March Madness

Mad turned one earlier this month. I can’t get over how fast this last year has gone. Where did my baby go?! He’s been replaced by a walking, talking boy with FOUR teeth. He can say Mama, Daddy, more, banana and no (but of course). The first time I saw him sign “more” I almost fell over. It’s so strange how excited I am to experience all of these firsts again. I suspect it will be the same with the next child (and the next, and the next…just kidding!). Everything they do is the best, I’m so in love with my children! Even when they throw their food on the ground and pull my hair straight out of my head…

Anyway, I took his birthday off and we went to the zoo with our friends Jennie and her daughter Lena. I brought some organic chocolate cupcakes that I made, but alas, they came out completely dry and gross. But the day was perfect – sunny with a breeze. Not too hot, not too cold. We saw a drugged rhino and something that looked like a baboon but wasn’t.  Such a scary, scary bright red ass.

“Check it out guys!” Andy said. “It’s a baboon!”

“It’s a mandrill,” a ten year old girl corrected him. Andy refused to believe her, even though the sign clearly said Mandrill. He grumbled, “I’m pretty sure it’s a baboon!”

But there were lions and tigers and bears (actually the polar bear was MIA)…all fun times. We bought a snow leopard (Leopard Nimoy) and an elephant (Elephant Gerald) for the boys at the gift shop.

Oh, my Mad Miles. I love you to the moon and back.

Hey there

It’s been a while. I’ve been a little busy. I took two classes this past couple of months, a fiction workshop at the university where I work, and guitar lessons. Both are done for now, I might resume the guitar lessons in January. Re: the fiction class, I feel like I accomplished what I set out to. I had to write, so I did. AND I let other people read and critique what I wrote without curling into a ball whilst I screamed bloody murder. I wanted to, though. Every class session my stomach would get agitated and would grumblegrumblegrumble as loud as embarrassingly possible. Every. class. session. One time people actually commented on it.  I die. So now I am enjoying some down time, which isn’t much with work and parenthood. But still! There is a sliver.

The boys are both changing in leaps and bounds. Mad Miles is almost walking, he’s pulling himself up and crawling and sitting down on his own. He just cut his first tooth, 3 months before Z got his! He loves to yank my and Andy’s hair, he actually pushes my head to the side while he’s breastfeeding to get a better grip. He pulls DVDs out on the floor, and is really good at dumping my cereal all over my lap. He also is fascinated by any room that he’s not allowed to crawl in (kitchen, bathroom).

Z’s vocabulary has doubled. He’s talking in complete sentences. He blesses me when I sneeze and tells Mad that everything is okay when he screams and cries.  He mimics everything! He actually tried to say Pachycephalosaurus yesterday. Both are incredibly needy, and they only seem to need ME. This is very stressful, because I can’t even go to the bathroom without either of them freaking out. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I bought a new skirt at Anthropologie. It has pockets. POCKETS! I would never have noticed it on the website, but I saw it in the store and LOVED it. The material is thick and warm and lovely.

I also got a new pair of rain/snow boots since my awesome pair from JCrew are far too big. They’re Tretorns and green and basically the most comfy things evar.

I recently saw the thing that is New Moon with Meg and Sara. I had to cover my face several times during the movie. It was all kinds of ridiculous. The hungry kissing, the excessive pecs, and Kristen Stewart’s FACE were just too embarrassing. Oh and Edward’s slow motion walk from his Volvo at the beginning. O_O FOR REAL TWIHARDS? I’m also trying to understand why Graham Greene thought it necessary to take on “Drunken friend who dies so that Edward could mistake his death for Bella’s and do something completely cheesy and dramatic in Italy”. There’s GOT to be something better out there for Native actors, right? RIGHT? *looks around* Oh, right. And back to KS: I swear. to God. Probably the most irritating actress ever. Keeps the hair mussing, lip biting schtick on repeat and it has got to stop!

Andy and I are watching the rest of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince tonight. I’m not feeling it just yet, maybe the last half will win me over. The problem could be that I couldn’t understand a fucking word anyone said. British people! Open your mouths and enunciate!!

