Mommyhood

It's a baby boom again. Lots of friends having first babies and several having second or even third babies.

I shall not lie, I am glad I am not a first time mom anymore. Things have been so much easier with Baby Q than they ever were with Blueberry. Part of it, I think, was due to the birth experience itself and the lack of stress I felt post-labor. Part of it, though, is definitely the comfort of knowing what I'm doing, what's going on, and even who I am as a mom.

So many questions the first time around. Cloth diapers--yes or no? Co-sleep? How about bottles? Pacifiers? Baby food--make my own? Or stumbling onto the concept of baby-led feeding. How to nurse. How to take care of  plugged ducts. Baby is sick--time to panic or not?

Knowing what I believe, how I prefer to raise my kids, what works for our family. All of these things are so much simpler now. I'm a much more relaxed mom of newborn this time around.

So happy new mommy-hood my dear friends. It does get easier.

In some ways..... :)

The Problems of Being a "Foster" Mom

I'm sort of a foster mom, and sort of not. Either way, a lot of the training we receive around here is the same as foster parents receive. We are currently studying something called The Connected Child. The primary author is a woman called Karyn Purvis. This isn't the first training I've received based on her work, and frankly, she is fantastic. If you are or know someone with an adopted or foster child, this is a great practical, scientific, Christian resource: The Institute of Child Development.

Any ways, I digress from my point. The problem with being in a position like this is that your parenting is constantly on show. To a large degree, the success of the children in our care is based on our success. Take your normal mom fears about whether or not you're doing a good job raising your children, etc, and blow it up. Add in there the fact that not only is your spouse and probably friends and family are watching how you parent, but your boss and co-workers are as well!

Reading through this current resource, I've been both encouraged as a parent and discouraged.

Discouraged because I see some of the things I should be doing and don't always take the time to do or naturally turn towards doing. However, a lot of these things are just ideas that I can practice putting into place. Habits to form, per say.

The encouragement side is the research on the stages of development and how appropriate early connections make such a difference. I find it fascinating how science has proven that not only can obvious things like early neglect, hunger, drugs, alcohol, or abuse affect the development of children, but the very stress levels of a pregnant mother can have a huge impact on the future neurological development of an unborn child. The cortisol levels of a newborn can be measured as much higher than normal when the mother's stress levels have been high prior to birth.

Makes you wonder if this might be the unstated connection to colic in babies, since doctors can't seem to find a reason for it in many cases? Just a random thought of mine.

How is this all encouraging? Because as I type this (well, at this point--not when I started), I sit with a healthy, generally happy little 2-month old boy in my lap. He just spoke to me for a good ten minutes about the state of life--demanding and receiving my full attention to his punch lines and observations. I have a two year old little girl, happily munching on chips and avocado, who is secure in knowing that if she needs a cuddle, all she needs to do is ask and she shall receive. She also knows boundaries and manners and other important, interpersonal skills.

My home may not be in perfect shape (definitely needs a good sweep--dog hairs), but the two children who I have been blessed to grow within me and raise from the very beginning, are doing okay. So therefore, I can't be doing that bad as a parent. I hope.

Now to translate that into my other current five daughters who definitely all have some of those poor beginnings that now make life so difficult for them.

Baby Q at Last

Five days ago, February 8, 2013, I exchanged 10 days of prodromal labor and its never-ending contractions with 6 hours of full-blown labor and one handsome little man. More to share on his story but for now, we are all well, healthy, recovering, and busy baby-gazing.

We're Moved and Related News

I'm sitting in bed resting my poor, exhausted feet and legs, looking at a very box-y, just moved in looking bedroom. Pandora is playing soothing tunes, and Blueberry is (thankfully) snoozing blissfully in her room.

The last few days have been exhausting, stressful, crazy, glorious, and insane all rolled into one.

Saturday: We did the amazing and moved our entire house into the U-Haul in 3 hours. Can I say a HUGE thank you to the 14 wonderful people who came and helped us load the truck. Particularly my brother who saved me from having a nervous break-down when Chris came to me early on to inform me that he didn't think we could fit everything into the U-Haul. I probably could have done the Tetris game myself and made it all fit, but my job was supposed to be inside directing action from the inside (and playing hide from Blueberry who would freak out and want me whenever she saw me, but then was ok as long as she couldn't see me). And my version of the game probably would have involved a few moments of tears in frustration! The end results of the truck was an impressive packing job.

