Sucks To Be You

So you decide it's time to take down the Christmas decorations and tree, since Epiphany was actually three days ago. You do not enjoy taking down the Christmas tree, so you get a Chris LeDoux album going on YouTube to make it less painful, haul out the boxes and bags to store the ornaments and lights, and . . . the baby wakes up from a too-short nap.

You decide you're going to put away the Christmas stuff anyway, dammit. You start quickly taking down ornaments and decorations, throwing some of the unbreakable things in the baby's direction to keep her distracted while you put away the breakable things.

This does not work. The baby cries because you will not let her chew on the lights you are untangling from the tree, causing a veritable hailstorm of dry needles to come down, even though there is plenty of water still in the tree bucket. As you discover when you try to lift it.

The baby stops crying when she realizes she can climb on to the small bench the tree was on. She starts crying again when she falls off of it.

You pause for baby comforting, but then grimly soldier on after she calms down. This time, you put her on the big hide-covered bench with a magazine to rip up while you vacuum up the tree needles as fast as you can.

This is when you discover that pinyon needles are so long and stiff that they will clog your vacuum. So you open up every part of the vacuum that will open and dump out the needles into the children's tambourine, as that is the only receptacle to hand.

The baby wants the tambourine full of dirt and needles. She is unhappy when you deny her this treasure.

You then discover that the last remaining part of the vacuum that is clogged up will require a flat-head screwdriver to address. This means a sprint to the shop for the tool and getting back before the baby realizes you aren't in the same room.

Finally, the needles are disposed of and the vacuum is in working order again. You clean up the pieces of ripped-up magazine from the bench, put away the vacuum, and make a mental note to just use the broom or something next year to clean up the tree needles.

(Go ahead and change all instances of "you" to "I," and there you have my morning.)

The Long Awaited Day

During every terrible period of sleep with a baby--or rather, lack of sleep--there is always the hope that maybe this will be the night the baby sleeps. You never really know when it will happen, you see. You become accustomed to going to bed anticipating being awake every two hours during the night, and getting up in the morning requiring you to literally pry your eyelids open with your fingers.

Or rather, I get accustomed to that. Resigned, even.

But I also know--this not being my first, second, or even third child--that there will come one miraculous night when I will wake up several hours after going to sleep, totally disoriented because it has not been only two hours since the last time I had to haul my desperately exhausted body out of bed to care for a baby. You just never know when that night may come.

But that night does always come. For Poppy and her itchy, fussy, eczema-caused loooong stretch of bad sleep (about three months long, God help me), it came last night. I went to bed at 9:30 after nursing her and didn't wake up until 3 a.m.

It took me a minute to realize that yes, it really was 3 a.m., and no, I really had not been up in the previous 5.5 hours. I fed her and she fell back asleep again until 6 a.m.

There is nothing that compares to the relief of getting at least almost a full night of sleep after months of bad nights.

I'm assuming that the fact that her skin is almost normal is the reason for this. I don't know exactly what to credit for the vast improvement in her eczema. Three things happened at once that could be it: I came to the end of my three weeks of avoiding the commonly allergenic foods; I started using a new kind of emollient recommended by a Canadian doctor friend of A.'s; and I got some prescription-strength cortisone cream from our pediatrician. It could be any one of those things, or any combination of them.

It doesn't really matter, though. What matters is that Poppy is happier and sleeping better*. And so am I. Alleluia.

(I would post a photo of the happier and significantly less red baby here, except I seem to have lost my cell phone and thus, my only camera. Swell.)

* Though I should really shut up about it, because it was only one night and I have probably jinxed myself now.

Aaaaand, BREAK!

Cubby and Charlie have a particularly late spring break this year. Perhaps the administration at their school was delaying in the hopes that there might be some actual spring weather for the break. If that is the case, they succeeded.

Behold, many pictures of my children outside. In short sleeves. It's a springtime miracle.

Although, yes, that is snow behind Jack. It is still the north country, after all.

Overheard during this porch picnic from Cubby: "Now this is what I call living." I hope he's always so easy to please.

Poppy is withholding judgment on her voluminous sunhat. The finger's pretty good, though.

Tiny retirees on the teeter totter. Someone get these kids a stylist.

Please just ignore my finger in the corner and instead marvel at the sheer energy displayed in this picture. And then imagine that energy in real life, all day, every day. That's life with lots of little boys.

