The Octopus and the Pumpkin

Happy Halloween, ya'll! I'm happy to report that this year went much better than last, up to and including this moment.

She fell asleep with the Anti-Mommy

Whoa.

This year, they were benign creatures, just as I promised myself. Ella chose her own costume - a pumpkin, and just to be safe, I made it myself with a happy face. She generally had her happy face on all evening. (Much credit to the fact that Daddy didn't paint his face this year, I'm sure.)

Luke went as an octopus, and while that could be perceived as begging for trouble, it felt safe enough since he already is an octopus.

Pumpkin Girl and Octopus Boy (and Jewel E. Cat)

We trick-or-treated the town, played at the Fall Festival at church, then passed out candy at Grandma and Pop the Pop's house. I really think Ella might like passing out candy even more than trick-or-treating for it. They both ate more candy than should be allowed in one evening.

There was vomit, but it was contained and we didn't let it ruin the evening. (It seems that the wicked stomach virus of last week wreaked all kinds of havoc on my reflux babies and they are still not back to normal. Ella is puking like she did before we re-medicated her for reflux. She'll be getting Zantac on top of her normal Prevacid for the next two weeks to get her back on track. Hopefully. It tastes so nasty, it's the reason she puked this evening.)

I just love this picture. It makes me think Ella was right, we should have given him some "black water" to squirt like ink while he was running away from us. She really, really wanted to add that element to his costume. I'm sure he would have complied.

The perfect octopus picture.

The Vomit Chronicles: My Washer and Dryer are Asking for a Raise

We are on day 5 of what might be the nastiest stomach virus I've ever seen. It's certainly the nastiest one I've dealt with as a parent.

Luke started throwing up Saturday night. That continued most of the day Sunday, and I thought he was recovered Monday. I was wrong. As Dave phrased it, he "reversed it" with a diaper so disgusting it necessitated a wardrobe change. Then he threw up again. At the same time this was happening, Dave sent me a message to say that he had it, too. He never catches what we have, so the fact that he got it before I did told me how bad it really was.

I knew, just by the number of times I'd been puked on, that I was destined for it. It started Monday night, and I was sick all night long and most of Tuesday. On top of that, I could barely stand up without feeling faint. After strategizing about how I would survive the day and take care of my children, I decided Grandmother was the best option since she had already been puked on. Thankfully, she was here all day Tuesday, because I couldn't even fix a sippy cup without needing to lay down.

Ella started puking in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, ran fever all day and kept her food down until the sun went down. Then she threw up most of the night last night. Once she needed a full change of bedding and clothing, and I considered putting her in the shower. After I got all of that sorted out and laid back down in bed with her, knowing that the easiest way to deal with all night vomit would be to sleep beside her and catch it in a bowl (yes, that is another great use for Tupperware), I smelled nasty poop.

Soundly sleeping Luke had pooped so big that he needed a change of bedding and clothing as well. I almost got that done with waking him, but not quite. Once I finally got everyone back to sleep, I settled into Ella's bed with a flat pillow and two pillow pets. So I still feel like I've been beaten with a tire iron, only today it's not because of fever, but because of pillow pets.

I'm so ready for this to be over. Ella is still puny; just laying on the couch under a blanket. I'm certain we have another full day to go. Grandmother has it now, and possibly worse than the rest of us.

Did I mention that this is the week when construction starts inside our house? That the kids are sleeping in the dining room and one of our bathrooms is gutted down to the studs?

It's been really fun, and I'm sure that my washer and dryer are just as ready as I am for it to be over. They've barely stopped working since Sunday morning.

At this point, I'm just praying that the dog doesn't catch it.

Luke the Ladykiller

I worked from home Friday so I had the pleasure of picking the kids up from preschool. As I made my way to Ella's classroom, I passed by a little girl about Luke's age, toddling down the hall. She attracted my attention primarily because she looked to be about his age with her cute toddler swagger. Then I moved on to Ella's room, gathered up her stuff, made sure she pottied, etc. On the way back down the hall, we stopped to get Luke.

And that's when his teacher informed me that he'd been kissing a girl.

The little girl I saw on my way in, to be exact. We'll call her Anna.

Apparently, he kissed her twice - on the cheek and on the head. When I asked him about it, calling her by name, he gave me a sly look out of the corner of his eye.

I also found out over the weekend, from his big sister, that he pushes Anna in the swing in their classroom and the reason he wanted to wear Ella's bow in his hair is because Anna wears hair bows just like it.

So.

Truthfully, he is so freely affectionate that it doesn't surprise me that he loves on his friends at school. And truthfully, he's the only boy in his class, so of course it was a girl he was kissing. But I still think it's funny, and I love that he has a friend.

Co-sleeping Pros and Cons

We are modified co-sleepers. That's a term I just made up. It means, the kids start the night in their own beds, but I bring Luke to our bed when he wakes up to nurse during the night. We get to wake up together most mornings, and that's when co-sleeping is the most fun (in my opinion). Lots of times, Ella is with us, too, or we are in her bed (as we were this morning because she was having nightmares in the wee hours).

As Luke and I struggled to decide if we were going to be awake or asleep this morning, a few things happened that formulated into a pros and cons list  in my head. I am going to present them in the way I learned in college: pro, con, pro.

