Christmas Card Blues

I had an image of the kids under the beautiful Christmas tree. Nicky was wearing her Christmas dress and her hair was perfectly ribboned and coiffed. Jeff had gelled Andy's hair. He was handsomely dressed in a Christmas suit. I'd wrapped a box in shiny red and green Christmas paper and the kids were smiling as if they'd just opened the box and were surprised to find baby Christian inside. Baby C, sitting in the box, was wearing his Santa suit and looked straight toward my waiting camera; his adorable cheeks and skin framed his dark wide eyes.

I loved this image and it was to be this year's Christmas card picture. I began to wrap my prop box in preparation for the photo session. Suddenly, the children were upon me and my wrapping supplies. First the wrapping paper rolls were swords and I heard the cardboard crackle and the paper rip against "monsters" in all the closets. After some yelling to bring the rolls back, I placated them with their own sheets of wrapping paper to wrap fake presents. For Andy, his gift was a couple of trains from the train table. Nicky needed most of the roll for her project which turned out to be the huge rocking horse, Medallion. When I wouldn't give her all the paper she needed, she threw a huge fit and screamed at me until I relented. They asked for tape for their crumpled paper wrapped gifts until all of it was gone. They then pretended to sleep and opened the gifts in a millisecond and were back to bugging me for more tape and paper. Meanwhile, I was suddenly in a hurry and crappily wrapped my prop box. I thought it might still work if the kids turned out cute enough for people not to look too closely at the gift box.

I told the kids to go dress up. Andy didn't want to wear what I'd chosen for him and Nicky was so upset he wasn't cooperating, she grabbed him and scratched him down the chest. I felt myself getting tired and told them we weren't doing the pictures anymore. They both cried and screamed.

I needed to lighten my mood so as not kill them. I imagined up a new Christmas card picture. I told them the photography session would take place immediately on the stairway (the only clean place in the house today). No changing or primping was necessary. Everyone would be as is. They were so excited they happily posed and I snapped an unfortunate looking array of pictures of the ragamuffins. I laughed so hard thinking of how I would use it for my Christmas card. Why, after all, should we be pretending we're something we're not around here? (Which would be well rested and put together.) Andy puts on his own clothes and they are usually mismatching, season inappropriate, backwards, and inside out. Baby C is too little to complain that his green socks don't go with the blue choo choo outfit...but of course he'd be the only one that wouldn't notice.
As always, Nicky is good at disguising the fact that she looked like the above before she chose to look like the below.
I might defer Christmas cards to next year. Or, I might be driven to insanity and send out cards using the photos I took tonight.

Christmas Spirit Instigation

Yesterday a package came in the mail from my friend Jeralyn. We were best friends when we were little girls and recently got back in touch through Facebook. Three handmade towels with hoodies were inside the package. All three are are embellished with ribbons. There are two green ones with frogs for the boys and a purple towel with butterflies for Nicky. They are absolutely darling. What makes them special is that Jeralyn made them herself. There is something extra beautiful about a gift that someone makes. I was surprised and touched by this generous gift. It totally made my day. We put our Christmas tree up yesterday and this gift put the giving mood of the season into my heart. Thank you Jeralyn.

Nicky kept asking me which of the towels was my favorite. She said, "Do you love the butterfly towel? Is it your favorite?" I replied, "I think all of them are cute." Then she says, "I know but if you had a favorite would it be the butterfly towel?"

This picture turned out fuzzy because someone is so wiggly. We loved the towels so much that everyone had to take a bath right away.

After Bath Cuddles

(Yes he is that big! He is weighing in at 9 lbs already which is almost double his birth weight.) I read a book with Nicky and Andy about a little girl who has a new baby join her family. The girl in the story got very jealous. I asked my kids if they were jealous of Christian. Nicky said, "Oh no, I love him. I'm not jealous at all." Tonight I caught Andy sitting up on my bed next to the baby patting him gently on the hair and whispering, "I love you baby." I can't imagine sweeter moments than these. Christian probably gets more than he wants of hugs and kisses. How else can we communicate how much we love him? I'm humbled that this little piece of heaven found his way into our home.