The rest of the day we finished packing up the car boxes/bags, checked into our hotel (we decided a good nights sleep was invaluable), having a few laps in their pool to sooth our aching muscles, and had dinner at my brother's house. The Last Supper as it's commonly called in my family (given the number of "Last Suppers" we've had in our lives, one would think we should really come up with a new name).

Sunday morning started bright and early as we met my sister and brother-in-law at our house, worked hard at fitting the final boxes and bags into the two cars (wound up not quite fitting everything--discovered later that we didn't pack any jasmine rice; I think I might die if we can't buy it in town--and also couldn't fit my indoor plants. Hoping they can come at a later trip), and by 9am we set off.

My sister and I and Blueberry drove on ahead of the U-Haul (Chris driving with Calista in the front seat--apparently she did pretty good the whole trip other than sitting up at the most inopportune moments and blocking his line of sight) and the second car (driven by my new brother-in-law). 5 hours later, we pulled into the driveway of my new home. I knocked on the front door, was greeted by the temporary house parent, handed keys, met our 4 current girls (2 age 9, 1 age 10, and 1 age 11), glanced around our new apartments, and started unloading the car. Moments later the second car and U-Haul pulled in, and the big move started. The teen girls house and then later the teen boys house came to help us unload. We were completely unloaded within 2 hours.

I will fully admit to having one breakdown in the middle of the unloading. To much helpful advice regarding the unloading process coming to late to be of any use and truthfully just being frustrating. But the intentions were good. I was just to stressed (and sweaty and gross) to handle much of anything gracefully by that point!

Later that evening we made a short escape to Heather and Brian's house which they've barely got set up themselves. Food made a world of difference to my mood, and getting a chance to talk about what we're going to be doing, the schedule for the next few weeks, all such important things was helpful.

As their cottage (normally elementary boys) has only one resident, he has temporarily moved to a slightly older boy's home, and our girls have moved to them for the week while we train and settle. Which, while I'm anxious to get to know the girls better and get started, is a huge blessing as having the house to ourselves is nice for now. Plus knowing Heather and Brian as well as we do (Heather's just happens to be one of my best friends!), talking about how to handle the girls, coordinating elementary children schedules (our relief parents alternate between our two houses), rules, and other such concepts will be easier as we're not doing the whole "we're complete strangers having to learn to work closely together in a very quick amount of time" dance.

Last night we got Blueberry's crib set up, our bed, and unpacked cold food. Not much but enough.

Today involved a lot of meeting people. Basically we're learning what goes on around here and all the different house parents and personnel who work on campus and how it all comes together. Had my first adventures in the dining hall. The chef was very nice and quick to accommodate; although, I will probably still wind up doing a lot of my own cook just to simplify matters (and to low risk factors further).

At the same time, we're trying to get settled into our new home. I've barely even looked into the main cottage; although, there is work that will need to be done on that too. For now, just trying to get out of our boxes as quickly as possible. Blueberry's room is unpacked. Not decorated, but the boxes of extra toys/decorations/pictures are in the closet and everything else is functional. I felt it important to give her some normalcy as quickly as possible. The kitchen I can move around in. Stuff is getting into cupboards. Probably not in permanent spots, but at least out of boxes and in somewhere. Our room I shoved a lot of furniture and boxes around this evening (Chris was out training, but one of us had to stay home with Blueberry, so I worked on unpacking), so here too there is at least space to work in.

I'll post pictures when I can find our camera (heh heh) and actually get around to taking some. In the meantime, we're settling slowly. Excited and nervous. I'll feel much better when our stuff is arranged and I feel "home".

The rest of this week is lots of meetings with other people, "shadowing" other house parents, and unpacking. Then starting Monday the girls are ours. One week after we start with them, they all go back to school which is nice as we'll get straight into school routine right off the bat.

OK, much more to share, but I've rambled on long enough for one evening. And as Chris just got back in, I want to catch up with him and then crash. Hard.

