I am still trying to figure out this blogging thing… I’ve password protected my other blog, Starlit Dreams. Any readers are welcome to join me, just let me know if you want the password. :)

I think this blog will stay up as a reference, but I will likely not be using it any more.

This year was Christmas at my parents’, which means a long day of travel to Canada. It also means no writing because I was very tired – and I don’t like to advertise the fact that no one is home at our house until after the fact!

The travel on the way there went better than expected, overall. The night before we left we told Kate we were going on an airplane to see Nana and Grandad and she liked that idea. Unfortunately her concept of time is pretty non-existent, so the “tomorrow” fell on deaf ears and she was crying at bedtime because she wanted the airplane. Once we were at the airport and in the airplane she was great. About an hour into our first flight she said, “Done airplane. Out? No airplane.” Considering we still had approximately 5 more hours of flying left that wasn’t so good! But she dealt with it. The car seat was installed on the plane for Kate, and that was mostly a good thing… except when she woke up confused from a bad dream and was freaking out until we took her out and held her for a while. We had a movie and some TV shows loaded on the tablet for her to watch, which was good. She also had a good time just playing with her daddy and a stuffed animal. She also slept quite a bit, very thankful for that… it was an early morning and no one likes a tired and cranky Kate. Ember did fine, sleeping and waking and grabbing everything she could reach. In the airports I wore her and she was a happy and very quiet little girl.

It was certainly an adjustment being at my parents’. The first night Kate collapsed in her bed and didn’t rouse until late morning, she was so exhausted from traveling. The next day, however, was a different story. She’s in my old room and there’s a TV in there, a bookshelf, a mattress for Den. She was bouncing on the beds, reading books and stacking VCR tapes all long after we put her to bed. It got a little better as the days went by, but only a little bit. Kate was still waking up at 3am, hyper as hell, crawling all over everything and asking to watch movies – which we let her, because she was waking her sister up. It was mostly Den getting up with her at night, but a couple nights I did all the night wakings for both kids just so he could get a night’s sleep. Both kids functioned on very little sleep for the entire two weeks. Kate was perpetually in that crazy-psycho-hyper-overtired mode that every parent knows and hates. Ember just cat-napped her way through it all, but she doesn’t get phased by lack of sleep like her sister does.

Being home, as always, was just such a wonderful thing to me. I love just being in that house, familiar things everywhere I look. It just is really hard knowing that I can only go back once every two years, that I can’t drop in with my children, can’t just hang out watching movies all the time. I also got to meet my brother’s girlfriend (first girlfriend!) and we got along really well, I could see hanging out with them if they lived close.

The kids had a lot of fun, I think. Kate really loved having Nana’s attention, she got to bake cookies and put together a gingerbread train. She loved Grandpa’s real train downstairs, she kept begging to go down and see it again – and she was very good about not touching it. Nana had picked up a ride-on car for her to use, as well as random other toys and bowls and stickers and things. Mom kept apologising for not having many toys but I think Kate was just as happy with the bowls and spoons as with any other toys, plus she did get some things for Christmas. She did watch some TV, enjoying my old collection of VHS and a couple new DVDs. We discovered that she loves Monsters Inc and Toy Story 3 (in addition to her prior favorite of Toy Story), but had zero interest in Finding Nemo. My brother’s girlfriend brought over her dog one day and Kate totally spazzed out with excitement. She was shrieking with joy and running around and laughing so hard she could barely breathe. It’s a smaller breed, a young dog, and they were pretty evenly matched though the dog was a bit confused as to why suddenly he was being chased around. My brother’s dog, a rottweiler, did interest Kate but he’s so big that she was a little bit shy. She really wanted to play with the cat, but needless to say the cat did not want to play with her!

Ember was just miss happy girl, same as usual, despite the fact that she had a cold when we arrived and a non-stop runny nose. (The congestion cleared the second week…. and then she caught another bug. Now she’s all snotty and snorty again. Sigh.) Everyone just loved her, even my verifiably crazy uncle. She has been practicing a lot of new sounds lately, including very loud shrieks, motorboat noises, growls, and mimicking vowel sounds. Laughter is the most common sound – the kid just loves to laugh and smile. She continues to be a totally easy-going kid, hanging out with me wherever I go and not really needing much besides something to grab with her hands, a clean diaper, milkies, and now and again a nap. She is not a fan of being left alone in a room, there were times when everyone would go to grab food/bathroom/check something and we’d forget she was just sitting in the living room and she’d let out a cry to say “Hey, what about me?!”