The End

For next time: the glory of The Room!

//<—I hate you WordPress.

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29

My birthday is tomorrow. We’re getting a sitter on Saturday so that we can eat a meal without pausing to take the salt and pepper shakers away from Z, or to shift Mad to the other knee. Maybe then we can enjoy the food we eat instead of shoving it mercilessly into our mouths and down our throats? Good times.  I will miss my little mad men though.

Speaking of which – Z is such a good little mimic, but now he’s also blurting out his own little sentences, mostly commands: Mama sit down on couch, Mama read to yoooooooouuuu, Mama come back. It’s so precious. He also sings! Actual lyrics! But just the catchy ones: he loves the lines “beating like a hammer” (Metric) and “tell me something, tell me something” (David Gray), and “Baby Baby don’t look back” (Fine Young Cannibals, but he says baby baby bo boo back). This is amazing. He must know it too, because whenever we try to capture it on film, he clams up. And Mad Miles – he is a twisting, sitting, scooting, grabbing fool! He is EVERYWHERE. He’ll be crawling any day now, I know it.

Bday presents – Andy got me guitar lessons. I had my first one on Tuesday! It’s slow going, but I am excited. 🙂

I got myself this dress:

LOVE

Augh, I can’t wait to wear it. I think my Frye boots and tights would look good with it in the winter, not sure which shoes I should wear with it now. Maybe my black mary janes?  My cream peep toes?

I watched the preview for The Lovely Bones and for the most part it looks really good. But I have two issues with casting: Mark Wahlberg and Reece Ritchie. I don’t think Mark Wahlberg is a bad actor or anything, but now every time I hear him speak I see him talking to animals. Plus, his intonation is off : when he says, “Susie would never go off with a stranger, it had to be someone she knew” – it sounds…sing-songy. Stop it, Mark. Stop talking and just look pretty.

Reece Ritchie as Ray Singh? NO. First of all, when I read the book I envisioned a dark skinned Indian boy. Why? Gee, I don’t know: “he had an accent and was dark…”, “They were fueled by the guilt they read into Ray’s dark skin.”, but apparently dark = gently tanned. Silly me. And the “You are beautiful Susie Salmon” line comes across as creepy based on the fact that he is WELL INTO HIS TWENTIES AND LOOKS IT, and she is a baby faced 15 year old. I get that Ray has to age while Susie stays the same, but couldn’t they have hired a younger actor like they did in The Reader and stuck a bushy beard on him later?

I want this on a shirt:

Make Whoopi

The End.

Trying not to freak out

I dropped the boys off at daycare this morning and I feel incredibly agitated. It’s weird to be in an empty house after 3 months of (mostly) alone time together. I want to relax but I can’t. Argh! This is hard. I have to get back to that place where I can trust someone else to keep my kid(s!) alive/fed/safe. I feel like my spidey senses are working overtime, I’m fighting the urge to drive back over there and check in on them.

Z didn’t even care that I left. He chirped “Buh-bye!” and went back to playing with his cars. I should be relieved that he didn’t kick and scream for me not to leave him, and I guess I am. A little. I want for him to enjoy his time there, I do. But I also want him to miss me. I’m mostly concerned about little Mad since he hasn’t been taking the bottle so well. The center is close enough to the university that I can drop by and breastfeed him if there is ever an emergency, so why can’t I stop worrying? *sigh*

LOVE

What’s in a name?

This book sucks

Z is obsessed with the alphabet. OBSESSED. He knows at least half of the letters so far (if not more), genius that he is. And you can’t read a book to him without him either cutting you off and insisting that you tell him exactly what EVERYTHING is (even things that I can’t really define….what is that? A thingamajig? Ummm…that’s a shadow.) or incessantly repeating a word until you echo it, even though you thought you’d already moved on. He will not move on unless he’s damn good and ready, and with each utterance of the word his pronunciation gets even more adorable.

“Apple! A-pple! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaapple! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPLE!”

“Yes! Apple. That’s good sweetie. Okay, B is for bus…”

He’s having a hard time with Q since it looks like an O, but I could have sworn I heard something resembling a Q today. YES! I’m thinking of buying some alphabet cards to put on the wall in his room, he’ll love that.

