Just Powers

William is three months old today.

He seems huge to us - at his two month checkup he was 23 1/2″ long and 12 pounds, and he has been wearing his 3-6 month clothes for at least a month already. Most of his clothes sized at strictly three months he has outgrown. He wore size NB diapers for a couple of weeks after he was born but has quickly moved through the 1’s and 2’s and now can only comfortably fit in the size 3’s. I know all of this is pretty typical, but Emma was such a peanut, so this is a whole new experience for us.

He remains incredibly good natured and happy. He cries when he is hungry or in pain, but otherwise sits calmly in his car seat watching us all. In the last month he started smiling up a storm and now has full on cooing conversations with us. I swear he is going to laugh out loud any day now.

He seems to us to be super-strong. He hasn’t rolled over yet, but can bear all of his weight on his legs, and enjoys it - making me think we might have another early walker on our hands. He has had amazing neck control for a couple of months and as a result has already spent some time in the Bumbo seat as well as his johnny jump up.

He usually goes to sleep at around 9:00 or 10:00 at night and is up once during the night at about 3:00 or 4:00, then wakes up for the day when we do. We are still co-sleeping with him and plan on transitioning him to his crib one of these days, but he is so darn snuggly that I find I actually enjoy having him sleep with us. He is a good sleeper though and doesn’t fight going to bed or going back to sleep at all.

The snuggly-ness is one of the best things about our Will. Also, the fact that he seems to adore us as much as we adore him. There is nothing like the toothless grin and loving gurgles of an infant to make a person feel appreciated.

We love you Will!

I have had my bad parenting moments. There was the time I didn’t feed Emma enough and then couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t sleep. Also, that time I locked her in the car, ugh. I have run a couple of red lights by mistake and have probably yelled more than I should. But now I have hit an all time low in bad parenting moments. It would seem that Emma’s recent difficult behavior might have been a result of sleep deprivation…

Isn’t sleep deprivation counted as a form of torture? In our house it certainly has been, for everyone involved.

On Sunday, March 8, 2009, we experienced a little thing called Daylight Savings Time, you might have heard of it? This made Emma’s room lighter in the mornings than it had been in months. It took about a week for her bedtime to adjust back to normal, but she was still sleeping in till her regular time of around 7:00 am. Eleven days later her baby brother was born. Not long after, Emma started waking progressively earlier - first 6:30, then 6, then 5:30. She kept waking up at 5:30 for weeks. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, or how to get her back to that now glorious wake-up time of 7:00, but with the baby waking up in the middle of the night, it didn’t seem like a priority since no one was getting much sleep anyway.

Simultaneous with the 5:30 am wakings, Emma’s behavior took a turn for the nightmarish. Of course, this was also somewhat simultaneous with her awareness that her brother wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so we figured she was reacting to that new reality, in addition to just being two. She was weepy and whiny, she had temper tantrums that would reduce her to hitting and kicking, and she couldn’t seem to handle any minor stress. In particular she would wake up in the morning and after naps in a really really bad mood. This was not the Emma we knew and loved, and when I wasn’t blaming myself for “breaking her” by bringing her brother into her life, I was praying to the universe to bring my little girl back.

Last week, as Will started to sleep for longer stretches, the 5:30 am thing got really old for me. I decided that maybe darkening her windows would help her sleep longer. Then I started counting up the hours of sleep she was getting each day - around 9 hours at night and 2 hours for her nap if we were lucky - and realized she was only getting 11 hours a day instead of the 12-14 hours recommended for kids her age. Um, duh? Losing 1-2 hours a day over a long period of time would leave me pretty cranky too.

So we covered her windows and the first morning I woke up at 5:30 and held my breath. At 6:15 she arrived in our room asking sweetly for something to drink and to “watch a yiddle Thomas”. SUCCESS!! Yesterday she woke up at 6:38 and this morning it was 6:52. Woohoo!! Of course I still wake up at 5:30 every morning listening for her, grr.

Of course she is still 2, which means it is her job to push my buttons and test the limits, which she is still doing, but she seems to be enjoying the testing more in the last couple of days. She hasn’t been cranky after waking up and she is markedly less whiny and weepy, which in turn makes me less whiny and weepy. It would seem her biggest problem has been her parents and their inability to make sure her basic needs are met. Good times.

