ChezPerky

I’m a bit afraid to sit down and write this here birth story for a couple of reasons.  The first is that right now it’s MINE, all mine, and no one else’s.  Writing it down means sharing it with the world and making it everyone’s.  And there’s something a bit intimidating about that.  Right now I have something special in holding the story close to my heart, and keeping it to myself.  A bond that I share with my babies that no one can take away from me.  Letting the story out to everyone else means giving a piece of them and me away for everyone else to have.  But the second reason it’s a daunting prospect to write this all down is that I’m afraid it’s a bit anticlimactic.  When it boils down to it, I had a c-section.  It’s not the grueling hours of labor and delivery of a vaginal delivery where I might have something interesting to say other than: “I went into surgery, they took the babies out, they sewed me up.”  After all these months of anticipation, perhaps you’re expecting some great and profound words from me.  Perhaps you’re expecting me to be interesting and witty, but I’m not feeling it.  The day of my babies’ birth was a life-changing day, but so were the seven-months leading up to that day, and every day since that day.  My life will never be the same and for that I am incredibly grateful.  But for anyone other than me, I’m not sure the story of that day is particularly interesting.  With that rather anticlimactic introduction, however, here it is, at long last.

My surgery was scheduled for 9:30am on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007.  I was absolutely hysterical about it, still begging to be allowed a vaginal delivery.  I was frantic because the doctor that I knew best in the practice (Dr. P) had been on vacation the whole time I’d been in the hospital and had just gotten back, but wasn’t on call that day, so I wouldn’t see him until after the surgery.  He was the only doctor who I believed would have let me skip the c-section, and a piece of me felt like <i>if only I could talk to Dr. P I could call off this surgery!</i>  Of course, logically that wasn’t the case.  Baby C had long since stopped growing.  She was too tiny to do well with a vaginal delivery.  <i>If</i> she survived a vaginal delivery, it would probably have doubled her NICU stay and would have seriously complicated matters, but emotionally, I was a wreck.  On the inside, anyway.  On the outside, I think I held it together most of that morning, but I took it out on the nurses by becoming a control freak over stupid things.  For example, they brought me a consent form to sign for various things and the consent form included a statement that I had already seen and spoken with an anesthesiologist.  Since I hadn’t yet spoken with the anesthesiologist, I refused to sign the consent, which irritated the nurses, and I got really pissy about it, but that’s how I was acting all morning. 

Seth came in while I was having a fit about the consent form and told me it was fine to hold off on signing the consent form.  He went about packing up all my belongings because I would not be returning to the room I had been calling home after the surgery.  After the surgery, I would be moving to the post-partum unit.  As my things were being packed up, I took out my terbutaline pump and waited for the contractions to pick up.  I paid careful attention to them, knowing that I may never feel contractions again.   This was as close to labor and delivery as I was ever going to get.   At least for THIS pregnancy.  The babies weren’t very awake, so I poked at them, wanting to feel them kicking one last time.   Part of me felt guilty for waking them up prematurely (no pun intended), but again, I knew that this may be my last chance ever to feel a baby (babies!) kicking in my belly.  And ohmigod even as I’m typing this I’m crying just remembing how I felt right then.

Eventually the anesthesiologist came in and I talked with her and told her I’d rather have an epidural than a spinal, because I didn’t like the idea that you can’t turn off a spinal, but you CAN turn off an epidural.  Remember that one of my biggest problems with having a c-section was that I was positively terrified with having a spinal or epidural.  I had a stroke/TIA when I was 23 years old so the very idea of losing feeling in half of my body <i>on purpose</i> was terrifiying to me.  The anesthesiologist said that they actually use epidurals when they want the effects to last <i>longer</i> than a spinal, because once they turn it off, it still takes a couple hours to wear off, so I agreed to a spinal.  I still didn’t love having a needle in my spinal column, of course, but since my only other option was a general anesthetic, which I was wholly opposed to, a spinal anesthetic it was.  I signed the consent form. 

Finally, a nurse from the floor, not a nurse I knew, came in to put an IV line in me (they had blessedly taken my line out a couple days before because it kept getting infected and I didn’t need it).  The resident who would be assisting on the surgery came in around the same time and absolutely threw a fit that this hadn’t been done earlier.  Apparently several other patients were trying to bump my surgery which would be a total disaster because my surgery affected the schedules of at least 16 staff members.  Though my morning had been relatively calm up until that point, things suddenly became a flurry of activity.  The resident told me his name, but I forgot it immediately.  I’m sure it’s in my record somewhere, but I’ve never thought to ask for my record.  He was a very nice, Pakistani, flamboyantly gay doctor and managed to convey a sense of total urgency and relative calm at the same time.  He wheeled me down to the OR, Seth disappeared, presumably to um, well, I don’t know why.  Let me ask him.  He had to gown up, he says.  Also, they wouldn’t let him in the OR while I was getting the spinal, which really pissed me off, but I’d already been warned that would be the case. 

Once I was in the OR, I had to get from my stretcher to the OR table, which was a ridiculous ordeal.  I could barely move by that point and my contractions were pretty regular.  To be honest, without the terbutaline, I probably would have been in labor that afternoon anyway.  I got up on the table with a lot of help and they had me lean over so that they could do the spinal.  Leaning over started some extremely painful contractions and also made it impossible for me to breathe, but I’d been expecting both, so I did my best to stay still.  The spinal was every bit as horrible as I expected it to be, to be honest.  Everyone told me that it wouldn’t be as bad as I was expecting it to be, and I sort of figured that once it was over I would think, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad,” but that wasn’t the case.  I now know that I was 100% justified in my terror over having it.  Now, that isn’t to say that for someone without my history that there’s anything particularly scary about a spinal or epidural… but for me, it was awful.    As soon as the needle went into my back I got the most painful contraction I’d ever had and it was all I could do to not move, but that part was over pretty quickly.  Soon I couldn’t feel anything from my breasts down.  I felt cold and… oddly slimy.  I felt heavy and gross and I felt helpless. 

The operating table felt very narrow and suddenly I felt very wide, but they assured me that I wasn’t about to fall off the table. The resident went about his business of getting me prepped for surgery, but I was wholly unprepared to discover exactly how naked I would suddenly be.  All at once my breasts were covered and that was <i>it</i>.  No one had really warned me about this.  I guess I’d always felt like maybe it would just be my belly exposed and my legs would be covered up, but … not so much!  Seeing as how I couldn’t move anything other than my arms, there wasn’t much I could do about it, so protesting wasn’t going to help me.  I made one more feeble remark about seeing whether they would be willing to let me attempt that vaginal delivery and the resident looked up in shock.  “Oh honey, that would just be too dangerous for little tiny Baby C!  We don’t want any harm to come to your babies!”  Fair enough.  And really, there was no going back at this point, right? 

