Old fashioned

Everyone in my neighborhood suddenly started wearing these rain boots in the last year.


At first I was all, those are kinda weird. Then I was all, those must be really dry. Then I was all, I gotta get me some of those. I am nothing if not a follower when it comes to the stuff other moms are doing in my neighborhood. That's how I convinced Josh to let me buy the Bugaboo back in the day.

Anyway, considering I walk to and from school and the store and whatnot every day and there's always a lot of damn puddles around, I thought they would be a good investment. That's what you call rain boots in this price category. An "investment." I might as well put solid gold on my feet for these prices.

But when I went online to find them, it was impossible to find size 7 in any color, much less black. What the hell? I tweeted about my lack of boot availability and a friend sent me a message that I should check Nordstrom. So I drove my ass up to the suburbs this week with Emmie and Maeve in tow to see what was happening. Shoe shopping with two kids. Why yes, I am clinically insane, thanks for asking.

Success! A size 7, but in silver. Not too offensive, but not my first choice. The saleswoman told me I could get on the waitlist for black, and that I would be No. 3 but she recommended taking the silver ones because they were the last pair on earth in size 7. OK, not really earth, but in America.

I took them home with hopes of a black pair dancing in my head. But then the color became less significant because ZOMG WHAT KIND OF PANTS DO YOU WEAR WITH THESE?

Leggings? Leggings are making a comeback. But what the hell does a three-months-postpartum fatass wear with leggings so as not to look totally 1987 or totally fat? And skinny jeans? Yes, skinny jeans. But God knows I am not forking over designer money for jeans that could A. be uncool in a minute and B. fit me for a few months before I lose all the weight. So I was thinking maybe Old Navy would do me right in that department, but I have never purchased jeans at Old Navy. Are they decent? I am looking for looks, yes, but also cheap since I'm not going to get much mileage on them.

What to do, what to do? So readers, those of you schooled in all things fashionable or even those who just read US Weekly and read about the fashion, can you recommend what I should do? It's not like I will wear these boots every day this spring, just days when it's rainy or wet. Which is like almost every spring day in Chicago. But you know what I mean.

Nighttime is the new naptime

Yesterday, I put Maeve down after her customary hour of awake time at 5:15 p.m., expecting her to wake up refreshed and invigorated about two hours later. I left for a meeting at Jack's school with a bottle of freshly thawed milk in the fridge and figured I would just pump when I got back.

Except when I got home, she hadn't woken up. And she continued to sleep until 9:15 p.m. when I woke her up after deciding via text with a friend that she would be up all night if I let it go much longer.

Apparently she was as exhausted by Operation Bassinet as I was because she woke up, ate and went right back to sleep. In the swing. Sigh. I couldn't take another zombie day like yesterday and decided unless there is someone else here with me during the day, I just can't function on such little sleep.

So swaddled up like a burrito in the swing, she slept until 4:45 a.m., ate, went back in the swing and slept until 7:15 a.m. Effectively, she slept just shy of 12 hours with three feedings.

She also woke up snotty-nosed and sneezing. Guess who caught Emmie's cold? Fun times with the snot sucker ensued.

Again tonight she went down at 5:15 and she's just now making her intentions to wake up known. At least it's only 7:40 p.m. though.

In short, Operation Bassinet is going to be some half-assed military action where the dictator remains in power because I can't follow up on intelligence leads.

Fevered pitch

This is what a 104.1 degree temperature, coupled with a double ear infection and strep looks like.



Poor Emmie. She started acting like a lunatic on Friday afternoon. We stopped at the park after school and because she didn't have her snowpants, I told her she could only go in the swing. After about three minutes, she started protesting that she wanted out and I told her if she got out, she would go straight in the stroller and we'd have to head home.

She still wanted out, so homeward bound we were. With Emmie screaming her fool head off the entire way. She screamed the two blocks home, all the way into the house and for a solid 15 minutes after we walked in the door. I was all "What is your deal? Knock it off." I even went so far as to walk away and tell her to let me know when she was done.

Eventually she calmed down and I forgot about it. The next day, Saturday, she went swimming and to Jack's soccer class and acted fine. After Josh got her up from her nap, she was red-cheeked and clingy. I touched her neck and it was hot hot hot.