Three Simple Rules

Sleep has been a topic of much thought for me for the last six months. Not to go into great detail, let's just say it's been challenging to say the least. After a lot of reading and studying and experimenting, Blueberry suddenly began to respond really well at night and now goes to sleep beautifully in the evening for 12 hours (give or take an hour or so for feedings).

Naps have been a different story. Just as night time sleep became great, her day time sleep (which had improved over the first few months of her life) became less. And frankly, in the last few weeks, it's become exhausting again. 30 minutes (if I'm lucky) was the norm even though I knew she was tired.

The two fold problems with sleep difficulties in Blueberry is that it (a) leaves me tired and makes me less of a mother because patience goes out the window eventually! and (b) Blueberry doesn't function as well. And when you consider how hard babies bodies and brains have to work, that's not a good thing. When I consider how I feel as an adult on short sleep, it can't be any easier on babies, and probably even less so just because of how much they are constantly learning and growing. Thus why I have taken this topic really seriously and have done my best to get a solution.

As I said earlier, I've done a lot of research on this whole topic, and if I had to pick out three rules that have really revolutionized my understanding of how to help her sleep, they would be as follows.

1. Babies have a short wake time. I never realized this until I started reading about sleep. Apparently babies can't stay awake more than two hours maximum for quite a long time (i.e. get them in bed for a nap before the two hours are up). And, frankly, many babies will take quite awhile (think months) before they hit even that two hour wake-time capacity.

2. If you don't get them down for their nap within the right time, they get their second wind and consequently will be up for way later than they should be (or will really fight being put down for a nap), and will probably nap less. In other words--sleep begets sleep. Staying up longer does not mean they will sleep better. In fact, her night time sleep began to improve the most when we started putting her down to bed between 6 and 6:30.

3. Waking up crying (at least for Blueberry) means she hasn't slept enough. Let her cry for 5 minutes or so, and a lot of times (if the first two rules have been met) she'll go back to sleep and wake up happy. I don't like letting my baby cry. I really struggle with this, but this is a struggle I have realized that I needed to deal with (sensibly of course--there's always a level of commonsense that really needs to be applied to parenting!) because sometimes a few minutes of crying won't her and actually can help in the long run.

Now, the dumb thing is that I somehow have disregarded these rules these last few weeks. I guess we thought from some other signs that her daytime wake hours had increased to the two hour mark. Or maybe it was wishful thinking because I wanted to be able to do more/be out longer during the day. I don't know. Either way, yesterday, I decided enough was enough, and in an attempt to fix this no-nap issues, I put her back to bed after only being up for an hour (and then later in the day, after an hour and a half).

End result? Yesterday she took three one-hour naps (an improvement from what we were doing before--and for each nap she went down and was asleep with little or no fuss within 5 minutes). Today, she just woke up from a beautiful two hour nap having taken a solid hour and 20 minute nap this morning. Nope, she's not ill. She's smiling at me right now (I just went and got her) and is ready to go for awhile.

Why couldn't I just remember to follow the rules that I knew? Oh yeah, sleep deprivation! Someone remind me of this post the next time I get tired and frustrated over naps, please?!

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 14)

#1 - Oh my, this is the first "Quick Takes" I've done since the one I posted in August the day I went into labor. And now my sweet Blueberry is 24" long, 11lb 8 oz (I know, I know--skinny little monkey she is), and has turned 4 months old! What happened?!

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#2 - My darling husband sent me this picture about a month after Blueberry was born, and I've hung on to it as a reminder of how much I'm NOT screwing up my child--even when I feel like I surely must be!

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#3 - Been busy working on Christmas presents this week. I think we're almost all done. Now just waiting for some of them to arrive and then to wrap and get them to those they belong. Chris is nice and easy this year as he just wants music. My Christmas present (and birthday present and Christmas present for next year!) is going to take a bit of planning on my part, but I'm very excited about it. I told Chris that all I wanted was to go to see Hillery who went and abandoned me nearly a year ago now (guilt trip much?!). The other half of my present, as gifted by my husband, is that I'm under orders to take a decently sized trip. No fly-by, weekend visit. Tough on him as he'll have to stay home and work and take care of himself. Now to find dates and get a ticket! This kind of thing is truly my favorite kind of gift in the world.

