The Doll

Last May, we went to Disney World. While we were there, we let each kid pick a souvenir. Jack built a light saber, Nora found a handmade necklace, and Ann Marie chose one of those two-sided dolls that was Rapunzel on one side and Tiana on the other. You know the kind; one head is hidden under the skirt of the other head, and you flip it upside down and reverse the skirt to switch characters.

We bought the Rapunzel/Tiana doll, henceforth known as “Tinunzel,” on our first day in the Magic Kingdom. And while the double princess dolls could be found in tons of shops all over the park, the Tinunzel doll was only in the shop right by the park entrance on Main Street. This became an issue later, when Ann Marie woke up that night and barfed on it. She was fine; it was “too much theme park fun barf” not “gravely ill barf.”

Fortunately, we were planning a second day in the Magic Kingdom, and my friend Jen is a Disney World expert and had told me that you can exchange anything at Disney World for any reason. She lives about twenty minutes from the park and has exchanged many items, even ones obviously broken by her children. She says it’s included in the outrageously high prices. You’re paying for 100% satisfaction!

So when we went back to the Magic Kingdom for our second visit a few days later, I wrapped Tinunzel up in a plastic bag and stashed her (them?) in the bottom of the stroller. We were borrowing Jen’s BOB Revolution stroller, which she had kindly stocked with a cooler and 5 disposable rain ponchos. We were very glad of the ponchos on our first Magic Kingdom day when it rained that afternoon.

When we got to the park, we went to the shop right away and I told the cast member working the register that my daughter had thrown up on the doll that we just bought, and could we please exchange it for an identical doll? The cast member said we’d need a receipt.

What?

Let’s break that down: Either I can exchange a doll that was damaged after purchase or I can’t. The receipt merely serves to prove that I bought the doll at Disney World. Given that I was exchanging the doll for an identical doll, what is the point of proving I bought it there? If I were asking for credit, I’d understand. Or if she had said she can’t exchange it because the damage occurred after purchase, I’d also understand. But no exchange without a receipt? What?

I of course did not have the receipt, so I took Tinunzel and left, figuring I’d try it in one of the other 10,000 shops in the park. That is how I know that Tinunzel is only available in that one shop. I checked.

Happily for me, my friend and Disney expert Jen and her kids came to join us at the park later that day. Jen was stunned that the cast member wouldn’t exchange the doll, and she agreed to help me try again later. So on the way out, Jen and her kids headed to the shop with me and Ann Marie, who was very very cranky. We parked the strollers outside, and I grabbed the plastic-wrapped, barfed-upon doll and went in.

“Hi, my friend’s daughter was sick and threw up on this doll. A cast member outside said you’d be able to help us out in here?” said Jen to the guy working the register. I held up the plastic-wrapped doll and the new doll with a hopeful expression on my face.

“You just want to exchange it for the same doll?” said the cast member.

“Right,” I said.

“Heugghhaahhh!” said Ann Marie, as she chose that exact moment to barf on the floor, demonstrating exquisite timing.

So then there was a flurry of activity as Jen hustled her vomit-suggestible kids away, the cast member called maintenance, and I guarded the soiled area to keep customers from accidentally walking through it. While we waited for maintenance, I handed the wrapped doll to the cast member and he gave me a new doll to replace it. Eventually they brought a “wet floor” thingy and we took the new doll and left.

That night, Andrew unpacked the stroller, and he found something interesting. He found the plastic-wrapped, barfed-upon Tinunzel doll still in the stroller basket.

You see, in the flurry and rush of activity, combined with the fresh barf, I had accidentally exchanged the bundle of our used rain ponchos for a brand-new Tinunzel doll. Basically, we ran a complicated con job to score a free princess doll. And we couldn’t have done it without Ann Marie.

She’s method.

Ann Marie Sayings

Walking past the neighbor's house, Nora asked, "How old is Mrs. Q.?" 

"93," I said. 

"Wow," said Nora. "She's going to die soon."

"Um," I said.

"Should we tell her?" said Ann Marie.

***

Ann Marie, in a still-wet nighttime diaper and PJs, peeked into the kitchen to see if we were there. We were. Then she ran through the kitchen REALLY FAST so that we wouldn't see she hadn't changed yet. We saw.

***

Upon learning that I had to go buy milk, Ann Marie said, "Oh, are you going to get it at the area?" I was flummoxed for a while. "The area?" I said. 

"Yes! The area!"