Pro: Snuggly little bodies.
Con: Leaky diapers.
Pro: Sleep talking and laughing.
Con: Numb hands from cuddling the weight of the baby's head your arm pit all night.
Pro: Baby head smell.
Con: Fighting over the covers. He always kicks them off.
Pro: Baby snores.
Con: Baby fingers exploring every orifice of your head. There's nothing like waking up with a little finger in your nose.
Pro: Lazy baby chatter.
Con: Baby chatter. Sometimes I just need to keep sleeping.
Pro: Being right there when they wake up scared - the whole reason we were in Ella's bed. Poor kid.
Con: Possessive little legs that keep finding their way around you. Ella's legs act independently of the rest of her body while she sleeps.
And finally, my favorite one of all:
Pro: The sleepy grin and the sweet, "Mama. Mama." when Luke realizes that I'm awake, too. It reminds me to soak up every single minute with them.

Operation Bigger House: The Basement

I'm a little slow with this update because, quite frankly, the movement of a pile of dirt from here to there is not much of an update. And, there's the small issue that I wasn't really home during the daylight hours until Friday of last week to take new pictures. But enough excuses.. here's what's happened since the my last update.

We have an almost-basement!


Basement walls.


Once the hole for the basement was finished, the washing machine drain re-routed, the footers poured, and some of the dirt pile distributed to the low spots in our backyard (making it a vast expanse of red dirt, but whatever), an eighteen-wheeler load of concrete blocks showed up last Monday morning. Two days later the walls were complete.



Waterproofing

Then a load of gravel was delivered and part of it was spread as the beginning of the basement floor. At that point, there was some waiting for a termite pre-treatment and an inspection/survey that was required by the county.

During the waiting, the lower half of the basement walls were waterproofed and a French drain was installed around the perimeter (I forgot to take a picture of that, sorry.). Yesterday was Columbus Day, and apparently that's a county holiday, so we didn't get the official blessing to pour the basement floor and finish the upper portion of the walls yet. However, there was a sheet of plastic and a layer of wire (like you might use to build a goat pen) put down over the gravel. That was yesterday. I also had a visit from the carpentar yesterday (I was working from home); he just came by to check it out.


Looking through the basement door


It is my understanding that both the cement man and the carpentar are just waiting for the go-ahead to swoop in and complete the next phase in this project, and they would have started yesterday (stinking holiday).

On the inside, we (Dave) cleaned out the basement closet that will be the access to the new space. That hole hasn't been cut in the wall yet because we don't fancy the thought of unsecured access to our belongings, but it will be on the other side of that sheet of plywood you see stuck to the wall in this picture (looking through the basement door).  This new basement space will remain unfinished so that Dave will have a place for his lawnmower and tools.




Piles of sand and gravel



Finally, here are the piles of sand and gravel, just waiting to be put to good use. 

That about covers weeks 2 and 3 of this project.







Candy Bookends

Does this look like we've been trick-or-treating?

Ella's parade loot

We haven't. October is a month that starts and ends with candy in our little town. Ella collected this bucket full at the Fire Prevention Parade over the weekend. It was her idea to bring her Spiderman Easter basket to hold all the candy, but I have to say that I was amazed at the amount she (we) collected. I don't know what we are going to do with it, but I know that we will not be eating all of it. It will disappear before we fill up two more buckets trick-or-treating in town and at the Fall Festival on Halloween.

 

Side note - Look how tan she is? Who gets a Fall tan?

 

We spent a lot of time outside because it was beautiful, and Dave traded cameras with me so I have some pictures to share. 

Luke with Ella's new cup

 

 

Luke took the first opportunity to steal Ella's new cup, and you can see her in the background, on her way to retrieve it. She is very possessive of her new cup, which she picked out on our "girl time" shopping trip Saturday after the parade. Our main mission was new tennis shoes for her, and after trying on seveal pair of light-up, sequined atrocities, we found some cute pink New Balances. They were comfortable enough to win her over in the first step she took in them.

 






 
 

Swinging on their playground



Both kids love to swing, so we spent quite a bit of time swinging over the weekend. I had to raise Ella's swing up another link because her toes were dragging the ground.

This is the part of our backy-ard that isn't torn up with construction right now. (An update on that project is coming soon.)


Luke on the lawn mower




"What are you doing on my lawnmower?"


Luke cannot stay off of the lawnmower when we are playing oustide. He basically loves anything with a steering wheel, but he especially loves the lawnmower because Dave drives him around the neighborhood on it.

Driving like a mad man



Hangin' out

Finally, I found Luke like this after we'd come inside for a break Saturday afternoon. He was just hanging out on the end table, looking at a picture of Pop the Pop.

 

He's shirtless because Ella sprayed him with the water hose while she was washing all of the front yard toys.  

Pumpkin Patch 2011

This year's trip to the Pumpkin Patch was a huge success. Ella knew what to expect so she was ready to love it. Luke just loved it.


Ready to go




Luke didn't nap before we left, or on the way, or while we were there. He knew we were going to do somthing fun.

I couldn't get them both to cheese for the camera at the same time. Every time Ella said cheese, Luke turned to laugh at her.


Pumpkin socks for the Pumpkin Patch




Ella picked out her pumpkin socks for the trip. I think this made it a little easier for her to wear her tennis shoes. She's a flip flop kind of girl (so much that I'm probably going to have to hide them when it really gets cold).


Pony Ride



I walked beside her pony, named Pickles, so she would be comfortable and so Luke could get a could look at them. He kept calling them dog-dogs and barking. I tried to get him to say, "Horsey!" but he just moo-ed instead.

We did see a miniature cow at the petting farm. And a llama, goats, sheep, and piglets. The piglets were raising a squealy ruckus, and I think they scared Luke because he sat down hard and cried about it. Otherwise, he loved all the animals and the goats especially loved him. Ella had fun feeding all of them.


We all loved the bounce house this year.




