Mandajuice

Ever is three months old!

Ever turned three months old yesterday! I’m really enjoying this baby, you guys. So much. I think it’s easier to enjoy her because she’s not my first baby, so I’m not questioning every thing I do, and she’s not my second baby, so I’m not also chasing around a toddler. The big kids are self-sufficient (to a fault even), so I just get to enjoy her. This goes without saying, but I’m so glad we have her. It was a split decision for me that could’ve gone either way and I’m just so glad this was the way it went. She’s such a delight. 

 

That said, her sleep schedule continues to be a challenge. Sure, she’ll sleep eight hours, but it doesn’t usually begin until after 2am. She’s much fussier for Sean than she is for me, especially late at night. Last night she wouldn’t settle down so he brought her upstairs to nurse around 2:45. The second I pulled out my boob, she was happy. Mind you, she wasn’t hungry at all and I had to push her to nurse, but she was content just to sit there making goo goo eyes at me while telling me all about her day. It was really sweet and Sean and I both enjoyed the moment, but she didn’t end up falling asleep for the night until after 4:00. Im guessing she’ll sleep till noon. We have no idea how to go about getting her to sleep earlier.

 

She’s also still contact napping, meaning we can’t put her down while she naps or she immediately wakes up. If we hold her she’ll sleep more than an hour. If we put her down, it’s ten minutes at the most. This makes it really difficult to get anything done. Our house is a DISASTER. The Christmas tree is still up and I don’t think I’ll get the chance to even think about cleaning until my parents get here on Saturday. They’ll be happy to hold the baby while she sleeps, I’m sure. 

 

The biggest difference between this baby and the older two is that we know a lot more about safe sleep now, the science on SIDS has evolved. Ever is only allowed to sleep in two places: our arms while we’re awake, or alone (no blankets or toys) on her back, in one of her pack n plays (crib) (A B C). We have not once wavered from our commitment to safe sleep, which means no sleeping in the Boppy, the swing, the bouncy seat, the car seat or even the stroller. They all have the increased risk of positional asphyxiation, which TERRIFIES me. I’d rather lose sleep. It just makes it that much more of a challenge getting her to nap. So we just end up holding her and having a messy house. It’s worth it for the peace of mind. 

 

Robbed!

Alex had four friends over last night and when I woke up, $300 cash had been stolen from my purse. 

I am FUMING. I’m so good to these kids, you guys. So good. I’m the cool mom. The one who will always say yes if you need a place to stay. The one who looks the other way. The one who stocks your favorite snacks. The one who buys your girlfriend the morning after pill. The one who CARES. Without judgment. 

 

I feel so butthurt and betrayed. So violated. I’m pretty sure it happened right behind my back, literally. I was up with the baby sitting in The Chair Where Time Doesn’t Exist until about 1:45am. Then I took her upstairs, nursed her briefly, and put her to bed. THEN I remembered leaving my purse downstairs and went to retrieve it because the key to the liquor cabinet is in there and I know they sneak my booze if I don’t take it with me upstairs to our bedroom. So it either happened while I was sitting there with the baby or it happened during that first fifteen minutes before I retrieved my purse from the kitchen counter. 

 

Either way I am NEVER leaving my purse downstairs again. 

 

And I’m SO MAD. My stomach hurts. Whoever did it was calculating enough to take just the 20’s and 100’s from my purse and leave the smaller bills. 

 

The worst part is figuring out the suspects. The three boys who were here have literally spent the night at my house dozens of times with zero incident. But one of the boys brought a new girlfriend over for the first time and nobody bothered introducing her to me. She never even made eye contact with me the whole night. It’s easy to assume it was her, but she swears she’s innocent. 

 

I just don’t know. And I guess I never will. I’m trying hard to find grace and just let it go, but I was hoarding my tips for WEEKS because I knew we’d need them for groceries this month. It’s sucks. I hate feeling this way. And it’s gonna be a loooong time before I allow the kids to have people over again, which is exactly the opposite of the way I want to run our household. 

 

Fucking teenagers.