The area... The area... "Oh! The dairy!" I said.

***

Seven in Seven 6: Not seven in a ROW...

Well I didn't make it, but that's because I was felled by a stomach bug, so I think allowances can be made. And this is going to be a quick takes kind of post.

1. Ann Marie says "aqua puss" for "octopus" and "polka nuts" for "polka dots." Two things that need documentation, I think we can all agree.

2. Andrew and I are going to get solar panels on our house, and we are so psyched. Our house has a huge long roof that faces south, and we've wanted to do this for years, but were always afraid it would cost too much up front. When I saw something in the paper talking about the city partnering with a green energy company to put in solar panels, I figured I'd at least call and find out a ballpark figure for it, and two weeks later we had signed papers. We are getting more than half off in discounts and tax incentives and the energy company has a sweet deal with a bank for a low-interest loan on the rest, so we should have this thing paying for itself pretty soon. And just THINK of the net gain in smug hippie points we get! A farm share, cloth diapers, a hybrid car, and now solar panels? We will soon be unbearable to be around.*

3. On the down side, the solar guy put 12:00 into his calendar instead of 9:00 for the follow-up visit we just had, and then the visit took 5 hours instead of the 90 minutes or so we had expected. So that kind of borked the whole day. And then I was felled that night, as aforementioned, with Jack close behind me. Jack got so sick I actually called the doctor to find out at what point I had to take him to the ER for fluids, so the weekend was not so great overall. (Jack is totally fine and did not need to go to the ER.)

4. Because Ann Marie plays me like a fiddle, it takes me five times longer to put her to bed than it takes anyone else. I usually find myself holding her hand until she falls asleep, in fact. Does anyone else hold her hand until she falls asleep? No. No, they do not. Just me, the sucker. And now Nora is begging me to hold HER hand until she falls asleep and this madness must end except that I am too unwilling to go through the torture of the Change Of How Things Go. Plus, it's nice and quiet in here.

5. I am writing this on my new iPad, which I got from my ever-generous mother-in-law for my birthday, although in this particular instance she had a hidden agenda in that she wants to face-time with the kids. But I haven't let them touch it yet as it has no protective cover, and I know that once they get it I'm never going to see it again. But the silicone case is en route, MIL, so soon. Tomorrow it should be here.

6. With the gift of the iPad, Andrew and I now have 3 laptops, 3 tablets, 2 smartphones, a Samsung Galaxy MP3 player, and an iPod touch. One of the laptops is my work laptop, but this is nuts. Comfortable and entertaining, but nuts! To quote Temerity Jane (do not know how to link from the iPad): "Complaints invalid."

*Our HE washing machine also generates its own electricity during the spin cycle.

Seven in Seven 4: Today

Lauren posted her day 4 post on Twitter. I read it as I held Nora’s hand while she went to sleep and was reminded that I am also participating in the “Seven post in seven days” (hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary), and I may have cursed internally a little bit. But blog posting is like exercise: I’m always glad I’ve done it even if I’d really rather be watching Veronica Mars while in the middle of it.

Today you get to hear about my day, because I don’t really know what else to talk about and when you give yourself arbitrary deadlines you are choosing quantity over quality. In contrast, Snoozical chose quality with her last post, and even if it did mean she quit “Seven in seven,” it was absolutely worth it and you should go read it.  

Meanwhile, my day started at 2am when Ann Marie woke up and threw up in her bed. Is there anything more pathetic than a barfing toddler? She had no idea what was happening of course and everything was just terrible. On the bright side, the mess was all contained in the crib so it was a relatively easy clean up. I should say it was relatively easy for Andrew to clean up because he was the one stuck with ferrying gross sheets and blankets upstairs to the wash while I cradled Ann Marie in the bathroom and tried to comfort her.

She and I stayed in the bathroom for a while and then she slept with me in my bed while I dozed fitfully, bolting upright every hour or so to hold her head over the bucket. Meanwhile, my sainted husband made trips back and forth to the bathroom to clean out the bucket and then slept in the chair in the girls’ room because Nora was freaking out.

All this meant that I had to call in sick to work today. Given that today was my day to work for an hourly rate, something I only do every other Thursday, this was irritating because it means I lose out on the pay for today. On the other hand, it was a blessing to have Andrew home so there were two of us to deal with the terribleness that is a sick toddler. And in fact, Andrew got up and started to get Jack ready for school while Ann Marie and I stayed in bed for an extra half hour. Then Andrew took Nora – whom we kept home from school because she was up for about two hours due to all the commotion – and ran a bunch of errands while I held Ann Marie on the couch and we both took a nap. So I’m pretty glad I stayed home.

