Love and carrots

Casualties of the day:

* My last pair of semi-attractive sunglasses, snapped apart by investigative toddler
* My pristine white nursing tank (they should make these things in "camo")
* The bathroom rug, giving up the ghost after too many post-pee washings

But if you completely ignore my wrecked household, this day could still be considered a WILD SUCCESS.

Specifically, Chebbles has now gone two full days without a tantrum. This is amazing. She hasn't been this agreeable since... never. (NB: Photo above was taken pre-wings.)

And as for Baby V, she has transformed into the jolly girl we all knew she would become. All it took was giving up on breastfeeding as her primary source of nourishment.

I took the baby back to Dr. M. today, who was quite impressed with her weight gain -- she's exactly back on the 90% trajectory she started on, having gained 1.5 lbs. in the last 2 weeks, topping the scales at a meaty 15 lbs. 9 oz. She laughs all of the time and wolfs down carrots like a champ.

Most importantly, and thank every deity a Unitarian can think of, she has slept through until about 2am the last two nights. And as long as I remember to give her formula in addition to my breastmilk at the 2am feeding, she can power right through until morning. ("Morning" is defined here as 5am, but I'll TAKE IT.)

I wonder if my sleeplessness was negatively impacting Chebbles' behavior, so that now that I'm beginning to emerge from the fog of NO SLEEP (into the light mist of a-little-more-sleep), she is feeling much better too.

So we are all filthy but swooning with love for one another in the Mama household. After their bath together tonight, Chebbles hugged Baby V's barrel chest and said, "I LOVE YOU, BABY SISTER."

That was worth a little staining and wreckage, no?

Wings

This is probably the right time to introduce you guys to my friend Whoozyermama (not pictured at left). Our daughters enjoyed being in dance class together, and I can comfortably swear around WM (all the swears), so it was marvelous having them over for a playdate last night.

We were seated peacefully at the kitchen table, WM and I were. We heard our daughters playing in Chebbles' bedroom, cooperating on some project, and we congratulated ourselves on how advanced our children are. We said things like, "It's good when she can play with someone smart like your daughter," and similarly haughty statements.

Then her daughter (Whoozyerkid, or WK) came skittering out of the bedroom, dancing around while we enjoyed her cuteness... until we noticed something awry with her hair. She suddenly seemed to have a lot of short hairs poking out all over her scalp.

With one brush over her daughter's head, WM pulled off a fistful of cut hair.

"Did you cut your hair?" she asked.
"No... SHE DID," she said, pointing at Chebbles, who emerged from her room with a big grin.

WK has NEVER had a haircut in her life. Well, until she met Chebble Scissorhands.

I was mortified, and amazed that safety scissors could create such havoc.

Later in Chebbles' bedroom, I noticed there was hair all over the floor. Not just WK's brunette hunks, but a great quantity of bright blonde locks as well.

See, they were cooperating SO WELL that they took TURNS cutting each other's hair with the alleged "Only Cuts Paper!" scissors.

I inspected Chebbles further and discovered that my baby now has wings. Her hair is now flying in wisps all over her head. A ponytail (so CUTE last week in last week's dance recital) is now impossible.

My kid looks like Farrah Fawcett. Kind of like an end-of-Burning-Bed Farrah Fawcett, attractive but very disheveled -- wings flapping in the smoky breeze.

I cleaned the hair off the floor last night, then as I brushed her hair this morning, more loose chunks fell into the brush. There really is nothing to be done for it now. We've got to head in for a somewhat drastic haircut. I think you know where this is going:

Omigod you guys

Baby V only woke up ONCE last night!

To celebrate, I bring you the opening scene from "Legally Blonde: The Musical. " This reflects they extreme exuberance I'm feeling this morning.

Smoky

It's very smoky here, due to some nearby wildfires. It lends an air of mystery to everything, and without the usual blue skies above us, it feels claustrophobic. Our voices get mixed into the smog and the tops of our redwood trees are barely visible. Our street looks like the set from "The Third Man."

Yesterday I knelt down to look into my childrens' eyes and I noticed they were all red and irritated -- every time I take them outside, it's the equivalent of going to a bowling alley in Pittsburgh in 1979. Not the healthiest places, our lawns and parks right now.


Check out this picture of Baby V. I dared to put her in the swing in the backyard today, and she's having a whale of a time, but she looks like she has SCURVY or something with those puffy smoked-out eyes, the poor child.

But in other news, she is four months old today! She now eats 2-3 meals of solids (rice cereal mixed with boobmilk and vegetables) every day, she is on a 70% formula diet, and -- I'm happy to post, but wary of jinxing it -- she only wakes up two times each night.

Two times! Can you believe it? Last week at this time, I was pretty hopeless about the sleep situation, as she was rising 8-11 times every night. But now we've got a waking between 12-1 and one around 5am. Although I haven't been feeding her at that 5am feeding, just coaxing her back to sleep and holding her off until a 7am feeding.