The way I'm standing makes this the least flattering photo of me ever taken, but I'm posting it anyway because the mountains (we went to the Adirondacks today) are so pretty. And I need to get over myself.

It's supposed to start raining tonight and continue for most of the rest of the week, but at least we got a little bit of real spring during spring break. We'll take it.

All Fun and Games Until Someone Vomits

Yesterday was Poppy's half birthday. I mentioned this to the boys at dinner and said wasn't it too bad I hadn't made a cake to celebrate. Well, a cake for them to celebrate for her, obviously. She's not into cake quite yet.

But wait! With the power of the internet, all is possible!

I got right up from the table and made this chocolate-peanut butter cake in the microwave. The boys were appropriately impressed that I could make a cake that fast. And that the microwave actually cooks things.

Poppy was not quite so impressed. Probably because she was abandoned on the floor while I was making a cake in her honor that she couldn't even eat.

The half-birthday girl and her half-assed cake.

She didn't even get a second-hand benefit from all that cocoa and peanut butter, because of course I didn't eat any of it as it's full of things I'm not eating right now.

Greater love hath no mother than to make cake for her children that she can't even eat.

The boys loved it.

Well, except for Jack, but he never really eats cake. He shared most of his with his brothers.

That photo documents Charlie in a happier time, before he started emptying his stomach of all its contents. Including the cake, which still smelled like peanut butter in the vomit bowl he was using.

Oh, sorry. Were you eating breakfast or something? My bad.

Yes, Charlie was in my room at 1:15 a.m. complaining of a stomach ache, which was shortly followed by the re-appearance of the cake in the vomit bowl I provided to him. He continued to throw up for the following few hours. Somewhere in the middle of it, he remarked wistfully, "That was a delicious cake, though."

Probably better going down than coming up, I bet.

My Food Has a Case of the Mondays

Okay. I had three whole days of eating like a normal person after I decided to start consuming dairy/gluten/caffeine again. Poppy's eczema had by no means cleared up after a week of avoiding those things, and she had even had a couple of bad days. So I thought, "Didn't work. Back to coffee!"

Wednesday night I went to bed feeling like a little kid on Christmas Eve, because it was Coffee Eve. The very next day I was going to drink coffee. I could get up in the morning and have my beloved coffee with chicory! And milk! And a tiny bit of sugar! (I use literally about an eighth of a teaspoon per cup.)

So I did. And it was glorious. I was using milk, eating cheese, even having the occasional piece of bread.

And then Poppy's eczema straight-up blew up. She's in the middle of the worst flare-up yet, red and itchy and not sleeping. Bad news.

Thus, I determined yesterday that I really need to do a real elimination diet, because man, it's the saddest. I don't know if what I'm eating is affecting her, but since she's still exclusively nursing, it seems like a reasonable assumption. And at least I feel like I'm doing something. Other than holding her hands so she can't claw at her skin, that is.

As of yesterday, I'm not eating dairy, gluten, eggs, soy, nuts, legumes, the nightshade vegetables (that includes white potatoes, peppers, and tomatoes), or citrus.

I sort of just decided on all these on my own, figuring that way I would hit the most common allergens all at once.

I am, however, still drinking a cup of coffee, albeit a very weak brew of it with about four drops of maple syrup in it.

Definitely not cafe au lait, but better than tea. I had even stopped drinking the tea after a few days, because I really didn't like it too much and there didn't seem much point. After a week of no caffeine at all, however, I can confidently state that I just do not function at this point in time without caffeine. If I were sleeping, that would be one thing, but I'm not. In order to care for the rest of my family and not feel like I have the flu all the time, I need some caffeine.

So. One cup of coffee and a LOT of meat and vegetables. That's it for the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck. And cross your fingers for Poppy's poor skin.

A Maple Discovery

I'm not drinking my beloved coffee with chicory this week. It's an experiment to see if Poppy's eczema gets better without it.

I really do hope it works for her sake, though I must admit there's a small part of me that hopes it doesn't work, for my sake. It's not so much that I rely on the caffeine in the coffee as the fact that I really like the flavor of strong coffee with lots of milk. It's a comforting start to the day.

The cup of black tea with cream I've been drinking instead is literally a pale imitation of my coffee. A tannic, watery, definitely not as comforting start to the day.

However! I have discovered something good in the process of drinking tea every morning. One of the things I dislike about tea is that I feel it needs sweetener to make it less tannic and drinkable (for me), but I don't much enjoy the white sugar I usually use. And so I tried maple syrup.

