Tag: Pictures

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Kids/Parenting

One reason why it’s worth it

I think (and I know many of you agree, based on your comments) that motherhood is difficult because it’s worth it. The more hard-won the victory, the more we appreciate it.

Of course, the “victory” doesn’t feel complete while you’re still in the trenches—and even after your children are productive adults, I doubt you sit around (on your laurels) thinking about that.

But there are the little moments along the way that reminds us that it’s worth it now, too:

Okay, three reasons:

What little moments make you feel like it’s worth it?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Snippets of Rebecca

Rebecca was playing with one of our old cell phones and held it to her ear. “Hey-o?”

I used my “finger phone.” “Hi, Rebecca. How are you?”

“Gud.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nuffing. Watcha TV. Fee Ferm.” [Phineas & Ferb]

Rebecca really looked forward to her birthday this year (probably mostly because Hayden thought it was exciting). I kept having to tell her that it wasn’t her birthday yet. Finally, she got the message—whenever the subject came up, she’d say, “Becca birt-day! Nek week. Mon-ay.” [Next week. Monday.]

After her birthday, we (again, mostly Hayden) taught Rebecca her age. “How old are you?” we’d ask.

“Two!” she’d proclaim for the first week, and hold up her fingers:

After the first week, the answer changed. “How old are you?” we ask.

She’s still just as proud to proclaim her new answer: “Becca!”

Sometimes, Rebecca has rough naps. It takes her over an hour to fall asleep (though she seldom cries, so that’s good). One day, she’d been in bed for 90 minutes and started bawling. I came in to get her.

“Becca ‘wake,” she told me piteously.

“I can hear that.”

“Becca ky.” [cry]

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Uh huh.” She holds up her fingers the same as above. “One minnut.” (She also likes to tell me “one minnut” when she wants me to wait for her.)

Last week, Rebecca got sent to her room for the first time. She and Hayden had been fighting, so they both got sent to their room. Rebecca submitted peacefully, allowing me to lead her to her room, and sitting quietly in the arm chair there. She insisted I close the door. (This was probably because Hayden threw his usual screaming fit at the mere mention of being sent to his room, and as always, I had to physically drag him there. Maturity FTW.)

After Rebecca’s two minutes were up, I opened the door and invited her to come out. (Hayden was still screaming at this point, laying over the threshold to his room.) Rebecca preferred to stay in her room. Can’t say I blame her.

Later that day, something happened to upset her while she was in another room. “I go my woom!” she announced to her father amid her tears.

I found her there, laying on the arm chair, crying, a few minutes later. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I sad.” [Biggest frown in the world]

“Can I hold you to help you feel better?”

“No. Me’cine [medicine] help me feel better.”

Edited to add: whenever she thinks I’m upset, she uses her cutest, most innocent tone: “Sumping wong, Mommy? Needa Pinky?”

What are your favorite kid moments recently? Or what are your favorite toddler moments?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Surprise potty!

Saturday night I was putting Rebecca in the tub when she announced, “Poopy commy!” [coming]. We still have out little training potty in the bathroom, so I set her on that, confident that poopy was not commy, and went to tell Ryan.

A minute or two later, I could hear Rebecca crying. I headed for the bathroom and met her running down the hall. We went to check the potty.

Rebecca had peed in the potty! (I think it must have scared her and she thought she wasn’t supposed to pee there.)


(Story of the picture: Rebecca picked up a clean onesie on the couch. “Wait-dow [Rachel] jammas!” Next thing I knew, she’d put them on.)

Ryan and I praised her highly (and cleaned her up), and then put Rebecca in the tub. She said she had to go again, so I put her back, and she did.

After her bath, she insisted once again that she needed to use the potty, so I put her on once again. This time, however, she didn’t have as much luck. After a few minutes of waiting, she stood up and stuck her face into the potty chair.

“Poopy, come ON!”

What milestones are you celebrating these days?

Categories
Fulfillment

Forgiving ourselves

I am not a perfect mother. There. I said it.

Okay, I’ve admitted this before. Many times. Just over a year ago, I fed a not-quite-10-month-old Rebecca a Cheeto—but I got over it:

So much of the time, we mothers are quick to judge ourselves. Every time we don’t give our children what they want (even when we know it’s for the best) or aren’t 157% attentive to their needs, we feel as though we’re mean, bad, and ten kinds of terrible. If we don’t keep up on the latest trends—from Baby Gap to Baby Einstein, from Gerber brain-friendly organic finger foods to gerbera daisy hairclips to match every single outfit she owns—we’re bad mothers.

I anticipate the next few weeks will be among the most difficult of my life as a mother as all of us adjust to being a family of five. Today (day two of just me and the kids at home during the day), Rachel was pretty fussy. I ended up holding her nearly all day—which meant that Hayden and Rebecca spent most of the day in front of the TV.