In all, it was really not that bad of a day. Ann Marie threw up for the last time at 9:30 or so and was begging for cheese sticks by noon. (Almost as pathetic as an actively vomiting toddler is a recently-vomiting toddler who is now hungry and can’t understand why you won’t feed her.) The entire household was in bed by 9pm and it is now 9:23 and I’m the only one awake, so we’re OK. All that’s left now is the ticking time bomb feeling that one of us is about to be felled. We’ve laid towels out on the rugs by Nora’s bed and talked to her about aiming for the bowl, but who knows.

I thought I’d have something else to say here, but it looks like you’re stuck with this. But that’s what you get for choosing quantity over quality. You get this. 

Seven Posts in Seven Days 1: Ann Marie update

This is a post for me and for Ann Marie’s early intervention therapist, Miss Nancy. Ann Marie was enrolled in EI last January after I took her for her 12-month well visit in December and her doctor said, “What do you mean she can’t get herself into a seated position? And she has no words at all, you say? Hmmm.”

Honestly, I blame her motor skills delay on her parents’ forgetting how old she was. “She’s the BABY. Tiny babies cannot sit up! It’s perfectly normal! She’s only a few months old!” we thought, subconsciously. Also responsible: She is the THIRD baby. She does not get quite as much laser-focused attention as, I don’t know, her eldest brother did. Her brother and sister are sort of demanding, as it happens. This is real life. 

At any rate, she scored one point over the qualifying score for motor skills (she could not crawl or get into a seated position or roll over or pull to stand, but her fine motor skills brought her score up) and two points over qualifying for her communication skills. In other words, she did not qualify, but only by a hair. In such cases, children can be enrolled based on clinical recommendation, and that is what we did. Frankly, I was not concerned about her motor skills because she had improved substantially between her well visit and her EI qualifying interview, mostly because Andrew became aware that she was not, in fact, a four-month-old, and we made her try things. But I was a bit concerned about her learning to talk because she communicated non-verbally to great effect, so I was afraid that I would not know how to get her to use actual words.

  

Thus it was that Miss Nancy started coming to our house every Tuesday afternoon for an hour to play with Ann Marie. And Ann Marie was Miss Nancy’s favorite client, if you don’t mind my totally unbiased opinion. And, OK, I’m sure Miss Nancy worked with plenty of adorable kids, but seeing as how she worked primarily with children with severe developmental delays, I do think a pleasant hour playing with a cheerful baby who had a slight speech delay was a nice little break for her.

It probably helped that my other two children were always under some sort of magical spell when Miss Nancy came, and always acted like angel children from another dimension for that hour. Honest to goodness, Nora once spent the entire time playing with some dolls, singing a little song quietly to herself. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was staged. The storybook magic always ended when Miss Nancy left at 4:00 and the children immediately began begging for a show, but it was always nice – if surreal – while it lasted.

Once Ann Marie started walking, we noticed a problem with her feet. They curved in. The orthopedist diagnosed her with metatarsus adductus, which is Latin for “curved in feet,” and prescribed special shoes for the day and boots and a brace to sleep in. I was told to expect that she would need to wear the brace for three years, and we scheduled a follow-up visit for that November, six months away. Well, her feet were noticeably better within two weeks. I know it was two weeks, because we got the brace right away but had to go back for the special shoes, and they were better by then. And by the time Ann Marie had her six-month evaluation for EI, her feet looked totally normal. The physical therapist who had come for a sort of foot consult before I took her to the orthopedist came back for the six-month eval, and she was astonished at the improvement.

But what is the six-month evaluation? In Massachusetts, if you qualify for EI, you get it for a year, with an evaluation midway through to check on the progress. But if you qualify for EI based on clinical recommendation, the six-month eval is a qualifying evaluation, and Ann Marie did not qualify. Not even close. In January, her almost-qualifying scores were 76 and 78. (You need 75 to qualify.) In June, her scores were 105 and 97. So the EI worked, apparently.

You know what else worked? Her shoes. I took her back to the orthopedist in October instead of waiting until November because she had outgrown her special shoes, and the orthopedist declared her cured. Cured! She didn’t have to wear special shoes or a nighttime brace anymore! I’m still pretty amazed by that. Six months is a lot less than three years. So, Miss Nancy, she hasn’t had orthopedic shoes since October!

