Elmo, Elves and Other Musings

32 Weeks

I think I'm going to rename this blog "The Bipolar Chronicles of Motherhood".  Last post (or was it two posts ago?) I was all sappy talking about how much I love my kids.  Today I'm feeling the impending doom of motherhood to two.  As you already know, I have quite a habit of talking about what an angel Alessandra is, and for the most part it's pretty true.  But up until I started really trying to remember what having a newborn is like, I can say that I damn well pushed some of that misery into the back of my mind.

Never mind labor, even though that sucks too.  It's the first few weeks/months that I've conjured back up that I'm terrified to endure again.  And that's coming from my experience with an angel.  I can't imagine I'd be lucky enough to have two of them in my brood, that's just too good to be true, so of course I am just preparing for the worst.

My first rude awakening (literally) was only one day into parenthood, our first night in the hospital.  I, in the comfort of my hospital bed, Ricardo on his vinyl chair-bed, asleep to the calm rhythms of my heart monitor.  Everyone I talked to said to send that child to the nursery if you know what's good for you!  So we did.  And Ali would not have it.  She cried and kept all the other kids up and so they had to wheel her back into our cozy, sterile den in the wee hours of the night, apologizing that sorry, we had to keep her now since she was squawking too loud.  I'm pretty sure I cluelessly shoved my boob in her mouth trying to get her to calm down, and I'm sure it didn't work, because little did I know, there's nothing in there yet.  That's for three days later.  When la leche comes in and those very same boobs that looked halfway normal a couple of days ago now resemble Dolly Parton's on steroids.  And lemme tell ya, things just don't grow that big that fast without exacting some EXTREME AND BURNING PAIN unto you.  I clearly remember thinking that the pain was a very close second to labor.  And I'm for real too, mijo.  Well, the only logical thing to do at that point is...well...to start nursing!  What's really awesome about that is that you get to trade in the pain of drastic inflation for cracked and bleeding...uh...you know.  And every time that little helpless child latches down on you with no teeth but weirdly bony gums OH MY GOD IT HURTS SO BAD I WANT TO THROW THIS KID ACROSS THE ROOM JUST TO GET HER OFF MY CHEST!  (Repeat this sentiment once every two hours, right after changing 22 diapers and rocking this crying lump back to sleep.)

...And speaking of sleep, nothing sucks any worse than finally, FINALLY drifting off when whomever is with baby brings the lump (still crying) in with a shrug and a "sorry but the kid needs to eat again" look on their face, and you are the one and only resource to resolve this issue, so you have no choice but to feel resentful of everyone else in the world who is not sleep-deprived and also very dreadful in anticipation of the pain that is about to make you see stars any second now.

I also remember a point in time when Alessandra was like a house of cards, constantly teetering between sleeping and Crying. For. Hours.  And it's not like she was colicky...This was a good/normal baby I'm talking about here.  I would finally rock her to sleep and try and put her down in her own bed, but as soon as I slid that last arm out from underneath her she would wake up instantly and start wailing again, all that work into that beautiful card house nothing but a pile of 52 pickup now.  This is how I learned that Elmo was a cool-looking manly black dude in real life, which I'll be honest, I was not expecting at all.  These are the kinds of things you learn at 4am when shows that teach you this useless trivia are the only thing on TV.

You looked a lot more like Urkel in my imagination.

So, in a word, I'm petrified.  Because somewhere along the line, it got easy again.  Or else I just adjusted.  But it FEELS easier which is all that matters, and I am afraid to lose that easy-peasiness that I'm so used to again now.  So will the labor and engorging and nursing and lack of sleep be less difficult this time because I know what to expect?  Or will it be worse now because I have two little monsters to take care of, one slightly less dependent on me than the other?

I guess I'll find out in a few short weeks (8, to be exact).  I'll be complaining let you know about it then, I'm sure.

8 weeks kind of seems like a long while away based on my aching pelvis and squished-upon bladder, but at the same time, it seems SO SHORT when it comes to all the stuff I need to get done before then.  Sorting through all of Ali's old stuff to see if I can find any boy-friendly items, shopping  for even more boy-friendly items that we don't have, finishing the nursery, getting out all the old infant gadgets, and a million and one other things besides that. 

One item crossed off the list thanks to a long holiday weekend, new furniture=assembled!!!  I'm gonna be honest, I thought I could do it by myself.  I tried to do it by myself.  I failed miserably by myself.  Thank goodness for strong, burly husbands who come to the rescue.  (And to Alessandra too, who "helped" by putting all the styrofoam pieces back into their original boxes that all the furniture came in and then proceeded to shred them into eleventy billion particles of ear-shrieking, vacuum-clogging mess.) 
 