I'm somewhat vexed by her pacifier, as it is a sure bet to get her back to sleep. She only has a Wubbanubs, and it lives exclusively in her crib. She likes to sleep on her belly on her lambskin with the Wubbanubs tucked under her arm and the pacifier in her mouth. That is THE POSITION. That is the position that has engendered the only-two-times-a-night waking schedule.

But I know how it goes with these pacifiers. Soon it will be much harder to break the pacifier habit, and Baby V shows no sign of sucking her thumb anytime soon. She will gnaw on her fingers and toes, but the pacifier is the only thing that truly helps her get to sleep. And why break the pacifier habit? Because thumbs don't get lost in the crib at night! I want Baby V to be able to settle herself back down when she's in her own crib, without my running in to replace a pacifer.

And besides, that's what my parenting bible, Baby 411, suggests. And they haven't been wrong yet.

It's just too easy to give her the pacifier when she's tired and upset and needing to calm down in her crib. Too easy.

This was the month I removed Chebbles' pacifiers when she was an infant, but she was nowhere near as addicted. I just can't stand the idea of more crying at night. The Wubbanubs has allowed me to sleep from 1am-5am every night for the last five days, so for the time being, it stays.

And perhaps we'll stay inside, too, until this smoke clears. It's so strange outside. It's apocalyptic in that Orson Wells kind of way.

Sharing is cool

I think (and hope and pray) that Chebbles has turned a corner with her new-baby-itis. She no longer asks to be carried from location to location throughout the house. She's toned down the baby talk and has become exceedingly helpful where Baby V is concerned.

While Baby V played in the Jumparoo today, Chebbles dumped out our entire collection of baby toys, presenting them to her little sister one by one, and placing the teething toys in the freezer for her future use.

I also gently suggested to Chebbles that one day she may share a room with Baby V.

"Can we move her in NOW? Right NOW?" she asked.

I told her that Baby V isn't ready yet, because she still needs things throughout the night.

"I can get her things that she wants, Mama. I can get her a bottle if she is crying."

Oh man, that would be so SWEET! I could sleep and she'd be in there shoving the Born Free inserts into the bottles and measuring formula scoops in the middle of the night. (Note: Pain-in-ass bottle assembly is still easier than the futile shitstorm of breastfeeding.)

So she's feeling more comfortable with the new resident of our home. She adores Baby V, and likes to have private conversations with her. She is learning not to leave anything small on the floor now that Baby V rolls over and puts everything in her mouth, "because she could ssshhoke, Mama."

When we were at the zoo on Monday, Chebbles and I were pretending we were little ants, hiding in big pretend grass stalks and hoping people wouldn't step on us. We each found little places to hide from giant feet. And although Baby V was home with a sitter, Chebbles pointed out a little spot that would be just PERFECT for her little sister to hide from feet too, if it ever came to that.

See, she's kind like that. It's marvelous to watch this quality evolve in my former only child.

Green Hour

Of course I'm enchanted with this whole Green Hour program.

It's a program sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation to encourage outdoor play for kids -- suggesting that every kid get at least one "green hour" each day. I like the delineation... that the soccer field is NOT a green hour location, but the edge of the soccer field IS... anywhere you can dig up worms, basically.

They've even paired up with an organization called NatureFind in order to help people find worm-diggin' places. (In another life, I'm going to come back as a vermiculturist.)

I want to participate in this -- it counteracts the numbing effects of Gymboree, which I've always found to be disturbingly clean and safe.

When I was a kid, we really just ran out into the woods until we got bloody noses, broken legs and/or pinworms. And we LIKED it that way. And I'm sure our moms liked it that way too -- we'd just take off for points unknown and show up at dinnertime. Dang! What I could save on babysitters!

Anyway, Green Hour is cool. Our first project, inspired by their program, is a rock collection for Chebbles. She's been collecting rocks from people's yards and parking lots for a few weeks now, so we're going to make it official. I briefly fantasized about creating a labelled shelved rock collection paradise in a shadowbox, but then I realized that the collector is TWO. So a plastic bowl is probably our best bet.

OK, off to pick plums with The Chebs and celebrate Green Hour together.

First shot of the family

This was taken after Chebbles' dance recital on Saturday morning. As evidenced by the photo...

* Chebbles loves her Daddy.
* Baby V is exhausted from laughing her way through the recital.
* Daddy is handsome and charmed by his children.
* Mama forgot to brush her hair.

The Night of Mice and Pain

We're alive... but barely.

Last night, Otto found a nest of mice, and brought them in every hour or so. He would be so proud as he bolted into our room to show us his latest catch -- some alive, some not.

Hub-D was the hero of the night, of course, as I tried to sleep (unsuccessfully) with a pillow over my head and he worked to banish the still-alive mice, which usually would return in Otto's mouth, dead, within the hour.

Of COURSE we should have locked him out after he brought in the first mouse, but in our sleepless state, we kind of thought each one would be the last.

This was all exacerbated by the New York Times crossword puzzle, which Grandma R. and I stayed up late finishing (we're still vexed by the lower left corner). Her plane left early this morning, so it was our last chance to work through that puzzle together.

