Captain Angry Pants.

This morning has been a fail, of sorts.

Ada woke up an hour earlier than usual and I guess that pissed her off because she spent almost the entire morning fidgeting, fussing, and crying. Crying in my arms, over my shoulder, at the breast, laying on the couch, laying on the bed, and in her bouncy seat.

She fell asleep in the ring sling, then she peed on us both and woke up and screamed. That's the first time she's ever peed in the sling. She's all out of sorts today.

She just now fell asleep in my lap, meaning I am trapped...but that's alright as long as she isn't screaming. I'm just going to pretend I don't see my messy house.

Crap, Rosie just woke her up by banging a princess figurine on the floor making it walk. I give up. On everything.

I haven't let the dogs out of their crates yet today and it's 1:15. I haven't let the chickens out and fed them, or let the ducks out. I've done no chores at all--I need to do laundry and clean the bathroom and vacuum today or I will totally lose my mind. Dirty house makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

Rosie is begging me to play with her. Earlier she cried for half an hour because I wouldn't play tea party in her (destroyed) room. I feel like the worst mom ever, but I just have no reserves left. Tea party is more than I can handle at the moment.

This is what my living room looks like right this second:

It's a toy explosion. The box is from the tiller we got the other day. Rosie has incorporated the box into her living room play area, and it's staying there until trash day on...wait Monday is a holiday. Ok it's staying until whenever the make up trash day is. Probably Wednesday.

We ran out of cat food and the cats are destroying the house, stalking everything looking for something to eat. I was supposed to go buy more today but...yeah. That's not happening at the moment. I would rather let them starve and crawl back in bed. Hopefully tonight when Tyler gets home...the store that sells their food is all the way down a busy road and the road has 400 stop lights. I do not feel like fighting traffic and stopping every 100 feet while Ada screams herself hoarse in the car and Rosie asks me thirty million questions.

Last night we dropped Rosie off at my parents' house and went to a wedding. The wedding was at a vineyard.

Ada was so happy to be out of the house. I think she's going to be an extrovert like Rosie. This is difficult for me because I am very introverted. Rosie is not happy unless she has plenty of interaction with others. I would rather sit in a hole and read a book for hours.

Anyway, Ada was very happy to look at all of the people and be in a different place. Part of the reason she cries so much at home is because she is bored, I'm fairly certain. She's happy if I'm walking around constantly and holding her so that she can see, or if we're out somewhere doing something she's very content. (Except in the car, she's a car screamer which makes it torture to actually get out to do something.) We have spent hours lately walking up and down the street, which also makes Rosie happy.

Ada also enjoys our backyard, which is good because so do Rosie and I! She will fall asleep while being worn out there, or she'll actually sit in her bouncy seat in the shade for like 15 minutes at a time. Amazing.

Yesterday I was able to leave her in the bouncy seat on the back porch, shaded by the house, while I hacked down all of the overgrown branches in my garden area. It's taking me a week to get the garden ready to plant. I'm finally able to do it now that it stopped raining for a few days and my body is mostly healed. All I have left to do is till up one small corner, rake out the debris, and then PLANT. Aaah.

I wish I'd taken a before picture. Here is a picture of all the chopped down branches...

I gathered up all of the branches and re-purposed them as chicken entertainment.

(Oh the baby just drifted back to sleep. YAY!)

As if I don't already have enough to do, I have saved a few more than a dozen duck eggs because...

Clearly these two need to have babies, right?

They will be so so so cute. Baby ducks will make everything better on a bad day. I just have to dig out the incubator and be sure it still works...

Don't tell my husband.

Aside from frustrations with a messy house, insane cats, attention deprived preschooler, and lack of sleep...happy moments still shine through the majority of the time.

Ada is starting to smile more. Her face is so ridiculously fat!!

This morning I plopped her screaming self down on the couch with the ring sling and told her that I give up trying to make her stop crying.

Then she grinned at me. Fat baby grins...what could be better on a frustrating, rainy morning?

The camera was on the couch next to her so I snapped a picture of the tail end of her grin.

These pictures are all from yesterday...

She has heat rash all over her face from being hot outside, even though she was in the shade most of the time.

It was 90 degrees yesterday!

Yesterday after I finished getting all of that brush out of the garden:

Rosie looks so...something!? Old? I don't know what it is exactly.

Her eyes are so bold in this picture, but I didn't do anything to them. I just quickly made it in black and white while the baby screamed at me this morning.

See poor Baby Ada's screamy face? This is why I have renamed her Captain Angry Pants...

Khoomii.

Tyler spoke to the code enforcer guy on the phone yesterday. The guy was still as rude as ever. I'm so glad I didn't answer the door the other day when he knocked!

I understand that they are just trying to do their jobs. That would be fine with me if only they knew how to DO that job correctly.

Why do they not know their own laws and limitations? Why is there no better system for dealing with repeated (false) complaints other than to waste the city's time and our time by showing up at my house over and over and over?

You'd think if they actually intended to accurately investigate and deal with these complaints then they would at least train their officers to know the difference between ducks and swans and game birds. They should also know how to be polite...

Anyway, on the phone the guy told Tyler that there was a complaint saying our chickens were out.

Tyler told him we had pens set up which were covered on all four sides and also the top. He told him that he wasn't supposed to come to our property without calling first, as we had agreed with the supervisor last year, because it's stressful to have them knocking on the door ALL the time when we haven't done anything.