Finally, the anesthesiologist came in and started to get another line ready… I guess they ran Pitocin through the line after the delivery?  I don’t think it was during the delivery, that wouldn’t make total sense.  I’m not sure.  Once the anesthesiologist got set up, Seth finally got to come in.  I couldn’t see him very well, because I was lying flat on my back and Seth was up by my left shoulder, so I had to twist my head around to see him.  I had asked if I could have a mirror so that I could watch the surgery taking place, but they’d said no… I still don’t understand why, to be honest.  Instead, they set up that blasted drape between my head and my belly (“blah, blah, blah, sterile field, blah, blah, blah”).  And THAT, my friends, is when I had an all-out panic attack.  The stupid blue drape was laying flat against my face and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  But there was so much hustle and bustle in the room and my arms were pinned down and the drape was covering my face that no one could really hear my muffled cries.  Finally Seth heard my terrified pleas for help and the anesthesiologist pulled the drape away from my face and got me some oxygen (which did NOT help) and told me that as soon as the babies were out they’d give me something for anxiety.  I tried to explain to her that I wouldn’t need it then.  My panic attack was strictly related to having that damn drape covering my face, and oh, you know, the fact that I had no fucking control over my body and no one was fucking listening to me!  But once the drape was not covering my face anymore and everything, I was doing better.  Seth brushed my tears away and I calmed down. 

There were about 20 people in the room with me, which was a lot more people than I would have liked to have had, given how frickin’ naked I was!  There was my doctor and the resident who was assisting, plus several nurses assisting.  Then there was my anesthesiologist and a nurse or two up at my end, plus Seth.  Then each baby had a team of 3-4 NICU staff and then there were some miscellaneous nurses around, it seemed, though maybe they were also NICU staff?   We’re not really sure.

And then, next thing I knew, surgery started.  There was a tremendous amount of pressure on my body as they were pushing and pulling and whatnot.  It’s really hard to explain, but it really did feel like my guts were being wrenched out, but without any real pain.  I felt like the wind was being knocked out of me and it really caught me by surprise.  And then, they broke the first amniotic sac.  More tugging, more pulling, <i>intense pressure</i>, a rushing in my ears.  I closed my eyes.  I heard a lot of movement in the room as the NICU staff moved into place (truthfully, Baby A’s team was probably already in place over by my belly, so it was probably Baby B’s team getting ready to be in place).

“Amniotic fluid’s clear”
“Sweet Baby Boy!  Hello Baby!”
“9:43!”

Tears started streaming out of my eyes and I remember being so embarrassed by that…  I don’t have any idea WHY I would be embarrassed by that, but I didn’t even want Seth to see that I was crying, even though there couldn’t possibly be any more natural reaction in the world.  Still, I was helpless to do anything about it, what with the pinned down arms and the lack of a prehensile nose and the whole, naked body on an operating table and the spinal anesthesia…   Seth wiped away my tears…again.

There’s not enough room in the OR for three babies to be assessed by the NICU staff, so Baby A (my son!) was taken into an anteroom to be assessed, with promises that they would bring him back to join his siblings and see me before going to the NICU. 
Seconds later, more tugging, more pulling, <i>intense pressure</i>, a rushing in my ears.  I closed my eyes.  I heard a lot of movement in the room.  The second sac was broken.

“Meconium-stained,” said the resident.
<i>Dammit.  This is supposed to be going smoothly.  I am not supposed to be having problems right now.</i>
“It’s <i>just</i> light  staining, Karen, just <i>light</i> staining,” said Dr. M, reading my mind.  I’m still not sure <i>how</i> she read my mind since I hadn’t made a peep.
<i>I have no idea what that means, but she obviously thinks this is better.  Breathing now.</i>
“Hello Baby!!”
<i>Baby… ?  Baby WHAT?</i>
It felt like an eternity before finally Dr. M said…
“Baby Girl!”
“9:44”

A huge sigh of relief.  I had gotten my “mix”…  I knew that no matter what Baby C was I wasn’t having three boys, or three girls… I was having some of each.  I would, of course, love my children no matter WHAT sexes they were, but at THAT moment, I was thrilled.  Baby B was taken over to the left side of the OR to be assessed.  She weighed in at 3lb, 12 oz, just about average for triplets.

Another flurry of activity, more tugging, more pulling, <i>intense pressure</i>, a rushing in my ears, no time to even close my eyes, the third sac was broken. 

“Fluid’s clear”
<i>tugging, intense pressure, but thank heavens for clear fluid</i>
“Baby *muffled*”
“Baby What?”
“Baby Girl!”
“9:44”
<i>That was quick</i>.

Baby C was also assessed there in the OR.  She weighed in at 2 pounds 11 ounces.  By then we’d gotten word that big brother had weighed in at 3 pounds, 12 ounces, just like Baby B.  Baby C was the runt of the litter, and it was obvious that we’d made the right “choice” (not that I’d been given much of a choice) to have a c-section.

The anesthesiologist administered Pitocin to get my uterus to contract and the doctors pushed down on my uterus with what felt like so much pressure I almost choked.  I imagine there’s a point to this, but holy hell, they should warn a girl about this!  Then the anesthesiologist told me she was giving me something for the anxiety, Xanax, I think, and I tried to explain to her that this was completely useless since I wasn’t having any anxiety anymore, but it was too late.  I was pretty ticked about it, because I didn’t want any drugs that were going to make me loopy.  Fortunately, Xanax, according to my pharmacist husband, is relatively short acting (not short enough, in MY opinion, but a couple of hours according to him).   Meanwhile, Dr. M and the resident went about sewing me up. Dr. M said, “I gave you a nice low, transverse incision, so you’re all set for your VBAC anytime you want, okay?”  <i>From her mouth to G-d’s ears</i>.  I’m all for it. 