Then at about 10:30pm, Hub-D and I started talking about where we'd like our children to go to school, particularly now that it's hit home that our favorite private school will cost $200,000 PER KID to get them to... high school. Then we have to pay for high school, then there would be, maybe, college (military academies sound appealing, girls?).

So there we were as the clock ticked later into the night, wondering if we should move to a better school district so that their primary education would be free, or if we could magically come up with the $1.5M it would cost to put three children (one still hypothetical) through 12th grade.

We finally drifted off after midnight, despite a weird VOICE coming from the direction of our neighbor's house. We'd been hearing it since we returned from Texas, someone's TV, we supposed, blathering late into the night. So we put pillows over our ears and gradually fell into a fitful sleep despite the cost of private school, despite the YVER River (crossword puzzle), and despite that odd voice.

Then at 1am... first mouse. Hub-D catches it and releases it out the front door triumphantly.

Then at 2am... next mouse. It hides behind our massive dresser. Hub-D creates an obstacle course to guide it out the back door and props open the back door.

Then Baby V wakes up to feed, what a good little girl. So I nurse her and she's almost asleep and dreamy at the boob, when...

NEXT MOUSE is brought into Baby V's room for inspection and praise.

Baby V then wakes up fully, so excited and scandalized by the lights and my hollers and Daddy coming into her room late at night.

About 3:30, we finally settle down. Baby V wakes up one more time, then...

Hub-D has to investigate THE VOICE. He flips on the light in the back and starts peering at the fence, trying to determine WHO has got their TV on at 4am. That's when he discovers the radio that our handyman must have left here... two weeks ago. It's just been chattering 24 hours a day.

OK, so, back to bed everyone, until...

6:10, Time to drive Grandma R. to BART! Then 6:15, Baby V wakes up ready to party, then at 6:30, Chebbles randomly wakes up with a diaper filled with black poo.

Good morning, you beautiful family!!!

You guys! You guys! You guys!

Baby V went to bed at 8pm, having been tanked up on formula and boobmilk. Then she woke up at 1:30am.

I put her back in her crib at 2am. It is 6am, and SHE IS STILL SLEEPING.

Can you believe it? I am so excited! I'm excited the way I was after Hub-D asked me out for our first date. I'm excited like when I got into Northwestern (I wasn't allowed to go, but still...) I'm excited like NO OTHER, man, because I only woke up ONCE last night, instead of a dozen times.

What made the difference? This is what we did yesterday...

She was 50/50 boobmilk and formula.
She had carrots and peas and rice cereal in addition to those things.
She took a big bath (my mom cast aside the baby bath and just put her on her tummy and let her splash like crazy, go mom).
She had three good quality naps.

Or perhaps it was just *time* for her to settle the heck down and sleep more peacefully. She also slept without a pacifier, so perhaps that contributed (no more pacifier falling out to wake her at night).

But my mom-sense says that my child was HUNGRY. This is backed up by Dr. M's assertion that she'd fallen off her skyrocketing growth chart. And she wasn't satisfied by boobmilk anymore. And so by feeding her, we satisfied her restless little body.

OK, I don't want to get too excited here, this could be a one-time thing. But it's proof that it's POSSIBLE for her to only wake up one time. I feel light as a feather this morning.

So I may not be able to GO to Northwestern, but I know that I COULD HAVE (had it been less expensive). And that's the whole point here. Baby V is capable of sleeping at night.

I hear her snuffling around in there, and I can't wait to go in there and frighten her with my enthusiasm. I'm planning to frighten everyone by hollering it on our doorstep this morning.

SHE SLEPT! SHE SLEPT! SHE SLEPT!

Blast from the past

I've had a niggling feeling lately that I've been through this sleepless life before.

After a little research into my own history, I discovered that I went through all of this crap in January 2006 too. Oh.

Note: Chebbles was called "Babycakes" back then. It's not like I had some other baby.

Yes it does

If breastfeeding were a dude and we were going out for the last four months, today is the day I told him, "You know, I don't think our relationship is going anywhere."

And he'd say, "But Dr. Sears said that breastfeeding provides dynamic nutrients for your baby, and that she WON'T THRIVE without them."

And I'd sigh and say, "I know," and I'd think about giving him another chance, but then I'd listen to my heart for about one millisecond and say, "But I don't like you."

"Now that's the most selfish thing I've ever heard," Breastfeeding would say, "It doesn't matter if you like me. You HAVE TO GO OUT WITH ME because it's the RIGHT THING TO DO."

And I would say, "You may be the right choice for me, but I'm tired, I'm a pissed off crappy mom, and I'm exhausted from trying to make this relationship work."

"Again, it's all about you," he'd say.

"No, it's also about Baby V, man, she doesn't like you either."

"But I'm the best possible nutrition you can provide her."

"But when we use formula, she's so much happier. She gets truly tired and drifts off to sleep with a smile on her face."

"You're just NOT DOING IT RIGHT," Breastfeeding would pipe up indignantly.