We all jumped in the bounce houses and slid down the big slide. The slide that caused a colossal melt down last year was a blast this year. I slid with Ella four times, Dave did it 2 or 3. She loved it and she was strong enough this year to climb up the big ladder by herself. Dave carried Luke up and slid down with him. We think he liked it, but he really looked stunned when they landed.


On the way to find our pumpkins




By the time we rode out to the pumpkin patch, we were all tired.


Searching, searching for the perfect one.




I love this picture. I love how it shows the progression of our family since last year.















Two prize winning pumpkins.



Here we are with our prize pumpkins. Ella was able to surpass last year's and find one even smaller. It is so small that Dave had to pick it of the vine for her.

As I expected, Luke went with a bigger one. He loves them both and keeps trying to eat them. Ella has already told me that both pumpkins will be staying in her bedroom again this year. We aren't allowed to cut them. I guess Dave and I will have to get our own if we decided we need to carve one.

My Personal War with Roaches

I'll preface this story by saying that I am not afraid of roaches. They creep me out with their slithery-ness, but I don't feel the need to jump up on the furniture and squeal. I have no trouble stomping on every one I see. I’m just so very tired of the nasty things. With that said, and in fairness to my husband, I must tell this story. It ranks up there with snake killing and bird invasions.

I believe Dave and I have come to a point in our relationship where we have lived together long enough that we are beginning to act like one another. Last night, after the kids were in bed and I’d woken up from my power nap with Ella, we were sitting on the couch together. As is our usual habit, he was lying on one end and I was sitting on the other, legs tangled up in the middle, sharing a quilt. Oddly, last night we were both awake and talking, though I have no idea what about because the events that followed completely erased it from my mind.

As we were chatting, I noticed a big, nasty, flying roach slither through the crack in the front door and make its way up the wall. I considered getting up to kill it right then, but I didn’t want to interrupt Dave, and I’d just gotten comfortable. Dave had no idea it was there because his back was to it. For about fifteen minutes, as we chatted, I tracked its progress all around the crown molding, on top of a picture, and back down the wall.

This is the point where my husband and I swapped personalities.

Suddenly, it launched itself into the air and flew right over Dave’s shoulder and landed on his chest. He exclaimed in surprise, but I was ready. As it was 10:30 and there was nary a flip-flop in sight, I grabbed the rolled up Neighbors magazine from my end table and attempted to smack the life out of it. Again, Dave exclaimed, this time about how hard I hit him. I heard nothing of it; I was singularly focused on killing that blasted roach.

It had disappeared.

I jumped off the couch and ripped the quilt off of Dave, yelling, “It’s in the blanket! Get up! It’s in the blanket!” I have no idea what he said, but he got up.

I kicked the ottoman out of the way and frantically shook the blanket until the roach fell out. Then I took to smacking it with my rolled up magazine. Like a mad woman, I was chasing it around the floor, hitting it for all I was worth, and cursing it with words that aren’t appropriate for writing here. I think it got the message that I believed it to be a piece of something undesirable. All the while, I think Dave was in the kitchen, eating popcorn and watching the show.

Then it disappeared again.

At that point, I lost my composure (if you could say I ever had any). I was squealing and jumping around with hands flailing, screaming for Dave to find it while I ran to the other side of the room. I was terrified that it was going to fly again and land on me.

He calmly moved the chair and grabbed it with a paper towel, while I continued to ask repeatedly if he had found it yet. He held up his fist to show me the balled up paper towel, roach inside. With a sigh of relief, I went back to my spot on the couch.

And this is where we swapped back to our original selves with me watching, and him holding the paper towel roach ball and asking me, “What am I supposed to do with it?”

I said, “Throw it away.”

To which he replied, “It will just crawl out again.”

Uhhh. “What?! It’s not dead? You didn’t kill it?”

He understood his responsibility. He squeezed it in his man fist and said, “I just heard it crunch.”

Again, I breathed a sigh of relief, “Good, as with anything with an exoskeleton, crunching is good.” (I don’t really know if roaches have exoskeletons, but they do crunch when you defeat them.)

He threw it away and left the room, and I started to laugh. He came back and asked me if I was laughing at myself. Yes, yes I was. Then he said, “My favorite part was when you changed from mad killer into our screaming 3 year old.” I could not deny it.

Luke's First Injury



Luke's first injury

 Given his fall down the stairs, his love for climbing, his new affinity for jumping on the furniture, and his fierce independence, I've already started preparing myself for the idea that Luke will be our kid that breaks limbs and needs stitches. There are emergency room trips in his future. I know it in my bones.

This morning, he got his first official injury, meaning, one that left a mark.

 Every morning when we leave the house, he walks across the porch and down the stairs by himself. He's like a horse at the starting gate, bursting out of the front door when I open it. He stops along the way to greet all of the statue animals, and by the time I've put the bags in the car, he's coming down the stairs. He is very careful, coming down sideways so he can hang on to the railing with both hands. I'm usually there to grab him at the bottom so I can put him in his carseat.

This morning, just as I turned around to get him from the steps, I saw him fall from the bottom step onto the driveway. On his face. He was wearing pants today, and I think his foot got caught in his pants leg, tripping him up. I knew from the landing that it hurt, and then he started to cry. I scooped him up and got a close enough look to know there was blood, so we headed back into the house to clean it up.

He was crying hard, so I sat on the toilet and nursed him while I wiped his face with a warm rag to clean off the dirt and blood. That calmed him down enough that he tried to get out of my lap as I put Neosporin on the scrapes. By the time we headed back out to the car, he was well enough to slide down my leg and toddle across the porch and down the steps all by himself.

