Babies & Big Girls

We talk a lot in our house about the "baby" and the "big girl." These are actually interchangable terms as sometimes Lil is the "big girl" because she is trying to accomplish a new task such as eating baby food (for the first time last week- loves it!) or sleeping in her nursery (for the first time last night, only because Mama loves co-sleeping with her babies not because she couldn't or wouldn't). Sometimes Emmy is the "baby" because she still is a bit of a baby at only 2 years old and I still need to hold, snuggle, rock and love on her and call her my baby. She likes this about half of the time, and the other half of the time she will inform me that she is a "big girl." Em also likes to talk about herself in the third person to Lil, rather incessantly, and call herself "Big Sister." She can narrate Big Sister's activities, thoughts and feelings to Lil for hours, which oddly enough Lil seems to enjoy. This is good because there seems to be no stopping it.

I start all of this talk to say that next week my first heart-stealing baby girl will be turning into a 3 year old "big girl" next week. I cannot believe this is happening already! It is wonderful to see her grow and learn and become her own person, but I'm also terrified that I will wake up one morning and she will be leaving for college. It goes that fast. I write this blog to have some kind of permanent record of this amazing and ephemeral experience of mothering these beautiful people. I want to remember every minute, every detail but sadly I know I will not. Still, I try. I realized the other day that I don't think I ever wrote Emmy's birth story and I want to. I've already forgotten many details, I'm sure but I want to remember as much as I can. Maybe I will write Lil's for her birthday in September.

The Story of E

We were so excited for your arrival, you just cannot imagine, but your parents are procrastinators at heart and we very late to get things ready for you. Because of your lack of nursery and my failure to organize all of the adorable baby things we had received for you from our baby showers, we were really hoping to make it the full 40 weeks. I also had an article I was trying to finish and some other things at work that made this scenario ideal. What I did not count on was that I should have been worried that you would be overdue instead of arriving early! At my 40 weeks appointment, there were no signs to indicate that you were coming any time soon other than my rather large and bloated appearance. I hadn't been able to wear shoes for a few weeks at this point and we finally had your nursery ready (little did I know, I would co-sleep with you for the first 8 months so this was not really necessary!), so we were more than anxious for your arrival. When I returned for my 41 week appointment and we still had no baby, my doctor set a date for the following Sunday night for me to come in for an induction if you had still not made an appearance. At 41 weeks, I finally stopped working and spent the rest of the week eating, sleeping, painting some pictures for your room and dreaming of my baby. I could hardly stand the wait any longer! I wanted to meet and hold you so badly.

On Sunday, March 8th, Daddy and I went to the hospital around 9pm. We told friends and family that we would call them the next day with an update as we were told to prepare for this to be a long wait. When we arrived, Aunt Rachel was there to welcome us and give me a few treats to help get me through the delivery. I was pretty nervous, so it was nice to see a friendly and familiar face. We got settled into our rather nice labor & delivery room, and they started the induction. Daddy and I brought our sattelite radio and hung out listening to the Grateful Dead channel and chatting away. We were excited, nervous and extremely happy all at once!

When I arrived, I was already having contractions but in no regular pattern and I could not feel them. The induction quickly caused me to have regular contractions every 4 minutes or so, which was uncomfortable though not very painful. This went on until about 9am the next morning when I finally conceded that an epidural would be nice so that I could maybe get some sleep. I knew I had a long road ahead of me as I still was not dialating at all. The epidural was lovely and I felt better than I had in months! I continued to labor all day and all evening, but made no progress. Finally, at 11pm my doctor came in and told me the news I had been dreading- I needed to have a c-section. Thankfully, all of our family had arrived by this point because it was clear that it was decision and action time. For some reason, I was very afraid of the c-section procedure and was pretty upset by the news that this was the plan. You and I both had been having some heart rate issues throughout the day, and when I finally consented to the c-section they literally ran me down the hall to the operating room. Daddy and I were separated for a bit, which was scary for us both. The procedure itself went well but I had adverse reactions to the anesthesia, which was also a bit frightening and they heavily sedated me and then put me to sleep as soon as you were delivered. But just before I went under, I saw you. You. You were here! My first view of you was hazy, but clear enough to see that you were perfect and just as I had imagined you with a head full of dark hair and big blue eyes. Unfortunately, we were separated for several hours while I recovered. Daddy helped give you your first bath, and he cared for you while I was waking up. Then, in the early morning hours of March 10th (you were born in the last minutes of March 9th at 11:56pm), I finally got to hold you, and nurse you and fall in love. We stayed in the hospital with you for 5 days because I needed some time to heal and you were a little slow on learning to feed and gain weight. This was a wonderful time for me, you, and Daddy. We had tons of help from fabulous nurses and friends and family. Every one was so excited to meet you and we loved showing you off! We hardly let you out of our sight because we were so happy to have you here. I know I can speak for Daddy when I say that we are even happier to have you now, and we are so proud of the amazing 3 year old person you are today. I love you, Emmy! Thanks for making me a mother and letting me share these 3 years with you. I look forward to our many adventures together in this life!