"Listen, you're a nice guy. You're also the best guy, I recognize that. But the world don't move to the beat of just one drum..."

"Are you really singing the theme from 'Diff'rent Strokes' to break up with me?"

"What might be right for YOU, may not be right for some."

"What if we just pump? You don't have to breastfeed, just pump."

"It takes different strokes."

"You're just succumbing to the formula companies' greedy pitches!"

"Different strokes."

"You're always going to wonder if Baby V lags in any particular area because she didn't have ME."

"Different strokes to move the world, yes it does. It takes different strokes to move the world. MMmmmm...."

And with that, our world is moved to occasional breastfeedings and a full-on love affair with formula. I've learned that just 50 ML a day of breastmilk can help keep up the antibodies, etc., but otherwise, we're moving in with formula. Tschao.

And we're up

Baby V slept on and off all night, then she turned on all her charm and friendliness at 5:15am. That was IT. She wasn't sleeping anymore.

I just propped her on my chest and asked her, "Are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding me right now?"

Thank the LORD that my mom is here, so I could pass Baby V and Chebbles on to her (SHE woke up at 6am too... are the longer days to blame?), and go back to sleep for two blissful hours.

Baby V is also hungry. Her weight has fallen off -- I think the stress of the sleepless nights has negatively impacted my breastmilk. So we're feeding her more and more solids -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- all of which she happily gobbles down. Plus breastmilk. Plus formula.

But has it helped her sleep longer? Nooooooooo.

Speaking of princesses

Chebbles' babysitter A. made her a CASTLE!

A. is 17, and when her parents received a new television, she commandeered the box in order to make something special for Chebbles. It took her three months. Her father, who is a teacher, raided the school supplies for purple butcher paper, and A. burned most of her fingers while operating the hot glue gun.

A.'s father brought it over in his truck, and they made a huge presentation that made Chebbles feel quite special.

In the midst of all the excitement I turned to Hub-D and said, "Well, we can't move NOW."

A few pictures from our trip

This is Baby V and I on the shore of Lake Austin... We were looking for someplace to stop so I could nurse the V, and we pulled over into a state park called "Hippie Hollow," only to be sent away by a park ranger who sheepishly told us that the Hollow is "clothing optional" so no one under 18 is allowed in.

Seeing as Baby V spends half her life looking straight at a boob, it's kind of pointless, AND since our intention was for me to show some boob while I fed her, well, we should have gone to Hippie Hollow. Instead we went to this nice private park down the road, where the sun shone and the baby got a nice bellyful.






This is Hub-D at the Texas State Capitol. Back in 1991, I visited Austin with my mother and sister. We were walking around all morning, and as we stood at the base of the lawn leading up to this majestic building, we were all rendered speechless for a moment. Then my mom piped up, "Well. I bet they've got a bathroom in THERE!"

Have we ever let her live it down? No. And they do have a bathroom in there.


This photo is from the camp in Plymouth where our friends were married. We had just finished breakfast when my wonderful friend J. offered to hold Baby V. The baby was picking up the happy vibe that resonated throughout the camp -- our friends' wedding was so ecstatic and beautiful -- it's like they misted Xanax throughout the camp. I think we all wanted to marry each other by Sunday morning.




And here we have Princess Chebbles at her friend T.'s house in Austin. She's wet because she'd peed her pants and had a midday visit to the tub. She's a magical, beautiful princess no matter what she wears, I think.

Dr. M pities Mama

We just got back from Dr. M's office, and the best he could do was:

(1) Suggest Benadryl for truly desperate times (1/2 tsp)

(2) Feel really sorry for me

Her ears are fine. She doesn't have a cold or allergies or thrush or any medical reason for waking up several times a night.

Her weight is almost 15 pounds, but it should be higher based on the trajectory she was on before. So he suggested amping up her food. We're going to start doing nursing PLUS breakfast, lunch and dinner. You think I'm kidding. Nope. Full-on baby food PLUS the boob.

And he also agreed with me that the pacifier has got to go. I find pacifiers somewhat repulsive for whatever reason, so I've been waiting for the day that I get to wean her off of them, just as I did with La Cheb.

But I can't explain how bummed I was that my kid does NOT have an ear infection. Seriously.

No, I'm sorry, it was ELEVEN TIMES

I just turned over the note that the night nurse left us, and I discovered that Baby V didn't wake up eight times. No, it was eleven times.

I had put Baby V to sleep at 7pm, she fussed and woke until I rocked her and put her back down at 8pm, then she woke up at 11pm and I nursed her. Then I handed her over to the night nurse...

This is the exact content of the note she left me this morning:


11:10 Held, rocked 5 min. or less, put down, tried to help her find her choice of position, gas passed, paci -- on her tummy

11:20 cry out/paci

1:20 cry out -- almost on her back, repositioned to side -- paci

2:00 paci, hands cold, closed window (mostly) covered more

2:40 cry out/paci

3:30 cry out/paci

4:35 cry out/paci

4:55 cry out/paci

5:00 tooting made her cry out, rubbed her tummy a bit

5:15 talking out more than crying out, tooting, put her on tummy/paci

5:30 4 oz. formula back down

5:45am back down on tummy

7:00 not a peep since 5:45


Then, at the ripe old hour of 7:15, Baby V was up and hungry and ready for action.