A temperature check revealed she was at a solid 103.3 degrees. Awesome. Motrin and some extra love seemed to help, but after multiple nightwakings, I suspected an ear infection. When she was a cool 104.1 the next morning, I called for an appointment. Hooray for seven-day-a-week pediatricians.

He confirmed mom's diagnosis of an ear infection -- times two -- and added that she had strep. Well isn't that just dandy? I remarked that it should be no time at all before Maeve had it, but our doctor said it's incredibly rare for babies less than a year old to contract strep. Small favors, I guess.

After a few days of antibiotics, she is almost back to normal. That means she's still screaming and crying over little things and sticking her germy face and fingers up in Maeve's grill all day.

I'm sure she'll be fine just in time for Jack to come down with it. Or me. Please God, don't let it be me.

Non-sleeping beauty

I have several things to share with all of you, but unfortunately, I can't sit down for more than 10 minutes because I picked this past weekend to launch Operation Get Maeve In The Bassinet.

When you have three kids, you learn some sleep tricks. My favoriye is that there is nothing wrong with a baby sleeping in a swing next to your bed. And sleep in that swing she did, going six hours at a stretch.

And that was fine until I realized I would like her to sleep in her own room sometime soon. If she won't sleep in her bassinet, I can't imagine she would be grooving on her crib. And I'm sure as hell not running down the hall every 15 seconds to replace that damn pacifier when I can just do that at the end of the bed for now.

The first night was fine -- she slept in three-hour chunks and did awesome. The next night was horrid. She wouldn't sleep more than 15 minutes at a time and I broke down and put her in the swing at 1 a.m.

Tonight, I had high hopes after a solid first hour and now we're back to every 15 minutes.

In the time it took to type this, I had to stop three times. As Academomia said last week, these are special, special childhood times. Perhaps I should scrapbook this milestone. It would contain pictures of the pacifier lying next to Maeve's screaming head because she spits it out and then cries. And little stickers of eyes with bags under them.

So if you'll excuse me, I will now commence with the non-sleeping portion of my night.

Sit quietly

For the last 11 weeks, oodles of people have been telling me I need to get some help. Well, yes, mental help, too, but they mean help of the childcare persuasion. And I would sigh and say yes, that would be awesome but where to start? Where does one find a babysitter?

Apparently, the veritable treasure trove of available young women down the street at the large college in our neighborhood wasn't coming up in my brain as the logical place to start. Besides, I would actually have to go put up flyers and do research and interviews in all my spare time. That was said with the most dripping of sarcasm tone I can muster, by the way. Spare time! What a concept!

But when Josh weighed in and told me I should get someone to come a few hours a day, I knew he must have felt bad for me. I was complaining about it yet again to a good friend this week and she reminded me she sent me an email way back in the summer with a college student's info. At the time, I needed someone during the day to help lift Emmie when I was riddled by my pregnancy restrictions and this girl had class during the day so I never followed up.

But because I never delete anything -- my inbox contains more than 6,000 emails (my friend and longtime reader SupaCoo just died of cardiac arrest when she read that; she keeps her inbox as close to zero as possible) -- I still had the girl's info.

I called her, reached her on the first try and explained I was looking for someone two hours a day, mostly as a mother's helper, during the witching hours of dinner, bath and bedtime. She said she was available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I fainted from excitement and then recovered and asked if she could come over to meet me and the kids. How about the following afternoon, she asked. Umm, let's see, YES!

She arrived promptly, didn't look like an axe murderer and came highly recommended by a friend of a friend. Pretty much unless she killed some kids, I was going to hire her. And even then, if they deserved it, I would have been OK with it. As soon as she walked in, Jack and Emmie started screaming that they wanted to show her their jumpy house (Doesn't everyone have a 12x9 inflatable bounce house in their basement? No? Must just be us. Moving on.) and dragged her downstairs to play.

I hung out with them for a while, chatted with her and then thrust Maeve at her and announced I was going upstairs to start dinner. Everyone seemed to have a good time and nobody cried, so I think I might have Mary Freaking Poppins on my hands here.

She said she could start Thursday, which was yesterday, and she did. At first I felt bad asking her to watch all three kids while I ran to buy batteries. After all, the reason I need a babysitter is because three kids is crazy insane. But then I remembered I am PAYING her to watch my kids. So off I went. Niggling guilt, yes, but I think I'll get over it. (But no, Aunt Marnie, I don't feel guilty leaving three kids with you and I don't even pay you. Thems the breaks.)

