Tag Archives: shanna

Bits and pieces

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I do not have to argue with every thing that makes me angry. It’s ok to walk away.

Shanna is arguing with every single thing I say and I feel like I am going to lose my mind. I’m feeling very frustrated with her yelling at me. And her saying, “Stop saying that!” is just… AHHHHHH

I’m really sick of nightmares. I don’t know why I am having so many. Not sleeping is keeping me on edge all day long and it’s not good for me.

I’ve had a headache for days. It is also keeping me on edge. I’m tired of wanting to whack my head off with an axe just to stop the pain.

So I’m bitchier than average but I’m not generally feeling bad. It’s kind of weird. In between bursts of anger I’m feeling pretty cheerful. Don’t like my mood? Wait three minutes. *sigh*

I need to get on ordering a new oven. I’ve been wanting to bake for a while and my oven just doesn’t work. I’m waiting until we have steady paychecks again. Then! A new oven! So thrilling! I am such a grown up.

I am ‘stripping’ a lot of diapers in preparation for selling them. I’m doing so much laundry it’s insane. Soon I can be done with this stage. I look forward to it. And I’m really unhappy about Shanna’s 100% regression to diapers. This is problematic when she’s outgrowing her diapers.

And through this all… Calli continues to be astoundingly mellow. Thank you second child.

Shit my kid says 2.0

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Shanna was crying outside when we were walking to the doctor’s office and I was carrying her. I told her that she could keep crying if she needed to but I suspect the other people in the office won’t like her crying much. So when we walked in she looked around the room and announced, “You all might not like it if I cry but I like it so I’m going to cry now.”

Pretty much everyone there busted up laughing.

Ohhhh… now I get it.

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A wonderful couple was willing to babysit Shanna when she was really tiny. The wife commented (I’m not going to get the words verbatim) that she was not easy/hard/difficult… something to that effect. I couldn’t understand what she was talking about! I thought Shanna was very easy! All she needed was 24 hour a day physical contact with me most of that with my nipple in her mouth. It’s not like she had colic or reflux or anything. Fast forward to Calli…

Now I get it. Calli is perfectly happy to take naps lying on the couch by herself. When she wakes up for the night time diaper change after five, six, or eight hours of sleep (I shit you not. She sometimes sleeps for eight hour blocks.) she nurses, gets her diaper changed, then I flip her onto her stomach and rub her back for a minute and she’s right back to sleep without a murmur. The reason I have her sleeping on her stomach is because she is having issues with passing gas. (Uhm. We’ve been eating a lot of cabbage.) On her back she has to kick her legs really hard in order to get the gas out and that often wakes her up but on her stomach she can just fart without a wake up. Much more peaceful for her. She has had enough head control to lift her head up and look around before putting it back down on the other side since birth. It’s neat.

She’s already getting to the point where she’s happy to be held by other people. Ok, sometimes it takes some jouncing, but she’s (almost) six weeks old. I have to jounce her sometimes. When she does get upset it’s pretty invariable that she needs a diaper change. (Though we did have one night where her gas was really upsetting her. The face down on your arm trick solved it.)

She likes to nurse a lot, really hard, and then let go of my nipple and get on with her life. THIS IS SO COOL!!! I’m really happy not having another nurseaholic. She’s already grown out of three month sleepers so I’m very confident she is getting plenty of milk even though she nurses way less often than Shanna did. 🙂

Noah and I are very happy our kids arrived in the order they did. It would be very hard having a kid with as high of touch need as Shanna after having a kid as mellow as Calli. However, it is fucking awesome having a kid as mellow as Calli after Shanna. Which is not to say that in any way we are bitter towards Shanna. I thought everything she did was exactly how it was supposed to be and I didn’t mind. What else did I have to do?

But of course she hates the car. I just have that luck. 🙂

qotd

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Shanna came up to me (sitting on the couch with Calli on my lap) and said, “I want to nurse.” I looked at her pretty blandly. She announced more forcefully, “I get to nurse! This is my village of nursing!”

Uhm… oh.

