Lights Out

At 11:30 pm, I felt smug.  Jack and I had successfully walked upstairs, cuddled and read with Baby Boy, nursed and kissed on Baby Girl, and both were now happily snuggled up with blankies and dreaming.  The tv was off, all the lights were out, Jack was starting to snore, and I had used all my lives in Candy Crush.  I was going to be asleep before midnight.  How cool are we? Baby Girl is four days old and we have it all under control, we are superstars.  I even got a shower AND brushed my teeth today.  "Could we be any more awesome?", I think to myself as I sink into the mattress and bury myself in blankets.  I smile a little as I drift off, vaguely register the clock turning midnight.  And then...

12:08....God laughs.  But it sounds an awful lot like Baby Girl crying.  And sucking her fingers frantically.  I pick her up before she sucks off a fingernail and nurse her.  For literally thirty seconds.  Then she is sound asleep, drooling against my chest.  And not falling asleep where I can jostle her and get her to finish.  Dead weight, wet noodle, draw mustaches on her face asleep.  I set her back in the bassinet, say a thank you prayer and close my eyes.

12:24....God laughs again.  And again it sounds like Baby Girl.  And again she nurses for 2.4 seconds and goes comatose.

Repeat at 12:40 and now again at 1:20.  Except this time she finishes nursing and is laying on my chest working her way through hiccups while I blog.   And she has that beautiful, intoxicating new baby smell.  And that super soft downy hair that I kiss every two minutes.  And her little fingers curl into my skin as her breathing gets heavier and deeper and she seems to sink further into my hold.  And then I say a very different thank you prayer in my head and am so very thankful to be awake at 1:29 to experience this moment.

Cheating

Before I even begin, I want you to know this is a totally irrational post.  I know in my brain that this isn't correct and that tons of families do this and everything is going to be just fine, but....

I totally feel like I am cheating on Baby Boy by having another child. 

Silly, right?

I totally want and am already in love with Baby Girl.  I completely believe God has sent her to us to round out our family and give Baby Boy a coconspirator as our older kids lose interest in him as a playmate.   I am super excited to delve into the almost unbearable cuteness of baby girl clothes.  But...

Tomorrow is the very last day that Baby Boy will be my youngest child.  For the last year it has been Mama and Baby Boy almost 24/7, joined at the hip.  We have been best friends and adventure partners and cuddle buddies.  We have bonded over cheerios and hand puppets and bubble baths.  We discovered what happens when you eat crayons and jump off trucks and shake sippy cups.  We have developed language and learned code words and signals.  He has taught me how to be a mama, shown me that I have more patience than I ever knew, shifted all my priorities, and expanded my heart ten thousand times.  He is the best - and hardest - thing I have ever done.  And now? Now I am about to bring home this new baby that is going to demand my attention and no matter how much I mentally know that this is silly, it still feels like cheating.  So for the next 24 hours, before the total joy of Baby Girl comes into play...I am going to grieve a little and wonder how this year flew by so fast.  And I am going to hug on Baby Boy so much he will probably be itching to have someone take me away.  And I am going to do my very best to "let go, and let God", have faith, and be ready to change our lives all over again.

What I Meant To Say

Tonight Jack made a comment about how I could have done dishes today.  He was half joking but half serious.   My response was not to attack him with the nearest blunt object, but rather ask in what I thought was the least crazy preggo voice I could muster, "Are you joking?".  

That is what I DID say.  What I WANTED to say was:

"Tomorrow, lets attach one of your 25 lb weights to the front of your belt.  Actually, let's do it tonight so you can sleep on it. . But you can only sleep on your side because you might decrease baby blood flow.  And yes, that does mean your weight will drag uncomfotably to one side and turning over will be a gymnastic performance.  That, combined with me waking you every time our toddler throws himself on my head or I have to get up to pee will give you close to the proper amount of sleep deprivation to start your day.  THEN you can wake up and - never taking off your weight or moving it to a more comfy location - you can chase our toddler for 12 hours.  Our toddler that you can't take your eye off for a second and that needs to be holding your hand dragging you somewhere every other minute.  Our toddler that does not yet care for individual play but rather wants a playmate 24/7.  Our toddler that throws food and makes giant messes and chases our dogs and climbs everything that is taller than six inches.  You will need to keep him alive and happy.  You will need to dress him and then keep redressing him all day as he loves to put clothes on and off right now.  You will need to try and get actual food besides fruit snacks into his belly and then worry when you fail and then give up and let him have a milk bottle and tell yourself you will be a better parent when you aren't growing a human inside you.  You need to stop everything and read to him when he brings you books and teach him where his ears are and what a puppy says.  You need to guage that perfect moment when he is tired but not overtired so he gets a good nap.  If you can, you should try and get dressed and brush your teeth.  I don't want to come home to a gross husband.  Now let's see how productive your day is.  Of course, for this to be a proper simulation of the building exhaustion you would feel you would need to do this for 280 DAYS...IN A ROW.  With hormone injections and bladder and lung pressure and swelling ankles and a foot in your ribcage.  Literally.  A literal baby foot inside your ribs.  And in the back of your mind you would need to be thinking every waking moment that the only way this ends is by you physically pushing this child, with muscles you never work out, out of a very small opening in a very sensitive area.