Much, much better.

The maple flavor goes well with the tea, and it seems to go farther than sugar. In that I don't need as much of it for the tea to be drinkable.

Tea with maple syrup and cream is still a sad substitute for chicory coffee with milk, though. Boo.

Fourth Time Around

Yesterday as I was preparing to kick the boys out for their mandatory outdoor time, I thought, "Hey, it's 42 degrees outside and not too windy. I can take Poppy out if I can find something to put over her clothes to keep her warm."

Could I find such thing? Oh yes, indeedy. Brace yourselves for the return of . . .

The Cubby Suit: Take Four

Yes, Poppy is the latest baby to be dressed as an adorable if somewhat ridiculous bear. The MiL bought that suit for Cubby before he was even born. 

He wore it. 

Charlie wore it. 

Jack wore it. 

And now Poppy can wear it.

When Cubby saw her, he grinned and said, "Hey, the bears are waking up for spring."

They sure are, my clever child. And so are we.

Enter Wind, Stage North

The snow actually coming down from the sky has slowed, but not stopped. Now the wind is howling, which means drifting, and a lot of it.

The front steps are under there somewhere.

School was delayed for two hours this morning, though I'm not sure that's enough time to dig out from this. Especially because the wind isn't supposed to stop for days.

Thankfully, everyone slept in this morning. Well, everyone except Poppy. Let's not be silly. She was awake at 5 a.m. 

We had lots of bonding time before the next child emerged at 7 a.m. That was Charlie, who informed me he had caught Cubby's cold.

He is thoughtfully keeping his distance from the baby, but it's only a matter of time before I'm suctioning her nose out again.

His insane behavior this morning, however, tells me he's not at death's door, so both he and Cubby are at school. A. very nicely shoveled a path through the drifts so they could get to the road to catch the bus. 

So now it's just me and the tiny crew. And the drifting snow.

Slogging Along

Hey, look! It's March 14th! Must be time for an enormous, depressing snowstorm!*

Sigh.

Although we don't really expect spring on the Canadian border in March, that's still an unpleasant sight to wake up to. Kind of over it.

Mia thinks so, too. To my knowledge, she has yet to leave the porch to take advantage of the latrine area A. cleared for her.

I can't blame her. I wouldn't want to squat in a foot of snow to pee, either.

It's still snowing now, and is supposed to continue all day. Cubby and Charlie of course don't have school, so Cubby decided to make everyone eggs for a second breakfast. They went through ten eggs between the three boys.

All that snow makes for a powerful appetite.

Meanwhile, Eczema Baby continues to demand satisfaction for her own powerful appetite.

She also continues to grow her cheeks at a rapid pace.

And that's the news from the frozen snow globe that is our house. Over and out.

* Although, thankfully, not as big as last year's apocalyptic March storm that also, interestingly, started on March 14th.

A Typical Photo Shoot

Every once in awhile I think, "Man, I really need to take some new pictures of the baby. Poor fourth child. Her infancy is going undocumented."

So I find the cell phone (no real camera anymore, though I'm probably going to get one soon because I hate using a phone that half the time isn't charged or that I can't find) and set the baby up somewhere. And then this happens . . .

The first step is actually getting her to look at the camera. I would say sit up straight, but her core strength isn't really there yet. She can barely stay propped up.

We have eye contact! Maybe we can coax a smile out of her.

Not the expression I was going for.

Then Jack and his giant head arrive, and it's all over.

A pretty accurate photographic portrayal of her life, now that I think about it.

Cinnamon Rolls from the Past

I am currently in one of the "You're killing me, smalls," phases of babyhood. That is, that baby is not sleeping, day or night. Unless she's physically on my shoulder, putting my arm to sleep and guaranteeing crippling pain.

Luckily, this is not my first baby (or my second, or even my third), so I know it's just a phase. Sometime in the coming days (please) or weeks, she'll sleep again.

But for now, there are cinnamon rolls.

When I made cinnamon rolls on Christmas Eve, I made a double batch and froze some. I figured if I was going to all that trouble to make them, I'd better at least get two good mornings out of it.

The extra ones have been sitting in the freezer all this time, awaiting the right moment for cinnamon roll comfort. I am normally very careful about not eating a lot of sugar when I'm not getting any sleep, because it just makes me feel worse. But this morning, I decided that cinnamon rolls would make me feel as if I might be able to go on.