The only consolation of this whole situation is how funny the word "tooting" is. It reminds me of "The Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood." But otherwise, DUDE.

Eight times

Last night, our old night nurse (the one who helped me recover from the C-section) came back and she kept a log of Baby V's night wakings.

EIGHT.

It's not my imagination, so that's a relief. And there is nothing I'm doing wrong necessarily, since a woman who does this for a LIVING can't get her to sleep more than an hour in a row.

We even started her on solids in the last couple days, thinking that might help, but it's exactly the same despite her wolfing down big bowls of rice cereal.

Maybe it's the pacifier. Maybe if we rid ourselves of the pacifier, she'll learn to suck her thumb and be more self-sufficient in putting herself back to sleep?

Maybe it's gas? Related to, maybe sucking on the pacifier? Or just regular old gas?

Maybe she's allergic to cats, and that's why she is snotty a lot of the time?

Maybe I thought the thrush was cured, but perhaps she has a painful yeast infection I haven't been able to identify.

I read in Parenting magazine that frequent night wakings can sometimes be attributed to an ear infection, so I'm hauling her into Dr. M's office today so he can check her over.

What the HELL IS GOING ON?

And I am SO BLESSED that I missed the party last night and got a little sleep myself.

EIGHT TIMES.

The neighs have it...

OK, in case anyone in the world is as curious as I am as to WHAT the heck happened in my reproductive system last month, I may have found some answers.

This study seems to indicated that a woman's FSH levels rise around 12 weeks postpartum (exactly, yep), but in lactating women (boobers, if you will) the LH levels stay low. You need both FSH and LH to release an egg and really get things going.

So a boober can't get knocked up unless her LH bucks the trend and surges up at the right time in the cycle too. So this explains why you can get a positive reading for FSH in your urine, and accompanying follicular-related mittelschmertz, but you didn't really ovulate. Because you're a boober.

Some Brazilian scientists experimented on prepubescent ponies regarding this effect -- the FSH running rampant but not causing ovulation.

Just so you know.

Good job, Dad

Hub-D Worship Week continues with a salute to Father's Day.

This morning, Chebbles presented him with a mug she found at the dollar store, filled with a bunch of shiny stars. It was her choice for Daddy's gift, so there you have it. Of course he purports to love it.

But what can you say to properly thank a guy who has taken on his role as a Dad-o-Daughters so wholeheartedly, he takes his little girl to the ballet and also holds her on his lap, protecting her from the dragon during Disney Princesses on Ice. He has learned to lavishly praise the most bizarre outfits and to acquiesce to lipgloss applications.

All hail the Hubs. Your daughters think you're the bomb, dude.

-

You're going to think I'm totally crazy, but for a minute there I thought I was pregnant.

Last month, on the 22nd, I detected FSH in my urine accompanied by a bunch of Mittelschmerz. I didn't detect an actual surge, but I didn't aggressively test, and the Mittelschmerz was unmistakable. I thought I ovulated.

Having reason to believe that I could have gotten pregnant during that time, I started to count the days before my period was due to arrive, then discovered that I was "late."

I just darted out to the Dollar Tree and snagged a cheap pregnancy test in order to figure out what was going on. It was negative. Whew! I can drink in Munich! Yay, I can GO to Munich. Sob! I am getting older and every cycle counts, what if it had been a boy and what if I could have told Hub-D on Father's Day and, you know, get a lot more use out of that double stroller...

So yeah, a Jackson Pollack-esque bunch of emotions, most of which can be summarized as "bummed out."

Maybe that wasn't even a cycle. Maybe it was some kind of fakey pretend cycle where my body futzed around with some FSH and swelled up a fallopian tube but didn't release an egg. Because my period is still nowhere in sight.

I'd forgotten how shitty it feels to look at a negative pregnancy test. I shook when I did the test, just out of habit, and of course some hope.

I know it's a good thing that I'm not pregnant because my pregnancies are shiiiiitty. Therefore, I need to resolve Baby V's sleep before I contemplate entering that medical adventure. And now I get to have a grand adventure with my husband and children in Germany this summer, plus we're planning other fun things that a pregnancy would have just RUINED.

And I'm also dreading the whole waiting-until-ten-weeks adventure, where you sit around and wonder if your embryo will make it to fetus, whether its one-chambered heart will blossom into four.

So I don't have to go through THAT whole adventure, but I started to think about returning to the maternity ward, giving birth in some cushy, relaxed setting, and expanding our family lickety-split.

But not this month, and maybe not for some time if my cycle indeed has not resumed.

The days of fruit and flowers

By the way, today is Hub-D and my fourth anniversary.

As we're in Austin, hot and sleepless, we haven't purchased gifts for one another, but we're told it's the anniversary of fruit and flowers. (Who makes these things up?)