That is what I meant to say. 

This Week

Jack and I, while not neat freaks, like a clean house.  Jack just doesn't like mess and I don't like clutter and chaos - so together it creates a happy mutual dislike of an unkempt home.  This is a good, since a family of seven plus animal life creates a pretty solid amount of mess and clutter no matter how hard you try to avoid it. 

This week...our house is messy.  Not filthy, but definitely not where we like it to be.  There are smelly dishes and scattered toys and we are about 2 towels away from drying off with bed sheets...or mismatched socks, we have lots of those.  This week...we are on Baby Watch.  Jack is trying to get as much work done as he can before Baby Girl comes.  I am using all of the energy I do have to try and soak up every minute of time I have left with just Baby Boy and me.  Our household is going to be forever changed within the week and all our thoughts and actions are clustered around that one idea.

So this week...the dishes can sit.  The laundry can pile.  The toys can live wherever they want and multiply unexplainably.  We can eat out of my freezer stockpile and pizza delivery.  This week...Mama and Baby Boy are playing blocks and then napping together all sweaty and cuddly on the couch.  Daddy is bringing down the baby swing and running a load of underwear and socks.  Everything else is taking a backseat to our big family event.  We have the rest of our lives to fight clutter and mess and chaos.  We have only these few precious days to linger in this particular family unit before our lives are totally shifted again.  So if anyone is planning on visiting, lower your expectations just this once...and please bring pizza.

Bottom of the Barrel

I believe that I mentioned that Baby Girl is scheduled to make an appearance any day now. Actually she is scheduled to make an appearance in 12 days, however she has been moving and grooving and Mama has been contracting and aching...so we are ready for the party to start at any given moment. Adding this little girl to our family brings me tremendous joy. Joy that I cannot express in blog words. Joy that makes me randomly smile in the middle of the night even while I am getting up to pee for the twentienth time. And it also has hollowed me out and left me so exhausted and defeated some days that it is a total miracle that we have reached the end of this pregnancy (mostly) intact.

We called Baby Boy our stealth baby. Or sneaky ninja baby. Or some variation of that. Because we didn't even know he was there for 15 weeks. And once we did, he was still nice and easy. No morning sickness, no aches and pains...I was pretty much the pregnant lady everyone hates. I loved being pregnant. Baby Girl....has no stealth. She is in-your-face (or your ribcage or bladder or pretty much anywhere else she wants to be) all the time. I knew she was there before a test could tell me so. She moved early and often and has basically been running an underground disco club in my uterus for the last two months. She is so determined that we acknowledge her presence that at least three times a day she attempts to escape. Think of a giant fish tank with a shark swimming around throwing itself into all the walls looking for the weak point to break out. That is Baby Girl. I wouldn't even blink if I looked down after a well aimed kick and found five little toes protruding from my belly button.

All this dance partying and shark behavior has made me the most exhausted version of myself ever. And I know exhausted. Baby Boy still doesnt' sleep through the night. I am the most unproductive, uninspiring, unappealing version of myself that I have been in many, many moons. With days to go, I feel totally bottomed out - I have no more to give. Not to my husband, or our kids, or our families, or the random people at Meijer, or the very unlucky person that calls our home phone and makes me haul my huge self off the couch to answer just to be a totally worthless phone call. I have nothing to give ANY of you. There is only a finite amount of me. And every minute that ticks down to Baby Girl's birth, she takes one more little piece of me.   As this countdown continues, I feel like I am more and more drawn inward...totally focused on Baby Girl and the awesome responsibility of delivering her safely into this world in the very near future.  I have no extra energy for pleasantries or chores or patience or hair brushing.  All of my energy and focus is being sucked into my uterus where I am making game plans with my daughter.  I feel bad about this...a little...when I realize I have not actually made a real dinner in a week or done dishes in two...or when Baby Boy grabs my hand for the 200th time to try and drag me to the kitchen gate so he can play with dog food  and I have to tell him no and he cries.  It is discouraging to me to not be able to be productive or efficient or even mobile some nights when I push too hard.  I just try and remember that this is precious time, this last little bit of pregnancy, these last few days of feeling this baby kick and dance inside me.  Precious time that I won't be able to come back to once it's gone.  So I do my best to feel the win in a day where I look decent enough to be in public or the day I feel good enough to take the kids to the pool or the afternoon where I make a dent in the laundry pile.  I do my best to ignore the looks of annoyance from anyone that shoots one my way and remind myself that this is very much an individual journey that cannot be truly explained to someone else.  And I hunker down and close my eyes and feel my daughter move...and know that this is all so worth it.  But in the meantime....don't call my house, or ask me to volunteer for anything, or expect actual conversation.  I have nothing left for you.