He has a scrape next to his eyebrow, under his eye, and on the corner of his nose. I can't tell yet if it's going to be a nasty bruise, but it already looks pretty pitiful - especially with those sad eyes and that puffed out lip. I'm pretty sure he's going to work this for all it's worth.

Operation Bigger House: It's Begun

With the big tree gone, work on our home addition officially started last week. The first day, two saw horses showed up in the yard. The second day, a trailer full of scaffolding appeared. The third day, the fence came down and bricks started disappearing. The fourth day, the air conditioner was moved. The fifth day, all of the brick and the basement window was gone, and the outline of the addition was spray painted on the grass.

Disappearing bricks

Pile o' bricks - these will be used for window sills and trim work

Cutie Patootie, and Jewel E. Cat

Yesterday, I happened to be home because I felt like I was swallowing razor blades and I had a back injury (punk kids!), so I got to watch the backhoe dig up the giant stump and start digging out the basement. The stump took all morning, and a couple of times I actually gasped out loud because I thoutght the backhoe man was going to throw himself out of that thing. The whole tractor lifted off the ground, except for the shovel that was stuck in the stump.  Here it is. It really does look like five trees all stuck together.

Sweet Ella (modeling new shoes) with the stump for perspective of the size.

 

The beginning of the new basement.



Side view of the new basement.

They didn't finish digging because of the rain, and because they accidentally found the drain pipe for our washing machine, so right now there is a backhoe parked in our yard, a mountain of red dirt, and a large hole. Georgia already dropped a tennis ball in it, but I forbade her from retrieving it. My carpet is pitiful enough with out red mud being tracked all over it.

That's the progress from the first week.

Closure: Reflections on Jake's Birth

In almost exactly a year’s time, I can finally say that I’ve made peace – with my births, with my body. Not the scar, it’s just a scar, but with the idea that my body turns against me while I’m pregnant, leading to the scar. The scar itself has never really bothered me so much as the message it sends to my children. But do you know what I’ve realized? It’s not a bad message. Sometimes c-sections are necessary. Sometimes, that’s how a baby is supposed to be born. I still want her (them) to understand normal birth, but it’s okay that I had two c-sections. I am not weak or less because I made those decisions, and given all that I’ve learned in the last three years, I’m pretty sure I would make the same decisions again.

Before and immediately after my nephew, Jake, was born, several people inquired into my mental state regarding being present for his very natural birth. I can honestly say that I made peace with my own deliveries before Rebecca went into labor. I knew that I had to. It wouldn’t be fair or helpful to her if I brought that baggage to his birth, and rather than check it at the door, I opted to just unpack it and a put it away. I have two beautiful children; there’s no reason to carry that luggage around with me any longer. Some of it was unpacked here, in the open, but most of it was through reading and watching other births, from many perspectives, including midwives and OBs. I’ve learned more about Gestational Diabetes, more about breech births, more about how others made the same decisions and why.

I did have a brief, wistful moment of heartache as I watched Jake’s head emerge from his mother’s body, but it was gone as quickly as it came. One bit of my c-section experience was useful to Rebecca. I knew that locally injected lidocaine was available to numb the site of her IV (she had a Hep lock), and after a couple of failed attempts to start the line between contractions, the lidocaine made her a lot more comfortable when they tried again on the other arm.

I also had to answer a few of her questions with, “I don’t know; I had a morphine pump” when she asked things like if the cramping would hurt when Jake latched on to nurse the first time. It did. A lot. But, I was able to reassure her that her reaction to the uterine “massage” they do after the birth to check the bleeding was completely appropriate. That hurt like the devil, even with the morphine pump. So, no, she wasn’t overreacting.

Helping them learn to nurse in the days and weeks after he was born humbled me to my core. It was a lot harder than I expected it to be. Trying to help someone physically position themselves and the baby is a lot harder than doing it yourself – like trying to tie a tie on someone else’s neck. I did my best, but I felt like a bumbling idiot. I tried hard not to, but I’m sure I may have driven them nuts with all of my information. It was just another situation where I struggled for balance between being a know it all and providing helpful support. I have cried and worried with her as they’ve found their way, mostly on their own. I also realize that that’s as it should be since it’s her body and her baby and her accomplishment. I’m happy to help her find answers when she needs them and to reassure her when she’s experiencing “normal.” I understand, now, how/why new mothers often give up breastfeeding so early; that for some women, it’s not only not easy, but it’s really hard work. It has not been an easy road for Rebecca and Jake, and I hope that she will share her experience one day for the sake of helping others and giving hope where, as I learned, it can be so desperately needed.

Breastfeeding veterans, I encourage you – regardless of whether your nursing relationship was easy from the first latch or you shed blood, sweat, and tears for every swallow of milk your baby got – to be gentle with new mothers. They not only need support and good information, they need to know they are doing the best they can and that they are doing it well.

Supper at Our House

This is what supper time looks like at our house right now. If you've never had the pleasure of dining with a toddler who is learning to self-feed, enjoy! And, if you will have a toddler learning to feed himself in the near future, get a dog. I'm so serious; just ask the server at Olive Garden who wishes Georgia was a service dog, and thus able to patronize restaurants. Just feed him, you say? So he doesn't make a mess, you say? Sure thing, and then everyone is subjected to his screeching wails of offense at being fed. And then he fasts, because, well, if he can't do it, then no one can (enter grouchy, hungry baby).

Luke, belly full and ready for bed.

Me and my wonky eye, concealing a mouth full of food for a picture.

Ella with her dessert.

Dave, the only one without a full mouth.

The aftermath.