I can't believe that it's only been four years. I'm not saying it feels like an eternity, but we've accomplished a hell of a lot in four years. We got married, bought a house, muddled through four pregnancies, and now we're knee-deep in Baby V's tough infancy.

Now we're in a searching mode... where do we want to raise our kidlets? Where should they go to school? How many more kidlets, if any, can we/should we produce? How do we stop Chebbles from killing bugs and frightening cats and possibly turning into a serial killer? And how do we get Baby V to sleep through the night so that her mother doesn't evolve into a serial killer?

See, we're battling the big questions now.

But I love him so absolutely, it's one thing I can count on these days. Sure, I'm really mean to him because I don't sleep and I feel martyrish, but I can count on him to tell me to lighten up, then give me a backrub and tuck me into bed.

Yesterday he was trying to merge into traffic, and a nice Austinite made room for him. He raised up his hand to wave to the other driver by way of thanks, and I absolutely LOVED the way he did it. He did it like an Amish person, really slowly and with kind of a claw.

I told him right away that he has a cute wave, and when I couldn't get back to sleep last night, I just smooshed my head into my pillow and amused myself by thinking of how cute my husband's traffic wave is.

Then when it was morning, and I had to assume a vertical position, I stomped into the bathroom, talking to him while I peed.

"Did you know that J. Lo's husband stays up ALL NIGHT with her twins so that she can sleep?"

"Really?"

(Silence.)

So he's no Marc Anthony, but am I the only one a little skeeved by Mr. J. Lo? Of course, I wouldn't be at all skeeved by him if he showed up at my doorstep at 2am with a big can of GentleEase, a bunch of sterilized bottles and told me firmly to go to my bed while he cared for Baby V, but still, he's not usually my type of guy.

My type is my Hubs. He of the ham-handed traffic wave, the dominant genes and a thousand extremely subtle facial expressions, each of which is more hilarious than the last.

I love you Hub-D.

FOUR MORE YEARS.

Nope, no one's sleeping

For those of you still keeping score:

Baby V is still waking up about eight times a night. There is nothing, but nothing, that will cure this ongoing restlessness.

I'm told it's a sign of giftedness. Really brainy kids tend not to sleep, and look to acquire more data for their growing crania 24 hours a day.

So that's what I tell myself, after I've thrown back the covers and hollered profanities...

It's a sign of giftedness.
It's a sign of giftedness.
It's a sign of giftedness.
It's a sign of giftedness.
It's a sign of giftedness.


Sigh.

It's a great town, but...

I should add that it's not just the lack of a "perfect house" that is making us decide against Austin. It's also hot as HELL! I know you guys told us that, about 100 times, but sometimes you have to experience these things for yourself.

Also, when Baby V woke up from 2-5am this morning (ohhh yeah, Texas has not cured my sleepless infant) I couldn't get back to sleep because I was too busy scratching the seven MILLION bug bites on my lower legs.

Plus, a bug bit Baby V right on her arm. Ass bug!

We love a lot of things about this city, which is why it was so high on our list of places to move. We just ate at the Texas Chili Parlor, so HELLO! The chiles were singing to us, lullabies like "It Ain't So Hot," and "Them's Just Love Bites" but to no avail.

Now we're back to actively contemplating alternative places to live... but I think Texas is just out at this point. (scratch scratch)

Austin letdown (not milk)

Hub-D and I placed Chebbles in our friends' daycare today (where she had a rip-roarin' time and now has a lot of questions as to WHY she's not enrolled in daycare at home...) and we drove with a nice real estate agent all over Austin.

And we really couldn't find anything we liked. Even the nicest homes in Austin have no yard. People just don't have yards. And the few houses with yards are too far outside of town to consider. There is just nothing that combines class, comfort and ample living space for our growing (hopefully) family.

When we looked for homes in Tennessee, we had several that we loved, and two that we truly felt "at home" in. And here? Nothing fits us. We started reminiscing about Tennessee. Hub-D threw in a Hail Mary suggestion about Dallas. I found him sitting in a darkened corner of our friends' house here asking again about the idea of Pittsburgh.

So it looks like Austin is a no-go.

We actually made it

I woke up at 4:45am EST, having stayed up most of the night terrified that I wouldn't wake up by 4:45am.

But we made it to our flight!

Baby V was a superchamp, getting all the way to the airport without having eaten... but by the time we got to the massive line at security, she was, shall we say, peckish beyond all human understanding.

So there, in the Logan Airport security line, I lifted up my top and nursed my baby while shuffling forth, handing over my ID, taking off my shoes, and otherwise complying with TSA regulations. Then in a display of mothering in the 21st century, we all three went through the metal detector together, Baby V on my boob and Chebbles holding my hand. I'm pretty sure the TSA agent knew not to screw with me at that point.

I haven't left our friends' house in Austin yet. We are having a marvelous time just messing around the house. A little girl lives here, T., and she has a whole huge bag of dress-up clothes. Do you have any more questions as to why we haven't left the house?