It was all around a really good trip, a nice vacation for us to not worry about food and housecleaning and to always have someone around to hand a kid off to (especially at 7am after getting little to no sleep!). It’s just so damn expensive – I now need to pay our credit card and I don’t really want to look at it. Between the flights, the dog kennel for our dogs, the catsitter, the baggage fees and airport meals plus the stuff we bought while there… well. There’s a reason we only make the trip every two years.

That plus the trip back home was not quite as smooth as the trip there. We were all so very tired, having slept for maybe a couple hours before getting up to get to the airport (thank you, Ember, for choosing that particular night to freak out and not sleep at all), I had a headache, we had two stopovers, Kate slept on the short flight so she wasn’t tired enough to sleep on the long 4 hour flight. When I think back I can’t actually think of any one thing that made the trip horrible, I think we were just so worn thin by that point. And then we finally got to our house at 11pm and neither kid would sleep. Thankfully now it’s been two days and we are all catching up.

Pictures to come later.

Several days ago I was being good and moving some things out of the house into the garage for storage. While doing this I had the door open to the garage, as I was going in and out. No big deal, right? The big garage door was closed so my cats couldn’t get outside, it was only for a few minutes so the house wasn’t losing too much heat or anything.

Later that night I’m on the computer and my mom is sitting in the recliner. The cat goes running past all helter-skelter and slides into the bookshelf. “What was that?!” mom says. I shrug, “cat is chasing a toy.” Then I saw something, too, dashing across the living room and into the kitchen under the washing machine. Oh shit. There’s a mouse in the house.

Now this is a problem for one very specific reason: I don’t kill things. If you know anything about me you know that I am very soft-hearted towards animals, I have a history of volunteering for different animal causes, and yes that even applies to mice. They are cute little furry creatures. In my childhood I owned a hamster and some gerbils, I have experience with rodents. Mostly I just can’t bear the thought of me killing something that was simply unfortunate enough to get stuck in my house. I just want to catch it and move it back outside.

Unfortunately I also have the aforementioned cat. Two of them, actually, but one is quite fat and snores loudly, so I kind of figured he wasn’t going to be much of a threat to the mouse. But Jojo? Yeah. He’s going to catch that mouse.

I had some plans of capturing the mouse under a container, but I discovered that there are a lot of hard to reach places a mouse can hide in my kitchen. Washer and dryer, range, fridge, freezer, the list goes on. I can’t even move them. Basically I was just stuck scratching my head.

Later that evening I hear the cats making noise, pouncing, scratching type noise. (I can immediately tell what is going on in my house just from a quick sound. I assume I got this superpower from being a mom. It comes in quite handy with the kids.) So I run in there and Merlin – the fat cat – has jumped on top of the mouse. He seems equal parts giddy as hell and stunned. I push him off the mouse, which immediately runs into a box. YES! This is exactly what I wanted! It’s trapped in the box! Except it ricochets off the bottom of the box and leaps out… right in front of Jo. Who immediately grabs it in his mouth. I’m yelling and hitting the cat, the cat tries running off but has nowhere to go, the mouse is squeaking. He loses his grip and the mouse runs away into a corner. My heart is racing, Jo looks totally tweaked on drugs or something as he prowls around looking for the mouse. I’m saying “Shit! Shit!” and stomping my feet because I can’t find the damn thing. But neither can the cat. I worry that the mouse is injured. Shit, an injured mouse loose in my house is even worse than a live healthy one. What if it’s suffering? What if it dies under something? Shit, shit.

I wake up in the morning scared I’m going to find a dead carcass somewhere. I do not. Later on the cat repeats his performance and I’m still trying to figure out what the hell to do. It gets away again, but I have the same worry about it being injured. Clearly the cat can and will catch this mouse, and clearly I can’t even when I’m standing right there. I’d order a live mouse trap but I have a very strong suspicion this mouse will not survive the two days until it gets delivered.

Third time it happens I open the front door and chase the cat out. This time if he lets it go it will escape outside, where I want it; it’s easier to catch a cat outside than to catch a mouse inside. If it’s alive still. I got a look before they went out – it didn’t look good. I’m pretty sure Jo was not going to give up this time. I go get a broom then try getting him to let it go. I fail. It’s dark. I hear noises I really don’t want to hear. The whole thing just grossed me out so bad. My cat ate the damn mouse. I’m all pissed off and upset. I know that’s what cats do, but ugh.

Now the cat is acting all puffed up like he’s king of the damn jungle, yowling at the door wanting to be let outside to go rule his kingdom. Tough shit, cat. Go take a nap on the couch. I’m sure you’re exhausted after committing murder.