Then the guy told Tyler he went in our backyard and there were birds out in our yard. (Yes, I let out my ducks and three chickens that can't get over the fence because they have clipped wings and no toes...remember the frost bite incident? And we had been out there with them, until I ran in to nurse the baby and saw that officer pull up.) There's nothing wrong with having chickens out in my own yard.

This is my favorite part though--it is against the law for them to come into your yard without your permission! Further confirmed by the no trespassing signs the police told us to hang up.

Tyler informed him that it was against the law for him to go back there and Tyler was really angry. The officer tried to argue with him! He didn't even know his own rules. They can't come onto your property, at least not past the front door, without your permission or a search warrant. Asshat had neither, but seems to be on a constant power trip.

This was the same problem we had last year--we would be in the yard playing and they would just come in the gate without warning, sending the dogs into a scary frenzy and catching me off guard, scaring Rosie, etc.

Tyler told him that next time it happened he would call the real police. (HAHAHA too bad we couldn't see his face over the phone!) So Asshat responded that he would instead just fine us the $25 instead of investigating the complaint.

Sure...I guess he can fine us...but we won't pay it unless he provides actual evidence. That would require him to either get permission to go in our yard, or for the anonymous complainer to take a picture of the invisible chickens on their property therefore revealing who they are. (Either that or someone else has chickens that I don't know of and they are getting out and someone is blaming it on me. That would be hilarious wouldn't it?)

The thing is, they are welcome to see our chicken set up. They have seen it before and photographed it without my permission. Asshat even went in the neighbor's yard without permission and photographed it from there one day last year, narrowly missing a run-in with their 130 pound basset hound/st. bernard mix. But they are so rude about it, and they refuse to do anything about the false complaints or even follow basic laws.

Just...ugh. I wish there was someone to file a formal complaint with beyond their supervisor. (We already talked to him at length.)

Enough of that, though.

Have you ever heard of Mongolian throat singing? I was watching PBS last night and Globe Trekker was about Mongolia.

These throat singers blew my mind.

Maybe this is proof that we are really descended from aliens? (Just kidding.)

You have to watch it, it's so strange and kind of amazing. The different sounds they have for each geographical region, that's really cool.

Oh great, the baby just pooped on the bed. Oops!

Yesterday I went to the health department to show proof of my pregnancy and live birth in order to get Ada's birth certificate. The woman who approves your proof is apparently very strict, so I was nervous I wouldn't have enough proof. I took that picture with the blurred out lady bits, the one that kept getting deleted from Facebook. I also took ultrasound photos. Apparently the lady was in a good mood yesterday because that was enough proof! I just have to get Tyler to go in and sign the papers, he has trouble getting there because of his work hours. He's not allowed to take any time off or he'll be fired no matter what he needs the time off for. (If he's sick he has to be dismissed by the health clinic at the Toyota plant, and even that isn't good...it still counts against him and can lead to him being laid off first if they do lay offs again, or not hired on as permanent.)

I have to get up and go do something while struggling with a squirmy baby. My dishes are out of control, I've got two loads of laundry to fold plus one in the wash and one in the dryer and the last load to go in. My bathroom needs to be scrubbed in the worst way.I also promised Rosie we'd clean up the yard today (dog poop and Tyler's tools) so that she could have her friend from down the street over to play. We got a tiller yesterday, finally, so I have got to till up my garden area, rake it, and get stuff planted before it's absolutely too late in the season.

I feel like I go in circles--by the time I get a chance to clean up something, then some other area of the house is destroyed by pets or Rosie and Tyler. It's so frustrating!

I keep trying to remind myself that in just a few months it will get much easier, as Ada is able to play and entertain herself more and won't need so much constant attention. Just have to survive until then!

Ada didn't sleep well last night at all. I didn't fall asleep until 6 this morning and Rosie got up at 8:30. I could really use a very long nap. :-(

Fowl At Large: Anonymous Chicken Hater Strikes Again..

I can't believe the county building inspector (the code enforcer guy) was at my house today.

Seriously, I want to know who this anonymous chicken hater is and why they feel the need to keep filing these complaints.

I don't know exactly what the complaint was since I didn't answer the door, but the enforcer left a copy of the city ordinance about fowl running at large in my door along with his card. It's probably the same false complaints about my rooster chasing small children or something.

The business card said to call, so Tyler called and left a voicemail.

The enforcer guy who came was the asshat one. The one who told me to have my husband call him, the one who thought my ducks were swans and told me they weren't allowed.

Yeah.

That's why I couldn't answer the door. I did not want to deal with Asshat today, with my angry baby and non-stop talking three year old.

The best part is they have written on our file to call Tyler if there is a complaint before stepping onto our property. Obviously they didn't bother calling him first.

If they come back again I plan on answering the door and informing them that legally they aren't allowed on my property without a search warrant, and if they don't leave I will call the police. (Thanks to an online lawyer friend for that information!)

Oh I would love to see the look on Asshat's face when I tell him that.

I was nice to them the first 340 times they visited me last year, but I have had enough. I've got better things to do, like enjoy my new baby and my Rosie.

He'll probably call Tyler back tomorrow, responding to his message. I wonder what he'll have to say.

If the complaint is that my fowl are going at large and leaving my yard, well...I don't know what else I can possibly do to keep my invisible escaping chickens inside my yard. Those invisible birds are tricky, tricky, tricky.

This is my chicken set-up. The green fencing needs to be taken down, and I'm going to plant flowers around the outside edges of the chicken pens. I'd really like to line it with lavender, but it takes several years to grow the plants nice and large.