Adjusting is slow

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Hoo boy. All the people who said that going from 0-1 is way harder than 1-2 must not be talking about the first week. The first week with just Shanna was pretty damn blissful. We all hung out on the bed together and didn’t do much. We alternated who was napping and it was awesome. Uhm… it’s not like that this time. Shanna has So Much Energy. And keeping her from jumping on the bed (HELLO! Healing from internal wounds here!!!) is difficult. Other than that she’s just pushing boundaries slightly more than usual but really she’s not being out of line at all. So yeah. We aren’t as patient as we should be, but we are both working on it. She is quite in love with Calli. 🙂

Thank all the stars in the heaven for tandem nursing. Given how much the rest of me hurts I was about ready to flip my lid when my boobs started hurting last night because my milk came in. So I called my trusty, always hungry, toddler over. Insta-relief. (Yes, there is still plenty of milk for Calli.) Every minute of discomfort while nursing through pregnancy has already paid off. 🙂

We are trying to figure out a sleep schedule that will allow me to heal as quickly as possible. It’s a challenge. I have so much going on in my brain that it takes me forever to fall asleep, nearly an hour after each wake up when I can normally fall asleep in under five minutes, so that’s extra challenging.

I sorta went against orders and took a shower today. My stench was seriously bothering me. For those of you who are childfree, when you have a baby you then have basically hot flashes for a while as you sweat out a lot of the extra fluids you have been carrying around. This is not pretty. But a shower (ok, I sat in the tub with the shower nozzle on because I can’t stand and being submerged isn’t a great plan yet) felt decadent. Huzzah for hygiene.

We have a rather remarkable number of people bringing us food. I cannot express properly my gratitude. I think that I will karmically owe food to every newly delivered mother I ever hear about for the rest of my life. It feels really awesome.

Noah is the most amazing, supportive husband I can imagine having. He has earned so many brownie points that it will be decades before I return them all. I guess I’m going to have to stop whining about his night off. He’s earned several years worth of them recently.

I’m tired and my physical recovery is predictably slow. Walking to the bathroom is easier. Returning a plate to the kitchen is still a stretch and if you’ve seen how small my house is that’s pretty sad. I could not stand long enough to dry off after the shower. After not standing during the shower. Ugh. I’m not feeling patient with this. But it’s only been three days. I need to give myself a lot more time. I feel perkier while I am sitting in bed. Once I am vertical my bravado is revealed.

Calli is… mostly asleep really. 🙂 But she’s sweet and we are already fond of her. Yay hormones.

A good day

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I spend most of my time on lj posting about being unhappy or talking about Shanna. That is totally not representative of my every day so uhm, here’s a post that is less depressing.

Today is a good day. I got a little bit of yard work done out front. It’s been bugging me so I’m glad I’ve gotten around to it. I scheduled house cleaning stuff for the next several months so that I can stop feeling bad about how little cleaning I do. (Noah [whom I do not spend nearly enough time talking up–he’s so fabulous] does most of the ‘picking up’ so our house isn’t too bad, but he doesn’t really like doing the deeper cleaning.) Currently it sucks for me to bend over and do it so we decided that three or four months of someone else cleaning our house was a Good Idea. The vast majority of this additional spending right now is coming out of the much larger than anticipated tax refund, so I am thanking my lucky stars that we got it. I really and truly see the financial privilege I have these days and I feel so grateful that I have it. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure can do a lot of work towards making life easier so that you have less stress. That leads to increased happiness. So I thank anyone upstairs who is listening that my life is so easy at this point.

For all that I’m not a great pregnant person I am deeply grateful that this pregnancy is easier than Shanna’s. I’m super tired. I have a lot of random body discomfort. I’m cranky. But I haven’t puked once! I am not so completely listless that I am not functioning! I do manage to take Shanna out to play at least once a week and I’m arranging for her to have more opportunities than that with other people. I’m cranky with her, but she’s spectacular about telling me, “It’s not nice to yell at me.” Which really puts a fast halt to my temper tantrums. Having a two year old call me on my behavior is incredibly humbling in a good for me way. I really love having her.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the sexual assault stuff and I am feeling… better isn’t quite the word but less disturbed. I’m feeling more like I really have handled things in a way that is ultimately good for me. Of course I have done things poorly at times. Of course I have not always been in the best place right that minute. But overall I don’t feel like I am a terrible non-functioning crazy person. And sometimes good enough is good enough. 🙂

Mostly I had a really good weekend. I really love my family. I have a wonderful, supportive, amazing husband. I feel like I had the most perfect-for-me little girl possible. I like her so much. I’m rather excited about meeting kid 2.0. If Noah and I combined to make one kid this awesome, what will 2.0 be like? I strongly suspect that next kid will be very very different from Shanna. I base this on the differences in the pregnancy. This kid is active in a way that Shanna wasn’t. This makes me slightly nervous because of the potential differences in sleeping habits. Shanna has been an awesome sleeper since birth. But we’ll roll with it. Whatever happens is what is meant to happen. I think that I am nervous about having expectations this time. Before Shanna I had almost zero exposure to babies. I had no idea what to expect and then she was so easy. (Maybe my memory is already getting fuzzy… who knows.) Now I’ve had a kid so I have a bit more of the ‘I know about kids’ attitude. I’d be better off assuming that I know nothing again. 🙂