2 Kinds of Moms

I just saw this great post on a real parenting blog about how there are 2 kinds of moms- not stay at home vs. working or any other such arbitrary distinction, but the Good and the Not-so-good. Duke Ellington appparently made a similar statement about there only being 2 different kinds of music- the good kind and the rest of it. I hope to be in the "good" category, and be the kind of mom who makes the most out of whatever I'm doing and makes things the best I can for my family. I loved this quote though because it made me think how little difference there really is amongst all of us different mothers- we're all just trying to do our best by our kiddos no matter what our circumstances and that is a tall order sometimes whether you are working or not. I realized early on in my journey through motherhood how great it is to have a variety of mommy friends- some stay-at-home, some working and some in between- and how each of these friends fullfills some different need or perspective taking experience in my life. And in the end, we have so much in common no matter how different our journeys may appear on the surface.

Poop

Since my last post was so serious-sappy, I thought I'd ruin the moment by talking about poop. Or at least by talking about how Emmy likes to talk about poop. It is rather odd to me how the princess phase and poop phase seem to have coincided in our house. Em is currently obsessed with talking about poop and making jokes about poop and just saying poop for the heck of it. Sometimes it is funny and sometimes it is just ridiculous. I'm trying to not give attention to this behavior in hopes that it will be extinguished over time, but it is hard. Poop, poop, poopy!

Lily

Lil will be 5 months old next week. How that happened, I have no idea yet it also seems like she has been here forever. I still don't know who she looks like, which is kind of surprising to me. I thought for sure she would look like Emmy, but she doesn't at all. They both have the Whitt blue eyes, but that is where the similarities stop. When Emmy was born, I took one look at her and thought, "I've known you all of my life... and here you are." It was the coolest thing. I looked into those big, blue eyes and saw part Greg, part my mother and part some old soul that I felt had always been there. When Lil was born, I took one look at her and thought, "Aren't you the most precious, tiny little thing... are you sure this one is mine?" I still look at her sweet, smiling face and wonder who this little person is, but she is definitely mine-all-mine. Emmy has always been a bit of a Daddy's girl, though we are super close too. I tell her she is Mommy's girl and she agrees but reminds me that I have to share her with Daddy. Lil, on the other hand, just might be my gal. Maybe it's because I'm still breastfeeding and she loves to eat, but maybe just maybe this one will be Mommy's girl. I know it is sick, but I just want them both to love me best. I wanted to become a mom so bad it hurt and Greg kind of fell into fatherhood because he was along for the ride (though it turns out he is a truly gifted parent, of course). But shouldn't they love me best, though? I am the mama! Oh, little girls and their daddies. He is so cute and nice, which makes it even harder. He also gives into Emmy's whims much more than me, and he is around less which makes him seem more special. I'm just boring old Mom. Hmm. Well, anyway, I may have some luck left with Ms. Lily. So far, she continues to be an excellent baby. She is our Chill Lil. Super laid back. Only learned to roll over because I made her, and content with whatever. She has been battling RSV since starting daycare 5 weeks ago, so her coughing tends to wake her up in the night which makes me sad. She had been sleeping through the night quite well until recently. She sure is growing up too fast. Much faster it seems than Emmy. These baby months are going too quickly, and I hate that. We'll never have another baby in the house again so I'm trying to relish these days even when they are hard. Sometimes they are very hard, too, I'm not going to lie. Like being so tired you just have to cry for a minute at the end of a long day hard, and I am generally a pretty tough chick. But this motherhood, especially times two, is the biggest challenge I've ever faced. It is also the best thing that has ever happened to me and I thank God for it. And my husband. And my girls. Thank you, Ms. Lily for the toughest yet absolute best 5 months of my life.

