Momma, Find kee-kee too

I had to take Jude to the hospital today for some sort of State Newborn Screen. Apparently this is his second one [where was the first one? Hopsital?]. So off I went with a two year old and newborn. To the hospital. To wait. Wait. Wait.


There was this though: While waiting in the lobby to get called back for our paperwork, Adrien spotted the Starbucks kiosk and the cookies therein. Had to have a cookie. He insisted upon screaming and whining at me that he had "Momma, Find kee-kee too" (he now puts the word to or too at the end of every sentence, whether it belongs there or not, and whether or not that's the proper place for it. Yay for prepositions. Is that a preposition? I went to art school...} I reassured him that yes, you found the cookies, but you don't need one. Man, I really wanted one. They looked good. What I really wanted was some sort of hot caffeinated beverage to go with the kee-kee...but alas, I didn't need that either. We finally got called back to admissions. The kee-kees were out of sight. Some scrawny old lady, who really seemed nice enough, did all my paperwork. Zillions of papers to sign. All so they can prick my baby's heel and squeeze the blood out until he screams so much, he stops screaming at all. I hate that, man.

Waiting wasn't too bad though. It's times like these that you park the stroller in front of the television in the waiting room and hope your kid likes soap operas. He didn't. He did, however, like using a pen [stolen from admissions] to color all over himself -- and punch holes in the piece of paper that has the privacy practice policy on it. It was great fun, and at the end of the day I didn't have to put up with too much screaming and I got a tattooed toddler out of it. When we got called into the lab for the blood work, the nurse made mention of Adrien's self doodling. Before she could show too much disdain, I reassured her that it kept him quiet.

Then they all marveled as I unfurled this and out came a baby. People are so fascinated by fabric.

The wonderful smell of motherhood

The boys are both napping again today. At the same time. Please bitch slap me and tell me not to get too used to it. Really, it's not luck. It's just the fact that Jude's still in his whole Eat-poop-sleep-poop-sleep-eat-eat-eat-sleep-sleep-poop-sleep stage. You know, that stage where a good 10 minutes nursing session is all that's really needed to conk them right out. I mean, I'd be tired too if I had to suck on my boobs. It seems labor-intensive and all.

The most challenging part about this whole I'm-so-new-at-being-the-mother-of-two-at-once thing is that I hate feeling that I can't give them both my all, all at the same time. Logistically I can't be at Adrien's every beck and call while breastfeeding Jude every 2 hours. I mean, I've tried, really. But it's so dang hard on the shoulders. [Hunching over in the floor with a 9 pound newborn attached to your nipple to push some Hot Wheels around is no small feat.] I also feel guilty for cuddling with Jude because that means (most of the time) that I can't cuddle with Adrien at that moment...either for fear that Adrien will squash the little guy, or just because Adrien doesn't want to. And yet, at the same time, I feel a little guilty for not being able to pay Jude the same amount of one-on-one attention that Adrien got when he was a newborn.

I know, I know. It's all normal, and it will pan out. I'll get used to the swing of things and Adrien will too...Jude will never know that he missed anything. I know. But still. That mothering guilt again.

So here I sit, covered from head to toe in breast milk residue and probably wreaking of a million different stenches...both boys are napping. I really should be bathing.

It just seems like such a waste of personal time.

Miracle of all Miracles

The boys are napping at the same time today!


And yes, he looks awake. But the camera temporarily woke him up. He's currently snoozing.

Dropping in

So today is the first time my 2 year has taken a nap in a week. Since he's been home, he hasn't been napping (due to doctor's appointments, or whatever) and so therefore he hasn't been sleeping well at night. My poor husband's been sleeping on the couch with him every night just about, because he wakes up wanting to sleep in our bed. With Jude rooming-in in our room, that would just be a disaster. So out to the couch they go.

I'm hoping to be able to blog more as time goes by. I'm nabbing a little bit of time today to type up a bit for you guys. Jude's doing well. At this point, I think he's sleeping better at night than his big brother. His eating is just great! Breastfeeding is going well for me this time, and it makes me feel super guilty for not trying harder to succeed with Adrien. When we left the hospital, Jude had some jaundice that ended up getting relatively bad. On top of the normal jaundice baby's get (which his level was only 6 at discharge) our blood types were different, and apparently that makes it worse as my 0+ was attacking his B+..but we've resolved that matter. I think his peak bilirubin (spell check, y'all) level was 14.5...but that was last Friday and on Monday it had dropped to 11, so we're in the clear. He's finally starting to turn pink and not look so much like I dropped him in a vat of fake tanner.

This past Wednesday I had to take him to the doctor to have his circumcision looked at (it was pretty inflamed afterward and we had to use an antibiotic cream -- that BTW, the insurance wouldn't cover because he hadn't been on our plan for 30 days -- um, HELLO! Newborn! Whatev.) His wee-wee is all taken care of now. This morning I found that his belly button was bleeding. A call to the doctor assured me that it's fine as long as it doesn't continue to bleed. So let's keep our finger's crossed.

So everything is going along just great! As soon as I can post more, I definitely will!

Thanks for all the well-wishes! :)

Love y'all!

Hey, Jude.

Jude Elijah was born Monday morning, July 14 at 10:58 a.m.

He weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds and 5.3 ounces, and measured 20 inches in length.

Everybody say, awwwwwwwwwwwwwww, y'all

My kid beat your kid up

I took Adrien to the mall today. Big surprise, I know. But it's an indoor playground and it's already been 100 degree here for a month (at least).

His favorite thing to play on there is this little car. It seats about 3 kids. Adrien climbed in with two other kids and automatically this little girl who was probably around 3 or 4 years old starts being really nasty and telling him to get out. He kept playing and just said "no." Somewhere around five minutes later the little girl is on top of the car's hood and Adrien is inside the car. She's STILL telling him to get out -- with her face being about a centimeter from his. I was looking around for her parents. I mean -- intervention, please? Adrien was tolerating it so I didn't step in. I was really waiting for this little brat's parents to do something. I finally figured out that she was there with who I'm assuming is her grandpa.

Finally Adrien got tired of her being in his face and he hauled off and punched her. Straight in the nose. She backed off. I was kind of astonished -- he usually doesn't hit unless he's just playing too rough and gets really excited. Rarely does he hit out of anger, and generally when a kid's being mean to him he just moves on to something else. I immediately rushed over, but before I could even get there the little girl was already looking at me and in a whiny tone she was all like "He punched me..." I just looked at her and said simply "You were being mean too." Then I got Adrien and we left the play area.

During this little conflict, I noticed her grandpa looking at me all like "Look what your kid just did!" I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for her. She'd been antagonizing him for a good five to seven minutes. I wanted to punch her myself long before Adrien did. And on top of it, had her grandpa stepped in and told her to play nicer, Adrien wouldn't have been pushed over the edge.

As much as I feel like hitting is wrong, I feel like he was justified in it. She'd been nagging at him and taunting him for quite a while -- imagine how long 5 minutes is to a two year old. She's probably almost twice his age. I didn't know what to do besides leave the play area. I didn't want to not do something about his behavior...but at the same time I hate punishing him for defending himself. After all, she was being a real bitch.

What would you do? How do you feel about your kids sticking up for themselves?