If she remembers any of it, this episode in her life will make great fodder for the therapist in twenty years. “And my parents made me sleep in a BRIGHT room, and then got MAD at me when I was a pain in the butt.” If it’s any consolation honey, it’s been torture for us too.

Someone told me the other day that I have cured them of wanting kids. Ack. How terrible. I didn’t think I complained that much, but apparently I do.

So, to provide a little balance to my last post, let me say right here and right now that having kids is the best thing I have ever done. The most challenging, the most physically painful, possibly the craziest thing sure - but still, the best.

The thing is that for me the hard stuff about being a parent is tangible: the sleep deprivation, the frustration with repeating myself over and over and over, the chaos, the temper tantrums, the wondering how badly I’m screwing them up. That tangibility makes it easier to talk about the hard stuff than the good stuff.

The good stuff about being a parent happens deep inside in a place that I didn’t know was there until I had kids - maybe it didn’t even exist until then (thanks Anne Lamott). The good stuff happens in the tiny little quiet everyday moments that are tougher to describe without sounding like a Hallmark card. While I have begun to know what to expect with the hard stuff, the good stuff keeps surprising me, making me fall in love with my kids over and over again and making the hard stuff worth every second.

I don’t mean this to sound like I think everyone should have kids. It doesn’t “complete” you as a person to have kids. It doesn’t make you a better person or a more fulfilled person, but it does make you a different person. It makes you change and grow in ways that I’m not sure anything else does in quite the same way.

So please don’t be cured just yet - and certainly not just because a cranky new mother complained too much…

I used to think that math was hard. I used to think getting up every day and going to work was hard. I used to think that staying motivated to exercise and diet was hard.

I was right about all of these things - they are hard. But now I know, kids are really really hard. Especially when there are two of them. And especially when one of them is two and a half.

The terrible twos that started for Emma about a month before Will was born are now in full swing. I am not sure yet who this phase is harder on - her or us - but either way it totally stinks. She is moody and cranky, tearful and clingy, and absolutely cannot make a decision about anything at all even though the thing she wants more than anything is to be completely independent. Several times a day we have conversations similar to this one:

Emma: Mommy, I want music.
Mommy: (turns on the radio)
Emma: (screaming like Linda Blair in the Exorcist) NOOOOOOO, I DON’T WANT MUSIC.

Or this one:

Mommy: Emma, which shirt would you like to wear - the red one or the pink one?
Emma: I want the red one. (Starts crying) I DON’T WANT THE RED ONE.

In my head before I was a parent, I used to mock parents who would say things like “Use your words honey” or “Tell me in a big girl voice”. I still find those phrases ridiculous somehow, but they come out of my mouth in a constant stream these days.

I really hope this stage ends soon (although I actually think we might be in for another 6 months to a year of it) because seriously my ego cannot take it. I have decided there is nothing like a 2-year-old to challenge your image of yourself as the 2009 version of Donna Reed. I lose my cool a lot more than I ever imagined I would and find that my buttons are much more easily pushed by this little creature than I ever thought possible.

So I guess it isn’t so much that kids are hard - just that some stages are harder than others, and we just happen to be in one of them. And even as she increases the pain-in-the-tush factor, Emma also seems to get cuter and smarter and more fun too.

I just have to remember that next time she is lying on the floor wailing because she…um….oh, right, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER…

Breathe breathe breathe breathe….

And Emma, who has discovered how cool band-aids are.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! I don’t know if it is being a mom to two, or a mom of a two year old, or a new mom again, but I have a new-found respect for the job of motherhood and how hard it really is to be a good mother.

So to all moms: have a great day! And a special thank you and lots of love to all of the special mothers in my life who guide me as I figure out this crazy, amazing job.

In the almost eight weeks since Will was born, we have had lots of visitors; people who came to lend us a hand as we transitioned to a family of four. They have changed sheets, gone grocery shopping, prepared meals, washed dishes, folded laundry, cleaned out litter boxes, walked the dogs, burped the baby, mowed the lawn, installed lighting fixtures, dug a garden and tons more.

What I now know as a result of these visits is that it takes at least three, preferably four, full-time adults to care for two children and maintain a household. It is a scientific fact that one person, or even two, cannot possibly do this job and stay sane. Let me be clear: It. Cannot. Be. Done.

So, since we cannot afford full-time childcare, maid service and a chef, (because all of those things count towards that 4:2 adult:child ratio) I am in search of a village. That is what it takes, I hear, so I need one. ASAP please.

Only serious applicants need apply.