From directly behind the yellow coop over to the back of the brown coop, that's the only space where anyone can see into my yard at all. Those neighbors are the ones who also own a farm and give me chicken advice.

To the right of the picture is the back of my big garage and a thick line of trees. To the left of the picture is the back of the neighbors big garage and an overgrown rotting wood pile of theirs. Behind you is Rosie's swing set and then the fence line, which is lined with large trees. Neighbors at the corners on both sides have privacy fences.

This is an up close of the brown coop...both chicken runs have tarps over the top to prevent any escape, but mostly they are there to keep hawks out.

The only fowl loose in my yard (which is allowed, because it's MY yard) are the two ducks. They can't fly. Pekins are bred for meat and don't have the ability to fly anywhere because they're too heavy. They can barely hop up on something a foot high.

The birds need fresh straw down on the ground in there because the mud has been so terrible, it sucked up the straw! But they don't stink or anything...

So there is your photographic evidence of my fowl going at large.

Humph.

My Grandfather Name

My youngest daughter recently asked me what I would like the fuure Grandchildren to call me and I would like to point out here that at 16 I hope she won't be presenting me with any anytime soon.

My Dad's Dad was Pa, my Mum's Dad was Grandad and my Dad was Grandad, so I thought I would go for something different.  I will be Obi Wan much to the disgust of my daughters who have revoked the right for me to name myself.

Happy One Month, Baby Ada.

One month she's been here, but it seems like forever.

We all love her so much, I can't describe it with words.

The blissful happiness still surges whenever I gaze at her!

Love her soft silky baby hair!

Even more than her baby hair, I love seeing her with her big sister.

Friends

It was my daughters 21st a couple of months back but she only had her party last weekend.  I have to admit to being a reluctant attendee.  I didn't want to go into a situation where people who want nothing to do with me would be.  I have seen no one from my previous married life as some of you who have been following this blog for a long time would know.

So I was apprehensive, scared and had a hard time relaxing.  I gave a couple of good speeches at my two son's 21sts a few years back (even if I do say so mself) but I went to this one totally unprepared and I was thinking the whole time about what I might say.  In the end it didn't happen and I regret that, not that it was totally my fault.

I left the venue to go and guide my sister in because she had gotten lost and when I walked back in the speeches were already being made so I sort of hung around at the back in a cowardly way.

The party was held late for my daughter and early for a friend of hers.  These two have known each other all their lives and been great mates for a long time, so here's what I would have said.

Young ladies, you move now from what was once considered childhood into formal adulthood.  It's an artificial line in a lot of ways, you can already vote and drive a car and drink legally.  I remember when I turned 21 that I believed I was already pretty old and wise.   Foolishly really, because the years since have taught me many lessons and as all parents know it is not an easy thing to pass those lessons on to their children.   But I'm going to try and do that now.

You two have been great mates.  You've laughed and cried together, enjoyed ach others company and been sick of it at times, squabbled occasionally but been there for each other when you have needed to be.   Never, ever, forget that.

There will be times in the rest of your lives when you need friends, when you need to have someone to confide in, or just a mate to share a burden occasionally.    Give each other a shoulder to cry on when it's needed, hold out a hand and support each other in the hard times, and delight in the joys that are yet to come, your marriages, your children, the many other occasions you will share throughout the rest of your lives.

But know also that you need to work at it.  It's easy to lose friends.  It's easy to forget and maybe not forgive alleged wrongs.  Promise me that if that distance starts to creep in that you'll work at keeping it at bay.  That doesn't mean you have to live in each others pockets, just remember to remember the other one.

Twenty one is called your majority but it's only the first step of that adult roller coaster we all go through.   It's always better to share the good times and bad with your friends.

Noting some thoughts.

My heart is now outside my body existing in two separate beings.

It's much more intense than I had ever imagined it would be.

The distress when they both need me at once. That's hard. I knew it would be, and it is. How do I choose one? My patient, understanding Rosie who just wants love and attention, or my helpless infant for whom I'm the center of the universe? Sometimes the baby has to cry while I do essential tasks like wipe a bum or prepare food, and that makes me sad. It's her lot in life, I suppose, being the second child and therefore unable to get my constant full attention.

The intensity of the joy though--this is also off the charts. I could never have dreamed of so much happiness. Sometimes it's easy to get side tracked on the small things--how much the baby (doesn't) sleep, cleanliness of the home, mundane life tasks. Having the two of them staring up at me with their big blue eyes is a shocking reminder to quit wasting time stressing over these things and instead to just seek joy.

Wouldn't that be a great life goal, to be a seeker of joy?

It's not so difficult to seek joy, especially since with the two of them I now have twice as much joy. Well, more than twice as much. I have joy spurting out of my ears. It's hard, but it's joyful as long as I take the time to seek that joy and then wallow in it.

I feel somewhat like I was suddenly thrown to the wolves since Tyler went back to work during the day. Everything was going so perfectly before, with him working at night, and now suddenly it's hard and not always happy.

That's why I need to seek the joy, right?

I saw this quote today:

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."

-Havelock Ellis

How true it is.

It's not easy to let go of some things, as I transition to being a mother of two.

Rosie is no longer my baby. She will always be my baby, but she's not the baby now. I feel like I've neglected her quite a bit recently--emotionally and physically. Thinking of it makes me tear up. She used to be my sole focus, and now she's sort of pushed off to the side while I do my best to deal with everything else.