Nursery is still a major work in progress, but the hard part's done!

Alessandra herself will be enjoying the fruits of the New Furniture Fairy despite the fact that she has just converted to "big girl bed" very recently.  Little dinky daybed is making way for an even "bigger girl bed"!  She'll be giving up her crib mattress to her brother and her queen size mattress arrives tomorrow.  Luckyee!!!

Wanna know what else we did over Turkey Day weekend?  Well, I'll tell you!

Samantha (and Carlos) invited us to Samantha's annual family Thanksgiving dinner.  Since we're out-of-town transplants, we  usually end up crashing someone else's party.  Thanks for having us and making us feel like part of the fam!

Carlos and Samantha

Thanksgiving Day was 60 degrees, and no I'm not lying.  In fact the whole weekend was gorgeous.  We took advantage and hit up the Holidazzle Parade in downtown Minneapolis.  This is basically a parade that happens at night and all of the floats and people are strung to the gills in a bajillion lights.  It was all of our first times attending, and Ali fulfilled her end of the bargain by waving at every single person.  Incidentally, that arm stayed warm all evening as well.

The Hansel and Gretel witch's house float

Daddy and Ali at Holidazzle

It's the law that all kids must sit on their dad's shoulders during a parade

With all this 60 degree talk, you might be telling yourself "It must not have ended up snowing in Minneapolis after all!"

Wrong!!  We. Got. NAILED!  They predicted an inch, it was more like 3 or 4 in the course of a couple of hours.

Our backyard, a winter wonderland

Naturally, Ali was stoked to get out there and make the first footprints.  Too bad the backyard bunny (coined Germa Filly because she showed up on our back patio all tiny and just born the same week that grandma died) beat her to the punch!

Eager beaver ready to make some footprints in no pants and mama's boots

That's more like it, child!

Finally, she settled for helping daddy shovel the driveway.  Just like I documented him mowing his very first mowable lawn this summer, I had to document his inauguration to clearing his very first snow that he was responsible for too.  Thank goodness the pile wasn't snowblower-worthy yet...That may require it's own set of photos!

Ali doing a pretty respectable job herself

We also kicked off Christmas.

A new tradition that we've just started this year thanks to a suggestion from Aunt Yole is introducing Ali to "Elf on the Shelf".  Basically you buy a package at Target that contains the elf and a book explaining what he's doing there.  In a nutshell, Santa sends him to your house to spy on you and then the elf flies back to the North Pole every night to report back to Santa.  This is how Santa determines whether you are on the Naughty or Nice list.  Then, the elf ends up in a different spot in the house every morning to prove that he did indeed hightail it to the North Pole and back again, all while you slept.

The first day we hosted our new friend, the creepy little bugger just showed up on our front porch ringing the doorbell and just sitting there all haughty.  You can tell the elf meant business, and Alessandra was intrigued when she opened the door.

We sat down and read the book which tells you to name him right away.  Ali named him "Brother" (prep her for a new baby much?), so he is now affectionately known as "Brother Elf".

The next day he showed up on the mantle.

I'm waaatttccchhiiinnngg  yoooouuuu...

Since Brother Elf arrived, he has been responsible for clean plates, timely bedtimes, pleases and thank yous, and even some external good behavior, which results in her own version of reporting just to make sure it gets back to Santa.  (Upon arriving home one day from an errand, Ali marched right up to him and said "I didn't kick the back of mama's seat in the car, ok?")  Brother Elf may be a little uncomfortable for certain little people in our house since she feels like (pardon the pun) Big Brother is watching all the time, but hey, there is no place like home for the holidays, especially when it is run by an elf dictator.  Such a pleasant environment with no effort on our part!

With good behavior in place, we were ready to move forward with the rest of the hall-bedecking.  Cue Johnny Mathis!!!

Notice this year's theme of having a helper everywhere we go?  No ornaments broken...Yet.

Hooray for a real house to light up!

It should be mentioned that a day or two later, all that snow melted, so we are back to winter square one again, which is fine with me.  No more 60 degree days in our future, but for the first week of December, I'll take it!


All diatribes aside, Baby T is eagerly anticipated and doing very well.  Based on movement and heartbeat, he is healthy as a horse and I did end up getting the lecture this week that I was so dreading.  "Don't restrict, but maybe don't help yourself to extra servings.  You are definitely at where we would want you to gain through the total pregnancy."  Dang!  And the holidays aren't even over yet!

So, these are my ups and downs for the moment.  Enjoy that.  Hope you all have a wonderful week!!!