At some point, Dr. M got to a point where she left things for the resident to finish up and she went to write up orders for my post-op medications, so she had Seth come and consult with her on that.  Her own Pharmacy Consultant.  Seth walked around and saw that the resident was brushing something on my still-enormous-belly (but slightly less enormous than before) and he asked what he was doing.  The resident told him he was putting tincture of benzoine on the incision.  Er…  see, there’s this red bracelet on my wrist that specifically says I’m allergic to tincture of benzoine…  I didn’t know what was going on at all, but suddenly I heard the resident asking me what exactly happens when I have tincture of benzoine on me.  “Um, why do you ask?”  “Well, because I was just putting it on your incision and your husband said you’re allergic to it.”  “Um, well, I haven’t had it since I was really young, but I think I get a rash.  Uh, but this is one thing I don’t want to find out the hard way!”  Suffice it to say, they very quickly REMOVED the tincture of benzoine (how do you remove tincture of benzoine?  I’m not really sure, I think maybe with alcohol.  I’m not even really sure what tincture of benzoine is for… Seth says it’s an antiseptic).

While all this was going on, the babies were swaddled and brought over to me and I got to see each one and Seth got to hold them.  The nurses made sure to get a picture of Seth holding them all in the OR, which was great of them.  The neonatologist came over to talk to me to let me know that they looked great and that they’d be moving the babies to the NICU for further assessment and that they’d talk to me more once they’d been able to fully evaluate the babies.  Each of the babies’ Apgar scores were terrific, which is great news. 

Jessica made this great video and posted it on YouTube:
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Finally, I was taken out to PACU (post anesthesia care unit) for recovery.    PACU was pretty boring, actually.  I was there for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours because there were no beds available in the postpartum unit.  Seth went down to the NICU to check on the babies.  Baby A was having a little difficulty breathing, a condition the NICU nurses described as “wimpy white boy syndrome” so they gave him some help in the form of forced room air through a nasal canula at a higher volume to help him out.  The girls were doing fine, though Baby C was obviously very small and they still needed to decide if the IUGR was just because her placenta wasn’t located in prime real estate or if there was a metabolic problem.   I kept asking for a breast pump, but I was told that I would get one in my postpartum room.  Problem with that was that I was in the PACU for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.  Hello?  There’s a flaw in this system.  If I ever have to have a c-section again, I’m bringing my own pump with me and pumping immediately after delivery, dammit.  They ought to have pumps available immediately post-op.  Whatever.

Anyway.

Seth and I took some time to talk about names.  We came up with the girls’ names (tentatively) in the PACU, but still had nothing for Baby A.  NOTHING.  NADA.  ZILCH.  ZERO.  We had absolutely NO boy names.  Not a clue. 

Dr. M stopped in as did Dr. G.  Mostly I was frustrated about not being able to move my legs and frustrated about the level of pain I was in as the feeling was coming back in my abdomen.  It was excruciating. 

Finally, around 4pm, I got moved out of the PACU.  They wheeled me down to the NICU first to see the babies, which was really nice.  I didn’t get to hold the babies, but they brought the babies up next to me so that I could see them.  They were so tiny, but they were doing well.  Baby A (still nameless) was already off the nasal canula.  The girls were still doing fine.  All three were on a TPN, none were taking any PO feedings yet.  And after that, I got moved up to my room in the postpartum unit. 

I asked immediately for a lactation consultant and a breast pump and was told that it was too late to get a lactation consultant into the room that day (I was furious), but that they’d get me set up with the breast pump pronto.  SIX HOURS LATER, they got me set up with the breast pump (more on that later).  My next 12 hours in the postpartum unit were quite possibly the worst 12 hours of my life.  Seth couldn’t stay with me because someone needed to be home with J.  I didn’t want to have J with my mother or with another friend, because his whole life had been up in the air while I was in the hospital and with three babies now about to come home, I thought it would only be fair for him to have a parent home with him that night.   That was a mistake, but it was for a good cause.  Seth left to go take care of J around 8ish, I think. 

The nurse that I had “taking care” of me that night was about as negligent as she could possibly have been.  She ignored my requests to get set up with the breast pump.  She didn’t bring me pain medicine.  She didn’t answer the call button.  She didn’t answer the phone.  After Seth left, my friend L came to help me for a couple hours and she finally got the nurse to get me set up with the breast pump.  The nurse told me that I should rinse the pump parts between each use.  Since the nurse had also just told me I wasn’t allowed out of bed until the next morning, I asked her exactly how I was supposed to accomplish this.  She looked at me in shock and said, “Well, don’t you have someone staying with you tonight?”  No, no I don’t.  “Why isn’t your husband staying with you?” she asked incredulously.  I couldn’t believe she was asking me such a ridiculous question, particularly since she KNEW I had a four year old at home.  I cannot have been the first woman to have come through her unit to not have a husband staying with her.  And hello?  Is it not her job to help me through the night?

While my friend L was with me, my IV SmartPump started beeping because it had run out and we called the nurse.  Half an hour later, L went to the nurse’s station and told them that no one had answered my call button, but that my IV pump was beeping.  Half an hour after that, she went back to the nurse’s station to remind them that my IV pump was still beeping and that I was still waiting for someone to do something about this, and by the way, while they were at it, I was overdue for pain medicine.  Finally, half an hour after THAT she finally came to take care of the IV Pump.  L didn’t like leaving me, but she’s got four kids of her own, and I assured her I’d be fine.  How bad could it be, after all?  So eventually, she left.  Once I was able to pump, I spoke with a friend who’s a lactation consultant, and she suggested that I could just rinse the pump parts with a washcloth and water, so before L left, she got me a basin of water to make up for the evil nurse.

The night was pretty hellish.  I couldn’t get the nurse to answer the phone, or the call button.  At one point, I dropped one of the pump parts on the floor and I almost fell out of bed trying to get it.  No one would come into my room to pick up the colostrum that I’d managed to pump to put into the refrigerator and I was in a dead panic that it would go "bad" and I wouldn’t be able to give it to my babies.  Fortunately, I had a pitcher of ice in the room, so I put the bottles on ice, which I decided was good enough.  No one would take care of the incessant beeping when my IV ran out, nor would they give me pain medicine when it wore off.  The theory was that I should have still had sufficient pain relief from the spinal for 24 hours, but that wasn’t the case (nevermind the fact that my orders from post-op were that I should have pain medicine administered PRN).    I was having significant bleeding, but couldn’t do anything about it, since I was confined to bed and didn’t have any supplies to take care of it anyway. 

I spent most of the night half panicked.  It’s hard to describe, now 8 months after-the-fact…  why I was so panicked, really, but I was absolutely in a dead-panic that I would find myself in a true medical emergency unable to get help.  It never occurred to me that I could simply call the operator and tell them I was having an emergency.   I didn’t know WHAT to do, in all honesty.  If I’d been thinking straight at all, I would have called Seth at home.  He knew that all I really had to do was hit the blue code button over my bed (I’m not even certain I could have reached it, to be honest) if I’d been having a real emergency, but I didn’t know that. 