Slow season

Things are always slow at work this time of year and I’ve been treating the frequent and lengthy breaks as my  extended maternity leave. I used to freak out about the money part too much to enjoy the time off, but now I just save more during the summer when I’m slammed and it all works out. The best part has been having the time home with Sean. Working opposite schedules doesn’t give us any time off together so sneaking it in during the week has been great. We keep trying to make out while the baby sleeps and she keeps thwarting us at every turn. She’s gonna have excellent comedic timing! (And zero chance of an Irish twin). I had no idea having a baby would be so romantic, but it really is, even with the sleep deprivation. 

 

Speaking of, Ever seems to be fine all day right up until I try to sleep while her daddy stays up with her, then all hell breaks loose and she won’t stop screaming. It might be a boob thing, I have them and he doesn’t, but she has no problems taking a bottle from either of us during the day. Last night she was up until 3:30am, at which point I was finally able to nurse her back to sleep for the night. Then she slept till 11:00, which would be great for me except the part where I have to get up for work. I’m tired today and tonight I’m the one staying up with her so Sean can get up at 2:30am for work. I don’t know how he does it. 

 

I still feel unfathomably guilty whenever he stays up with her. I keep trying to fight the feeling because he’s keen to point out that she’s 50% his responsibility, but still. I’m just SO not used to it. I did everything for my big kids like it was still 1952, not 2003. Last night when we took baby to Target together, HE wore her in the Baby Bjorn, not me. (Which was totally a date for us, buying snacks and vitamins, woo!) I’m really loving all the help I’m getting, it’s helping me enjoy the newborn phase infinitely more, but I’m still not used to it.

Friday Nights

Compared to the last time I did this, I now have patience for years and can sit and happily hold Miss Ever for hours while she sleeps. But that also means I’m on my second season of Love Island, which has 50 episodes per season. FIFTY. That’s enough television that my butt has made a permanent dent in our rocking chair and it feels like I haven’t left my living room or seen my friends in years. I’m just stuck in this newborn time warp where you count the minutes waiting for your baby to fall asleep, but at the same time, she’s growing so fast time feels like it’s skipping. 

 

As I’m writing this it’s Friday night and I’m alone watching The Bachelor while playing with the baby on my lap in the rocking chair where time doesn’t exist. I’ve eaten my body weight in frosted oatmeal cookies. Genoa and Sean are asleep and Alex is playing video games with his buddy Andrew in the living room because I won’t let him have his computer in his room until he does better in school. My sweet, brilliant boy is straight-up flunking his sophomore year, just like he did his freshman year. This is why he isn’t allowed to drive yet. High school is not agreeing with him, sadly. School, in fact, does not agree with him and he has no plans to go to college, which is fine by me. In spite of his defeats, I’m confident Alex will do well in life when he figures out what HE wants to do. Until then, it’s kind of a crap shoot. I’m standing back as much as I can and letting him figure it out for himself because that’s the only way my own learning has ever stuck - the hard way. 

 

Genoa is far more guilt-motivated than her brother and thus, far more successful in school. (I’m not saying I make her feel guilty, she does that to herself.) She actually has plans to go to college and I fully support that pursuit for her. She also recently told me she doesn’t want to go farther away than Seattle so she’ll always be near me, which is sweet. We’ll see how she feels in five more years. Her anxiety has gotten a lot better thanks to medication and therapy, and aside from a truly messed up sleep schedule, I’d say she’s actually thriving. We are very, very close and I miss her a lot when she’s gone. 

 

It’s funny, part of me feels like I should be doing something more exciting or at least more productive on a Friday night, but the truth is I’d be home with my kids even if I didn’t have a newborn. That was one of the ways I knew I was ready for one. I feel settled, finally. Far less restless than I was in my 30’s. It’s nice. I’m able to appreciate my kids and my sweet husband, and the good fortune I’ve had over the past four years. I know our culture tells us dread these years, but I’m REALLY enjoying my teenagers. They are the people I most want to hang out with anyway. One more reason I wanted to do it all again. 