Thankfully, Luke only took a power nap so I didn't have to decide between putting him to bed covered in squash casserole or waking him while cleaning him up.

Kiddlet Tidbits

I’ve been collecting random kid quotes and happenings for a few weeks, but none of them were enough for an entire blog post, so I’ve decided to put them all together in one.


- One night, while Ella was dramatically wailing about getting out of the shower before she was ready, Luke came into the bathroom and laid his head on her leg and patted her to make her feel better. She, of course, didn’t “wike him to touch” her, but I told her to shut it because he was being sweet because she was crying. It does my heart good to see him showing concern and compassion. I know that by virtue of being female, Ella is biologically wired for those behaviors, but I didn’t know what to expect from Luke. My worry about that has been alleviated. He has the sweetest spirit. He loves on the baby dolls, the stuffed animals, Ella, and, have mercy, when Baby Jake cries, he just about can’t handle it. He has even cried with him, when he couldn’t reach to pat him or rock him in his carseat. (He does pat and rock a little too vigorously, but we are working on making his “soft touch” softer. The cats and dogs will thank us. And so will Jake.)

- In the middle of the night a few weeks ago, Luke saw Ella’s water cup beside her bed and he went nutty asking for “Ju-ju” (juice). I took him to the kitchen, poured a cup of juice and took him to my bed. He sat up, drank half of it, and then fell face first into the pillow with a belch. When I laughed, he kicked his feet in response and passed out without nursing. That was the first time he has accepted a cup in the middle of the night.

- Someone taught Ella to say “Roll Tide!” Now, she yells, “Roll Tide!” and throws a crimson colored football at us (which she picked out at Target because it’s Roll Tide-colored). She has a good arm, and sometimes she actually catches it when you throw it back to her. Luke likes to take a handoff and run with the ball so that she’ll chase him.

- September 13, 2011 is a day to be preserved in history because both of my children slept through the night. This was Luke’s first time ever, at 5 days shy of 13 months old. I still woke up at 3 am when Ella was talking in her sleep, but I didn’t have to get up. Luke woke up at 5:20 am, calling out “Mama? Mama?” (I was already awake). He nursed and went back to sleep for an hour. Except for the headache from the stiff neck because I barely moved all night long, it was a glorious night. I’ve probably jinxed myself for a year now, but I needed to share this with other sleep deprived mothers who need some hope.

- Over the weekend Ella asked me these questions: “Mama, when will I have a baby?” and “Will it be a girl?” and “Will you come to my baby shower?” I did tell her that she won’t have a baby until she’s grown, and only God knows if it will be a girl, but I will definitely be at the baby shower. Now she’s planning it.

- My favorite recent quote happened yesterday while we were jumping in the bounce house at a Jump Zone birthday party. She bounced over to me and said, “I love this!” She’s come a long way from last year’s disastrous Pumpkin Patch experience.

- After our latest discussion (yesterday) about which clothes are appropriate for church and which are not, she told me, “I’m going to be a gymnastics teacher when I grow up.” That’s right, so she can wear shorts and tank tops all the time.

- Finally, here’s a shot of Luke that looks remarkably similar to one of my baby pictures. This is just one of his latest feats. He also climbs into the middle of Ella’s little table and stands on it, and he stands on the ottoman and jumps, then scurries down and runs away before I can catch him to get him down.

Luke, helping with the laundry.

Operation Bigger House: The Tree Is Gone

We are distraught about it. Crazy, I know, considering this is a step in the direction of more space that we desperately need. We are having a hard time shaking the thought of, "Who are we to kill something that God created hundreds of years ago?" But, it's done and there's no undoing it now.

Giant stump


This is what's left of it. The stump is big enough that we could host a photo shoot of a family of five sitting on it.


Ella, standing on the stump.



For perspective, here's my preschooler standing on it. Bonus, you get to see how adorable she is in her leotard. We went straight to the backyard after gymnastics so I could take some pictures before it got completely dark.



Site of the addition, sans tree.



This is a  bad picture because I was struggling with my flash and the lighting, but you can see the stump where the tree used to be and the now wide-open space that will house our addition.


Site of the addition, from the tree stump.



This is a better picture, looking directly at the back of the house where the addtion will be built. I'm standing behind the tree stump.

We are supposed to meet with the contractor tonight to find out what happens next. He has told us that once the tree was removed, he'd bring in supplies and our project should take about 90 days once they break ground. I'm hoping he gets started quickly and that it will be finished by Christmas. I just have a feeling we'll need closure on this for the new year.

As for my spirited daughter and her resistance to change, so far she's doing okay. We had some almost-tears last night when we were talking about our new bedroom and she asked me, "Mommy, will I be able to come to your new bedroom?" I don't think she understands yet that it will be connected from the inside of the house,  and all she'll have to do is walk down the hall.

Operation Bigger House: Tree Removal Day 1

These are the pictures from the first day of the tree removal. Basically, they took the top out of half of the tree yesterday - the half that was hanging over the house. 

75% of the tree is still standing


Photography is not my calling, but with this picture I was trying to give an idea of how tall the tree is. I was standing pretty close to the base of it - well, as close as I could and still get the top in the picture. See where half has already been cut?

This next picture shows both the relation of the tree to the house and the site of our addition. The piece of the tree that was already cut actually hung over the roof of the house, filling most of the space you see from the chimney back toward the fence. It was huge.

You can kind of see where the base of the tree started as one and then grew apart as two, but it's mostly hidden behind the yellow chipping machine in this picture. I don't think Dave and I together could wrap our arms around the trunk at the bottom.