When we had Emma, I was totally prepared for that first month home with her to be the worst month of my life. I figured I would be sleep deprived, hormonal, in physical pain and generally confused about my new role as a mother. It turned out that actually it was much better than I predicted - I was pretty good about sleeping when she slept, Mike and I got to hang out just the two of us as we got to know our new baby and I didn’t feel nearly as stumped by motherhood as I thought I would.

This time around I didn’t prepare myself for much of anything, mostly because I was so wrong last time, and I couldn’t quite get my head around how life would be with two anyway, so why waste time worrying about it?

I have to say, 3 weeks and 3 days into this adventure, that things are much more challenging this time than I could have ever imagined. Sleep is… oh pthltpt, who needs sleep anyway? Mike and I are getting really good at splitting up to attend to one child each, but this means we don’t get to do a whole lot of hanging out “just the two of us” - although thank god there ARE two of us. The emotions connected to raising two kids is enough fodder for an entire month of blog posts, so I won’t even go there. And holy mackerel - the sheer logistics of managing two kids is completely overwhelming at times.

Case in point - it took us forever to get to the grocery store this weekend. Every time we planned to go something came up - Emma was melting down, Will needed to eat, the weather was too nice and a trip to the park seemed like a much better idea - and we didn’t actually get to the store until 48 hours after we had initially planned to go. It made me realize two things - 1) Going to the store by myself with both kids is not going to happen for quite a while and 2) I am in serious trouble when Mike goes back to work in a week.

Peapod may become my new best friend.

Emma turned 28-months old yesterday. In the last month or so, we have seen an all-new, not necessarily improved, Emma. It’s as if someone reminded her she is two-plus-some and she really needs to do her part upholding the image that two-year olds have around the world and get crackin’ on that “terrible twos” thing.

Maybe the arrival of a sibling is partially responsible for sparking the newfound ornery-ness, but I kind of think we would be experiencing similar changes with or without the new baby. The difference would be that Mike and I would not be distracted, exhausted and hormonal as we try to deal with her.

When I can look at the situation from FAR FAR outside of myself, and think of this phase as her job, something she has to do to develop appropriately and move to the next stage of person-hood, I can feel almost proud. “Man, she is so good at finding opportunities to be independent!” “Wow, she is really skilled at questioning authority and finding her own way of doing things!”

Unfortunately, I am very rarely FAR FAR outside of myself these days, and when that little stinker puts her foot up on the table during dinner – despite my REPEATED warnings not to – my eyes begin to bug out of my head and I begin to speak in tongues and she smiles at me as if it were the funniest thing ever and then announces she would like to go into a time-out… well, those are the moments I have trouble feeling especially sane, let alone proud.

But she is very proud to be a big sister, and every morning comes into our room and wants to see her “baby bruvver”. She especially likes to hold him “on the sofa” and always offers to hold his hand during a diaper change. She loves to give him sweet gentle kisses and lots of hugs. The good news is that she doesn’t seem to hold Will responsible for his arrival at our home, the bad news is that she does hold me responsible from time to time. A few nights after we got home from the hospital she threw a book at my head – an act she seemed to find as shocking and upsetting as I did. As things start to settle down, though, she seems to be forgiving me, and our relationship is getting as back to as normal as possible. When she isn’t putting her feet on the table.

Oh – and she can now count to 11 (before she skips to 14, 16, then back to 6) and can ALMOST sing the entire alphabet, although she likes to jump to the “Now I know my ABC’s…” part after the letter L or so, so we sing it with her to keep her on track.

There are times when Emma does something particularly, shall we say, rebellious? independent? – and she gets a little twinkle in her eye. Sometimes I swear I can see a 14-year-old version of herself in there somewhere, and it completely terrifies me…

William James Carvalho joined us on Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 5:32 pm. He weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. Like his sister, his labor was uneventful if pretty short - 6 hours of very light contractions that allowed me to drive myself to the hospital, ending with the doctor breaking my water which brought on 40 minutes of very very hard labor before Will entered the world in one push. We had the most amazing nurse in the world who made the whole experience the polar opposite of our experience delivering Emma.

One week later, we are all doing great. Emma is going through what seems like a pretty typical 2 year-old adjustment period, requiring extra patience and love from us, Will is sleeping and eating and doing everything else newborns do (no prediction here about his temperament, lest I jinx it), and Mike and I are just beginning to figure out how to juggle it all.