While it was still massive chaos, even with another adult here, it was my own fault for trying to do too much. Note to self: never again host book club thinking "That way I won't have to get a babysitter." Yeah, it's the food prep and cleaning that you really need the babysitter for, not the actual sitting-around-drinking-wine-and-gossiping part of the night.

Hopefully next week will go even better. She'll be here Tuesday with Emmie and Maeve so I can take Jack to swim class, and Thursday with all three so I can get stuff done around the house. Or, I don't know, take a nap since I have an infant who wakes up at night. Twice a night. If I am lucky.

And yes, I am now the stay-at-home mom who has help with the kids. Next thing you know, I'll be shopping, going out to lunch and getting manicures.

Twitchy

Wanna know why I am really not a good mom? I can't relax when it comes to doing fun stuff with the kids.

Today we made cookies. Well, that's only half true because we actually made the dough last week but because I am a dumbass and didn't realize you need to chill the dough overnight, we had to delay rolling and cutting them out.

The making of the dough was quite stressful. It started out beautifully, with Jack and Emmie bellied up to the island helping dump various baking stuffs into the mixing bowl. But then Emmie started trying to climb on the counter. And Jack kept sliding his chair around. And I can't count the number of times I uttered the words, "That's it, you're not making cookies anymore."

So we finally got around to the rolling and the cutting and the baking today. I am pretty sure I will require hospitalization after the events of this afternoon. Perhaps a nice quiet psych ward; someplace I can calm the eff down.

Again I get everyone set up at the counter and I roll out the dough. Once it's thin enough, I hand each of them a cookie cutter and show them how to cut the shapes. Now I realize they are 4 and 2. I realize this intellectually. But in practice? How hard can it be to just cut a damn shape out the right way?

Jack takes the star-shaped cutter and slams it down in the middle of the slab of dough. OK, perhaps not the way I would have started out, but whatever. I offer to peel the dough away and put it on the cookie sheet and he screams that he can do it by himself. All right, all right. Keep your Thomas underpants on.

He grabs the dough, tearing all the points off the star and throws it on the baking sheet. Not just my eye, but my entire body starts twitching. I actually say, "That's not how you do it! Now it's all broken. Does that look like a star?"

As I am schooling him in the proper layout and lifting of dough, I look over and see Emmie lightly pressing the bear cutter all over the surface of the dough. Not enough to cut through it, mind you, just enough to make little marks all over. I wrestle the cutter away from her, ignoring her screeching protests of "Emmie! Emmie! Emmie do!" I show her how to press down on the cutter, and secretly press it down before showing her where to put her hands, therefor saving myself from feeling like a hot poker has been stuck in my eye when I watch her do it wrong.

Jack starts banging the spatula against the wire cooling rack, making enough racket to wake Maeve in the next room, and I tell him no less than three times that's he's not going to help with the rest of the cookies because he's not listening. Each time he desperately tells me, "I want to make cookies!" and then continues to not listen.

He proudly squishes the middle of every cookie, making misshapen bears that look as if they had more lipo to their midsections than Heidi Montag. I want to cry. After Emmie grabs the knife and waves it around laughing, I shoo everyone away from the kitchen and quickly cut out the next dozen and place them on a tray. The right way.

When they come out of the oven, Jack and Emmie are so proud of their creations and I feel like an ass for being such a perfectionist. I effusively praise their cookies, telling them what a good job they did. Hey, I feed them the line about a man with flying reindeer coming down the chimney once a year, I can lie with the best of 'em.

Yet again, real life intrudes on the idyllic Norman Rockwell scenes of motherhood. This is exactly why I don't let them have playdoh in the house, either. Not only would it be ground into the crevices of my hardwood floors, but they would probably mix the yellow and the red and green all into one big ball and my head would pop off.

Be mine

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there. I realize it's a day late and $15 dollars short (damn that inflation), but as you can tell from the expressions on all their faces, it was one of those days.



And yes, that was the best shot of the bunch.

He's scared

Tomorrow I am going away for 24 hours to a little girls spa outing with mom and sister. I mean how do you turn down an invitation to a spa from your mom that starts with the words, "Totally my treat"? You don't.

Of course I was gleeful not only because I was going to relax with no children in my general vicinity for a day, but also because Snarky Daddy was going to have all three kids by himself. I am evil like that. I want him to have a small taste of the experience I have for 112 hours each week. Not that I am counting.