She also talks a blue streak now, Miss Nancy. I’d list her words, but her vocabulary is too vast. This morning Nora was making her way to the car taking her to school, and Ann Marie called out, “Carefully, Nora!” correct syntax and all. Then while we came upstairs she said, “Can I watcha show? How ‘bout... Mickey Mouse! How ‘bout... Dora! How ‘bout… Phinny Ferb?” (That last one is Phineas and Ferb, and the answer is always no.) Yesterday Andrew asked Nora to get him a napkin and Ann Marie came running. “I do it! I DO IT!” and did it. When she wanted to stir my coffee for me I sent her over to stir Andrew’s instead. Jack said that he didn’t think Andrew wanted her to, and she said “I GOING to!”  She can count to twenty sort of, and she can count to eleven pretty consistently. She can identify “G” and “O” and knows what sound “H” makes. For the counting and letters I concede all credit to her Leapfrog Leaptop.

And she takes the stairs like a big kid. No more creeping. Sometimes she even alternates her feet while she climbs, although she has to be holding someone’s hand to do that. She can jump, too. Real jumps, both feet off the ground. She runs and climbs. She can get in and out of her crib and can even get out of her crib and make her way upstairs, all by herself. 

She is an utterly charming delight to be around. She has her moments of course, and we’re no strangers to tantrums about wanting or not wanting to wear her “cozy shirt” or some other nonsensical two-year-old problem, but she sure is fun.

And Miss Nancy, if you ever want to stop by for a visit, you are always welcome.

1,2,3... from Maureen on Vimeo.

There were so many other parking spots

Ann Marie and I went to Costco today. I got there when it opened, so I had a pretty decent parking spot nice and close to the cart return. After we were done and I had loaded all of the things into the car, I saw a minivan waiting for my parking spot, blinker fully engaged. She sat there while I shut the trunk and walked the cart back to the cart return. There were plenty of other spots free, so I don't see why she didn't just park in one of them. Why is it people are willing to spend extra time waiting in the car in order to save time walking? It's like the people who show up forty-five minutes early for school pickup. Yes, they get a spot close to the door which makes for a quicker getaway, but I get there ten minutes early and I drive away only about five minutes after the early people, so the total time I spend waiting around the school is only fifteen minutes and they wait forty-five. How does that make any sense?

But this minivan lady must have thought it would be worthwhile to wait; after all, all I had to do was return the cart, buckle the baby into her car seat, get in and drive away. How long can that possibly take? What she failed to consider, however, was that buckling the baby into her car seat takes at least five minutes, and that's when she is being cooperative. When she is not cooperating, it takes approximately 400 years. Getting into the car is one of the times where I hear a lot of "DO SELF!" but do not see a lot of self-doing. Other areas where "DO SELF" is unwelcome: Pouring milk from the full glass quart container, putting shoes on when we have places to be, and changing dirty diapers. She is most definitely not allowed to "DO SELF" her own poopy diapers.

But the car. The car is where I am most likely to lose my mind as I stand in the weather, waiting for her highness to stop pushing buttons and deign to turn around and sit down. Every time I must weigh whether it will be faster to let her DO SELF or to force her and endure her stiff-bodied wrath. If it were just regular old screamy wrath I'd endure it no problem, but she's a lot stronger than you might think and it can be pretty challenging to force her into a car-seat-amenable body shape if she doesn't want to comply. So I usually give her a few minutes.

But the lady in the minivan has apparently never tried to put an independent toddler into a car seat before. To her, it looked like I returned the cart and then went back to my car in order to stand there with the door open for no reason whatsoever. "What is she DOING?" she must have been thinking. "Doesn't she SEE ME HERE?"

Yes. Yes I did see her there. I thought she was probably going to be unhappy with how long it took me to get into the car. I would maybe even have felt some slight pressure to try to hurry Ann Marie along, except that there were about fifteen other parking spots within my sight line. None of them were closer to the entrance, but at least one was only fifteen feet further away. And that one was closer to the cart return.

And yet she waited. After what must have seemed an interminable length of time where I just stood at the car, waiting in the cold just for fun, she pulled forward and looked at me with an expression that said, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" I said, "It's going to be a long time," and shrugged. I don't know if she could read my lips or not, but she drove away and the vibe I received was very annoyed. Meanwhile, I was saying "Turn around and sit. Turn around and sit. I will give you the juice box when you are buckled. Turn and sit. Turn and sit. Sit. Sit down. Sit. Sit. Sit. Sitsitsitsitsitsitsit," because that is how I spend 15% of my overall time. And it's not even that I drive that often, it's that it takes Ann Marie so long to get in the car.