Normally, one of the ways I measure myself as a mom on a day-to-day basis is by the amount of television my children watch. But today, I decided that it’s okay.

Watching television might not be the most productive use of their time (even if it is PBS), and yes, the APA says they should only watch two hours a day. I’m not really proud that they spent well over twice that with the television on today, but at the same time, it’s not worth beating myself up over.

I had to focus on one child’s needs a little more, and that meant I couldn’t be all my children’s cruise-and-entertainment-director every second (horrors). While I hope Rachel’s fussiness will subside relatively quickly, I’m sure it’s only the first time we’ll have to triage like this. And let’s face it, television isn’t the end of the world. So today I won’t act like it is, or that I’m a horrible mother for letting them watch both Super Why and Dragon Tales.

What do you need to forgive yourself for lately?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Rachel’s birth

After the concerns throughout my pregnancy, I did finally concede and agree to be induced the morning of June 7th—but I still held out hope that my baby would decide to come more than two days early, and save us from having to be hooked up to an IV, stuck in the hospital (and possibly even a hospital bed) for the whole labor.

Contractions woke me up at 4:45 on the morning of June 5. My mother had flown in the night before and thanks to flight delays and road construction, we didn’t get back from the airport until 12:30 AM. But Rachel decided to give me the first night of not-nearly-enough sleep that day. I tried to relax using some of the techniques from my Hypnobabies course.

Finally, I was tired of laying in bed, not sleeping. I woke Ryan up at 6:45 to tell him, “It’s baby’s birthday.” Because my contractions (“pressure waves,” as we say in Hypnobabies) intensified if I moved around a whole lot, Ryan helped to gather the last toiletries for my hospital bag and brought my birthing ball from the other room. I spent the morning in our room, sitting or laying on the birthing ball and reading or listening to HypnoBabies scripts—I even dozed off for a couple naps.

They say that for non-first-time-moms, you should head to the hospital when the contractions are 5-6 minutes apart and about 1 minute long. I hit that benchmark around 10, but didn’t feel like it was time to go to the hospital yet. Plus, I would have a set of 3-4 contractions, then stop for a little while. I worried they’d put me on drugs to try to regulate my contractions at the hospital, the same concern I had with Rebecca’s birth—and the reason why I waited until I was an 8 (90 minutes before delivery) before I was admitted.

In the early afternoon, things started to pick up. I still didn’t have a clockwork “schedule” of contractions, but I started to have clusters of contractions—several in a row, with peaks and valleys, but without letting up, for up to five to ten minutes. Again, just like with Rebecca’s birth.

I started to panic and knew I had to get to the hospital, sure I wouldn’t be able to make it without pain meds this time. Ryan tried to help me calm down, but it was hard not to panic in minute eight of a contraction! The car ride and walking about two million miles to the L&D admitting desk was not fun. As we slowly made our way down the hall, the nurse that met us asked if this was my first.

Thanks a lot. I thought I was doing well here.

They got me into a room and had me change into a gown. And then I proceeded to FREAK. OUT. I insisted that I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t have this baby naturally, I couldn’t keep it up. Ryan got me to lay down and calm down—and I instantly felt much better. I wasn’t comfortable by any stretch, but I wasn’t in the intense pain of just seconds before. It’s what Hypnobabies calls the fear-tension-pain cycle to a T. I was afraid, I tensed up, and it just made the pain worse.

So I laid down and the nurse came to check me: 9cm and my water broke (so there, nurse in the hallway). And I was ready to turn down an epidural, too. We started a script on my MP3 player and I was pretty set.

Good thing—my OB arrived in about 15 minutes and I was at 10cm. He pulled on a gown over his street clothes and said we’d push when I was ready. Which took maybe five minutes. A nurse and my OB commented at different points on how “controlled” I was (what they didn’t know…). About three minutes of pushing later, Rachel was born!

Rachel is one month old today! And tomorrow is our first day three-on-one. I mean all on our own, without any Nanas around for help.

Oh boy.

Blogging will probably continue to be spotty for a while, but one day we’ll find our new normal.

Categories
Random

Cake contest coincidence

Last night we had a men’s cake decorating contest at church. This was Ryan’s design from concept up (though I had to help with a number of things like making the frosting).

Today, I found out it’s the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Neither of us knew this yesterday, but I think they should totally give us an award now:

(Last year, there was only one entry. This year, more than a dozen. Plus, Ryan was judging, so we weren’t even expecting to be eligible—just wanted to make sure there wasn’t just one cake again!)

It took three bottles of blue food coloring to get the frosting that color, and it’s still not dark enough. I guess that’s just what color blue food coloring is.