What makes it even harder, when I stop to think over it, is that she has accepted everything with such grace. She tells me multiple times a day how much she loves "having a baby" and then she asks what she can do to help me. When I have some kind of freaky hormonal mood swing she quietly asks if she made me angry, and when I say no she asks what she can do to help. She brings me clean diapers and wipes all the time. She snuggles me and tells me she loves me, even when I haven't taken extra time to snuggle her.

She keeps telling me, "That's ok, Mommy."

What have I done to deserve such a sweet child?

She's so grown up now, even though she's only 3. She isn't a baby anymore. Letting go of that is sad, and hard.

At the same time I have to hold on tight. Hold on to my relationship with Rosie because she is still important even though she's much more independent now.

I have to hold on to my relationship with my husband also, which is more complicated now that my energies and emotions are divided up so thinly among two children.

I have to hold on to joy, because if I don't seek it and hang on then it will quickly disappear into the swirl of everyday life.

And there is so much joy to be found. I really don't want to miss a second of it.

"Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment."

-J. Donald Walters

5/20/2010

Last night the baby had her first ever period of crying for no apparent reason.

I'm sure there was a reason, but I couldn't figure out what it was. She didn't seem gassy. She would latch on and suck but then just cry. It was so sad!

I think maybe she was over tired, because she hardly napped yesterday. Rosie kept waking her up, and then she was fussy for two hours and I got her to sleep but Tyler came home from work and slammed the kitchen cabinets. That woke her right up.

At 11:00 last night she was crying and crying. I decided the best course of action would be to get naked and snuggle her in the bath. It was her first bath! (She showers with me instead.)

I put lavender essential oil in the water for good measure. Lavender is relaxing!

The sound of the water running made her stop crying. Once we got in she was in awe. Her little eyes were open so wide!

I put my hand under her head and let the rest of her float around for about 20 minutes. She loved that! I alternated with my hand under her back so her head and neck could float. She kept tipping her head as far back upside down as she could without drowning, then moving her head back and forth. I think the warm water in her hair and ears felt good.

I figure floating makes her feel like she's back in the womb, and it also gives her a chance to totally stretch out and relax so that any tense spots or misaligned body parts can slide back into the right place...

She started fidgeting after 20 minutes, so I got her out. Turns out she had to pee...

Then we went to bed. She cried at the breast for about two minutes, and then she started nursing and passed out cold in no time.

I woke up at 9:30 this morning! Ada slept from 11:30 to 9:30!

I know she stirred around and nursed a lot in her sleep because I remember thinking several times I should fully wake up and check her diaper or potty her, but I never woke up enough to carry that out and Ada never actually completely woke up.

This morning when I checked her diaper it was dry! She peed so much in the potty, haha. Rosie was impressed with the amount of pee.

Then she wanted to nurse more, and she fell back asleep!

I swear she's fatter this morning than she was yesterday...

I feel so much better after all that sleep! I'm still tired though, go figure.

I have a lot to do as usual. I know everything will be fine as long as I can find some sense of routine again. I have to change my old routine because it's too stressful to get it accomplished.

Today my goals are to go to Lowes (need to work on my stupid chicken pen some more...), fold and de-wrinkle my clean laundry, and do the dishes. We're also having an ant crisis and I need to go outside and hunt down their trail and nest so that I can use the diatomaceous earth to rid of them.

There are ants coating my kitchen counter and in my (few) dirty dishes in the sink. Yuck! Rosie spent several hours yesterday alternating between screaming and laughing while she squirted them with vinegar and water.

I also need to make a meal plan and grocery list, because grocery shopping is my goal for tomorrow...

So far going out alone with the two of them hasn't been hard, except for my poor sweet baby girl screaming her head off in the car. When I get her out she's dark purple and hoarse, it's TERRIBLE. (Rosie did the same thing as a baby.)

Rosie is usually well behaved in stores unless she just gets over excited about something. Ada hangs out in the ring sling and usually dozes off to sleep because the bright lights make her close her eyes. She really doesn't like bright light!

Ok, I need to drag myself out of bed and start my day...hard to do when you've got a sweet smelling fat baby snuggled next to you....

Photos

I still can't believe I have two little girls.

Squee!

Rosie adores Ada, and Ada adores Rosie.

Rosie told me it was too bright outside for them both.

She'll only sit in it for less than 5 minutes. Rosie loves the songs it plays.

Extreme excitement over something, forgot what.

Ada's hair will not lay flat!

And her cheeks are so chubby...

Sad neglected seedlings need to be planted BADLY!

Blooms!

Last but not least...the semi-dwarf pear tree I planted last year suddenly has lots of baby pears!

5/14/2010

My life feels so different now.

I don't know what it is exactly.

Partly Baby Ada's birth and how wonderful it was.

Partly the fact that I have been blessed with two amazing little girls of my very own

Oh and partly the fact that I no longer feel pregnant sick. I am so, so, so glad to feel human again. I'd forgotten how wonderful it is.

I'm quite conflicted--I already have baby fever, I want to have more babies right this second. At the same time, I never want to feel that sick for months ever again in my life.

The constant nausea was exhausting, especially since I have a huge phobia of vomiting.

Every time I think about it though, I realize it's totally worth it. I'll do it all again, I'll complain about it, and then I'll get a great prize at the end of the 9 months of torture.

I am really enjoying the not-sick life though. Now that I'm feeling almost fully recovered from the birth, the not-sick is hitting me. Enjoyment!

I can EAT.