The addition will extend into the backyard, toward the tree, from the back of the house where you see the two windows at the end. Ironically, we will be building in the only area of our backyard that currently grows grass. Hopefully, with the massive tree gone, grass will start growing in other places, too.


Site of the addition

 I love our shady backyard, but it really could be a little less shady. That tree you see on the right side of the picture, right next to the swing set? It might be even bigger than the one we are currently having cut down. Lots of shade there = very little grass = plenty of dirt/mud. And leaves. We didn't even know we had grass back there the first year we lived here until Dave started raking that fall and we realized there must have been years worth of leaves on the ground, smothering the grass.

Just for fun, I included a picture of Georgia. It's been a long time since I posted a dog picture here, and she accompanied me on my trek through the backyard to take these pictures. Don't tell her, but it was really a plot to get her out of the house so Dave could play football with the kids without her big brown self right in the middle of it, knocking them down. She was happy to help.


Sweet Georgia Brown






The back of the house, from the fence.

I took this last picture for posterity. The view of the back of our house from the fence is what sealed the deal for me. I just fell in love with it then, and I know I took a picture of it a long time ago but I couldn't find it. Before we change it, I wanted to capture what it looks like today. It's a bit different now because there used to be a ramshackle little greenhouse building on the far right (where you can see the garbage cans). Dave tore it down with plans to rebuild it again one day, but we haven't gotten there yet. With two small children, adding another bedroom quickly became our top priority.

Now that we are officially started on this project, I am so excited about all the plans we have for our house. I just keep telling myself, "Patience, Grasshopper."

We Did Not Name Our Daughter Katie

While Katie was on the short list of names while I was pregnant, we went with Ella Grace. I feel the need to state this for the record because she has corrected me so many times that even I am beginning to think her name is Katie Grace.


She told me that she wants to change her name to Katie Grace. In fact, at times, she just won’t answer to Ella at all.

Why? The best I can tell, there are two reasons.

1. Her favorite gymnastics coach is named Katie.
2. Her college-age cousin that she adores is named Katie.

I guess we’ll play along with this game for a while, but despite her most logical arguments, I will not concede to legally changing her name. I suppose, if she keeps this up for another 16 years, that I can’t stop her from changing it herself one day, but I’m hoping she decides to like the name we gave her.

In other news, Operation Bigger House is officially underway. The giant, centuries-old, oak tree in our backy-ard (that’s how Katie Ella Grace pronounces it) is coming down as I type. It will take a couple of days to get the whole thing down. That’s how big it is. We are sort of sad about it. Dave even had to go out there and tell it goodbye this morning. I guess we have a love-hate relationship with that thing. On the one hand, it’s massive, very close to the kids’ bedroom, and frequently drops limbs on the house and fence (though none big enough to cause significant damage yet). It’s also smack in the middle of our future master suite. On the other hand, it’s huge. It’s obviously been there for a very long time and it just feels wrong on some level to remove it for our own convenience. BUT, I just keep reminding myself of my unreasonable fear that it will fall on my sleeping children in the middle of a storm one night, and I don’t feel so sad about it. Plus, we are building a much needed addition in that space. Much needed. Did I mention that we need another bedroom in our house?

I plan to document this operation in pictures, so look for some in the near future. I guess I’ll start with the tree removal, but I didn’t take one this morning because the guys were already in it, cutting it, and I’m careful about posting pictures of people who might not appreciate having their picture on the internet.

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Every night after bath, my house turns into the set of a music video with Dave as the featured artist singing Who Let The Dogs Out?

To say that the kids (and the dog) love it is a gross understatement.

We have a large, stuffed dog – an artifact from Dave’s childhood – that is big enough for Luke to sit on, and Dave makes it sing, bark and generally create chaos. It usually sits on the shelf above the toy box, and it wears an ugly, blue baseball cap that Dave won for Ella out of the machine at Huddle House.

When Luke gets out of the tub (he’s almost always the first one out because he doesn’t like the “kids sit in the tub” rule), I wrestle him into a diaper and then he goes straight to the toy box. He stands there, looking at that dog, dancing his white-boy dance (stiff upper body, bouncing at the knees, arms by his side, you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout), and singing, “Who-who!” I get the dog down, and put the hat on Luke’s head. He likes to wear it sideways (see white-boy reference above).

Dave bursts into the room singing, “Who let them dogs out?” with Georgia at his heels, and it’s a full-blown party with loud singing, dancing, dog jumping, baby squealing, wrestling, and what have you. Sometimes it sounds fun enough to roust Ella out of her tub-languishing, sometimes she just ignores them, but when she joins in, the chaos gets ratcheted up another notch. Occasionally there’s bed jumping, but that usually means a quick end to the party so it doesn’t happen often.

Where am I while all of this happens? Far away, lest I trample all over the fun with silly notions of quietly winding down before bed.

And then, somehow, it all comes to an end, hopefully without any crying, and we settle in to read books. Half the time Davey-Dave is so worn out from letting the dogs out that he falls asleep in the middle of the book he’s reading. The kids take a little longer, but I’ve come to appreciate this evening ritual as a last blast of energy-burning fun, so I guess we’ll keep it up as long as Luke keeps saying, “Who-who!”

This, too, shall pass… This, too, shall pass

Today marks day 4 of Ella’s execution of Operation Sleep Deprivation, Fall 2011 Edition. Seriously, is she observing the 1 year anniversary of her brother’s newborn weeks for us?


If you have a sleepless infant, stop reading now. Seriously. This isn’t going to be encouraging for you.