At least my house no longer has a mouse in it.

Ember is now 4 months old, definitely not a newborn anymore. She is little miss grabby hands, snagging dishes or food or whatever may be in front of me. She also likes to grab at my hair when I’m holding her, and it can be hard to extricate myself from her grasp – this only adds to my shedding problem (I think I am going bald). She’s really grabbing toys and crinkling them and playing with them.

I am now getting belly laughs out of her! Full out squeals and laughs. I’ve seen it said before that adults will do the weirdest and stupidest things just to get a laugh out of a baby, but it’s so true. I will ignore everything else around me to squish her belly and nom her arm and say dumb words over and over again just because she finds it hilarious. And then she laughs and I bury my face against her cheek and just want to eat her up.

::

Kate continues to talk more and more. She’s been speaking in short sentences for a while now and her descriptions are getting longer. She’s also been quite sneaky, turning my own words against me.

For instance she was drawing with her aquadoodle (or rather, splattering water on it like an artist). She held out the “pen” to me and said, “Mama draw pig!” I told her I didn’t know how to draw a pig. She shoved the pen at me again with a grunted “Eh!” I repeated that I didn’t know how. Then she looked at me seriously, pen still held out for me to take, and said, “Mama try?”

She’s also starting to pretend and act things out. A few times now she has gone “looking” through the house for Tiger or Pig (from Kipper). The other day she woke up from her nap and asked me where the ghost went. (There was a ghost on one episode.) She peeked around things and whispered, “Ghoosse? Ghooooosse? Where you?”

Her Little People sets are starting to be used for pretend play in addition to whatever else they also do. She was acting out the little girl climbing the ladder and going “wheeee!” down the slide. She also held one of the people on Sophie the Giraffe’s back. And then, quite hilariously, Kate tried to sit on Sophie the Giraffe herself. Considering it is only about 6 inches tall it didn’t work too well.

As mentioned she loves Kipper the dog. LOVES. Like every time we turn the TV on she says, “Watch Kipper TV!!” Turn on anything else and she’ll cry. I think this is a step up from a few months ago when all she would watch was Pingu. Kipper is actually pretty cute and not irritating.

::

Den is gone all month. I was on my own for 9 days and honestly it’s not been that bad at all. My mom is now here visiting so I have extra hands and the ability to run to the store real quick – things I take for granted sometimes! But I am still lacking in free time. Both kids are doing really well though, so I can’t complain at all! I feel quite lucky that both kids are as flexible and mellow as they are. I really didn’t think my life would be this calm with two little ones. Getting everyone dressed and into the car seems to be my only daily frustration; it should not take that long to get shoes and coats on and everyone into the vehicle!

On the eve of my birthday I lay here in bed next to my littlest one, listening to her breathe. Every once in a while she nuzzles me or stretches her hand out on my chest. It is dark, a window open; it is quiet except for the sound of the fan. Her long hair tickles my nose as I kiss the top of her head.

I think to myself, what more could I ask for my birthday. This, right here, is bliss. Not esctatic, crazy excitement but just the simple joy of being a mother. A quiet life, a happy life. Warmth.

I have been thinking about Devin a lot, trying to include him in my day to day. I think of him today, how he brought me hope and joy and motherhood. I am thankful for him just as much as I am for my girls.

Life is often not what you expect, is it. I never would have thought that I would be happy for my life after all the sorrows. I never would have thought a lot of things… like Ember. So unexpected, so perfect in her own way.

::

30 is a lot of years. Well not a lot, but still. I am not quite sure how this happened.

I have to ask, though: do you ever really feel like an adult? Maybe I just need to get used to this 30 thing.

I am going through a bunch of stuff right now. I don’t think I ever posted these pics, but they are too cute not to share. :)

There was a time when I probably wouldn’t have considered going away with a baby by myself to be a vacation. The baby has been sleeping next to me all night – usually with my boob within close proximity to her mouth, lest she wake up to discover it missing and have a mini freak-out. She’s been in my arms pretty much all day long, napping on me, walking around strapped in a carrier. She’s on the floor for only short periods to look around and prefers to spend that time to stare at me and talk to me. The only time I have bathed is with her.

And yet this has been a lovely relaxing vacation for me. All of the above feels like a piece of cake. She’s only mildly fussy sometimes, but otherwise she is happy and quiet – babies are so much quieter than toddlers. I rarely have to get up, almost everything she needs of me I can accomplish within 3 feet of the couch.