I only slept about two hours last night, maybe less. Rosie kept rolling around and sitting up in her sleep. The baby kept waking up and squirming every couple of hours because she either had to pee or she had already peed, and at one point she had to poop and I fell asleep holding her over the potty.

I don't care if she goes to the potty or uses her diaper at night. The thing is, she squirms and fusses instead of just using the diaper 75% of the time and that wakes me up. Then I can't get her to settle back down until I hold her over the potty. She takes about 5 minutes to relax and then she does her business, and she goes right back to sleep.

I on the other hand am totally exhausted...yet I can't sleep. Sometimes I doze, but I don't ever fall into a deep sleep.

Frustrating.

Anyway, this morning I woke up and made waffles with Rosie. I use this Alton Brown waffle recipe--it's half whole wheat, half unbleached white flour. I'm too lazy to link it here, but it's on the Food Network website somewhere. They are the most delicious waffles! Rosie was excited to help me cook.

I was just excited to eat.

We have ripe strawberries in our garden now. The slugs didn't get them like they have in previous years. We had the strawberries with the waffles for breakfast.

For lunch I had the rest of the shepherd's pie from the other day. Nom, nom, nom.

For supper Rosie wanted rotini noodles. She likes to eat just plain noodles, which I don't think actually contains any nutrients.

I sauteed chicken breast with an onion and two tomatoes in my beloved cast iron skillet. We ate that over the noodles. Rosie wouldn't eat any onions or tomatoes, but the tomatoes sort of coated the chicken. She said the chicken tasted good...

Rosie has become quite the picky pants during my pregnancy. She only wants crap food, go figure. It's because when I wasn't feeling well that's all we ate. She's lucky we even ate supper some nights, sad to say.

I hope she will come around to normal food again soon.

Tonight we went for a walk with friends from down the street. We hadn't seen them since I got pregnant. Not only was it wintery and gross out, but I was also too busy sitting in my house dry heaving to socialize. Rosie was THRILLED to see the two kids and to play with them. The little girl is 7, I think. A bit older than Rosie, and Rosie idolizes her. They held hands on our walk around the block.

We also met up with a new neighbor who moved in down the street right before I had Ada. She has a little girl who is two.

The good thing is that these two moms are both around my age. I have had so much trouble finding parents that are either my age, or my parenting style, or that have anything in common with me.

These other two moms are nice and they are in my peer group. I don't really care if they do things differently as long as they aren't offended by breastfeeding, etc. They both love their kids and that's good enough.

Plus, I am desperate for non-preschooler contact.

We planned to go to the park (actually the historical house grounds) around the corner on Sunday afternoon. Rosie is so excited! I hope it doesn't rain.

I could possibly have real friends. Rosie could have friends on our street to play with. This could be good.

I have a hard time making friends because I don't trust anyone. It's self defense I guess, after surviving childhood.

I spent so many years afraid to talk because I never knew when I would say the wrong thing, walking on egg shells at home...it became an ingrained habit.

I'm good at not revealing anything, in person at least. I'm much better at writing because the screen isn't going to freak out on me.

That was a random tangent.

My cake smells so good. Only a billion minutes until it's done...I need to go wash the cake stand thingy so I can flip the cake out of the bunt pan.

Oh but first I need to go check on my sleeping baby...I miss her.

My girls this morning...

Maybe her eyes will stay blue?

They seem to be getting brighter blue.

Rosie is spunky, as always...

Three Weeks.

The baby is 3 weeks old today! I can't believe it's already been three weeks. Time is going by so quickly. She's already so much bigger, when I look back at her newborn pictures.

Look how not fat her face was.

She's been asleep in my arms for the past few hours. Nothing better than a snuggly sleepy baby!

I have to put a (cloth) wipe between her head and my arm. Kid has a sweaty head. She's always hot, just like her big sister.

I love staring down at her chubby sleeping face.

Since we went grocery shopping the other day, I now have ingredients for several meals of real food.

REAL FOOD.

Oh how I have missed thee.

I decided to make shepherd's pie for lunch today. I didn't have a real recipe for it, just an idea of how it should be.

It came out ok, though not like I intended.

I browned a pound of ground beef and sauteed a finely chopped white onion in my big cast iron skillet. Then I added some organic beef broth...a little more than 2 cups of it. I threw in some frozen peas with diced carrots and let it simmer for a little while. Next I added several big handfuls of wheat flour slowly, and mixed that in until it turned to gravy. (You could use arrow root if you don't eat gluten, and it will taste the same.) I seasoned it with salt and pepper for good measure.

I made some mashed potatoes to go on top. I used 5 big potatoes, but for some reason it didn't make nearly enough! Next time I'll use 8. I put whole milk with cream, a chunk of butter, and some basil and oregano into the potatoes. Plus generous amounts of salt and pepper.

The beef mixture goes on the bottom of the casserole dish, then the potatoes are spread on top. I baked it at 350 because that seemed like a good temperature, covered with foil to keep the potatoes from burning. After about 45 minutes I took off the foil and let it bake for another 15 minute or so to get the potatoes browned.

It came out with a lot of gravy. Way too much gravy, actually. So it was more like beef stew.

However, it tasted good and we ate it on sourdough toast to soak up the gravy. So that worked out fine.

I actually liked it better than regular shepherd's pie. I might make it with too much gravy again on purpose.

Oh and Tyler actually ate it and claimed he liked it. Go figure.