Seth had been planning to go to shul first thing in the morning to name the girls, but I called him hysterical at 6am and told him I needed him.  Nothing was particularly wrong, but I was in a lot of pain, and hadn’t seen a nurse at all in hours and hours.  As soon as I heard Seth’s voice, I totally lost it.  I just felt like if I’d had any sort of emergency, I would truly have been lost and helpless.  If I couldn’t have gotten a nurse to come to my room to collect my milk or bring me pain medicine, how would I get a nurse to come help me if I had fallen out of bed like I almost did?    Seth came in immediately (thankfully, we only live 5 minutes away from the hospital and my mother had spent the night at our house so there was someone at the house with J).

Before Seth arrived at the hospital, a nurse came into my room and saw me crying.  She tried to talk to me but I told her to get out.  She sent the nurse manager in to talk to me and I asked her to please wait until Seth came in, which she agreed to do.  I explained that I didn’t want her to just brush me off as being a hormonal post-partum woman and I wanted her to hear what he had to say instead.  She agreed that this made sense.  I admit that once Seth got in and we talked to the nurse manager, things improved.  I never saw the evil nurses again, I had more attention… but there were still aggravating things… I never had my bedsheets changed in the four days I was there.  I could never get them to get me a fresh hospital gown.  I had to beg for pain medicine and they’d treat me like a drug addict every time I asked for it.  They acted like I was inconveniencing them every time I asked for a transport down to the NICU (this required nothing more than a phone call from them, since they weren’t the ones who transported me down to the NICU).  It was really crazy. 

Oh there’s more, but is it worth it?  Probably not.  Suffice it to say, the postpartum nurses were evil. 

But one floor down, my babies were awesome, and the NICU nurses were astounding.  The NICU nurses kept telling me to make CERTAIN I didn’t slack on taking my pain medicine (ironic considering I had to keep pulling teeth to GET pain medicine).  Saturday was Yom Kippur, and I was still in the hospital.  Dr. P. came in to see me and to get my discharge paperwork ready for Sunday.  I was still so angry about having the c-section and I talked with Dr. P. about that, since he was the doctor I knew would have let me have the vaginal delivery if it had been possible.  He made it very clear to me that even he wouldn’t have advised me to have a vaginal delivery with a baby that small.  It just wasn’t a good idea.  If I’d tried to deliver a baby who was under 3 pounds, it could have spelled disaster for her.  Most importantly, he reminded me that one of his patients delivered her triplets at 24 weeks the night before I delivered my 33 week triplets.  She lost one of her babies, and I had three relatively healthy babies downstairs.  All about perspective. 

And then, Dr. P. gave me a great gift.  He sat down and gave me a very frank talk about my pregnancy and talked to me about exactly what I made it through.  He wanted me to understand how much I really got through so that I wouldn’t think it was some minor accomplishment.  He told me how worried he’d been about me at 17 weeks, and at 22 weeks, and 28, and 29…  How he wasn’t sure I was going to make it past 30 weeks when he saw me in the hospital the last time, and how proud he was of me for making it to 33 weeks.  He talked through each of the scares that I’d had and what each one of them meant, medically.  And he talked to me about what I could expect in my recovery.  After three months of solid bed rest, it wasn’t going to be pretty, and yes, I had three babies to take care of, but I needed to remember that my body had a lot of abuse to recover from.  I’m not sure that he could have given me a greater gift, to be honest.  I’m not sure I ever would have realized, or appreciated, what I’d really been through.  I think I spent a lot of time thinking I was just whining over nothing, to be honest.  But you know what?  I wasn’t.  I went through hell in that pregnancy, and I wasn’t whining about it.  I worked hard and I was pretty damn calm about it. 

And finally, Sunday, I was released from my prison, my home, my world.  It was bittersweet, because it meant walking (wheeling) away from my babies.  But it was time.  I packed up all of my stuff and Seth and J came and got me, we went down to see the babies and we introduced J to E, A, and then-nameless "whatshisname".  And home we went. 

I was back again to the NICU later that day, and the next morning, and the day after that, and …

Well, you know the rest of the story.  24 days after they were born, my little monsters came home with the rest of us, my beautiful babies.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

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Well, I sure did just let it all hang out there yesterday, didn’t I?? And I sure did break all the rules of no excessive cursing in my blog and no going off the deep end publicly and all that. Heh. That being said, I’m not sorry about it. My blog has never been a place where I cover up the truth of my life. I don’t hide the pain of infertility, the frustrations or joys of triplet pregnancy or the rollercoaster nature of parenting four children after infertility. That’s not in my nature. No, anonymous, I don’t need anger management. My blog suffices as my means to letting out the steam on the few occasions when I need to. And now I feel better. But thank you for the well-intentioned, surely constructive, meaningful suggestion. I’m certain you had nothing but my best interests at heart. You’ll be happy to know that I took my blood pressure this morning (I have a freakish paranoia about my blood pressure…I always have, despite having freakishly low blood pressure) and it was its usual 90/54, so I haven’t done myself any permanent damage with my little freak out.

But aside from feeling naked from letting it all hang out there, I also feel naked because I am without any wedding/engagement rings this week. Yesterday I washed my hands, turned around to get a paper towel and my rings flew off across the bathroom. It took me a few minutes to find them both, and I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and take them to be re-sized. So I dropped them by the jeweler at lunch time to be re-sized. I have gone from a size 7 1/2 ring size on my left ring finger to a size 6. And that’s only because my knuckle is still huge. Once past my knuckle, the ring will still be loose around my finger.

This triplet diet thing? It really works. You may recall that I lost about thirty pounds WHILE pregnant with the triplets. And I’ve lost a lot of weight since then. This was me shortly before I got pregnant the first time and then a more recent picture…
Then:

Nowish:

Clearly, I still have some pounds to lose, but I have a lot less to lose than I used to, that’s for sure.

In other news, today is a glorious day! Last night all three babies slept through the night! Abby slept from 9:30ish to 5am; Sam slept from 7pm to 5am (he woke up at 10pm, but went back to sleep on his own); Sweet, predictable Ellie slept from 6:30pm until we woke her up for breakfast at 5:30am! That meant I got an entire four, count ’em, FOUR uninterrupted hours of sleep! I can almost SEE the light at the end of the tunnel:

(Seth got even more sleep than me because he was asleep before me) Hooray! Here’s hoping our little ones sleep through the night TONIGHT while Seth’s out of town! 🙂 Wouldn’t that be nice?