So, no, lady who didn't want to park fifteen feet further from the entrance. I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

Frankenbaby

I love it when babies are first starting to walk.

MVI 0323 from Maureen on Vimeo.

MVI 0347 from Maureen on Vimeo.

And here is a bonus video of Ann Marie playing a game she invented, called "Where's the milk?" See, she likes to have a napkin so she can helpfully wipe up her tray, and one dinner she started YELLING YELLING YELLING to get my attention. She HAS to yell, because I tune out the yelling. It's a bit of a catch-22. When I finally realized she was trying to tell me something, I looked over and she had her napkin over her milk cup and was signing "milk" at me. And a game was born.

MVI 0348 from Maureen on Vimeo.

But before you leave me a comment telling me how that is the cutest thing you've ever seen, let me preempt you by telling you that it's only because you didn't see Ann Marie calling us all over to her high chair tonight so she could give us hugs.

Use what you have

Andrew was holding the naked baby, having just gotten her ready for a bath. While I drew the bath, I noticed that this time, Andrew neglected to put a prefold diaper between her and his arm, the way he usually does in this situation. I turned my attention back to the tub and then heard Andrew yelling from the bathroom doorway. “Get me a diaper! Get me a diaper!” he cried out. But it took me too long and Andrew, already streaked with wet down his leg, saw the puddle on the floor approaching the kitchen baseboard. Because our house is so slanty, the baseboard does not actually meet the floor in a few places; for example, the place towards which the puddle was heading. So Andrew mopped it up with the only thing he had. His sock. Which he was wearing. 

Cruising

She's getting better!

MVI 4383 from Maureen on Vimeo.

Minister of silly walks

Ann Marie is on the slower side of walking, in that she doesn't. Nor does she pull herself up. She's been undergoing doctor-prescribed Tummy Time Boot Camp, if you must know. But we're not concerned or anything, although I am anxious to avoid Early Intervention if only because I don't want to have another appointment to deal with.

At any rate, if you hold her up, she sort of flaps her feet around on the floor and thinks she's walking. It is hilarious.

Ann Marie: Minister of Silly Walks from Maureen on Vimeo.

Are you ready for this?

First of all, do remember when Nora used to move like this?

Stuck scoocher from Maureen on Vimeo.

At the time, I thought she was just expressing her individuality. But then Ann Marie started using exactly the same technique, so now I think it's me. I'm working with the theory that it's because I spend so much time in the kitchen with its hard floor that I never give the babies any tummy time. Whatever the reason, it remains hilarious.

You know what else is hilarious? How much all three of my kids like the song "Are you ready for this?" Jack got a musical card for his birthday, and I've since bought the single.

But please note above that I said all three of my kids love it, because here is a video of Ann Marie dancing to it, with bonus skooching.

MVI 4153 from Maureen on Vimeo.

Eye update and cute children

Thank you guys for all your sympathy about my poor angry eyes of the past week. It really does help me feel better if people feel sorry for me in my pitiful state. The new eye drops seem to be doing their job; my eyes are a million times better. They're still a little red and itchy, but nothing compared to what they were. And I did call the ophthalmologist to confirm that it was OK to still have itchy eyes after four days on the antibiotic, because I am done with messing around with the wrong prescription, thank you.

But I don't like leaving that post up with the horrifying eye photo, so I'm going to instead put up adorable photos of my adorable children. By the by, my two older adorable children had a fight yesterday about whether it is called "pumpernickel" or "pumpernickel BREAD." An actual fight. I wouldn't have cared, but they were having the fight in front of the baby's bedroom door while I was trying to put her down for a nap, so I was unable to yell, "IT DOESN'T MATTER YOU ARE BOTH RIGHT!" Anyway, here they are, looking angelic and stuff:

.
 Ann Marie learned how to play, "How big is Ann Marie?" this week*, and I am so happy about it.


 
She also turned seven months old last week. She might end up being the only kid to get all twelve monthly shots, but we shouldn't count our chickens as there are still five months to go.


 
 I am so lucky.


*Soooooo big!