Cooking a little real food was my big accomplishment for today. It took a lot of baby crying, baby juggling, and sweat.

I just woke up from an accidental nap on the couch--I fell asleep sitting up. I'm not sure my head will ever be on straight again.

I also might have drooled on the baby. Maybe. Shh.

She didn't seem bothered much. She's still sleeping away!

Rosie is happily playing games on Nick Jr. and PBS Kids online. I wonder how long this miracle of silence will last.

I want to go somewhere and do something, like buy my poor starved lizard some crickets and a new heat light. Or fix up my two aquariums before everything goes belly up. Or plant my garden!

But...I'm still sitting here on the couch in a stained white under shirt of Tyler's that smells like breastmilk. I haven't put on any make-up.

And yikes--I haven't even brushed my teeth! I am going to do that...as soon as this baby wakes up. Dirty teeth...gross!

I didn't anticipate this much sitting around on this uncomfortable couch in the postpartum period. I feel like I'm being lazy.

Why is it so hard to get up and do stuff? It's just a baby, a sweet lump of needy baby goodness. My body is mostly healed--I just have a little bit of annoying stop-and-start light bleeding left.

Here I sit. Staring at toys all over my floor and thinking about the dishes I have to do at some point today. It's already 4:30 though, so "some point today" is quickly running out.

Two loads of laundry to fold, diapers that need to be washed in the washing machine. (They're soaking.)

Gardening and chicken chores that really need to be done. And oh my goodness the scary litter box...HELP!

Who wants to come snuggle my fat baby while I do all those things real quick?

You know, really...I could just sit here and sniff the top of her head getting high on baby scent and never move.

That sounds like a pretty good idea.

Because the FDA says so!

This new piece of work put out by the FDA on the subject of raw milk is extremely concerning. It's not just raw milk, but what the raw milk represents--which is freedom of choice when it comes to your food.

"Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish." [p.26]

And I suppose it's true--the government does not give us the right to consume any food we wish. We can't purchase raw milk in this state because it's illegal. Now the FDA is working to stop the sale of raw milk on a national level, even in states where it is currently legal.

They are also working in sneaky ways to undermine the sale of small farm produce, and to over regulate alternative health choices like homeopathics and herbs. It's not just a crazy conspiracy theory, it's actual legislation you can read about that if passed will have real consequences.

Supposedly it's all tied to big businesses that the government supports, commonly referred to as Big Dairy and Big Pharma. And again it sounds like some stupid conspiracy theory, but there's a real money trail to follow that leads straight to the top. It's not just something some crazy people dreamed up and started spreading rumors about on the internet.

It's concerning, isn't it? I don't understand why or how the government would need to take control of two private people making a private contract for the sale of milk, or the sale of anything for that matter. Apparently the FDA says on page 27 of that paper that Americans do not have a fundamental right to enter into private contractual agreements with one another.

One section of the paper is titled: There is No Right to Consume or Feed Children Any Particular Food. Another section is titled: There is No Generalized Right to Bodily or Physical Health.

Here is an article written about it, because the actual paper is kind of a lot to read through.

F-A-T!

Baby Ada just keeps getting fatter.

I swear she's fatter every morning than she was when we fell asleep.

Today's fatty goodness:

Not a great photo but displays her pudge.

Angry fat vs. Happy fat

(Reminds me of happy fat baby me.)

And in color...

Rosie at the same age, for comparison...

I don't think they look anything alike!

Zzzzzz...

---

Mother's Day was ok.

I spent the day in a haze of sleepiness. I am so exhausted it hurts. I can't even describe it.

I didn't even bother to get dressed today. My eyes are throbbing.

It was another night of literally no sleep! It's incredibly frustrating because as soon as I get the baby settled Rosie wakes up, or the other way around.

The baby finally falls into a deep, relaxed sleep at 5:30 or 6 in the morning. So guess who has started waking up at the crack of dawn? Rosie, of course.

And I look over at Tyler snoring away. It's not like there's anything he can do--he can't nurse the baby and Rosie just wants me.

He can't get up with Rosie at dawn because he doesn't go to bed until 3:30 in the morning due to work.

Oh well.

I've never been so tired in my life. I sleep 1-2 hours every night. Broken sleep, not a solid 1-2 hours. Napping with the baby (who sleeps GREAT during the day) is not an option because of Rosie.

I know this will pass. It will be better later, everything will be better at some point...when I get a few hours of solid sleep.

This sleepy feeling is nothing compared to when Rosie was a newborn. I thought I was tired then, but it turns out I had no clue. It's hard being on call 7 days a week for two restless little people. Really hard.

I will survive. I will.

Rosie has decided today that she's jealous of the baby, too. Normally I would handle it better, but I can't think clearly when my eyes hurt so badly. I have no patience left. I keep drifting off to sleep at random times, like while doing dishes. How sad is that?

I'm going to bed now, before someone wakes up.

5/10/2010

I slept last night! Rosie slept all night long!

The baby nursed some, but nothing that really disturbed my sleep.

I looked at the clock and it was 1:41 at one point when I changed a diaper.

Then I blinked (I thought) and suddenly the baby was choking on my fire hose of a boob. I shoved a handful of cloth wipes in the general direction and looked at the clock again. It was 4:14, that confused me.

I'm too tired to figure out the difference between 1:41 and 4:14.

Then the baby was loudly pooping and it was 7:18 and light outside.

That's a pretty good night of sleep! I still feel so tired though.

I guess this is a normal part of adjusting to being a momma of two little kids.