And LIFE IS GOOD! Today is a new day. I left smiley happy children today who were happily chomping on graham crackers when I left…all four of them. A good day.

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Thanks for listening to my venting in my last post. I actually feel much better now. My MIL picked up J from school today, which enabled Seth to go to BJs and the grocery for me. Another friend stopped at the kosher butcher and picked up chicken and ground beef for me. My mother called randomly and told me she’d be willing to take J to school Thursday morning to help me out while Seth was out of town. I got a LOT of baby food made tonight (and you know what? It was SO YUMMY). Slowly, the pieces fell into place.

A lot of you had some good suggestions. For example:

Use grocery delivery services (e.g. Peapod)
This is a good suggestion, and one that I’ve used in the past. It’s not a fool-proof suggestion, though. The limiting factor for me is that I keep kosher and I can’t get all of my kosher products from delivery services. I can’t get any kosher cheese, meat, or specialty items. I can get produce, paper goods (when available), and some commercially available products (though the online selection of kosher products is never as good as the in-store selection). That’s not to say it’s not a useful suggestion, it just has to go hand in hand with others as well. I also happen to suck at getting myself organized enough to get orders submitted in time for when I need them… but that’s another story and something for me to work on.

Your babies really don’t need much, if any, solid food right now. Give them some bits and pieces to nibble on if you get the chance while J is eating (bits of ripe pear, banana, avocado, steamed broccoli if you have the time to make it, steamed carrot, rice cakes spread with philly, toast etc.). They get enough nutrition from milk, and they will be learning to feed themselves. See http://www.babyledweaning.co.uk for more info
I’m actually a big believer in baby-led weaning. Er, I just haven’t managed to implement it in my own life. Heh. The babies and J don’t eat at the same time, so that doesn’t work SO well, but it’s all good. The babies DO eat little bits of our food when they’re at the table when we’re eating and they enjoy it, but they also REALLY love their purees, especially the chicken and broccoli (which I leave a little chunky for them). Fortunately, I did get a lot of food made tonight and it’s in the freezer so it will last for a while.

Follow up to previous suggestion…
If you really want to feed them purees, buy jars. It’s ridiculous that you are adding making purees onto your life. If the UK has places that will deliver organic baby meals, I would bet my life the US does too.
Again, the limiting factor here is the keeping kosher bit. Kosher jarred baby food is pretty limited to just a few kinds. As for delivered organic baby meals… not kosher ones. Still, I have to say, some of the most relaxing time I have these days is the time I spend making food for the babies. It really DOESN’T take that much time, and it gives me time that I can spend chatting with friends while I’m cooking the food. Pureeing takes seconds once the food is cooked. I feel such a sense of accomplishment once all is said and done that it’s something I’m loathe to give up.

For heavens sake don’t tidy up for your cleaner. She can tidy herself, or just clean around the mess.
Most weeks, I’m more satisfied if I can get rid of some of the clutter before she arrives, but this week, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH YOU. You are 100% correct.

can’t the nanny make up the bottles herself?
Oh, she could. But it’s a holdover from when Ellie’s bottles were all complicated with the fortified calories. I’ve only JUST weaned Ellie from the fortified bottles, so I’m used to being a bit of a control freak about that. It was too complicated before. But you’re right. It’s probably time to just remember that I can give up some control in the world.

Does the four-year-old often fight with you about eating, or might this be a request for attention? Perhaps some extended, special one-on-one, just for fun time with him in future weeks would help.
It’s both normal and a cry for attention. J has a whole set of his own issues. We got him when he was a year old. He’s got a whole host of issues that were present probably long before we got him, poor kid. I have a whole post a-brewin’ about what’s been going on with him. We had a classroom consult done for him recently by an OT/Behavioral Specialist and are now working with a developmental pediatrician to decide how best to address his issues. He definitely DOES need some special one-on-one time, which we do try to fit in for him… he gets lots of individual attention from his grandmothers who each take him out (JUST him), and a fair bit from Seth, but I need to work on taking him out by himself also, because he doesn’t get a lot of one-on-one time with me. That being said, the tantrums, fits of rage, sensory issues, attention problems… those were all present before the triplets were conceived, before they were delivered, before they came home, and before they started interfering with his world. They certainly don’t make things better, though, do they?

******

Those were some of the helpful suggestions. Now I’m going to start cursing, so if you don’t want to hear (read?) cursing, um, stop reading? Because after all these lovely helpful suggestions, there was, of course, one obligatory asshole. An anonymous one. And before you go telling me to turn off anonymous comments, I will NOT do it. As I’ve said before, I’ve got several regular anonymous commenters (whom I recognize from content and writing style) that I love and I’d hate to lose them. The vast majority of my anonymous commenters are awesome. They are a good part of why I won’t go password protected, also.

So, before I get to the asshole, I’d first like to thank the subsequent anonymous commenter, who totally rocked my world when she (I’m assuming she, but I suppose it could be he) wrote, “Hey Anonymous at 8:46, stop giving us Anonymouses a bad name!”

And on to the asshole, oh Anonymous at 8:46. I’ll take your comments one at a time so that I can address them each, individually, with complete fairness, and with all the respect they deserve, and then some.

Why don’t you sleep instead of taking all this time to type this all out?
My point of the post wasn’t so much that I was sleep deprived, but rather that I was (am) facing a rather hellish week. Yes, I’m sleep deprived, but that’s not really my issue. Furthermore, I posted this post at 9:15 in the morning. I was at work. I wrote it while I was on a break pumping, if you must know, so I was multitasking. I can’t exactly sleep in the lactation room at work, but I CAN type. I didn’t have any work that I could be doing in there, so getting a little personal stress out so that I could work effectively the rest of the day seemed like a good idea at the time. Come to think of it, it still seems like a good idea. It’s certainly not like I do it every day. I don’t even post every day. Also, I type about 85 words per minute, so it’s not like it’s all that difficult to type something out. And, for the record, if you’re wondering why I’m not sleeping now, instead of typing this out now, I’m pumping. Again. That’s what I DO.