Hold Them, Take Care of Yourself

Just took a moment to read a few words from one of my favorite blogs. This other mama blogger was sharing her advice for her baby sister who just became a mother to twin girls. She said the most important advice was this- hold them, and take care of yourself. I think that is brilliant advice, advice I will share and remember myself. Let the house be dirty, let the dinner be overcooked, let my sleep be interrupted and my bed shared by many, let me always be running a few minutes late- I will hold them every chance I get. And somewhere in between it all, I'll even take care of myself some too. I've been running in the evenings after I put Lil to bed with some other mama-friends and really enjoying this time for just for me. I'm trying not to feel guilty about it either, and it is doing me some good and even giving Emmy & Daddy some special time. Hopefully, my family will benefit from this indirectly as well. Some familial, trickle-down economics perhaps.

What Did You Said?

As I have said before, Ms. Emmy is a talker, which surprises me a little since the first year of her life she was nearly entirely silent. As a baby, she really never babbled. This worried me very much, and made me wonder if she would ever talk. Em had constant ear infections from age 6mos to 18mos, and this likely affected her ability to hear and form sounds. Two sets of tubes and an one adenoid removal later, the child finally got some relief. A few months after that, Em began talking non-stop and she really hasn't stopped since. She speaks very well for her age (of course I am extremely biased), but there are some things she consistently says "wrong" that are actually adorable. I just wanted to record some of these things here because they are already starting to fade and are being replaced by proper words, phrasing and pronunciations. G noticed one such change this week and he and I both were sad to see this little saying go. So here are a few Emmy-isms for the record:

• "What did you said?"- in place of "What did you say?"


• "What smells like that?"- in place of "What is that smell?"; E actually said this one correctly this week, which made G and I a little misty with nostalgia


• "Lellow"- instead of yellow


• "Mudder"- instead of Mother


• "Olib"- instead of olive

Princess Phase

Over the past few months, our home has been invaded with lots of sparkly, pink, princess stuff, which I must admit I routinely refer to as princess crap. Having a somewhat bossy (yet awesome!) older brother, I was never fully able to embrace my inner princess or more feminine self as a child. I definitely wouldn't say I'm a tomboy, but I've always been more in the middle. I've never worn much makeup and could certainly spend more time on my appearance. I love the outdoors and sports, yet I love ballet, crafting and admire fashion. I consider myself to be pretty good at math (statistical modeling is a personal hobby of mine as a doctoral student), and never met a challenge that I thought was too much for me either physically or intellectually just because I am a woman. In fact, I never thought much about gender stereotypes other than to think that they had little applicability to my life. But then I had a daughter. Two year olds, as you may know, are dichotomous little creatures in many ways who enjoy seeing the world in black and white. They are also just realizing certain complex realities and processing them in this dichotomous manner. For example, I want something, I will take it. I love Daddy, I will marry him. I am a girl, I must love all things feminine. Boys like "boy things." Sometimes, in their 2 year old zeal, kids will overidenitify with their gender in spite of their parents' best efforts to avoid stereotypes and provide an array of options for play and exploration. This explains the nearly fanatic zeal for princess stuff (aka crap), cars and monster trucks. Being a psychodynamically trained therapist, I understand that kids go through phases and need to explore certain issues before they move on. Therefore, while I don't go out of my way to promote princess play with Ms. E, I also don't actively discourage this. I don't think she is any more likely to grow up to be a princess or shallow Paris Hilton-type than her male counterparts are likely to be mechanics. Obviously, I have to continue to work to provide her with a balanced experience in her life that is not shallow or perhaps this is what she will become. It is an interesting issue to ponder. I've given it a lot of thought due to various articles and books I've read about raising girls, similar issues confronted in my clinical practice and my own interest about how culture affects children in subtle ways. I'm certainly not ignoring the potential for negative influence, in fact G and I have daily discussions with Emmy about what is important (i.e. loving to learn, having a good heart, being kind, being helpful, making your own choices, etc.) because her obsessive princess play actually presents us with numerous opportunities for these discussions. Mostly, I'm just blown away by her imagination and capacity for fantasy play. It's pretty impressive! Well, those are my thoughts for now on this issue, but I reserve the right to change my mind (it's a mother's perogative!). I've received (and worse, Emmy has received- shame! shame!) criticism for her obsession with princess play, which I must admit bothered me somewhat. When I discussed this with my mom, she expressed similar distress about my brother's decision to be the Sheriff for a year or so and bring his 6 shooters everywhere he went. I guess it could be worse, she could be obsessed with guns! However, she reassured me that this too shall pass. I should probably be saving my energy for worrying about the next phase around the corner, and for now enjoy my lovely daughter who is always dressed and ready lest a royal ball to come up at the last minute!