Back to school week

Genoa had a rough weekend of not sleeping well. We have no idea why, poor thing. This was the week I had planned to transition the big kids into getting up for school on their own. With Ever staying up until 2am most nights, I can’t be getting them up at 6:30 anymore. I need to sleep in for work. By some amazing miracle, both kids caught their buses the last two mornings with nothing but a text message from me making sure they were awake! I got to stay in bed! 

 

Ever, too, had a rough weekend, probably because she had her 2-month shots at the doctor’s on Friday. She’s 12 pounds, 5.5 ounces now, right in the 58th percentile. Her head is still huge, measuring in the 98th, which explains why her neck muscles are only now gaining control of it. She did NOT like the shots and screamed bloody murder for what felt like eons afterwards. Almost as much as she screamed when I pulled her bandaids off. Poor little nugget. She’s doing a lot better now. 


Sean and I are doing our best juggling the schedule together. He’s far more sleep-deprived than I am and it’s forcing him to think harder about his work-life balance. The hardest part for me is how little alone time we have. Ever still refuses to go down for naps and while we don’t mind holding her, there are certain things you just can’t do while baby-wearing. When our friend, Stacy, got wind of this she insisted on coming over to watch the baby so Sean and I could go upstairs and be alone together. It was so nice to reconnect that I think it was our favorite baby gift yet! We are forever grateful to have such loving friends. 

 

 

Tonight Sean has a hockey game and I screwed up and forgot to block myself off at work, so we’re gonna try something new. He’s gonna drop Genoa off with the baby on his way out and they’re gonna hang out in one of the empty rooms while I wax my last client. It’ll be the first time the girls will be alone together. While we’d never require it, we’d love to be able to rely on Genoa to babysit more steadily. I’d be happy to pay her so I could work on Saturdays again too. We’ll see how it goes. 

Trying to write more again

I’ve been feeling super guilty about not writing anymore. My big kids had their early childhoods furiously documented on my blog, and poor Ever has only had a few updates on Facebook (which I might repost here just so they’re searchable for her in the future). My plan is to post at least weekly for a while to get back into the habit. Bear with me...

 

On New Year’s Day, Ever slept until almost 11:30! She stayed up till 2:30, nursed around 9am, and then even after she woke up, she hung out in her crib cooing and talking to herself for almost 40 minutes. We were amazed. Sean and I got to wake up together for the first time in I can’t remember how long. Our schedules are opposite right now, which works great for childcare, but blows for our relationship. We both miss that intimacy so much. It’s hard to connect when you barely see each other. 

 

Yesterday we had a lovely visit with Sean’s cousin Tara, who lives just up the hill in Camas, and her mom Vicki, who was here visiting from New Mexico. They got to love on our baby girl and gave her the cutest hand-knitted unicorn hat. We don’t have much family around, so it’s always nice to see them. 

After they left, Sean and I spent the afternoon cleaning our bedroom. It’s been annoying me with all the clutter, especially since it’s doubling as baby’s room with her changing table and pack n play crammed in. It’s almost impossible to get any cleaning done because Ever refuses to be put down for naps during the day. Sure, she’ll sleep eight hours at night, but if we try to put her down during the day, she never lasts more than fifteen minutes. If we hold her, she’ll nap for hours. So I held her while Sean worked on his closet and he got tons of stuff put away. I realize I’m not gonna look back on this time in my life and wish I’d done more housework - I’ll be glad I held the baby instead - but still. I was avoiding our bedroom until yesterday because of the mess. 

 

This morning I had to pick Genoa up from her dad’s before work. She’d been there all night, but hadn’t slept yet and wanted to come home and sleep in her (brand new) bed. She only spends about one night every couple of weeks at her dad’s these days. Alex spent the night at his girlfriend’s house, but he lives with us full time now and doesn’t even have a bedroom at his dad’s anymore. I like it this way. There was a time I really needed 50/50 custody so I could have down time, but now I’d just rather hang out with my kids. Recognizing that was one of the ways I knew I was ready for another baby. There’s no where I’d rather be than home with my family.