I think it's safe to tell you now

We all know that parents of babies are preoccupied with sleep. “Should I be nursing her to sleep?” “I can’t get him to nap.” “I have to sing 47 versus of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star while holding her with her face smooshed into my neck, but then she’s good for at least two hours." Sleep sleep sleep. It’s all we think about. Or talk about. We’d dream about it, but we can’t because we don’t ever get any sleep.

Except… Have you ever heard of those babies? The ones that go to sleep easily and then stay asleep for a long time? And sleep through the night at two months? I always thought those babies were mythical, but then I got one. It is safe for me to tell you this without invoking the wrath of the sleep gods because she stopped doing it, but Ann Marie started sleeping through the night at something like two months old. Note: She will be five months old next week, but I can’t even remember exactly when it started it was so long ago. That’s right, my five-month-old baby has reliably slept through the night for the past three months.

Of course, everyone knows that “through the night” means different things to parents of babies, so you’re probably thinking that I mean Ann Marie would wake for her last feeding at 10:00 or 11:00pm and then not again for five or six or – if I’m super lucky – seven hours.

Yeah. Twelve. She would sleep for twelve straight hours. I would nurse her around 6:30pm and put her in her bed around 7:00 or 7:30. And she would wake up at 7:00 or 7:30 the next morning.

I KNOW.

It started slowly; at first, I would nurse her in the living room and hold her while we watched TV and then put her down when we were ready to go to bed. And then she started staying asleep. And then I started to put her down sooner so I could get some stuff done. And the next thing you know, I was sitting at the kitchen table in the morning waiting for her to wake up while eyeing the breast pump. Things were so good that one night she woke up once, and Andrew actually complained. And then I made fun of him and he recalled himself, but that’s where we were. We were in a place where our two-year-old was far more likely to wake us up in the night than our three-month-old.

I had to go to a meeting when she was just three months old, and it didn’t go well for Andrew – she wouldn’t take a bottle – but I had another meeting about two weeks later and he put her down in her bed, swaddled with a pacifier, looking at her mobile, while he read Nora a bedtime story. Ann Marie fell asleep like that and then slept for twelve hours. Nora and Jack have slept for twelve hours straight pretty much never. They're both more 11-hour kids.

Naturally, I credit all of this to our superior baby-rearing skills. Ann Marie slept through the night so young because we have worked so hard on recognizing her sleep cues and instituting a bedtime routine and firmly putting her down drowsy-but-awake and – HAHAHAHAHAHA! No. Clearly all credit goes to her being a magic baby. There is no other explanation. I don’t even have a routine! I read her a book for the first time just tonight! Well, I guess the routine is “swaddled and nursing” but I wasn’t even necessarily nursing her in the same place every night. Sometimes I sat on the couch, sometimes on the bed, and sometimes in the rocking chair. A sort-of routine has since developed, but it’s been happening gradually. No, my sleep-training techniques can be summarized thusly: Let the baby sleep wherever, whenever she wants to. Hold her if need be. Nurse her if she wants. Swaddle. Mostly don’t worry about it.

I have of course been terrified to talk about all this lest it immediately end, but she’s been back to waking up one or two times a night like a normal baby, so I think it’s safe. Actually, I think I can hear her right now, so I’ll end things here . Perhaps I have incurred the wrath of the sleep gods after all, and tonight I will be up all night. But even if that happens, man, these first few months have been glorious. If someone could guarantee me a magic baby every time, I would have twenty.

Parenting on a full nights’ sleep: I recommend it.

Pictures for Emily

Emily just asked me on Twitter why I never post pictures of Ann Marie, thus documenting her increasing cuteness. My answer was threefold:

1. I have no smart phone, and thus posting photos is a multi-step process that involves changing out memory cards and exporting and resizing and blah de blah, it's a huge pain.

2. It's an even huger pain on my blog because I don't like the way Blogger does photos so I have to post to Photobucket and then copy links and there is EXTRA TYPING, people.

3. Ann Marie is the third baby, so there are practically no photos of her at all. (There probably would be if I had a smart phone.) (Or maybe not.)

BUT. I actually coincidentally JUST COPIED brand new photos to my computer! I got Emily's tweet while putting Nora to bed so I came right out and sat down and went through the process - the MULTI-STEPPED process - of putting them on my blog. All for you! And Emily! Because who am I to deny requests for photos of my adorable baby? Who is and remains a DREAM BABY SENT FROM HEAVEN, by the way. Tonight she did cry a lot for a total of maybe fifteen whole minutes, split over two cry sessions, but the first fussy period was because she was starving and I ignored her more patient whimpers while I finished making dinner for the other two. The second round of fussiness was because she was wet and tired, and then I Nose-Frida-ed her. In between those two screaming sessions, she hung around in her bouncy seat and grinned like a fool at anyone who was willing to make eye contact. (Many of us were willing.) (But she stopped grinning as soon as I got the camera.)