Chebbles is currently sprawled out in T.'s room, holding a golden magic wand, wearing her Sleeping Beauty underwear with a sheer tutu over it and a sparkly leotard. Yesterday she also accessorized with a bridal veil, then flopped into an easy chair. She bore a more-than-passing resemblance to Courtney Love.

Hub-D and I plan to start scouting around neighborhoods while we're here, but he's starting to worry that Austin isn't big enough of a town to hold his interest for the long term.

I'm having trouble explaining why I LIKE towns of this size. I've lived in Boulder, Eugene, and Ann Arbor, and they're just so... I don't know... filled with folk music and good beers and accessible downtowns.

But I'm too exhausted to accurately convey these sentiments, having been woken several times last night by Baby V, then having Chebbles move into my bed, having been woken by a "tiny, tiny caterpillar who pushed me out of my bed."

I guess you guys were right about the bugs in Texas. Damn bed-pushing caterpillars.

Austin ho

We're planning to fly to Austin tomorrow morning, alighting from our perch here in Boston. I say "planning to" because I can't imagine how it's actually going to happen.

Our flight is at 8am, and the airport is an hour away (if there is no traffic, on a Monday morning, hahaha) so this entails getting two small people and two big people into the car with 16 pieces of luggage (you think I'm kidding) and leaving here at 5:30 if we have a ghost of a chance of making that flight.

It was the only direct flight! It seemed like a good idea at the time!

(Maybe I'll make that the new name of my blog... "it seemed like a good idea at the time...")

The wedding yesterday was marvelous. It was in the summer camp gymnasium which had been transformed into a fairylike wonderland with white sheets and pretend candlelight, oh and a whole GOSPEL CHOIR who belted out gorgeous songs while we swooned in our seats to the entrance of the bride.

Hub-D and I enjoy going to weddings, partially because it brings us back to OUR big day, when we couldn't stop making out for love or money. Our friends' wedding inspired us to liplock mid-ceremony, it was so romantic, and perfectly personalized to them.

This morning, Aunt E and I grabbed both kids and headed back to the summer camp for brunch. We were too late for the real brunch, so we wolfed the last two remaining pieces of coffee cake and handed Chebbles a box of Fruit Loops while we reunited with our Boston friends one last time.

We ambled down to the lakeshore and stood in the hot, humid sunshine with our feet among the minnows. Aunt E wisely stripped Chebbles of her nightgown and she splashed and hollered and sang "Part of Your World" to all of the passing motorboats, geese, and one swimming labrador retriever who Chebbles declared was actually a goat.

Meanwhile, Baby V passed from person to person, sharing smiles and cuddles with our marvelous Boston pals. She is a relentlessly charming infant, and she so enjoyed watching the sunlight filtering to the bottom of the lake and the faces of our friends.

We're all pretty beat. But it's been marvelous to shower alone, and to attend a wedding with my husband, flirting with each other at the buffet and soaking in the romance of our dear friends' nuptials.

Tomorrow: Texas?

Arrived

We're in the Boston area now, and Chebbles is with Grandma while Baby V is in the arms of her Aunt E.

So, why was it such a good idea to start a family 3000 miles away from this support system? I slept seven hours in a ROW last night. And Aunt E is flagging from waking up every two hours with Baby V.

Yeah, imagine doing that for ONE HUNDRED DAYS, sister.

It's raining here, but I'm feeling sunny and happy, being with my family, back in my old East Coast stompin' grounds.

Pass the Dunkin' Donuts!

It's over, Chebs

Baby V can grab toys now. And put them in her mouth. You will never be able to relax from this day forth. It's a matter of time before she shows up at some party wearing all your clothes and jewelry and smiling smugly at you.

Boston and Austin

I don't know whether to tell you guys that our family is going out of town, for fear that some crafty blog-lurker is just waiting for the perfect opportunity to break into our house and have his/her way with my giant pile of fatty-boombalatty maternity lingerie.

So I'll tell you that although we are going out of town, our house will be guarded by a herd of ninjas, two cats who are proven killers, and a next-door neighbor whose bumper sticker reads "Gun Control is Using Both Hands."

So don't get any ideas about my leopard-print nursing bra, you weirdo.

We're going to Boston, where my sister and mother live, and a friend of ours is getting married. It's one of those weddings that has a really amazing website and has all us married chicks slapping our foreheads saying, "Oof, why didn't I hold my wedding at a boy's sleepaway campsite?" Because she's just that cool.

Then we're going to Austin, to see if we want to live there.

Don't panic, California friends. And don't celebrate, California enemies. It's all extremely hypothetical. Long-time blog readers might remember our similar affair with Tennessee.

In that adventure, we all travelled to Tennessee, we fell in love with the Old Polk Place in Franklin, we put a bid in for it, and some crafty family had beaten us to the house by mere hours.

Tennessee was chosen in part due to its lack of state taxes. So you can see where I'm going with this... Texas. No state taxes, more central and relevant to our business, and it's Bush Country. If you could see the peace that falls across my husband's face when he hears the expression "Bush Country" you'd know that it's worth considering a relocation from our current location (gun-toting neighbor notwithstanding).