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#4 - Ugly Tree was last Saturday. And I finally won with a hideous hippo! I'm delighted by this fact as I've come in second for multiple years in a row now. Few new people joined us this year, and a good time was had by all. Blueberry did her usual "There are people around, I can't possibly sleep" act. But as she's generally pretty angelic while doing so, it worked out okay.

(photos courtesy of Aaron Jones)

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#5 - I really need to get a picture of the pose I'm currently in. It's becoming a common one for me lately. I'm sitting at our big desk. My feet are propped up on the desk. I'm supporting the keyboard with my knee. And my arms are propped up by a pillow on one side and Blueberry on the other as she is draped over me, munching away. Actually, I take it back. She's asleep now. What am I going to do when she gets bigger?!

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#6 - I'm feeling very accomplished this morning. It's just now 9am, and I've gotten up, dressed, dressed Blueberry, made my husband lunch, made the bed, put in a load of laundry, washed out diapers, cleaned up the kitchen, got a load of diapers out of the dryer (still need to folded), had breakfast (cooked and everything!), and have checked my email, and am now writing a blog. Go me! Now the questions remain: will the clothes in the wash get put into the dryer and then folded later, the dishes that got put into the dishwasher to be run--will they get put away, will I get around to answering a couple of the emails that were sitting in my inbox, and will I actually manage to finish this post in time to get it up today? And let's not discuss what I've been thinking of as The Jumble:

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#7 - Probably due to the many conversations and thoughts on sleep that I've had lately, the quote that keeps running through my brain is Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. Actually, it's not the whole speech, but just the one line: "...to sleep, To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub..." Of course suicide is the farthest thought from my brain currently, so I can't really go to far with the rest of the speech. But that one line keeps drifting through my consciousness. So I release it here. It's like the song that you have stuck in your head. Sometimes (at least I find this to be true), you just have to listen to the song to make it go away. Maybe just saying the line will make it dissipate? We'll see if my theory works.

In the meantime, I have a wiggle-worm playing peek-a-boo on my lap as she's waking up from her little snooze. Not quite awake enough to keep her head up to look at me, but she keeps trying.

Till next time, I leave you with this additional Hamlet thought.

"This is the very ecstasy of love"

Forgiveness

It has taken me 24 years, but I would like to go on public record with this statement.

Mum, I forgive you for the mud picture.

For those of you who are confused, I will explain.

Allow me to set the scene: A dirt/gravel soi (small road) in Northeast Thailand. Sweltering afternoon sun with a hint of the rainstorm soon to come, for it is the middle of monsoon season. A little, blond, farang (white) girl of 5 years rides her bike to the neighbors house--a trek she takes on a regular basis. All of the sudden she falls off said bike and lands face-first in a huge mud puddle (obligingly left there by one of the more recent storms). She gets up. Is covered from head to foot in mud. Shaken, crying, and a mess, she trudges back to her home, bawling, desperate for the help of her ever-loving mother.

And what does said mother do? She laughs and takes a picture before helping her pathetic 5 year, mud-coated daughter.

And said daughter holds this incident against her mother for the next 24 years. Very useful weapon in giving mum a hard time.

Sadly, upon entering parenthood, I find myself in a terrible dilemma. Either I must give up my diabolical, parenting ways or forgive my mother for laughing (ok, ok, I'll admit it was funny) at my tragedy.

What ways am I referring to? Well, in all honesty, I just have to laugh sometimes when my darling daughter is crying or otherwise frustrated with the world. Her facial expressions when she's pouting or frustrated can be hysterical. Am I a terrible parent for finding some of the funniest things about Blueberry to be when she is not happy? For example:

1. The pouty face she makes when she feels she's not having her needs met fast enough. Comes just prior to the all-out wail. The pathetic tremble of the turned, down lower-lip--priceless.

2. The way she beats on me when her food is not cooperating as she would like. I guess trying to beat me into submission?

3. When she smacks herself in the face while beating on me because she really hasn't quite made the connection that her hands belong to her and are completely in her control. And the look of surprise on her face that goes along with the sudden blow.

These and other such moments, all little things, yet rather funny in their own way. Is this some genetic problem that I've inherited from my otherwise wonderful mother or do all parents have this slightly evil side to them?

Either way, for the sake of not being hypocritical, I find myself in a place in which I have to confess forgiveness for my mother. So here is my confession.