But Snarky Daddy is scared. So scared he called his Mommy and asked her to come help him. Wah wah wah. Big man can't handle three kids by himself, apparently. Lame. Very, very lame.

This one even made me laugh

Every couple of weeks I look at my search terms to see how people find my blog. Recently, there's been a whole lot of searches for hot moms in yoga pants, milfs in yoga pants, and pictures of yoga pants showing ass crack.

Let me just tell the people using those terms and landing on this page: you are not, I repeat NOT in the place you think you should be. There is nothing hot about my ass in yoga pants right now. Come to think of it, not ever. Yoga pants are for when I don't feel like showering. Not for trolling the Internet for fun new friends.

But this particular search made me laugh out loud.

"Me and my fionce split up she is 24weeks pregnant and realy full of shit."

Seriously, dude, I am sorry that happened to you. Not sure what the "full of shit" part entails, but it sounds like a little counseling might get you to the bottom of that. Unfortunately, you won't find what you're looking for here.

You will, however, find some spelling and grammar advice.

It's fiance. Those are probably two different sentences, but perhaps you could get by with a semicolon. And really contains two Ls.

You're welcome.

Awful all around

This afternoon, I entered the 10th circle of hell when I took all three children to the pediatrician so Jack and Maeve could have their 4-year and 2-month checkups at the same time. What planning, I thought to myself when I booked the appointments together. Way to kill two birds with one stone! Except really it was more like killing myself with multiple stones over and over and over.

I didn't live blog the appointment, but if I had, it would have looked something like this...

3:40 p.m.: I finish feeding Maeve and ask Jack and Emmie to get their socks, boots and coats on.

3:41: Tell Jack to stop pushing his sister and get his boots. Hand Emmie her socks and ask her to please put them on.

3:42: Raise voice, threaten to leave Emmie at home if she doesn't put her socks on. Thank Jack for finally getting his boots on, point out they are on wrong feet, however.

3:43: Put Maeve in the swing and grab Emmie's socks off the floor, wrestle her into my lap and put the socks and boots on her.

3:43:30: Chase Emmie to the dining room, pick her up, get kicked as she thrashes and screams. Ignore tantrum while shoving her arms into coat. Tell Jack for 39th time to put his coat on.

3:44: Everyone finally has a coat on, so I put Maeve in her carseat and she screams like she is being killed. Turn my back to grab my keys and turn back to find Emmie trying to shove Maeve's pacifier in her mouth. Maeve's mouth is tightly closed, but Emmie is determined and is yelling, "Maeve! Fussy!" Thanks for the news flash Walter Cronkite, film at 11.

3:50: After walking world's slowest 4-year-old and 2-year-old out the door and down the steps to the car, fight with Jack about buckling himself in. He claims he can't do it, I insist he try since he is all the way on the far side of the car. He throws a tantrum, which results in me climbing into the backseat and leaning over Emmie in her seat to buckle him, then buckling Emmie, then going back in the house to get Maeve and putting her seat in last.

3:50:01: Serenity now, serenity now. I ignore wailing from backseat from Emmie, who has been wronged when Jack stole her little Wiggles book, and Maeve, who hates her carseat.

4:05: Arrive in doctor's waiting room five minutes late because it is snowing and people on roads have apparently never seen snow in Chicago before. Might or might not have laid on horn several times on short drive.

4:07: We are ushered in to the exam room. I get Jack stripped down to his Thomas underpants and Maeve to her diaper. Emmie sits down and removes not only her coat, but also her boots and socks. I am powerless to stop her as I am holding Maeve and trying to keep her warm since she's effectively nekkid.

4:08: Our doctor breezes in, he's nothing if not prompt, and gets started with Jack. I ignore Emmie jumping on the scale and try to focus on Jack's exam.

4:25: Jack's done and Maeven takes center stage. I am now ignoring Jack and Emmie jumping on the scale.

4:26: The doctor passes out those nifty disposable measuring tapes to the big kids and they commence measuring their heads. Awesome.

4:45: Maeve is pronounced healthy (10lbs 2oz, 23 inches) and the doctor departs, promising to send in the nurse for the dreaded shots.