Now before you get pissed off with me and send a retaliatory donation to Obama, please notice that I'm focusing our search on AUSTIN, the hippie haven of Texas. So hubby would get what he wants -- the smell of the Bush family -- and I would get what I want -- a glorious farmer's market and the biggest Whole Foods on Planet Earth. Plus you can't swing a dead cat in Austin without hitting a singer/songwriter.

So we're going to go look at homes in Austin and see if it might be a good place for us to relocate. If we ARE going to relocate our family, I want to do it before our kids are ensconced in school, so now is the time, I think.

I'm just tired of us thinking about Austin every time we get pissed off with California. I want for us to make a decision one way or another, so that every time a drug courier walks down our street, we don't always say, "Well, that wouldn't happen in AUSTIN."

Or when we endure a cold snap in late May, that has us piling on sweaters, we're not saying "Austin is NEVER like this. When it's summer, it's goddamn summer."

Hub-D and I have gotten into this habit of idealizing Austin -- the schools would be so much better in Austin. The people would all wave when you let them into traffic. There would be thunderstorms and Tex-Mex and everyone just loves each other and life itself.

Anyway, it's still very hypothetical, the idea of moving. There is no gross urgency, and there are about 1,000 reasons to stay in California and just keep paying 12% of our income to... to... Arnold or whomever.

So that's where we'll be.

Grandpa's shots

Grandpa visited us a few weeks ago, along with his trusty dog Katrina, and captured some moments that usually go unrecorded around here, including our unique way of transporting ourselves from place to place.

"Mama, this is MY STROLLER. I steer my sister."
"OK, I'll just hold on here..."

Baby V doesn't seem to mind.

Jeremy Bentham

Am I the only one completely obsessed with the Jeremy Bentham situation? I mean, what in the WORLD is going on!? The small coffin? Where did the island go? I can't keep track of Jack's beard and how it relates to the passage of time, and JEREMY BENTHAM!? (Who in real life was a 19th century animal rights activist whose body was creepily preserved following his death.)

(Oh, if you don't understand a word I've written here, bless your stars that you aren't haunted by every moment of "Lost," because as it is, I'm covering my mirrors in black drapery and lighting candles in memory of an imaginary freighter on a television show.)

Dueling guitarists

Did you need further proof that I'm an ass?

I'm currently organizing Chebbles' birthday party. The theme is "Music and Dancing" and if you're reading this post, you're probably invited. (Yeah, I mean you, Ellen.)

As I pondered entertainment for the party, I came across a fun guitar player at our local Farmer's Market. Gruppie Mama and I found ourselves involuntarily dancing and singing along while our toddlers formed a mosh pit to John Denver's "Country Roads." Perfect entertainment for Chebbles' backyard summer party!

Except remember, I'm an ass. I grabbed the guy's card, and promptly lost it somewhere in my car.

Two months later, when I finally remembered to ask the organizers of the farmer's market who that wonderful guitar player was, they said, "Oh, that was FRED!"

"Fred," I said, "Aha, thank you, I'll track him down."

And I did! I found Fred's agents and they confirmed that Fred would be available for the party and sent me a contract and asked me for MORE than our music budget, but Hub-D and I agreed that we'd cut corners for the rest of the party and make it happen because Chebbles really loved Fred's music a lot, right?

Today, I finally remembered to fill out the contract and write a check to Fred's agent. I put it all in the mailbox and then took Chebbles to Costco to buy some gas because HOLY CRAP gas is expensive.

Chebbles sat merrily in the car making up a song about swimming lessons while I pumped gas, and I cleaned out some stuff from the car. You know, bottles and Google Map directions and accumulated crap, and... what's this? Who is Steven??? And why do I have his business card in my car, and it's decorated with a guitar on it, and OH CRAP, who the hell is Fred!??

I called Baby V's babysitter and said, "AAAAH! Run outside and take ALL THE MAIL OUT. Do NOT let the mailman take that FRED contract!"

Then I sent a shamefaced e-mail to Fred's agent. I mean, the guy's name is Fred, he's a friendly guitar player who plays "Old MacDonald" at children's parties. And here I am kicking him to the curb!? Ass!

My big consolation from this embarrassment is that Steven is really nice, he called me back right away, he's playing the party at a third of the cost. He doesn't have an agent, and he knows all the songs from "Sound of Music," "South Pacific" and "Mary Poppins," so we're a go.

Chebbles at the ballet

The Chebs went with Daddy to see the Sleeping Beauty ballet performed last night. Hub-D reports that there were many worried grown-up faces as Chebbles entered the auditorium, at just 2 1/2 years of age and in the front row. But she was quiet and observant the whole time, eating up the performance on Daddy's lap. She also acquiesced to leaving the doll, whom she calls "White Baby" in the car.

When they pulled into the driveway at the ungodly hour of 9:50pm, I stood in the chilly air outside to heave my eldest into bed. And as she stepped out of the car, I swear she looked a year older. Suddenly, because or in spite of the pink princess ballet-watching getup, my baby grew up.