All this complaining about the hardships of having to click buttons and type things makes me think of an issue I once had with a website. I maintain a corporate membership account for my company, but I am not personally a member of the service we offer our staff. Whenever I send the invitation to join to the new hires, however, I always click the link I send them to make sure it works. The link takes me to a sign up page, and at that point I just close the window, because I do not need to join. But during the last round of hires, I started getting chirpy little emails from the membership service reminding me to complete my registration. These were annoying, yes, but not nearly as annoying as discovering that when I went back to the website, I was routed directly to the registration page instead of my normal homepage. The first time this happened, it took me a few tries to even figure out how to get back to my homepage. And I couldn't shut it off.

So now, every time I wanted to check the billing statement which is the only thing I ever need to look at, I had to first go to step 1 of the registration, then click the logo in the top left corner, and then click "Account settings." That's TWO EXTRA CLICKS. I lived this nightmare for WEEKS. I finally emailed the company to ask them how to shut it off, and I ended up having to call them. It was difficult to explain the problem to the agent I spoke to on the phone, but once he understood exactly what was happening he realized he'd have to send an email to a separate department and have them get in touch with me. "It may take a day or two," he warned me, apologetically. "Is that OK?" I told him I'd probably be able to survive two more days of unnecessary mouse clicks, but only just.

And now here are pictures of my adorable children.

Ann Marie's Birth Story

My due date was November 29. On November 30, I went in for my 40-week OB appointment, where I was 2cm and, uh, had my membranes scraped. Possibly this is too much information, so sorry about that. At any rate, I felt pretty weird on Thursday morning (Dec. 1) and thought it was conceivable that my water had broken. You might be wondering how I could be unsure, particularly as television always shows the water breaking as a huge unmistakable gush, but it doesn’t have to be. Just trust me, it’s possible not to realize it.

At any rate, I had a non-stress test scheduled for that day, so I figured I’d just have them check it when I got there. I was kind of hopeful that they’d say, “My goodness, you are 8 cm! You have to stay!” but I didn’t expect it, particularly given the amount of no-pain I was in. (Well, other than the sciatica, round ligament pain, and various other pregnancy ailments. No contractions, though.) So it was no surprise when they told me my water had not broken and I could go home. But I had a nice quiet nap while I was non-stressfully tested, so that was something at least.

Then on Friday, Dec. 2, I still felt really weird. Just… weird. No contractions, no concrete signs of labor, but if I were a cat I would have been fluffing up my birthing nest, or whatever it is cats do when they’re about to give birth. I don’t really know, so I probably should have picked a different analogy. After school I took the kids to buy Christmas outfits/kill the afternoon, and then we went home and had some sort of leftovers or something for dinner. And then I started to feel twinges. Contractions? Maybe? Sort of on the regular? We put the kids to bed, and I informed Andrew that I was having twinges about five minutes apart.

I called the doctor, and she said not to come in until they were two minutes apart. Now, two minutes is only three minutes less than five minutes, and three minutes is not a long time! So it seemed quite possible to us that we’d be at two minutes in an hour or two. I realize it doesn’t work like that, but that’s how it felt anyway. Since we were planning for the kids to stay with Andrew’s parents while I was in the hospital, and they live an hour away, we decided to ask them to drive up while it was still early enough to reasonably do so. That way they could just stay the night and I wouldn’t have to wake my niece up in the middle of the night to come babysit and it would just in general be easier for everyone except my in-laws.

So naturally, a half hour after they left their house, my contractions dwindled and then stopped. They were pretty much gone when the grandparents arrived. It was too late for them to drive home, though, so they stayed over anyway and said they would take the kids home with them in the morning regardless of what was happening on the baby front. We gave them our bed and Andrew and I settled down in the living room.

Somewhere around 1am, Nora woke up crying for me, so I relocated to the recliner in the kids’ room. Then, around 3am a contraction woke me up. “This is really it now,” I thought, foreshadowingly. After I woke Andrew we went in to tell his parents, who had requested that we wake them if we left in the night. “We’re going to the hospital,” we said. Then Andrew asked me how far apart the contractions were, and since I wasn’t really sure he suggested we time them before we actually left.