4:50: Finally, the nurse strolls in. Maeve is interested in the oral vaccine she gets first, but then decides to spit it all over her shirt when she realizes it's not her preferred flavor of breastmilk. She then takes the first shot like a champ, but squeals for the second and bleeds profusely through her little Snoopy Band-aid. Mommy, stuck holding her arms down, feels awful.

4:53: Start to nurse Maeve to calm her down and lose any remaining control of Jack and Emmie. Realize I am prisoner in 5x9 room and can't move because I am feeding Maeve and have no free hands.

4:54: Jack takes Emmie's measuring tape. Emmie screams and throws herself on floor. Maeve jumps at the sudden noise and pulls off the boob, spraying milk all over her face and in her eye. I laugh at her.

5:06: Emmie rips Jack's measuring tape, causing him to melt down and push her.

5:06:01: "Stop hitting your sister. Emmie, that was not nice. Just sit down in this chair and wait, please."

5:06:10: "Jack, stop pulling that drawer out."

5:06:20: "Emmie, get out of the garbage."

5:07: "EMMIE GET OUT OF THE GARBAGE."

5:08: "Jack, do not climb on the table."

5:08:10: "JACK WHAT DID I JUST SAY?"

5:08:20: "If you two don't shape up, we are not watching The Wiggles when we get home."

5:08:21: (Unintelligible crying and protesting)

5:08:31: "THAT'S IT, NO WIGGLES."

5:08:32: (Louder unintelligible crying and screaming)

5:09: "Do I need to call Daddy?"

5:10: Time to get coats on. I want to die because this gets no easier the 300 times a day we do this. Stick Maeve in the carseat, then have to wrestle socks and boots back on Emmie.

5:13: Walk down hall to the bathroom, where Jack is excited about the prospect of peeing in a cup. He asks me if girls can pee in cups too and how do they do it? I tell him they kid of sit on the cup. He doesn't believe me and says that wouldn't work. OK, whatever. Just pee kid.

5:14: "Mommy, Emmie is all wet!"

5:14:01: I look up to find Emmie's hands (and clipped-to-her-coat mittens) in the toilet.

5:14:02: "EMMIE NO! NO! YUCKY!"

5:14:03: Pick Emmie up off the floor and stick her hands under the faucet to wash them. Thank all that is holy that Jack peed in the cup, not in the toilet, before she decided to go fishing.

5:15: Walk cup down the hall to cabinet, lose older two children when I stop to write Jack's name on his cup o'pee.

5:15:05: Nurses laughing at my children running down hall.

5:15:35: Tell children I am leaving without them and start to walk away. Am instantly joined by two crying children. Mean? Perhaps. Effective? Yes.

5:20: Head for parking garage with validated parking ticket. While paying at automated kiosk, am greeted by attendant through the speaker asking if I need assistance. "No, sorry, my kids are pushing the call button." Give child dirty look. She laughs and does it again.

5:22: Walk to car holding carseat in one hand and Emmie's hand in the other. Instruct Jack to hold her other hand and stay with me.

5:22:10: Emmie falls in wet parking garage, despite holding two hands, blackening her pink coat and mittens and screaming because her hands are dirty. This from the girl who willingly played in a toilet minutes ago.

5:23: Finally get to car, again fight with Jack about his ability to buckle his own carseat, end up buckling everyone in.

5:24: Cry in car because this sucks so bad.

Jack: Four years

Dear Jack,

My sweet, crazy, smart, handsome, funny little man -- today you are 4 years old. Four years ago tonight you burst into our lives and made us parents. When I saw you for the first time, I didn't think I could ever love you more and then you turned 4 and I realized my love for you grows every day.



In the last year you have changed so much I don't even know where to start. You're taller, thinner, faster, smarter, more articulate and more interesting. You carry on the most fascinating conversations about your day, your friends and random things you see out the window. Your new favorite thing is to ask me what the street signs say, and then you remember and tell me what intersections we are driving through days later. You're freaky like that when it comes to memory -- you don't miss anything and it's all stored in the vault.

You started all-day school in the fall and you adore it. When we get to school, you're so excited to get in the door that you literally jump out of the carseat or the stroller, shrug your backpack on and hurriedly kiss me goodbye before running up to the door. You go in all by yourself, walk down the hall to your classroom by yourself and put your things away in your locker all by yourself. A locker! You're 4, what could you need a locker for? You love all your friends and your teachers and you always come out in the afternoon with a huge smile on your face. And that is my favorite part of my day -- no matter what, you look for me and when you catch my eye, I wave and you light up. But you're also a typical 4-year-old boy when it comes to behavior and we've had to remind you to keep your hands to yourself and try to keep your mouth quiet. Some day you'll figure it out. Hopefully.