So, yeah. Life is plugging along. I have 6ish weeks to go. I’m nervous but looking forward to the birth. It will be a rather different experience this time. Shanna has expressed rather strongly that she wants to be at the birth so that’s going to be interesting. Luckily nipple stimulation is a big help because there is no way I will be able to keep her from nursing during labor. 😀 I’m really looking forward to tandem nursing for some weird, masochistic reason. Something about it just seems really… I don’t know… motherly? Like even if I feel like psychologically I am not always the best at mothering my body is doing GREAT at the physical parts! I can’t quite figure out why I am looking forward to it so much. Too many years on MDC. They have infected my brain. 😀

So yeah. It’s a good day after having a couple of other good days in a row. 🙂

Yay progress!

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First day: one accident.
Second day: two accidents.
Third day: three accidents and two pees in a diaper when I was just not up for trying to potty her while doing errands.
Fourth day: no accidents at all during the day but once she got her night time diaper on she peed in it almost instantly and asked for another one.

Holy cow. We might actually get through this!

Toddler ‘tude

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Some of Shanna’s recent amusing displays of attempted control over the universe:

(When you are trying to do something she doesn’t like, say brushing her hair) “I’m not interested in that.”

(When you are trying to get her to get in the car and she doesn’t want to) “I don’t think that is a good plan.”

(When you are trying to get her to eat healthier food instead of sugar) “Actually, I think sugar would be a good idea.”

Recently we were playing with her little kitchen and she made a plate and I asked if it was for me, she said: “Actually, this plate is for Daddy. So you can’t have it.” She did eventually make a plate for me too.

She now tells Noah that she doesn’t want him to go to work.

At random times she will tell you with great emphasis that shots suck and she doesn’t like them.

If I am grumbling in traffic she calls out, “What a douchebag!” I have to struggle not to giggle.

She is developing strong opinions about clothes. She varies on whether she wants pants or dresses, she loves shorts. She likes polka dots. She is willing to wear pink if it has a message she likes (she has a pink shirt that says “You are my sunshine” and that’s one of her favorite songs) but overall she’s not into pink. I confess bittersweet sadness about this. On one hand I’ve worked pretty hard to ensure she doesn’t feel shoved into pink. On the other hand… it’s my favorite color. 🙂 Polka dots are just the bomb.

She walks up to people in random public places and announces, “I am Shanna! I am cute!”

When she wants one of us to leave a room we are in (usually one blocked by a gate) she says, “I have an owie! I need kisses!”

And every single exclamation point is pronounced. It’s cute.

I am trying like mad to get her to stop spitting in the house. Ugh. I don’t know why she picked up this habit but it is driving me nuts.

And last but not least: toddler nursing is the payback for the early hard sucky days. I love having her cuddle in and tell me, “Mmmmm boobies. Milk is better than Jamba Juice!” before she launches herself at my breast. It’s awesome. <3

Random weekending

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I love getting to spend three days in a row with Noah. <3 Mostly we puttered and got house chores done but we had a few breaks for fun. Two things in particular: we took Shanna to Build a Bear because she has often expressed that she wants a bear that is -just hers-. All of her stuffed animals are hand me downs and I think she is tired of hearing that 'x' thing was Mommy's or Aunt Jenny's or Daddy's or... :D So she picked a blue bear and named him Blue. Alrighty then. :) And she did animal role play for the first time. I thought that was pretty cool and noteworthy. She picked a duck, specifically the anthropomorphic Elmer from The Sissy Duckling which has been one of her favorite longer books since she was too small to sit through a long book. 🙂

Pregnancy is all festive and such. I feel ginormous. As I see pictures of other people who are at about the same stage of pregnancy as me I feel confirmed in feeling ginormous. Why am I so much bigger than average?! Oy. Still not gaining weight. I’m currently reading Bradley’s, Husband-Coached Childbirth and it has some good pointers once you wade through all the obnoxious Christian references.

Today is going to be way too busy. I’m tired already. There will be over 100 miles of driving today. Ugh. But I’ll get to see my niece graduate from high school. That will be a good thing. I’m really glad she made it.