“Good idea,” I said. So I lay back down on the couch to time them and woke up four hours later. “I think that wasn’t actually it,” I told Andrew.

Andrew’s parents made good on their promise to take the children away in the morning, and I still felt pretty weird, so I parked myself on the couch after breakfast and mainlined episodes of Grey’s Anatomy on the Wii. The sporadic twinges reappeared, but I could never be certain they were actually contractions. We went for a walk around 11am, and halfway through, I had a contraction that was a for-real, I-mean-it contraction, no question. And I thought again that maybe my water broke.  Water-breakage was confirmed when we got home, so I checked in with the doctor then re-parked myself on the couch for a few more episodes of Grey’s.

Meanwhile, Andrew started nesting. In the grand tradition of husbands/fathers having to do SOMETHING, he bustled around the house attending to various chores. Some (packing the hospital bag) more pressing than others (cleaning the coffee maker). After about an hour of this, he came into the living room with a thoughtful expression, gazed around critically and said, “I want to rearrange the this room.” Now by this point, my contractions were quite unmistakable, and about 5-7 minutes apart. I was most definitely in labor. So I asked if he could possibly hold off on rearranging the living room furniture until at least the next day. 

At any rate, I labored along on the couch for about two and a half hours and then decided that 4 minutes apart was damn well close enough, and we went to the hospital. That was at 2:30. In the car, I breathed and silently fretted about how in the heck I was going to walk to L&D which is on the third floor, and also would I have to wait while Andrew parked? I had no experience with this, as I went to the emergency room when Jack was born since it was the middle of the night, and Nora was induced, so I wasn’t in labor yet when I arrived. I did not want to labor by myself in the lobby of the hospital, but knew I couldn’t possibly make it to L&D all alone. But do you know what hospitals have? Wheelchairs! I forgot they have wheelchairs! I tell you, I was never so relieved to see a wheelchair.

The front desk person wheeled me up to L&D while Andrew parked the car. (I didn’t have to walk from the garage either! Those hospitals. So considerate.) By the time Andrew got to my room, I was already gowned and being helped into bed. A quick check followed, revealing me to be at five centimeters or so, and the contractions were ramping up. With both Jack and Nora, I tried hypnobirthing, and made it to six centimeters with each of them before getting an epidural. But the critical thing was that Nora was born twenty minutes after I got the epidural. Since six centimeters seems to be my breaking point, and since I was worried that I might miss my window, and since I was hoping for a repeat of Nora’s quick birth, I decided to ask for the epidural right away. In the meantime, I used my hypnobirthing mp3 file and concentrated on staying relaxed. In order to do so, through every contraction I found myself making a low guttural “Unnnnggghhhhhhhh” sound. I never did that before, but it helped immensely.

At this point, my concept of time failed. The anesthesiologist came, and I seemed like getting the epidural took fifteen or twenty minutes, but Andrew assures me it was less than five. All I know is that I had to sit up without moving lest I become permanently paralyzed for a very very long time. Also I couldn’t say “Unnnnngggghhhhhh.” Well, I probably could have, but I didn’t. Once the epidural kicked in, though, I was very happy and chatty and about forty minutes later I had to push. This was twice as long after the epidural as with Nora, but I don’t think I’ll complain. Especially since Ann Marie was born at 4:27 pm, which was 87 minutes after getting hooked up to monitors. I took all the credit for this, citing my skillful relaxation techniques and general wesomeness. All the nurses were very impressed. Heck, even the people I was wheeled by in the waiting area on the way in said, “Wow, that was fast!” when I was wheeled back out again.

And then? After that incredibly easy and practically painless birth? I got Ann Marie, the easiest, sleepiest, snuggliest, most contented baby in existence. I realize that her being so easy is at least partially due to my own experience and lack of anxiety about every little thing; for example, I do not spend my days hovering over her wondering if I should hold her, put her down, feed her, change her, talk to her, leave her alone, etc. But it certainly helps that she is happy all the time. True, sometimes she goes “Eh! Eh! Eh!” if she’s really hungry, but mostly she just hangs out. She likes to be held, but I just hold her, so that’s fine. Man, if only I could go back in time five years and convince my new Mom self that newborns are easy! Relax, already!

Another thing that helps enormously is that I seem to have escaped any PPD this time. I am just happy! So happy to have this sweet little snuggly baby girl living with us. And it feels like she’s always been here.