You've grown so much I swear you get bigger overnight. Just last week all your 4T pants were suddenly too small in the waist and too short in the legs, so we had to get all new jeans. You love to eat, always asking, "What else can I have?" Some of your favorites are smoothies, spinach salad, tikka masala, almond butter sandwiches, yogurt, cereal bars, apples and pizza. Like your father, you would eat pizza at every meal if we let you. Thankfully, you are pretty open to trying new things and love fruits and veggies, so we hope that continues.

This past year you became a big brother for the second time and this time, it's been a completely different experience. You genuinely love Maeve and are so gentle and nice to her. You always want to know where she is and what she's doing, and you ask to hold her quite a bit. You love it when she smiles at you and have a great time playing on her little play mat with her. You give her lots of kisses and gentle pats on the head and I love to watch you interact with her because it's so sweet. Your interaction with Emmie isn't always as sweet, however. You do get along more and spend more time playing together, but she's normally the target of your aggression. You can just be walking around the house and out of nowhere, boom, you hip-check her for no reason, sending her wailing to the ground. But then you can turn around and be completely nice, sharing a toy with her or asking if she wants to watch "The Wiggles" with you. I suspect this hot and cold relationship will continue for many years, hopefully with less violence.



Some of your favorite things right now are playing at the park, watching "The Wiggles" and "Go, Diego, Go," playing Uno, playing with your train set, pretending to be a veterinarian with your stuffed animals, playing video games on your Leapster, reading books, riding your tricycle, going to the park, playing soccer and swimming. You want to do everything yourself from zipping your own coat to carrying your own milk and food to the table. If you can't get something after a few tries, you're getting much better about asking for help instead of throwing a huge tantrum and screaming. Not that you don't still do the tantrum thing, but they're usually shortlived and not very often.

When you take a shower, you wash your "armhips." You like to go to the nature "nuseum" and you won't eat salads without "yummy screwtons" on them. You like to help Daddy make "smoovies" and you're getting ready to celebrate "Valentime's Day." There are a million more cute things that you say, but your speech is getting more adult by the day and soon, you won't say any of those cute little things anymore.



Yesterday, I took you to a birthday party for one of your friends and there was a magic show. As an adult, I usually roll my eyes and get annoyed by things like that, but watching it through your eyes was a whole new experience. Your eyes lit up and grew wide as he made doves appear out of thin air and you clapped with obvious delight when he changed four birds into a poodle. As I watched you watch the show, I saw unabashed joy in your face. You don't know how to be cynical or doubt what you see. You live in the moment and wear your heart on your sleeve. It makes me so happy to see you enjoying yourself. It makes me sad to see you disappointed. It makes me crazy when I think someone has slighted you. I only want the best for you and while I know disappointment is part of life, I wish you would never know it.

In the last few months, you've been a little wary of Daddy and I being gone. It started when I went to the hospital to have Maeve and has gotten a little worse since Daddy started traveling for work. Every night you get a serious look on your face and ask me, "Mommy, are you leaving? Are you going to leave me alone?" And I always tell you that I would never leave you alone, that someone will always be here with you. I've never experienced this kind of thing with you before, so it's been a little surprising. There are nights when you ask me for the 20th time, when you are supposed to be in bed, and it's a little annoying. But mostly, it makes me want to scoop you up and hug you tightly. Don't worry Jackie, in 10 years, you'll beg me to just leave you alone already, slamming the door to your room. And then I will remind you that when you were 4, that's the last thing you wanted.



When I think back to the tiny baby you were, with your wrinkly brow and skinny arms and legs, I am amazed at the big boy you are now. How did you get from there to here? How did I witness all these days yet miss you growing up? I love the baby in you, but I can't get enough of the big boy you have become.

Love,
Mommy

Maeve: Two months

Dear Maeve,

It's been two months since you joined our family and it's like you've been with us for two decades with how easy the transition has been. Sure, you like to get up twice a night to eat, and you aren't such a fan of being put down and come to think of it, you're pretty high-maintenance in the napping department, but other than that, you're quite easy to manage.