It has actually been a lovely change to have her nap on me – sometimes I can shift her up onto my chest for nap time snuggles. (The only problem then is that I can’t help but kiss her head, which makes me grumble in her sleep.) We have been spending so much time together without interruption from a noisy, demanding toddler. (I love my toddler tons, but she is still noisy and demanding.) My free time is spent making faces at the baby instead of running off to make dinner or clean up a mess. I get to hold a sleeping baby while reading on my phone without fending off little hands.

So, yes, lovely. I miss Kate and I’m looking forward to seeing her but I’m still sad for this vacation to be over soon. I think it’s one of those cases where I didn’t know how much I needed a break until I got one.

Ember and I are currently away, visiting my very best friend (Kel). Kate is home with daddy. This is the first extended trip I’ve ever taken away from her – being in the hospital when Ember was born was the first time I’ve been away, but even then I still saw her daily. But at least Den had that experience being the primary caretaker for her so I really wasn’t nervous about going. She’s apparently having a great time swimming and going to the park with daddy, she’s sleeping great.

This was Ember’s very first flight and it went really well! The biggest mistake I made was bringing the stroller through the airport with me. I also borrowed a friend’s Beco to wear her, and she either wanted to be worn or held facing out. I ended up wearing the Beco, holding the baby on my shoulder, and pushing the stroller with my other hand. Yeah. Much more of a pain than it was worth! The first short flight was fine, the transfer was fine, then we had a 2 hour flight. I get on it and discover that I’m at the very front of the plane with a wall in front of me. Good thing for leg room, bad thing for my bag which ended up being put in the overhead bin. I didn’t have time to get settled so I ended up stranded in my seat with a hungry baby and no bag. I of course had my boobs with me, so I could and did feed her. But then she fell asleep…. and slept for the entire 2 hour flight. Great! Wonderful! Too bad my book was in my bag. 2 freaking hours stuck in one position holding the baby without a single damn thing to do but look out the window at clouds while my arm went numb and my back got terribly sore from being stuck like that. As a bonus, though, as we were de-planing I got a lot of compliments about how great my baby did. (I wanted to tell them all it was my boob’s good job.)

Since then Ember has had a little bit of an adjustment being away from home. I didn’t expect that because she is so young, but she seems to take it all in and she’s getting overstimulated really easily. The first day we were here she was very fussy and wouldn’t let me really put her down at all. Today has been better, she seems more relaxed to me.

Unfortunately since arriving she has had 3 total poop blowouts. Perhaps the Huggies are not working for her. I have been using huggies for a few weeks, but only when I leave the house (she’s in cloth at home), so I can’t say I’ve ever seen a big poop in one. But holy smokes, I have never seen such horror! Up the bag, covering her onesie, just poop everywhere! I went to the store and bought some Pampers, hoping that works better.

I am really enjoying spending this time one on one with Ember. I’m home all day with her but I split my time between her and Kate and it seems I deal with all the needs and never get to really just sit down and enjoy her. She’s being a big sweetie and I’ve been even getting some brief cuddles (which are rare from this baby!). Lots of smiles, as usual, and time spent just hanging out holding her. Spending time with another baby of similar age (Kel’s youngest is 5 months old) is also giving me an appreciation for her personality, her individuality.

It’s great spending time with my friend, watching her kids run around, just enjoying life as a mother. Sometimes I do find myself thinking I wish Kate were here, she’d have a good time… and then I will think about how much more work it out be with both kids and am glad I only have one!

I have always wanted a kid with my blue eyes. I don’t know why I focus on this one thing, but I was constantly checking Kate’s eyes to see if they were going to stay grey/blue. Hubby has brown eyes so I knew it was more likely that any child of ours get brown eyes than blue, but still possible. It has been an interesting journey for the past 2 years, watching her eyes ever so slowly change. I’m pretty sure they’re not done changing yet. She most definitely does not have blue eyes – I don’t think she ever did, they were very grey as a newborn. They got a little green in them, and a little light brown. They shift with the light, so some days they look light brown, some days they look olive green, some days they’re very grey. I think they’re gorgeous. In a way I see it as a metaphor for the whole child-raising experience. You expect a, hope for b, and get s instead! The unexpected always throws me off, but it can turn out to be an amazing thing.

So far it’s looking like Ember’s will go brown, though I’ve learned not to take anything for granted. I will always wonder if maybe Devin would have been my blue eyed boy.