It's not the same as eight hours of uninterrupted sleep*, but it's something. And I'll take what I can get right now.

* Or even four hours. That'd be great.

This Is Your Valentine's Day on Sleep Deprivation

After being up most of last night--and several nights before that--and then hanging out with Poppy starting at 5 a.m., I was running low on motivation to make a special Valentine's Day breakfast for the children.

I had some bleary and very delusional thought that I should maybe make heart-shaped pancakes or something*. But then I came to my senses and cut some pieces of bread into rough heart shapes, slapped some peanut butter on that and bam! Valentine's Day memories: made!

Because nothing says love like wonky heart-shaped bread.

Anyway, today is a school day, so there will be plenty of Valentine's Day celebrating at school. By which I mean sugar. Plus, we took the kids to the church last night to eat pancakes and decorate cupcakes at the youth group fundraiser, so I feel I've done my holiday duty.

Happy Valentine's Day, my lovelies. I hope it's full of love. (Actually, I hope all your days are full of love. Maybe today I should hope for you that you receive chocolate. That's always good.)

* I do not mean to disparage this sort of thing if that's your happy place, but it most definitely is not mine. Thankfully, I feel no Pinterest-pressure whatsoever, so I don't even pretend I'm going to be doing stuff like this.

Eight

Happy birthday to Cubby

The best biggest brother

Poppy's Theme Song

Courtesy of Linda Ronstadt*

Poor, poor, pitiful me

Poor, poor, pitiful me

Oh these boys won't let me be

Lord have mercy on me

Ohhhh, woah is me.

They mean well. I think.

* Fun random fact: I played soccer with Linda Ronstadt's niece when I was in middle school. I never met Linda Ronstadt, though.

SuperAunt Saves the Day

My sister has been here since Sunday. She came to meet Poppy, see the boys (and me, I suppose, but at this point I always consider myself the afterthought to the children) and help me while A. was gone on a work trip.

I am devoutly grateful that she did. Poppy has been sick--mucous season rages on--and therefore up a lot to nurse and be held at night. And wanting to be held a lot during the day. If I didn't have another pair of adult arms to hold her for me at least during the day sometimes, I'd be even more crippled than I am now.

As A. likes to say in his best gym-rat voice, "My pecs are blown, bro."

Anyway.

She's been on Poppy-soothing duty more or less since she came. Also ice skating with children duty, on the literal ice block that is our driveway at the moment. And sledding duty with Jack. And dishes, and dressing children, and changing diapers, and . . .

Well. Family is awesome.

That is all.

Good Ole Dog Mia

There is no denying that my baby dog Mia is old. She's almost twelve, which is not young for any dog, but is particularly advanced in age for a large dog.

She's stiff and gimpy, thanks no doubt to some arthritis in her shoulder. I suppose this is a natural result of being the World's Biggest Collie (seriously, she's 80 pounds and looks like a mastiff up close) and having a very active life. She takes a pill for pain every day, as well as a pee-pee pill for incontinence.

She's pretty shaky in the legs, and is particularly unstable on the slick wood floors in the kitchen. Too bad, since that's her favorite place to be. She still patrols the kitchen for dropped food, but then retreats immediately to the stability of the rug in the living room.

She has a benign tumor on her eyelid. Fortunately, it's so cold here that when she stays outside during very cold weather--which she will do, even if it's below zero--the tumor will actually freeze off. I find this natural cryosurgery hilarious and joke that we should open a cryosurgery clinic. It would be so easy: Just go outside and expose your mole to the weather! Done!

She can't take any kind of heat anymore and starts panting when the house gets to 70 degrees.

But despite all these things, she's still happy and amazingly active. She's been trudging through the snow in the back field lately to get to the beaver carcass A. put out there to draw wild animals and study their tracks. He thought it was too far for Good Ole Dog Mia to bother with, but she was determined.

She still goes on walks, though we have to shut her in the house for her own good if it's going to be a particularly long one or if it's too warm outside for her.

And she still watches over the hairless puppies:

Or maybe she just wants to steal the blanket. Either way, she's still a good dog.

Sleep Deficit Ahoy

You know it's getting bad when you have to literally open your eyes with your fingers in the morning.

Babies are fun.

In other news, it is currently 56 degrees and raining. Freaky. That will change to ice, then 6-10 inches of snow, then below zero temperatures, and all within the next 36 hours. Whee!

Winter is also fun.

We have plenty of milk for coffee though, so we can ride the storm out. If only I could sleep through it like a bear.