He’s also getting better about calling animals by their names and not simply calling anything and everything a dog. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: most things are still dogs. Everything in a Dr. Seuss book is probably a dog, since there literally is the lack of a better word. Or it might be a bird. He likes birds. One day when we were on a walk around the neighborhood (FINALLY got a double stroller – I love it!) We had to stop and stare for about five minutes at a crow collecting twigs and stuff for it’s nest while Z screeched “Birrrrd. BIIIIIRD.” The thing finally flew away and Z kept twisting around to look for it so I said, “Bye bye birdie.” to signal that it was time to move on. Now every time he sees a bird he says, “Buh-bye. Buh-bye birdie. Buh-bye.” Precious? Indubitably.

Watch me segue:

Speaking of proper names, I would never have thought Madrox would be so darn hard for everyone to pronounce. Really people? This was an honest to God exchange between me and my step-mil:

MIL: So it’s….Mad Rocks?

Me: Ma-drox.

MIL: Mad Rocks?

Me: Madrox.

MIL: Mad Rocks?

Me: *sigh* Just call him Mad.

FIL: *barks out a laugh* Mad?! Really! Mad? That’s CRAZY TALK.

Um. Yeeeeeeah. I hope he never has a friend named Richard.

Crazy beans with a side of awesomesauce

That’s basically my life right now. I’ve got a lot of emotions going on over here. There’s the overwhelming love I feel whenever I look at one (or both) of my boys, the overwhelming sense of pride when Z points at Mad’s nose and says, “No!” which of course means nose, unless he’s not pointing at a nose, and then it means no. He says no. A LOT. So then there’s that overwhelming sense of restraint when he screams it at me: I restrain myself from spanking my kid until he -what did my parents say?- can’t sit down for a week. Then he does something adorable again and I think I could never lift a finger to harm him.

Z is getting really attached to Bearison Ford, his Panda Bear. I think it might have something to do with trying to mimic holding a child himself. In any case, it’s very adorable. He woke up from a nap yesterday very fussy and only calmed down when Andy handed him his bear. (!) Also, he’s very obsessed with learning new words.

I’ve been trying to wear breastfeeding friendly tops to promote less nudity in public (the little we do go out) but to no avail: I exposed my large breasts (which were full of milk and practically bursting out of my bra) to a good many people at Fred Meyer’s a couple of days ago. I was wearing a henley top that decided to pop open at least three buttons – and I remained innocently unaware until I was loading the groceries into the car. *sigh*

I got two wisdom teeth extracted yesterday. Andy took the day off to help out with the kids and I’m glad he did. It was hard to focus on anything besides my aching mouth. I can’t believe you have to pay people to pull teeth out of your head WITH PLIERS. Isn’t that a form of torture? Mind you, the numbing helped with the pain but didn’t keep me from shaking like a leaf in fear. PLIERS.

Zain is throwing a fit. I suppose I should see to that.

Multiple baby

I decided to compare pictures of the boys when they were both a month old. Z is on the left, Mad on the right. Or is Mad on the left and Z on the right? Hmmmmmm? *shifty eyes*

Z and Mad

Here’s one of the two of them sleeping:

Sleeping babes

That? Is the sound of my heart melting.

Get through it

I really thought that there would be some kind of sign that would alert me to the impending birth of my son: bloody show, breaking of the waters, etc. Something. But in the end, it all came out of nowhere. I really didn’t expect to wake up in the middle of the night and feel such strong contractions. I remember sleeping through some of them, the hideous back pain becoming part of my wacky dreams. By the time I woke up, they were too strong to ignore. I remember getting on my hands and knees instinctively in the bed and rocking back and forth, moaning. Andy woke up and asked me if it was time. I didn’t want to jump the gun so I told him maybe, maybe not. I’m sure he thought I was crazy when I told him to go back to sleep. I went downstairs to use the bathroom and Andy came down soon after, probably because he could hear me moaning through the vents. At his suggestion I called the midwife on call and told her that my contractions were strong, etc. I had just been in the clinic 3 days before and my cervix had been hard to find/closed so both of us agreed that I would wait a while longer just in case I was only in the beginning stages. After hanging up, I got in the tub to take a nice relaxing bath… except not.  The shower head relieved a lot of the back pain that I had, but I couldn’t get comfortable. Finally, we decided to call back Beth (the midwife) and let her know that we were on our way to the hospital because wow! my contractions were a mite painful. Poor Z was woken up in the middle of the night and strapped in his car seat in his pajamas: we hoped he would fall back asleep but the morning proved to be too exciting for that. The drive went okay despite the fact that I couldn’t roll over and have Andy put pressure on my back; I had to compensate with turning up the seat warmer and grabbing Andy’s hand as hard as I could.