::

Having two children has not been the huge life-altering disaster that some other people alluded to. It’s been pretty smooth in general, and I am extremely thankful that my toddler loves her new baby even 2 months later and that the baby is a pretty easy-going non-colicky child. I am aware that it could be so, so much worse. Actually my only complaint right now is Kate’s pushing boundaries which is of course totally normal 2 year old behavior and would be frustrating to deal with regardless of baby. (I deal with it mainly by taking a lot of deep breaths, reminders to myself that she is just figuring out her independence, and chocolate. For me. Lots of it.)

The trick that I have not figured out yet is how to manage two at once in public. I can take them both in the car just fine. I can take them to friends’ houses no problem. But a place like the playground? Kate wants me to help her on the swing and teeter-totter, plus she goes climbing up the biggest things she can find where she just doesn’t feel quite steady and needs my hand. Meanwhile it’s stupid hot and humid out, Ember doesn’t like being in the mei tai or sling, and she needs to nurse at the most inconvenient times. I feel like I either have to sit and take care of the baby’s needs (shade, nursing, sleeping in the stroller) and just watch Kate, or I lug Ember around helping Kate out. Today I settled for a little of both, and both left me feeling unsatisfied. Kate did manage to solve her problem for a little while, though; she walked right up to some random 8 or 9 year old girl, took her hand, and brought her wherever she needed help. Kate apparently has no problems making friends and getting them to do her bidding. It’s pretty funny, actually… she does it anytime she sees older girls.

Oh and Kate has apparently decided that she wants to ride in the stroller, which either leaves me carrying Ember in my arms while pushing the stroller, or Kate having a fit stomping her feet and refusing to walk while Ember’s in the stroller. I guess I need a double stroller sooner rather than later, because this is ridiculous. (And having Kate strapped in has definite benefits!) I really hope Ember starts to like babywearing very soon.

::

It is hard for me to process that we are done with family-building. On one hand I’m excited to start getting rid of stuff as Ember outgrows it – things I don’t need to store in my basement anymore, yay! I am looking forward to a time when the girls are a little bit older and can play together, when we can do fun things as a family like go to Six Flags. I am amazed and excited to watch them grow and become little people all of their own, to watch their personalities come out and discover who they are going to be. There is so much in our future.

I have been in this world of fertility and pregnancy and babies for so long. I’ll never have to go through treatments again, never have to wonder if I’m going to miscarry or even get pregnant at all. But I’m also never going to get that heart-stopping moment of a positive pregnancy test, never have that big secret to tell the world; never feel a baby roll and kick, never anticipate another labor. I feel self-imposed pressure to try to take this all in, to document every single thing, to try to hang on to it. I’m going to be that woman sobbing over her baby growing up, I can see it now.

I’m realizing that I’m still kind of angry and messed up from Ember’s NICU stay. While it was all happening I remember just thinking that at least she’s okay, at least it’s nothing major, at least I’m able to be here with her, at least I can pump and nurse, at least the nurses are great. There were a lot of “at least”s. Plus I was so tired and I had no idea what the next day would look like so I just lived day to day, hoping for improvement, hoping she could go home, hoping she didn’t have another episode.

But when I look back at it I realize it really messed with our bonding. The pregnancy felt a little weird to me all the way through – not bad, but just not the same as my other two pregnancies. I was really, really looking forward to holding her, feeling her in my arms, kissing her, nursing her. But I only got to hold her for a couple minutes after birth, then she was gone and we were left in an empty room wondering what the hell just happened. It felt like I hadn’t given birth at all. No visitors, no baby to hold and fawn over, no videos to take. Just silence. It felt way too similar to my first birth… except of course she was upstairs and alive and healthy. At the time everyone said I was being so strong. In hindsight I think I just shut off, went into emergency functioning mode.

I have known a lot of scary stories, of long NICU stays with very sick, very tiny babies. My baby was neither very sick nor very tiny, so I guess I felt it wasn’t valid for me to feel upset about it. But it was upsetting. A week-long hospital stay with no one really giving us straight answers as to what was going on and what we could expect was not what we had hoped for when I had such a lovely, easy, uncomplicated birth. An event that should have been full of celebration felt like a non-event. Not to mention how unsettling it was to come home without the baby.

When we did bring her home I had this 1 week old that I barely knew. I felt like the NICU nurses knew her and cared for her. She was perfectly happy being put down – it was probably the most familiar to her. It felt like I brought home someone else’s baby… like she wasn’t mine. I didn’t know her, she didn’t seem to need me at all except to eat, she didn’t even like being cuddled. It took a long time to feel like someone wasn’t going to come take her away.