As a side note, thanks for all the good sleeping tips. We moved the bassinet in the other bedroom. Although I still heard the grunts, the distance took the edge off and I was able to sleep better. Now if I can stop entertaining nightmares about a Rwandan Holocaust honeymoon or Jeff losing his job, I'll be getting even better rest.

Help!

I'm tired. I have a grunter on my hands. Christian never cries but he is noisy. He loudly grunts and strains all night while he sleeps. There may be a periodic half hour where he sleeps deeply but then he is back making his cute by day but very obnoxious by night sounds.

The problem is I'm an anxious sleeper with a new baby. I can't sleep if he is not close because I worry I won't hear him but, ironically, I can't sleep when he is near because he is too loud. I'm so tired I end up falling asleep while nursing with the baby right next to me and I worry I'm going to smoosh him because I'm so tired. This all makes my sleep even lighter and less restful. To make matters worse, Jeff has left the bedroom and resorted to sleeping with Andy in the full bed. He can't sleep with the grunting either. It is all so dysfunctional.

What should I do? A girl here sleeps her baby in the other room and has a monitor on next to her. If I did that, wouldn't I just hear all the sounds on the monitor anyway? Experienced advice needed from better rested mothers.

Creative Chores

The kids helping with dishes. The mundane has to get creative with three of them around all day.

Introducing our cute little fatty! His due date is on Saturday so he's a big non-fetus boy now. He loves to grunt, strain, sleep, and nurse. We can't get enough of him. The advantage of an early baby is that you get to enjoy the newborn stage a bit longer. Aside from the added sleep deprivation, it's fun especially now that he has some meat on his little bones.

The Secret Weapon

I think my hormones have stabilized thus I'm allowing myself access back into my blog. I'm proud of my self restraint and how little documentation there will be of the volatility that is my mood of late. I'm pretty sure most of it has to do with being ugly. I don't fit into anything that doesn't have an elastic and it's old. I'm happy though because I'm doing something about it and I may be on to things that button in another month or so here.

Now, on to the new member of the family, the Honda Odyssey. I probably don't need to put the picture because if you don't own one, you've seen a million on the road.

I hate it when I look at it but really love it when I open the doors and get inside. There's two automatic sliding doors on the sides and a DVD player that comes down from the ceiling. The kids will all be spread out so they won't keep putting their fingers in baby's mouth. It's all roomy and deluxe and I can imagine all our camping stuff would fit in the back so perfectly. We went back and forth between getting a mini van and an SUV and I came to the conclusion the only reason to get an SUV would be so we wouldn't look like nerds. The mini van seems so much nicer for getting little kids in and out. I get annoyed with all the people (mostly from my old neighborhood) who thought their cars made them cool. I checked again today and found I'm still me despite having a mini van in the garage. Getting a mini van is equal to getting wrinkles or stretch marks in my mind. It just comes with having kids and getting older. I like having all the kids too so if people spot my van and peg me as a mom, so be it. I am a mom after all.

Jeff is not adjusting as well. Give him three kids but don't give him a mini van! Luckily I got a laugh out of him when showed him an online video of the guy who buys magnetic flames for the sides of the van to make it cool. Jeff says he'll only drive it if the whole family is in the car. It was so hard for him to spend so much money on a car he hates. When he had to drive it alone to get the alignment it put him in a bad mood. Poor guy. I think the man who buys a mini van is the most attractive of all because it demonstrates he is one who puts others' needs ahead of his own.

So it sits in the garage now like a secret weapon. I can't wait to have an outing or have visitors and fit them all in. My sister won't have to sit on the floor of the back seat anymore when she visits. Hooray!