She’s 3. Except for a few brief weeks when she was 3 months old, she has been a notoriously horrible sleeper. She was 2 before she started sleeping through the night at all. She was 3 before she was doing it with any sort of consistency, and by “consistency” I mean a few nights a week – not all of them.

You know what is consistent? A few things.

• Sunday nights. She is going to wake up at least twice on Sunday night. Is it because the weekend has a different routine than the weekdays? Is it because she’s had 2 days with me and she knows we go back to Grandmother’s/work on Monday? Probably both things.
• Exhaustion. The more tired she is, the worse she sleeps. It takes longer to get her to sleep and she wakes up over and over, usually with nightmares about things in her bed. It is very hard to break this cycle, and it leads to whining (which feels like it sucks the life force right out of me every time I hear that grating voice).
• Milestones. Her milestones, seen and unseen, have always been a source of nightwaking and now it seems that Luke’s milestones are also a source of nightwaking – for her. I can mark on the calendar when she’s going to have a rough couple of weeks of sleep – December and June, her birthday and half-birthday months. Sometimes, we even get some quarterly disturbance in March and October, though, blessedly, these phases have lessened as she’s gotten older.
• Change. Vacation, the start of school, new sibling, new cousin, rearranging of furniture – all of these things disrupt her sleep. When we rearranged her bedroom to fit more furniture in there for Luke, her sleep was disturbed for a week.
• Illness. This one is obvious and expected, but still, consistent.

Why am I writing this? I don’t know.

  

Maybe because I’m completely frustrated in my exhausted state because it’s been so much better lately and now we are back to a pattern that resembles that awful period when she was a teething, six-month-old and I swore I would never bring another baby into this world. It’s even harder on me when the disruption happens after a long period of magical, good sleep. It’s a hard expectation to reset, that one about getting 2 consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep at a time.

  

Maybe because despite what everyone would have you believe about their perfect little babies sleeping through the night from day one, I know that’s not true for most people and I want you to know that you aren’t alone if you have a bad sleeper.

  

I’m telling myself again, “This, too, shall pass, this, too, shall pass.” It’s my mantra in times like this, times when I understand why sleep deprivation is a method of torture for prisoners of war. In a day or two, it will start to improve and we’ll get back on track for a while. Maybe I’ll figure out what caused this most recent disruption, you know, if she starts solving algebraic equations with her M&Ms at supper or something.

 

So, parents of non-sleepers, know that you aren’t alone and it will get better. Eventually.

My Sister is a Rock Star

This is Jake’s birth story, told from my perspective.

August 14, 2011 at 9:42 pm
6 lbs. 14 oz.
18 inches

Thursday, August 11, 2011
Rebecca called after her weekly appointment to tell me that she was dilated approximately 4 cm and her doctor didn’t think she would make it another week.

Friday, August 12, 2011
We emailed all day and she was having contractions 20 minutes apart.

Saturday, August 13, 2011
I called her at 10 am to check in because we were headed to a birthday party and I didn’t know if I’d be in cell phone range. She told me she wasn’t having any contractions, but she was cutting the bushes in her front yard. (And I thought, “Uh-hmmm, she’s having that baby this weekend.”)

At 9:30-ish that night, she texted to say that she’d been having contractions 8 minutes apart for a while. She didn’t want me to come because they weren’t painful and she wasn’t sure if it was real labor. We decided we would head to bed to get some rest, just in case it was a long night. I packed a bag for myself and readied some things for the kids in case I needed to leave them overnight. As it turns out, it was a rough night, but it wasn’t because of Jake. On top of me not being able to go to sleep because my mind was racing, Ella and Luke both woke up multiple times that night.

Sunday, August 14, 2011
I called her before church to check in and she said she was going to time the contractions for an hour and get back to me. I got a text from her as we arrived at church saying they were 6-7 minutes apart and still pretty much painless. Again, she told me not to come yet. They were going to breakfast, and she’d check in when they got back.

At the end of church, I got a text saying the contractions had stopped once she showered and was up, moving around. We texted back and forth during the day about things she could do to try to start them back up, and then I took a big fat nap with Luke while Ella played at Grandmother’s house.

We went to my dad’s house for his birthday supper (because August 14 is his birthday). Rebecca got up to use the bathroom before she fixed her plate, but she came walking back into the room with a funny look on her face and said, “I think my water just broke. I felt the pop.” Then she walked all the way to the other side of the kitchen and stood there. (She later told me that she was trying not to drip on the hardwoods.) I brought her a towel and she headed to the bathroom. She changed pants and confirmed that the water was clear. It was about 6:15 pm.

In the middle of that happening, Ella was getting very concerned about all the activity, so I explained to her that while babies are growing in their mommies tummies there is a bag of water that they swim in, and that when it’s time for them to be born, that bag breaks and the water comes out, and that is what happened to Aunt Becca. It was time for Jake to be born.

Much to my family’s consternation, Rebecca decided to sit down and eat before she headed to the hospital. The contractions started then, and she timed them. They started at 4 – 5 minutes apart but were very quickly 1-2 minutes apart. Jan packed her cheesecake to-go, and then hurried them out the door. They had to go to their house first to get their things.

I finished my supper, ran home and packed bags for the kids. In anticipation of me being at the hospital all night, they were going to spend the night with Grandmother so that Dave wouldn’t have to wake them up even earlier than normal to take them there the next morning. Then I headed to the hospital.

We all (Nathan and Rebecca, me, and our friend, Kendall) arrived there at 7:30 pm.