Why are you paying for a Nanny and a housekeeper if you say you can’t afford groceries?
I pay for a nanny because I go to work every day. Full time. A nanny is cheaper than day care for three infants. I’ve done the math. I make more money than my nanny makes. I’ve got several posts in my archives about the financial sense of paying for a nanny. I will not repeat them here. If you don’t like it, screw you. I don’t have a housekeeper. I have a cleaning lady. There is a fundamental difference between the two, actually. A housekeeper implies someone who is here much more full-time. My cleaning lady is here once per week for less than 2 hours. Why am I paying her? Because I have four children and a full time job. I don’t pay her very much, but there are only so many hours in the day. I didn’t explicitly say I couldn’t afford groceries. I said I didn’t know how I was going to pay for them. I’m splitting hairs now, but bear with me a minute. The point is I’m stressed about money. But so what? FIND ME SOMEONE WHO ISN’T STRESSED ABOUT MONEY SOMETIMES. Seriously. Screw you for judging me based on one off-the-cuff comment. You have no idea what my financial situation is. I’m not sitting around my house eating bon bons and watching television whilst I have my household help take care of my children and clean up my bon bon wrappers as I drop them on the floor. No one is peeling my grapes for me. I have someone come in to clean the floors and the bathrooms in my spacious mansion modest house, because there just isn’t enough time left to do it all. I do believe I said quite clearly I’m NOT supermom.

Don’t you think J is acting out because of the triplets?
No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I think if you knew anything about J, you wouldn’t ask any such thing. I think ANY child would act out with the addition of a sibling and certainly with the addition of three siblings and to a certain degree, J did that in the beginning. But that’s not what’s going on in this case, in terms of what I was trying to illustrate in my previous post. As I said above, J comes with his own set of issues, and they are issues that were present long before I was pregnant at all, let alone pregnant with triplets. Long before the triplets came and turned his life upside down. J is at his calmest around the babies. I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression about him either… he is one of the most loving, affectionate, sweet, giving children you will ever meet. But he also needs so much help. And we’re GETTING him that help. We’re WORKING with him. But when you have a child who perceives true physical pain just from putting on a pair of socks, a child who will SCREAM in true AGONY because he feels THAT level of pain from the sock when he’s having one of “those” days (and you can’t predict when one of “those” days will happen), you know that child needs help. When you have a four and a half year old who has been abandoned by his mother and is now so anxious anytime anyone leaves the house and forgets to say goodbye (even if it’s just, say, a repairman or someone who wouldn’t know better) that he becomes inconsolable for a ridiculous period of time…. you simply CANNOT blame that on the triplets. But you went and made a snap decision. You sat there with your armchair psychology and made assumptions based on very little knowledge of the actual specifics of our situation, didn’t you? You just don’t have a clue what this poor child deals with every day, but you just MUST know what you’re talking about, musn’t you, because you have the luxury of not living with whatever he has to live with. Well, WE are the ones who live with him and help him and love him and hold him and hug him and cry with him and laugh with him and giggle with him and tickle him and find the ways out of the scary places he finds himself in. WE are the ones who have worked through so many problems already. WE are the ones working with doctors and OTs and therapists for him. NOT YOU. So bugger off and stop acting like you have a cluestick, you dimkwit.

I think in a previous post, you said you wanted more children. Maybe you should re-think this because from what you have stated I don’t think it would be wise financially or emotionally.
And this, you little shit, THIS is where you started me on my cursing, ranting, raving madness tonight. I’m sure my venting session right now is only adding fuel to your fire in terms of your belief that I’m too emotionally unstable to have more children, but you know the best part? YOUR OPINION DOESN’T MATTER!

Here’s the thing: In the past 8 months, have you EVER known me to post a post in which I’ve been THIS overwhelmed? I don’t think so. And did I not EXPLICITLY STATE that I generally am “very, very good at keeping everything together. I don’t get stressed out. I don’t get overwhelmed. I handle things with grace and ease, MOST of the time.” ??? Was I not clear that it was simply all the shit that I have to deal with THIS week that was overwhelming me?

And what the hell? Find me ANYONE who would NOT be overwhelmed with this week. Find me ONE PARENT who has NEVER been overwhelmed a SINGLE DAY of their parenthood. Oh, you’ll find parents who CLAIM never to have been overwhelmed, but they’re lying. You’ll find parents who will never write down in a blog that they’re overwhelmed, for sure. But you’ll NEVER find a parent who has never a single day in their entire parenting lives felt overwhelmed.

Today, I felt overwhelmed. And writing that last post was part of what I needed to put it into perspective. I felt a little better getting it all out there. You know why? I wrote it down, read it, realized that I’d only written down about a QUARTER of what was going on this week and thought to myself, “Okay, Karen, you are COMPLETELY justified in feeling overwhelmed. Now what are you going to do about it?” And then I got myself together and made it happen. And now the rest of the week looks a lot better and I know it won’t be a problem and I’m NOT overwhelmed anymore. I’m honestly looking forward to it.

There isn’t a single day that I’m not grateful for my children, all four of them. There also isn’t a single day that I don’t wish for another. I long for another child just as much today as I did before. The pain of infertility is still fresh in my mind. My arms are finally full of babies, in a way I never expected, nor dreamt of, but that doesn’t mean I have to be done. I have so much love to give the babies that I do have and so much love to give the babies I don’t have. And I’ll have as many children as I am able to. Maybe that means I won’t have any more. I don’t know. But I sure hope that’s not the case.

Before I go to bed each night, I look into each one of my babies’ cribs (they all in their own crib now!), and also into J’s room, and I think about what each one of them did to make me smile that day. It’s always something different. Today Sam tried his darndest to crawl, and he almost did it. He also ate five graham cracker halves at the park (my nanny even got it on video on her cell phone for me) like a little piggie and wouldn’t eat his dinner because of it. Ellie gave me such HUGE smiles this morning at breakfast time. She was so happy and smiley and cuddly. She smiles for everyone, but for the first time today, she showed a little bit of stranger anxiety, which makes me tear up a little – another developmental milestone that she’s showing signs of reaching – a bittersweat moment for me, but one worth a smile from me. And sweet Abby with her two toofuses. She had such a great belly laugh today. And she LOVED those graham crackers today, also! I never would have thought to give them graham crackers yet (another nanny in the park – our old nanny for J, actually – gave them to them), but Seth picked some up at the grocery today. Abby was so sweet and giggly and she chewed with such excitement on her new teething ring today. She’s definitely Dracula! And J? Sweet J. Tonight he wanted pasta (he has a tendency to want “second dinner” as a stall tactic at bedtime), so I re-heated some pasta that was leftover from last night. He ate the pasta and said it was yummy and he came into the kitchen and said, “Oh Eema, do you know what I’m going to give you for making me this yummy pasta? I’m going to give you this nice hug!” And he did. He gave me a great big bear hug, and it was perfect.