Baby Likes

Things I like about "Baby" (aka Christian):

• The sour milk/baby lotion smell he emits
• The way he never cries
• He wiggles and grunts when hungry and at night I manage to sleep on until it gets real frantic (should I feel guilty?)
• The way he looks after a bath with his hair all ruffled up
• The way he looks asleep; his state 90% of the time
• The chubby cheeks for which we've worked so hard

Where's the Baby?

A terrible thing happens to babies when you aren't looking. They grow up!

Witch Doctor Circumcision

There's a special treat reserved for parents of preemie boys -- the outpatient circumcision. I hear that full term boys are whisked away for twenty minutes at the hospital and returned a tad fussy and minus their foreskin. The parents are in blissful ignorance as to what happened to their tiny baby. Only one neonatologist performed circumcisions in the NICU and he was unavailable. Our new pediatrician doesn't do any outpatient circs but he referred me to a Dr. Milazzo who does.

The appointment was yesterday.

When Andy had his circumcision, we all went to the pediatrician's office and Jeff got the pleasure of assisting the doctor while I sat in the waiting room with Nicky. With all the sickness going around, it didn't seem like a good idea for the whole family to sit in a doctor's waiting room this time. So I was baby Christian's lucky companion. Since Jeff watched the last one, I figured it wouldn't be bad.

WRONG!

The procedure with its associated baby Velcro straight jacket, clamps, scissors, and brown disinfectant left me dizzy and nauseous. Seriously, doesn't the circumcision device name, "gamco clamp" bring to mind some hideous medieval torture method? Worst of all was Dr. Milazzo herself. She came in dressed like a witch doctor complete with bone earrings and a bone necklace. A tiny skull dangled from the necklace and sat against her ample cleavage. She explained that she didn't normally dress that way but it was the Mexican Halloween. Most of her patients appeared to be Hispanic. I'm not sure why she performs circumcisions as she was unable to hide her contempt for me and other parents who ask her to do them. So there she was looking like a witch doctor and talking to me for 15 minutes about how unnecessary this "cosmetic" procedure was and how she chose to leave her second son "intact." She compared male circumcision to African female circumcision and said the Europeans look at us as barbarians for doing this to our baby boys. She gave me a brochure about circumcision care that was thinly veiled anti-circumcision literature from a NOCIRC group. It says things like, "many men feel resentful that they lost part of their penis."

Suffice it to say, I was ready to leave before the procedure began. I knew however, that I'd be headed right back as soon as I got home. Jeff made it clear that he's never seen an uncircumcised penis in the gym or elsewhere and it's what's to be done for his sons. He also had other reasons which are too graphic to write on my family friendly blog. Given how hard it is to leave the house these days, I wasn't going to risk leaving and having to come back.

So it was done and watching it was as awful as you can imagine. Most of the problem is that it was my baby. I think mother's have the ability to literally feel their children's pain. At least I do. I left feeling like I'd had a circumcision and I don't even have a penis.

Christian was horribly fussy afterwards and the Dr. was cold when I asked her if that was normal. She said matter-of-factly, "you can expect that kind of behavior for at least five days." It's was like she was saying with her cold gray eyes, "I told you this was the wrong thing to do, so reap your reward."

Man, I think the rest of of our ten children are going to have to be girls. Your damned if you do and damned if you don't when it comes to this issue. I'm feeling like an evil mother every time I open the little diaper and see the raw unit peeking sadly out. I can only hope my sons can forgive me for depriving them their foreskins.

Obligatory Pictures

I don't know if "obligatory" is a word or if it is spelled right. I am tired enough not to care. I also witnessed my own son's circumcision today and it did me in. That deserves a post of its own. For now, here are the halloween pictures for interested parties.

P.S. Christian weighs 6 lbs 5 oz today. He gained over a pound last week and is looking all normalish. Hooray for my round the clock fattening efforts!

Napless Ninja... He was scarier later when the costume came off and we tried to put him to bed.