Fat chance, Mama Bear. I need my milk, too.

Happy Friday, my lovelies. 

New Year, Strike the Happy

Short version: Our furnace stopped working consistently yesterday, and it got to 15 degrees below zero last night.

Thankfully, there's a propane stove downstairs that will actually heat the whole house to relatively comfortable temperatures, but it was colder upstairs than downstairs, so A. and I slept on the fold-out bed in the downstairs room where the fire is. We put Poppy's bassinet right next to the fire. The other kids all sleep downstairs and we left their doors open so they could get enough heat.

This all would have been fine and dandy (sort of), except for the fact that Poppy was crying and fussy and keeping everyone awake. Also, she kept throwing up. She spits up quite a bit anyway, but this was straight-up throwing up everything she was eating. She was obviously sick.

Jack had been complaining all evening of a tummy ache, so I was expecting something dire in the near future.

Sure enough, Jack woke up at 11:15 p.m. while I was trying to comfort a crying Poppy and promptly threw up in his bed. A. changed his sheets and pajamas and put him back to bed. I gave up on being in the warm room downstairs and brought Poppy upstairs* to stay in the bed with me in the hopes that everyone else might be able to sleep.

It was a New Year's Eve that will live on in our memories, to say the least.

A service guy is coming out today to look at the furnace, and we're crossing our fingers that he can actually fix it.

After some Internet research, A. is afraid the problem is simply that propane doesn't work properly in the temperatures we've been getting. He's getting his kerosene heater in working order as a back-up heat source, because it's supposed to get to 27 degrees below zero on Friday.

Now we'll just hope that our New Year's Day pork, greens, and black-eyed peas bring us our health, wealth, and happiness sooner rather than later. In the form of a working furnace and no more vomiting children.

Happy New Year, my lovelies. Cross your fingers for us.

* It was 62 degrees upstairs, so it's not as if it was life-threatening up there. It's just that she had to be next to me in the bed to be warm enough to sleep, which means I don't really sleep. But at least five of the six people in the house were sleeping. 

Celebrating with Carbohydrates

How to celebrate the momentous occasion of my 38th birthday today? First with pancakes.

Made on the new griddle my parents gave me that cooks three whole pancakes at a time. They've given me HOURS of my life back.

Then with a solo walk*, followed by a shower.

And tonight, with spaghetti and meatballs--pre-made and pulled from the freezer, as was the sauce--followed by cake and ice cream. The cake is the top tier of our second wedding cake. I didn't think my parents would mind if I used it as a birthday cake instead of an anniversary cake next November. This way, I get to eat cake without having to bake it.

Good thing that pesky gestational diabetes is gone. 

And all I had to do to get rid of it was deliver these cheeks. Good trade.

Happy birthday to me. Pass the carbs.

* It was ten degrees below zero, but very sunny and with very little wind, so it wasn't bad. Besides, as A. once memorably remarked, "You would lie on a bed of nails if you could do it without the children." Too true.

Going Public

I was about to send my parents an e-mail with some photos attached of various gifts they've given us that have been used for the first time. But then I thought, why not make it into a post? Because you know, photos are very convenient fodder for a post that does not require brain power I do not have these days.

So! Without further ado, we have . . .

Jack using his birthday apron to do dishes:

Real men wash dishes. Remember that, son.

And these fantastic cocktail glasses they gave us for our second wedding that have our names and the date of the ceremony on them:

My parents own several glasses like this, and I didn't know I always wanted one until they gave me one. (Those are Sidecars in there, incidentally.)

The reason we had those drinks was because we went to get our Christmas tree on Saturday. Because we live on a Christmas tree farm, that meant we walked 200 yards down the road with a saw.

See that house behind the trees? That's our house. I was standing next to our tree in the field when I took the photo.

The getting of the tree didn't result in drinking. It was more the fact that I flooded the floor under the tree when I was trying to put water in the stand, and then A. had to lift the already-decorated tree so we could clean it up, which meant there were ornaments falling and children shrieking and a baby crying and . . .

Well. It was a classic Small Children Christmas memory.

I also had a photo of Poppy wearing an absolutely adorable wool sweater and pants set that my parents gave her, but I seem to have deleted it when I was messing around with the photos. I did still have this photo, though:

She looked kind of like this during the Christmas tree fiasco, actually.

So there you have it! An e-mail to my parents that has become a full-length post for the enjoyment of the masses. You are most welcome.