In today’s edition of “My Cute Kid”

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So Shanna’s birthday is on Monday. We are having the aunts and uncles over for dinner on Sunday. I asked her if she wanted a cake for her birthday and she was completely adamant that she wanted cupcakes. Fair enough. Then we get down to that eternal battle… vanilla or chocolate. I tried to talk her into vanilla by explaining that vanilla is my favorite. She categorically refused to consider not having chocolate. She explained to me that it is Daddy’s favorite. Right. I can see how the wind blows around here.

I got started with the process while she was still napping. Basically what I did was premeasure everything into small bowls so that she could do all the combining herself. She was really excited about doing that and was looking forward to it all day. When she woke up she came out and we got started in earnest. She did a fabulous job. I was quite impressed. She didn’t grab at anything (one of our more frequent counter issues) and she was extremely careful when she poured. In fact she did substantially better than me because I got flour everywhere. When that happened she told me in a very stern tone of voice, “Mommy! You need to be careful!” I was torn between glaring at her and giggling so I gave her a very tiny dirty look while I smiled. “Yes honey, I need to be more careful. You are right.”

When I finished putting the batter in the cupcake shells she acted like she died and went to heaven. She got to lick the beater and the bowl. I think this is her favorite part. 🙂 Now the cupcakes are in the oven and a friend is making me vanilla cupcakes this weekend because I whined on facebook. Hilarious and awesome. Yay!

Tomorrow I get to put the finishing touches on Shanna’s play kitchen. There is no doubt in my mind that she is ready for it. I think that her helping in the kitchen is going to expand tremendously at this point because she is far more mature about it than I thought.

ETA: I totally forgot to say the super cute part! I often absentmindedly sing, “There Are No Cats In America” from An American Tail. Shanna is now wandering around singing “There are no cats in Mary with cheese”. I can’t stop giggling. 🙂

In non-cranky news

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Dear god I’m huge. Getting around is getting difficult. But! Baby is happy and healthy and that’s awesome.

I am going over to Alex’s to paint Shanna’s kitchen today. I will hopefully get that bit done today so that we can finish the rest of it very quickly cause uhhh her birthday is Monday. Oops. 🙂

Holy shit. Her birthday is Monday. Expect tons of schmoop coming about that.

May has been fucking psychotic and I think that June is going to be a month of staying home and pidddling around with getting the house ready. I won’t want to have to do that at the last minute and there is a lot that could use adjusting before the baby comes. I can feel nesting hitting rather hard.

Great visit!

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I took Shanna to her first visit with a new pediatrician today. We switched insurances again so I had to start hunting from scratch. I like this chick a lot. She did her PhD thesis on Intergenerational Abuse Issues. That seems like someone I should maybe hook in with. She is tolerant though not enthusiastic about the really delayed vaccines. She didn’t have a problem at all with us skipping flu and chicken pox entirely. w00t. She was very willing to talk about best practices on parenting stuff and at one point she said, “It is so nice to talk to a parent who is educated!” I’ll be buffing my nails for a while after that one. She asked me pointed questions about a lot of our parenting choices and how we are going to handle support network/social stuff given our homeschooling plans but said that all my answers were the best they could be. I appreciate that. It’s kind of sad how badly I need the rubber stamp of someone in charge in order to verify that my copious research is actually correct.

And then we went off to start DTaP. The shot technician started off emphasizing the pain and how it was awful but it will be over quick. I told him to stop and then I sat Shanna on the table and we had a little chat about how it will pinch and probably not be her favorite thing ever, but shots are to keep us healthy and they aren’t that bad. I asked her if she could be brave and hold still and she did perfectly. The shot guy was really surprised. He told me he’s never seen a kid her age be so calm and collected. That surprised me. Really? Every single kid freaks out? If it is that pervasive then maybe he should think about the fact that his approach isn’t exactly reassuring. 😛

And the doctor was impressed with her vocabulary, counting ability, and ability to sing (almost all) of the ABC song. 😀 Yay kiddo!

poor baby

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Shanna is some flavor of sick. She is whiny x’s 1,000. This is not normal. She is super clingy. She has a low grade fever. She keeps crying. She woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare and had a terrible time going back to sleep. There is a youtube video, we call it The Hippo Song, and it absolutely terrifies her. She cries hysterically. (We’ve watched it 1.5 times.) She talks about how scary it is all the time. Last night she just couldn’t get over it. She has uhm intestinal distress.

My poor baby. 🙁