It's like some kind of test. A test for what, I don't know.

One night I was laying there thinking that it was just like Chinese water torture.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Wait until you drift off to sleep, and *just* as you slide into oblivion...JOLT! You have to wake up to tend to someone, or someone is stirring and you have to check, or you hear a cry and it's not even real. Over, and over, and over, and over.

To answer a common question, Rosie does not nap. Rosie *cannot* be allowed to nap. She hasn't napped since like 18 months.

If Rosie takes a nap at any point in the day, then two things happen. First, she wakes up and is so grumpy she ends up crying for at least an hour. Second, even if it was a morning nap, she will not be able to fall asleep at night until well past midnight. She'll be overtired, hysterical, and unable to sleep! She thrashes and rolls around and cries. It's horrible. I will do anything in the world to keep her from napping because of this.

Rosie takes after me. She just doesn't need that much sleep, like she physically can't stay asleep for that many hours in a 24 hour period. She goes to bed around 9 (at dusk, after we lock up the chickens together) and then she gets up sometime between 6 and 8. Usually around 7 on average.

I know kids are supposed to get more sleep, but she doesn't sleep that long! If she goes to bed earlier then she'll wake up earlier. I've tried getting her in bed by like 7:30 and then she's up and wide awake at 5:30 in the morning.

She never slept as an infant either, not like Ada. Ada sleeps for hours and hours, even at night she sleeps through grunting and stirring around. She has even pooped in her sleep before.

Great. The baby started thrashing and my entire plate of breakfast just fell upside down on the cat fur coated floor.

That's ok. I am a Goddess. Goddesses don't need to eat.

Or something like that.

Maybe they don't need to sleep like a normal human being either...that would be lucky.

Rosie seems to be less jealous today, so far, in the hour we've been awake. She announced she loves having a baby sister.

When she woke up while I was nursing the baby I reminded her of all the fun things big sisters get to do that babies can't do. Rosie thinks she wants to nurse all day long and be called a baby, which I'm sure is just a normal reaction since she realizes the baby is getting a lot of attention.

Once I spent 20 minutes listing everything big sisters could do that baby sisters can't do she seemed a bit happier. Especially when I reminded her how big sisters do things like eat ice cream, go to her favorite book store, hold chickens, eat cake, make bread and eat the dough, help mom do chores (she likes to scrub stuff), ride in big kid sized purple car seats (she just got a new one), and the list went on and on...

In comparison all baby sisters get to do is lay around and get milk all day, then get poopy all over their bums.

Now which one looks like more fun!?

She agreed it might be a lot of fun to be a big sister instead of a baby after all. Hopefully that notion will stick.

Anyway, anytime I feel like I'm totally losing my shit I can at least look at my sweet fat cheeked baby and get a surge of love and happiness!

Thank God for that.

I really have to go grocery shopping today. We're out of everything!

So far it hasn't been hard taking the two of them out places together, but Rosie and the grocery store recently didn't work out well if you might remember. Those stupid car carts!! I wish I could put a bag over Rosie's head, run and hide all of the car carts from her sight, then take the bag off and walk in the store and enjoy our shopping trip.

While sitting here nursing the baby I made an extensive grocery list with a meal plan and a list of healthy snacks we'll have on hand.

I can't wait to get the food so we can eat it. All of this nursing is making me starved!!

Did I write about the egg fiasco? I'm too tired to remember...I don't think I did.

While I was recovering from giving birth for the past two weeks I asked Tyler to take care of the chickens. Before I gave birth I showed him several times what to do--

Put a handful of oyster shell in the feed bucket, a handful of scratch grains, then four scoops of feed. Then another handful of oyster shell, another handful of scratch grains, and four more scoops of feed, and a handful of each thing again on top. Then throw in whatever scraps we've saved.

That's easy. Take it outside, pour half of the bucket in each feeder. (I use litter boxes for feeders. They're cheap and they work great because all of the chickens can eat at once, and they can easily be hosed out or whatever.)

Then give the chickens water in the hanging waterers and in the few dog food dishes laying around out there. Rinse out and fill the 5 gallon bucket full of water for emergency extra if it gets really hot and they run out. They roost on the side of the bucket and drink from it. You only have to rinse out the bucket every 3 days or so...the ducks drool food into it and it ferments and smells like vomit if you don't rinse it out!

On your way back in refill the dog water dishes. Then turn off the water and put the hose away.

So that's not very hard, right? It takes me 10-15 minutes each morning at the most.

Come to find out he hadn't been doing all of that, instead he had just been opening the coop doors when I asked him. Poor birds. I know I wrote about that.

But here comes the best part--I also asked him to collect the eggs every afternoon before he left for work. This isn't hard, it takes less than 5 minutes.

I assumed he was doing it, but of course...no.

It turns out he'd skipped a few days at a time and then gone out and collected all of the eggs at once. See, I'm really careful about egg collecting. I collect them every single day, sometimes twice a day if it's really hot or cold out. No chicks will develop in fertile eggs unless they are incubated or sat on, so if you keep up with your eggs then it's not a concern.

The other day I felt well enough to take over the chicken chores myself again, and when I went out I discovered I had a broody hen in each of the two coops. I asked Tyler how long they'd been sitting and he said he didn't know, he hadn't noticed there were any broody hens.

It's Tyler, of course he didn't notice. Captain Oblivious.

Are you seeing where this is going?

He had waited like four days, then collected eggs out from under broody hens unknowingly.