Some days are overwhelming. Every single day is 100% worth it. My kids… all FOUR of them… are amazing.

Read Full Post »

Thanks for listening to my venting in my last post. I actually feel much better now. My MIL picked up J from school today, which enabled Seth to go to BJs and the grocery for me. Another friend stopped at the kosher butcher and picked up chicken and ground beef for me. My mother called randomly and told me she'd be willing to take J to school Thursday morning to help me out while Seth was out of town. I got a LOT of baby food made tonight (and you know what? It was SO YUMMY). Slowly, the pieces fell into place.

A lot of you had some good suggestions. For example:

Use grocery delivery services (e.g. Peapod)
This is a good suggestion, and one that I've used in the past. It's not a fool-proof suggestion, though. The limiting factor for me is that I keep kosher and I can't get all of my kosher products from delivery services. I can't get any kosher cheese, meat, or specialty items. I can get produce, paper goods (when available), and some commercially available products (though the online selection of kosher products is never as good as the in-store selection). That's not to say it's not a useful suggestion, it just has to go hand in hand with others as well. I also happen to suck at getting myself organized enough to get orders submitted in time for when I need them… but that's another story and something for me to work on.

Your babies really don't need much, if any, solid food right now. Give them some bits and pieces to nibble on if you get the chance while J is eating (bits of ripe pear, banana, avocado, steamed broccoli if you have the time to make it, steamed carrot, rice cakes spread with philly, toast etc.). They get enough nutrition from milk, and they will be learning to feed themselves. See http://www.babyledweaning.co.uk for more info
I'm actually a big believer in baby-led weaning. Er, I just haven't managed to implement it in my own life. Heh. The babies and J don't eat at the same time, so that doesn't work SO well, but it's all good. The babies DO eat little bits of our food when they're at the table when we're eating and they enjoy it, but they also REALLY love their purees, especially the chicken and broccoli (which I leave a little chunky for them). Fortunately, I did get a lot of food made tonight and it's in the freezer so it will last for a while.

Follow up to previous suggestion…
If you really want to feed them purees, buy jars. It's ridiculous that you are adding making purees onto your life. If the UK has places that will deliver organic baby meals, I would bet my life the US does too.
Again, the limiting factor here is the keeping kosher bit. Kosher jarred baby food is pretty limited to just a few kinds. As for delivered organic baby meals… not kosher ones. Still, I have to say, some of the most relaxing time I have these days is the time I spend making food for the babies. It really DOESN'T take that much time, and it gives me time that I can spend chatting with friends while I'm cooking the food. Pureeing takes seconds once the food is cooked. I feel such a sense of accomplishment once all is said and done that it's something I'm loathe to give up.

For heavens sake don't tidy up for your cleaner. She can tidy herself, or just clean around the mess.
Most weeks, I'm more satisfied if I can get rid of some of the clutter before she arrives, but this week, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH YOU. You are 100% correct.

can't the nanny make up the bottles herself?
Oh, she could. But it's a holdover from when Ellie's bottles were all complicated with the fortified calories. I've only JUST weaned Ellie from the fortified bottles, so I'm used to being a bit of a control freak about that. It was too complicated before. But you're right. It's probably time to just remember that I can give up some control in the world.

Does the four-year-old often fight with you about eating, or might this be a request for attention? Perhaps some extended, special one-on-one, just for fun time with him in future weeks would help.
It's both normal and a cry for attention. J has a whole set of his own issues. We got him when he was a year old. He's got a whole host of issues that were present probably long before we got him, poor kid. I have a whole post a-brewin' about what's been going on with him. We had a classroom consult done for him recently by an OT/Behavioral Specialist and are now working with a developmental pediatrician to decide how best to address his issues. He definitely DOES need some special one-on-one time, which we do try to fit in for him… he gets lots of individual attention from his grandmothers who each take him out (JUST him), and a fair bit from Seth, but I need to work on taking him out by himself also, because he doesn't get a lot of one-on-one time with me. That being said, the tantrums, fits of rage, sensory issues, attention problems… those were all present before the triplets were conceived, before they were delivered, before they came home, and before they started interfering with his world. They certainly don't make things better, though, do they?

******

Those were some of the helpful suggestions. Now I'm going to start cursing, so if you don't want to hear (read?) cursing, um, stop reading? Because after all these lovely helpful suggestions, there was, of course, one obligatory asshole. An anonymous one. And before you go telling me to turn off anonymous comments, I will NOT do it. As I've said before, I've got several regular anonymous commenters (whom I recognize from content and writing style) that I love and I'd hate to lose them. The vast majority of my anonymous commenters are awesome. They are a good part of why I won't go password protected, also.

So, before I get to the asshole, I'd first like to thank the subsequent anonymous commenter, who totally rocked my world when she (I'm assuming she, but I suppose it could be he) wrote, "Hey Anonymous at 8:46, stop giving us Anonymouses a bad name!"

And on to the asshole, oh Anonymous at 8:46. I'll take your comments one at a time so that I can address them each, individually, with complete fairness, and with all the respect they deserve, and then some.

Why don't you sleep instead of taking all this time to type this all out?
My point of the post wasn't so much that I was sleep deprived, but rather that I was (am) facing a rather hellish week. Yes, I'm sleep deprived, but that's not really my issue. Furthermore, I posted this post at 9:15 in the morning. I was at work. I wrote it while I was on a break pumping, if you must know, so I was multitasking. I can't exactly sleep in the lactation room at work, but I CAN type. I didn't have any work that I could be doing in there, so getting a little personal stress out so that I could work effectively the rest of the day seemed like a good idea at the time. Come to think of it, it still seems like a good idea. It's certainly not like I do it every day. I don't even post every day. Also, I type about 85 words per minute, so it's not like it's all that difficult to type something out. And, for the record, if you're wondering why I'm not sleeping now, instead of typing this out now, I'm pumping. Again. That's what I DO.

