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...

Juggling.

I just cooked supper for Rosie and me while nursing a sleepy baby.

Angel hair pasta, marinara and meatballs, and steamed broccoli on the side.

It went ok, cooking all alone with a baby glued to me. The only bad thing that happened was a bit of marinara splatter.

You know, just a bit...that culminated in my dogs licking marinara sauce off of my non-washable beige walls.

Ahem.

I'm so glad to not feel sick at my stomach anymore. I'd forgotten what it was like to feel human! To go out in public without dry heaving or just wanting to go lay down...it's nice.

Meal planning is in the works because I can cook, eat, and enjoy food. This makes me practically scream with joy. I spent the morning nursing my chubby cheeked baby, eating wooden food from Rosie's constant tea parties, and looking up new recipes to try--simple ones--so that I can cook healthy meals for Rosie every night. Since Tyler is at work in the evenings he won't be here to eat (or help) and that means I can cook whatever I want. Tyler is quite picky.

Bring on the vegetables! I can't wait. We're having shepherd's pie, chickpea curry, baked lemon pasta, pasta primavera, and whatever else I WANT.

This does not include plain grilled meat and a potato, sorry Tyler. Or fast food. Or any frozen food. Or any food made by Nestle for that matter, as long as I am doing the shopping.

I have to get going on my garden so that I can enjoy all of the aforementioned fresh veggies. I've got tomato plants in several varieties growing strong in a big pot. They need to be planted in the garden oh...any second.

I put some broccoli plants in my 4x4 raised bed, and I still have half a big pot of broccoli plants to finish putting in.

I have a big pot full of bell pepper plants, and a few Habanero pepper plants...

Lots of seeds to plant--two kinds of zucchini this year and yellow crookneck squash, corn, green beans, water melons

My pea plants are getting big over in the 4x4 bed. I'm not sure what the carrots, radishes, and swiss chard are doing in the containers...I've never grown any of those things before and they look kind of small and sad to me so far. But they are growing, so that's something I suppose.

My apple trees are growing nicely, all except one. The Yellow Delicious tree isn't well. It sprouted leaves, but they are tiny and curly and wilty. The other trees have flourishing big green leaves now. I have no idea what's wrong with it--it's in the container with another apple tree and the other tree is doing fine. Maybe it's just an unhealthy tree? I'm so lost...anyone with dwarf apple tree advice? I don't know how 3 trees could be healthy and one under the same condition could be so sad unless it's just the tree itself.

Gardening with a newborn is hard. I have to plant things in small increments. I think it will be easier once I stop bleeding and don't have to worry about over exerting myself.

I do have a great helper, Rosie...but she freaks out when dirt touches her fingers...or she sees a worm or any other bug...at least she has enthusiasm I suppose.

My big garden is tilled up thanks to Tyler! It just needs to be raked to get all of the plant debris and clumps of dirt out. There are some vines on the fence that need to be cut back too. That's normally easy for me to do, but again with the over exerting of healing self...bah.

Anytime I do too much I have a small gush of red blood, which is gross and annoying. I hope it heals soon!

Otherwise, everything with my body is almost fine. I feel normal...nothing like after I gave birth to Rosie. I can't even tell where my little tear was! Things are still healing a little though--when I wipe it feels somewhat numb down there. It's strange...but I don't think anything is wrong. Just the tissue is recovering from that big stretch from the baby's head.

My pelvic bones feel funny. I think I need to scrape together some money and visit a chiropractor because my left leg feels as if it's walking in a different direction other than straight ahead, and my tail bone is killing me.

I guess pushing a baby out kind of jolts everything down there.

My sweet baby Ada is growing big so fast. Not only has she already gained a pound, she also is starting to smile here and there. She's following things with her eyes today too! She watched Rosie eat her yogurt next to us on the couch and then she just grinned and stared.

I don't know what to do with her--she's so happy and content almost all the time.

And I'm so happy! I've never felt so happy in my entire life. What's up with that?

I could sit here and stare at my baby for hours, every detail of her chubby face, her squishy thighs, her brand new belly button, her fluffy baby hair...

I did not feel this way after having Rosie. Not at all. I spent weeks shuffling around and crying, worrying about random things like falling down the stairs while holding her, disturbing things like her temple getting bashed on the sharp corner of a table. Wondering if I would ever sleep again, getting angry at her for not nursing correctly or for waking up every time I tried to eat or shower. Resenting my loss of alone moments. Furious at Tyler for not helping enough. Feeling alone.

This time...I haven't had any of those feelings. I don't know what's different. It's maybe a combination of her wonderful birth and the fact that she's my second baby--I've already been through the initial shock of parenthood and I've adjusted. Baby Ada is like icing on the cake.

Delicious, mind blowing, amazing, beautiful icing.

It's not that I love(d) Rosie any less. Not that at all. It's just this baby...everything about it...bliss!

I don't want this feeling of happiness to ever go away.

It makes me want more babies. Badly. If this is amazing, I wonder how much better it can get.

It's like I have postpartum euphoria instead of blues. I wasn't aware this could happen.

Yeah, my sink is full of dirty dishes and my dogs licked supper off of the wall tonight. But that's somehow unimportant, it pales in the glow of this...I can't even think of a word for it.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but it's a good thing. I really good thing.