from the school, I didn't have a diaper bag. My friend Alison appeared with kleenex and wipes and even dabbed off the spots that I missed on my own neck. Without making me feel dumb at all.

3) The neighbors who borrowed our book on fermentation brought it back and delivered homemade blueberry oatmeal muffins along with it. Muffins are pretty much the best breakfast food ever for my kids so for a change they all got dressed and ready for the day without screwing around.

4) I wrote a complaint email and got a refund. I usually really suck at this so it was a pleasant surprise.

5) My mom took Marko to her house, and with Laurel at school I got a chance to spend some one on one time with Max while he's not just strapped in the back of the car. He's starting to roll over and loves scooting around on his back by pushing off with his feet. I can feel his eyes following me, waiting for me to make eye contact with him, and then he smiles and pushes his legs up and down. He reminds me a lot of Laurel.