Why are you paying for a Nanny and a housekeeper if you say you can't afford groceries?
I pay for a nanny because I go to work every day. Full time. A nanny is cheaper than day care for three infants. I've done the math. I make more money than my nanny makes. I've got several posts in my archives about the financial sense of paying for a nanny. I will not repeat them here. If you don't like it, screw you. I don't have a housekeeper. I have a cleaning lady. There is a fundamental difference between the two, actually. A housekeeper implies someone who is here much more full-time. My cleaning lady is here once per week for less than 2 hours. Why am I paying her? Because I have four children and a full time job. I don't pay her very much, but there are only so many hours in the day. I didn't explicitly say I couldn't afford groceries. I said I didn't know how I was going to pay for them. I'm splitting hairs now, but bear with me a minute. The point is I'm stressed about money. But so what? FIND ME SOMEONE WHO ISN'T STRESSED ABOUT MONEY SOMETIMES. Seriously. Screw you for judging me based on one off-the-cuff comment. You have no idea what my financial situation is. I'm not sitting around my house eating bon bons and watching television whilst I have my household help take care of my children and clean up my bon bon wrappers as I drop them on the floor. No one is peeling my grapes for me. I have someone come in to clean the floors and the bathrooms in my spacious mansion modest house, because there just isn't enough time left to do it all. I do believe I said quite clearly I'm NOT supermom.

Don't you think J is acting out because of the triplets?
No, I don't think that's it at all. I think if you knew anything about J, you wouldn't ask any such thing. I think ANY child would act out with the addition of a sibling and certainly with the addition of three siblings and to a certain degree, J did that in the beginning. But that's not what's going on in this case, in terms of what I was trying to illustrate in my previous post. As I said above, J comes with his own set of issues, and they are issues that were present long before I was pregnant at all, let alone pregnant with triplets. Long before the triplets came and turned his life upside down. J is at his calmest around the babies. I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression about him either… he is one of the most loving, affectionate, sweet, giving children you will ever meet. But he also needs so much help. And we're GETTING him that help. We're WORKING with him. But when you have a child who perceives true physical pain just from putting on a pair of socks, a child who will SCREAM in true AGONY because he feels THAT level of pain from the sock when he's having one of "those" days (and you can't predict when one of "those" days will happen), you know that child needs help. When you have a four and a half year old who has been abandoned by his mother and is now so anxious anytime anyone leaves the house and forgets to say goodbye (even if it's just, say, a repairman or someone who wouldn't know better) that he becomes inconsolable for a ridiculous period of time…. you simply CANNOT blame that on the triplets. But you went and made a snap decision. You sat there with your armchair psychology and made assumptions based on very little knowledge of the actual specifics of our situation, didn't you? You just don't have a clue what this poor child deals with every day, but you just MUST know what you're talking about, musn't you, because you have the luxury of not living with whatever he has to live with. Well, WE are the ones who live with him and help him and love him and hold him and hug him and cry with him and laugh with him and giggle with him and tickle him and find the ways out of the scary places he finds himself in. WE are the ones who have worked through so many problems already. WE are the ones working with doctors and OTs and therapists for him. NOT YOU. So bugger off and stop acting like you have a cluestick, you dimkwit.

I think in a previous post, you said you wanted more children. Maybe you should re-think this because from what you have stated I don't think it would be wise financially or emotionally.
And this, you little shit, THIS is where you started me on my cursing, ranting, raving madness tonight. I'm sure my venting session right now is only adding fuel to your fire in terms of your belief that I'm too emotionally unstable to have more children, but you know the best part? YOUR OPINION DOESN'T MATTER!

Here's the thing: In the past 8 months, have you EVER known me to post a post in which I've been THIS overwhelmed? I don't think so. And did I not EXPLICITLY STATE that I generally am "very, very good at keeping everything together. I don't get stressed out. I don't get overwhelmed. I handle things with grace and ease, MOST of the time." ??? Was I not clear that it was simply all the shit that I have to deal with THIS week that was overwhelming me?

And what the hell? Find me ANYONE who would NOT be overwhelmed with this week. Find me ONE PARENT who has NEVER been overwhelmed a SINGLE DAY of their parenthood. Oh, you'll find parents who CLAIM never to have been overwhelmed, but they're lying. You'll find parents who will never write down in a blog that they're overwhelmed, for sure. But you'll NEVER find a parent who has never a single day in their entire parenting lives felt overwhelmed.

Today, I felt overwhelmed. And writing that last post was part of what I needed to put it into perspective. I felt a little better getting it all out there. You know why? I wrote it down, read it, realized that I'd only written down about a QUARTER of what was going on this week and thought to myself, "Okay, Karen, you are COMPLETELY justified in feeling overwhelmed. Now what are you going to do about it?" And then I got myself together and made it happen. And now the rest of the week looks a lot better and I know it won't be a problem and I'm NOT overwhelmed anymore. I'm honestly looking forward to it.

There isn't a single day that I'm not grateful for my children, all four of them. There also isn't a single day that I don't wish for another. I long for another child just as much today as I did before. The pain of infertility is still fresh in my mind. My arms are finally full of babies, in a way I never expected, nor dreamt of, but that doesn't mean I have to be done. I have so much love to give the babies that I do have and so much love to give the babies I don't have. And I'll have as many children as I am able to. Maybe that means I won't have any more. I don't know. But I sure hope that's not the case.

Before I go to bed each night, I look into each one of my babies' cribs (they all in their own crib now!), and also into J's room, and I think about what each one of them did to make me smile that day. It's always something different. Today Sam tried his darndest to crawl, and he almost did it. He also ate five graham cracker halves at the park (my nanny even got it on video on her cell phone for me) like a little piggie and wouldn't eat his dinner because of it. Ellie gave me such HUGE smiles this morning at breakfast time. She was so happy and smiley and cuddly. She smiles for everyone, but for the first time today, she showed a little bit of stranger anxiety, which makes me tear up a little – another developmental milestone that she's showing signs of reaching – a bittersweat moment for me, but one worth a smile from me. And sweet Abby with her two toofuses. She had such a great belly laugh today. And she LOVED those graham crackers today, also! I never would have thought to give them graham crackers yet (another nanny in the park – our old nanny for J, actually – gave them to them), but Seth picked some up at the grocery today. Abby was so sweet and giggly and she chewed with such excitement on her new teething ring today. She's definitely Dracula! And J? Sweet J. Tonight he wanted pasta (he has a tendency to want "second dinner" as a stall tactic at bedtime), so I re-heated some pasta that was leftover from last night. He ate the pasta and said it was yummy and he came into the kitchen and said, "Oh Eema, do you know what I'm going to give you for making me this yummy pasta? I'm going to give you this nice hug!" And he did. He gave me a great big bear hug, and it was perfect.

Some days are overwhelming. Every single day is 100% worth it. My kids… all FOUR of them… are amazing.

Read Full Post »