Then he mixed those eggs into all the rest of the eggs.

OMG.

There were 200 eggs in my house, and some of them had baby chicks started in them.

Noooooooooo!

I candled some of them. The thing is, it's hard to tell through dark shelled eggs if anything is going on in there so early. By day 4 you should see veins that look like a spider, and sometimes you can see an eye forming if the shell is thin and white.

Most of my chickens have dark, thick egg shells.

I cracked one that looked suspicious and the chick forming made me dry heave.

I threw away almost all of the eggs last night. I'm so upset!

What a waste of eggs and hard work from my hens. :-(

Ok enough rambling.

I lied, either I'm not a Goddess or Goddesses do need to eat...

I wish I had loyal followers to bring me some delicious offerings! Instead I'd better go scrounge up something from my kitchen...

Oh...

I did it.

Do you realize that?

I nourished this tiny baby in my womb. Then I gave birth to her, all on my own.

As soon as she came out of me I scooped her up. My hands were the only ones that touched her.

No one took her away. No one interfered other than to offer words of joy and encouragement.

It was perfect.

She's perfect.

People won't stop asking if we've taken her to the doctor yet to see if she's healthy.

No, we haven't taken her to an office full of sick people to find out if she's in good health

Does she sleep well? Is she a good baby?

She nurses. She pees. She poops. And most of all she smells sweet, and I can't stop sniffing the top of her head.

What baby isn't a good baby, anyway?

People ask such silly questions.

All the time, since her first hours of life, she is like this:

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

I don't know what to do with myself.

I'll never be the same again. No one warned me it would be like this.

So many women don't know what they are being cheated out of--this baby bliss.

So many women don't want to take the time to find out. Oh, but they don't know what they are missing...

Hello? Can anyone hear me? Is this thing on?

What he was thinking of, in fact, was the whales' songs. In the past the whales had been able to sing to each other across whole oceans, even from one ocean to another because sound travels such huge distances under water. But now, again because of the way in which sound travels, there is no part of the ocean that is not constantly jangling with the hubbub of ships' motors, through which it is now virtually impossible for the whales to hear each other's songs or messages. So fucking what, is pretty much the way that people tend to view this problem, and understandably so, thought Dirk.

Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

"We have a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful; it’s that women are strong."

— Laura Stavoe Harm

5/7/2010

The tea parties in our house continue.

I've eaten so much wooden food, I'm going to be pooping mulch for weeks. My poor bum hole.

Rosie is still basking in the big sister glow.

Baby Ada loves the ring sling. Thank God. I was able to reclaim the kitchen sink today.

Tyler had been in charge of it for the past two weeks and it was nasty.

Really nasty.

Like...old food, standing water, mold, and dead bugs nasty.

In my kitchen.

Where I eat.

EW.

Ew, ew, ew.

It's all good now.

(By the way, that Green Works soap is actually not green...or all natural. It's chemical scented and has the same ingredients as regular soap! Tyler bought it to try, and it's gross. It smells terrible. The 7th generation soap is way better.)

Rosie always hated the ring sling as a baby. She much preferred the Moby wrap.

Well go figure, Ada hates the Moby and loves the ring sling. As long as she's happy...

Since I was able to get the sink back to sparkling white. I feel SO much better. Nothing is right when the sink is gross, the laundry is piled up, and the floors are dirty.

Tomorrow I just have to fold one load of clean laundry and vacuum...the vacuuming is a desperate situation similar to the sink. Yikes.

I'm so tired today. The baby woke up a million times last night. She kept peeing and pooping!

I seriously slept less than two hours total.

This morning my eyeballs felt like they were melting into my skull. I wish I could nap...the baby certainly naps plenty.

Oh well. I still feel so happy, even while dying from exhaustion. I still can't explain it.

I do wish I had someone to help me do stuff, but...

Tyler tries to help, he's just...well the dishes are a good example. He tries, I think, but it's like he does the most half-assed job possible. And what's worse, he doesn't seem to realize it.

I mean I appreciate his effort, but I can't figure out...I can't figure out a lot of things.

I've been asking him to let my chickens out in the mornings, but he can't seem to take them food and water unless I say specifically to give them both.

WTF?

I've been assuming he was feeding and watering, and he hasn't. It was like 85 degrees today when I went out and the poor things were parched!

He hasn't been making sure the dogs have water outside either, so they have been drinking the very smelly duck pool water. (I need to clean it out BADLY.) This gives the dogs diarrhea and farts that reek like smelly fermented duck shit. It's so terrible.

I really have to get back to doing all of these things myself, poor creatures. I swear I normally take great care of all of them. It's my morning routine and I honestly enjoy doing it.

Being exhausted and penned down by the baby is a bit frustrating when I suddenly realize all of the things that aren't getting done, which is why I'm glad Ada loves the ring sling. She's going to be spending a lot of time in it!

I don't mean to talk bad about Tyler, because I know he tries. I'm just frustrated at not being able to get everything done myself.

Speaking of getting things done, I have to go lock up my chickens, get the girls to bed, and candle some eggs a hen abandoned...Tyler couldn't remember how long she'd been sitting on them...maybe I'll have to incubate them! Shhh.

Before I do that...despite housework and chore frustrations I'm still basking in baby goodness.

And in my lap right this second...passed out and ready for bed.

May we both sleep better tonight!

I'll leave you with this quote I just read. I want to save it, and here is a great place to do so.

"What keeps our faith cheerful is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids ­up; all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people."

-- Garrison Keillor