This last month went by so fast I'm not even sure what happened. Daddy started traveling for work four days a week at the beginning of your second month of life and since then, I have kind of lived in a haze of sleep deprivation and have tried to make sure you and your brother and sister are all fed, clothed and alive at the end of the day. So far, so good.



You've started smiling a lot more this month and you're so much more aware of your surroundings. You look around, stare at the banister (your favorite object in the house, even more than the boobs) and try to watch Jack and Emmie when they are running around like lunatics. You tolerate their frequent close encounters, which mostly consist of Emmie poking you in the face or trying to shove a pacifier in your mouth and Jack rubbing your head and kissing you. They really do love you and love it when you are awake and smiling. We'll see how much they love it when you start shoving their toys in your mouth in a few months, but for now, it works.



For the most part, your sleep patterns are still pretty awesome. You sleep a stretch of five or six hours overnight, mostly in the swing, but occasionally next to me in my bed, and still nap most of the day in short spurts. You love being wrapped like a little burrito in your Miracle Blanket and immediately start to calm down when we wrap you up. You also love being carried on my chest in the Moby Wrap. You love it so much you will nap several hours in it every afternoon when we pick Jack up from school and if I could find a way to legally drive with you in it, I would never take it off. That might be weird in the shower, but if it meant you would sleep, I would sacrifice. But if you're not strapped to my chest or being held, you're becoming less of a great napper. So wrap you up I will.



I also took my first trip away from you this month, going on a snowboarding trip with Daddy. You went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the weekend and lived it up with bottles of pumped milk. When I came home, you stared at me for a minute like you couldn't believe it was me, and then you promptly started nursing and fell asleep. Welcome home, indeed.



You weighed 9 pounds and were in the 90th percentile for height at the beginning of this month and I estimate you've gained at least a pound and even more length since then. Your newborn jammies have been relegated to the "outgrown" bin and you fill the 3-month size out rather nicely. Clearly the breastmilk does a body good. And we were finally in a great place with the nursing until the thrush struck this week, making breastfeeding hurt just as bad as it did in the first few days of your life. Hopefully the gentian violet will do the trick without turning your face purple, but rest assured if it does, I will have the camera at the ready.



As the third child, you would think you'd be getting the least of our attention, but that's not the case. I love the time we have together every night after the big kids go to bed. You usually have about an hour of alert time every night and we hang out, me trying to get you to smile and you trying to talk to me. We play with your toys and read a few books and I smother you with kisses. It's great to have one-on-one time with you and get to know you and figure out what makes you happy. Plus, if you're not in the swing, you're pretty much glued to my body the rest of the time, so I kind of have to give you attention. Maybe as a third kid, that's your way of assuring I pay attention to you. But you don't need to worry, as the baby you'll always have a special place in my heart.

Love,
Mommy

Dance dance revolution

Behold the cute: my little ballerina at her very first dance class. I might have died from the adorableness of it all.

Go fish

When we were in Lake Tahoe last weekend, we planned to celebrate my birthday on Saturday night, you know, since my husband wasn't around for my actual birthday on Thursday. He was "working" in DC. Whatever, lame.

I knew I wanted to go to this awesome sushi place, Naked Fish, so we headed there with our friends around 8 p.m. with the knowledge it would be a bit of a wait. When we arrived, they said it would be about 45 minutes, so we told the hostess we would be at the pizza place next store getting a beer. She said that sounded like an excellent idea because there were two tables ahead of us.

After we downed some beers, we made our way back over the sushi place about 50 minutes after we left. Josh went to see where our name was on the list and the hostess told him they skipped us since we weren't there. No biggie, we assumed they would just throw the next table our way.

Except we watched as four different tables were seated before us. What the? Josh went up to see what the hell was going on. The hostess told him that because we weren't there when they called us, they sent us back to the bottom of the list.

Now I don't know how they roll in Tahoe, but in Chicago, if you specifically tell the hostess you are going to grab a beer next door IN THE SAME DAMN BUILDING, they might give you a heads up. They also would put you at the top of the wait list when you return.

I wasn't going to let this go, so I headed for the hostess desk myself.

"So why didn't you guys tell us we would go to the end of the list if we weren't here?" I asked. "We told you where we were going and you said it was fine."

The hostess shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well, it is what it is."

My jaw dropped to the floor and I almost jumped out of my skin. NO. SHE. DIDN'T.