When we finally got there, things went pretty fast. Beth got there soon after and checked my cervix-I was stunned that I was already 7 centimeters dilated!!! I remember that after she checked I got back on my hands and knees to suffer through a contraction and although I was pretty far gone I had the good grace to apologize for my huge naked ass sticking up in everyone’s faces. I eventually ended up completely naked in a half empty tub (it was taking too long to fill it, they assumed that they had time that they didn’t), pretty much writhing around like a maniac. Before I got in, I had a moment where I thought I was going to die: the lower half of my body felt like it was going to split in half and when I looked down between my legs and saw blood dripping onto the floor, I freaked.

“I can’t do this! Someone help me please! Please help me!” I literally shrieked at the top of my lungs. The nurse, Kate, grabbed my arms and looked into my eyes, instructing me to breathe. “You can do this.” she chanted. I really thought she was nuts at that point. I just said that I couldn’t do it, did I have to spell it out? Funny thing: All of the pain aside, Andy and I shared a WTF? moment witnessing Kate and Beth’s ummm… flexing? Beth: “Kate, could you do the blah blah medical thing?” Kate: “I don’t have time to do that right now, I’m slammed. I’ll blah blah medical thing and then do whatever I want.”  Beth: Right. Make it so.

Ten minutes later…

Beth: “Katie, can you-” Kate (laughing, but in that “Fuck you…” way): “Kate. Kate.” Beth: “Sorry! Okay, listen..I really need…” Kate: “Hmmph.” Beth: *eyebrow raised* probably thinking, “Listen, bitch…”

I mean, I’m going through some of the worst pain of my life, and all I can think is, Must laugh about this later. And you know what? I did. Talk about unprofessional!

After I got into the tub I flailed around aimlessly, trying to find a comfortable spot. On my hands and knees didn’t seem to do it for me anymore. Another aside – Zain was so good during all of this! Andy had managed up until this point to hold him and relieve the pressure in my back (AMAZING) simultaneously, and then he sat him in his stroller to watch from there. I think my behavior at that point riveted him so much that he was able to sit on his own and watch in wide eyed horror. Anyway, it was somewhere around this point that I felt this overwhelming need to push. I grabbed onto the handles on the tub and did what came naturally. It was the weirdest sensation, almost like I like I was trying to blow up a balloon through my anus (sorry, tmi). And there was a lot of burning. I didn’t push long: Andy and Beth mentioned that they could see Mad’s head after a couple of pushes and soon after I was delivering a 7 lb, 4 ounce baby. It was the best feeling, that pop and release…such relief! After they placed him in my arms I felt so happy and strong. I also felt a little embarrassed.

“I wonder if anyone heard me…” I said to Andy. He told me not to worry about it and that he thought my wailing sounded like a whale song, very primal and beautiful. He also told me how proud of me he was. 🙂

So here it is, a week later and I’m still getting used to having a newborn again – it helps having my sister Bethany in town so that I don’t felt so overwhelmed when Andy’s at work-going to miss her when she’s gone! :(. He’s so tiny! Z is a giant by comparison. I can’t believe I have kids now. Kids. Cuckoo.

KIDS.

Madrox!

He’s finally here! Mad was born this morning at 6:10 a.m. He weighed 7 lbs, 4 oz and is 19.75 inches long. I’ll post a birth story soon. For now, I need to cuddle with my babies and rest.