Rebecca was changing into a gown and waiting on the nurse when I found her. She told me the ride there was excruciating, and “This is hard. It hurts!” I said that I absolutely believed her. They made her lay in the bed for half an hour to monitor the baby and answer all the questions between contractions. This was also excruciating for her. I could tell, because she was arching her back and curling her toes. The contractions were one on top of another at this point, so she was barely getting a break. The nurses struggled to get an IV line in between them.

When the nurse checked her, which took forever, she said she felt like she was at 6 cm but she had a hard time finding her cervix because the baby’s head was so low. This information made me stop and think, “Hmmmm. I bet she won’t be 6 for long once she gets upright.” Rebecca was a little disappointed that she was only at 6.

Finally, they took her off the monitors and she went to the bathroom while someone hunted down an exercise ball for her to sit on. When she came out, she sat on that ball and groaned, saying, “This thing is heaven.” She sat on that ball and held our hands and breathed in and out, slow and easy for the duration.

The lights were low, her Chinese restaurant music was tinkling in the background, and we were whispering if we talked at all. We just sat there in the quiet, breathing with her. I’m not sure how long we sat like that because I lost track of the time (and the clock in the room showed military time – which I am horrendously bad at translating to real time). I think it couldn’t have been more than about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. At one point, she did say that she was afraid to push and she just didn’t know how he was going to come out; she also started shaking. I think those were classic signs that she was in transition, but otherwise, she appeared very calm and quiet.

Eventually, the on-call doctor came in and checked her. She was complete (10 cm). She didn’t feel pushy and wanted to get back on the ball, so that’s what she did. The doctor left and we commenced sitting with her while she breathed. If she was getting any break between the contractions, I couldn’t tell because she never lifted her head or said anything. The only indication that she was having contractions was the squeezing of our hands and the very controlled breathing.

Then, less than ten minutes later, she suddenly launched herself onto the bed and said she needed to push. I doubt I’ll ever see a 9 1/2-months-pregnant woman move that fast again. She started pushing on hands and knees, but turned around to sit at the end of the bed after a few pushes. They broke the bed down so that she was pretty much sitting in a squat, and that’s how she pushed him out. She did try to lie back to rest a couple of times, but it hurt too much. The pushing contractions spaced out a bit, as I’ve read that they do, and during those breaks she looked as if she was sleeping. Maybe she was. I’ve heard that women do that. Even during pushing, she was very quiet. The doctor commented that she couldn’t even tell when she was contracting because she was so quiet. We did remind her to catch her breath and slow her breathing during contractions, but really, she just looked like she’d done this a few times before. It was amazing.

Jake was born at 9:42 pm. Two hours and 12 minutes after we got to the hospital. I think she pushed for about 40 minutes. It might have gone even faster than that, but he “threw [her] and elbow,” as she put it, on the way out. He came out with his head cocked to the side, like he was trying to bring his shoulder out with it. Once he was on her belly, she said, “I can’t believe I just pushed that out.” (I stupidly remarked that he was tiny. Note – that’s the wrong thing to say to a woman who has just pushed a baby out of her body. Just sayin’.)

She had a couple of abrasions, but she didn’t tear. The doctor was wonderful – she just sat back and let her do what she needed to do.

Jake swallowed a belly full of fluid, so he required a little extra work, but he pinked-up quick and he went with her to the postpartum room.

She said it was the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life. Now she’s considering running a marathon (she’s done a half) because if she can push out a baby, she can do anything. And by the way, Nathan was amazing, too. He stayed calm and composed, putting cold rags on her, holding her hand, and doing whatever she needed.

I’m so proud of her.

Reconciliation: When You Break the Rules

I posted the other day about our rules for fighting, and then I went home that night and broke rule number 1: Be respectful.

It was bedtime. I could hardly hold my eyes open. Dave had already retired to the couch and crashed, after giving up in the middle of a reading of The Berenstein Bears Go Out to Eat. Ella was still flopping all over the bed. I tried all my usual tricks of getting her to calm down and be still, but she was persistent. I even tried just going to sleep while she wiggled, but she has an annoying habit of waiting just long enough for me to doze off and then asking for water, needing to potty, covering my mouth and nose with her hand so that I snort awake dramatically. You get the idea.

I finally lost it and snapped at her. I can’t tell you my words; I just know the tone was U.G.L.Y. What was even uglier was her reaction. She hunkered down into her pillow with her blanket up to her ears and whimpered.

Now, while quiet, still, and calm was the end I was going for, neither of us liked the means to get there.

I laid there for a few minutes, enjoying the peace, and feeling like the speck on top of chicken poo. I could feel her feeling like that, too, and I knew I had to fix it.

I leaned over and whispered, “I’m sorry I talked to you in my rough voice. I love you.”

She said, “Mommy, next time, at bed time, can you just use your regular voice?”

And, so here I am again, in this place where I publicly wander through parenthood, trying not to screw up my children, with the reminder that even when you break the rules, you can still make it right.

Conflict doesn’t have to be THE END of a relationship; it’s a crossroads where decisions are made and growth happens. Sometimes it sucks deep and wide to admit your shortcomings and apologize for something you did or said (or didn’t do or say), but it’s the next step, the thing you have to do to move forward.

And, you know what else? Following those rules takes practice. Lots of it, especially with those who really know how to push all the right buttons and raise your blood pressure – you know, the people you love most. But they are the most important ones, see? Love for someone isn’t a free pass for behaving like a donkey’s behind and then pretending like it never happened. Just because that person will probably forgive you in their next breath, doesn’t mean you don’t owe them some follow through - an acknowledgement of your bad behavior and an apology.

So, despite the fact that – no, because she’s an adult-in-training, I apologized for my bad behavior. She needs to see me mess up, and she needs to see me make it right. How else will she learn?