"You did NOT just say that to a customer," I gasped.

"Oh honey, I didn't mean it like that," she said, touching my arm as she came out from behind the podium.

"How exactly did you mean it then?" I asked.

She just shrugged her shoulders. "It won't be long," she sniffed.

And what I am about to say will stun you: we waited for the table because having been there before, I knew how good the sushi was and by 9 p.m., I didn't feel like hauling ass anywhere else. I think the fact they probably spit in our food just added to the deliciousness.

Moral of the story? Naked Fish Sushi in South Lake Tahoe is a bunch of asshats with some amazing sushi. Dine at your own risk.

Eight is great

So I had this baby eight weeks ago, but I never post pictures of her because I am always too busy holding her to pick up the camera. She started smiling about three weeks ago, but of course she never does it on cue and we always end up with these hilariously awful pictures of her with her mouth wide open and her eyes all wild.

Exhibit A:


However, this is what I was able to capture today. No true smiles, but she was cooing up a storm during this shoot at her favorite conversationalist, the banister in the living room. She has more serious talks with that thing than she ever does with me. Whatever.



It's hard to remain annoyed with that little chubby face. I just want to eat her up.

Pump up the jam

Josh and I waited until Jack was five months old to go away for the first time. We went to Vegas and while I missed him, I realized it made me a better mom to get away for a few days and recharge. With Emmie, I went away for my sister-in-law's bachelorette party when she was three months old. Again, slightly sad, but came back revitalized. With Maeve, I'm surprised we didn't drop her off on the way home from the hospital and hit the airport. Instead, I waited until this past weekend, when she was eight weeks old, to head out for a snowboarding trip in Lake Tahoe.

While I totally shredded it on the mountain, I was also attached to my breastpump 24-7. After Maeve was born, I knew from past experience to start pumping right away to build up a freezer supply of milk. Because she was only eating 2-3 ounces at a time during the early weeks, I could stash another 3-4 ounces away. By the time we left last Friday, I had over 125 ounces -- a five-day supply.

But it's not like I could leave my boobs at home when I went boarding, so my pump made the trip. And it got quite a workout, considering I had to drain the boobs every four hours. The "kachunk, kachunk, kachunk, kachunk" sound it makes was the soundtrack of my trip. Wanna know where I pumped this weekend, in addition to the privacy of my hotel room? An airplane seat, an airport bathroom, a lovely airport nursery at SFO, the car and a hotel common area. All I can say is thank you nursing cover, because a woman pumping is probably one of the most frightening sights out there. Is it a cow? Is it a robot? And what in the hell is she doing squeezing her boobs like that? It's all kinds of sexy.

There's also no sleeping in when you breastfeed, even if your baby is 1,400 miles away. Without fail, my boobs wake me up after five hours. They're all, "Duuuude, it's time to get up." And I'm all, "No, I want to sleep more." And they're all, "Get up now." And I'm all, "Five more minutes." And then they mutiny, turn rock hard and I wake up in a pool of milk. Needless to say, I like to avoid that experience, so I just sigh and get up and pump at 5 a.m. and try to go back to sleep.

We're very lucky in that Josh and I are able to go away for short trips a couple times a year because we have parents who love to spend time with their grandchildren. But now that we've popped out a third child, the logistics are a little trickier. Three is really too much for anyone, well except for their mother and no one cares if I go insane, so we split them up. My parents took Maeve on her own, since she wakes up overnight and requires more intensive care, and Josh's parents took Jack and Emmie together, since they require more of a referee and chauffeur and less nocturnal visits.

We talked to the big kids on the phone every night because someone, who's name rhymes with yosh, loaded a stupid new server something or other on his laptop and for reasons I can't understand, it won't use wireless and a webcam at the same time. So we were forced to rock it old school on a cell phone, which disappointed Jack to the point of tears. Someday, I will tell him all about being forced to use a rotary phone with a cord attached to the wall and pay this crazy shit called "long-distance" to talk to people far away.

As I write this, I am sitting on a plane eagerly awaiting our touchdown in Chicago. While I had a great weekend, the best part of going away is coming home. Seeing Jack and Emmie's little faces light up when we walk in the door makes the early-morning airport craziness all worthwhile. Maeve will probably be nonplussed to see my face, but the sight of my boobs will make her day. She takes after her father that way.