Life According to JewJewBee

Wondering...

Was I only spoken to about "covering up better" when I breastfed at the library because I work here?  I can't imagine any other library patron being told as much...  Besides, I think I cover up very well despite the fact that BooBooGoo [much like her brother] won't "allow" a blanket over her head while feeding...  More than that -- I have every right to breastfeed in public!  I wasn't on the clock, so it can't be said that I was shirking my work responsibilities to take care of my kid...  So, what the eff?!?  Pretty pissed...  Later days...

Almost...

Done with my maternity leave...  This week is it...  And, while it is a little bitter-sweet, I am more happy than not to be heading back to Libraryland...  I won't lie and say that I am not nervous about how long it will take to find the right balance in my life...  I won't say that I have all the answers and know exactly how I will feel about things in the next week, month, or year...  All I know is that I am looking forward to getting back to my "normal" state of affairs...  Sure, it's hectic at times when you're a working mom...  But, I've found that staying home is no less hectic much of the time... It's just a different brand of hectic -- and one I am not particularly comfortable with...  So, I will be bringing BooBooGoo to the same daycare as Boogie and trying to figure out a reasonable pumping schedule during my work day so that she can remain on breastmilk despite my return to work...  (Still overjoyed, btw, that my breastmilk can be frozen this time around and that I have a stockpile of extra milk already!)...  Sometimes I feel guilty about the fact that I can't wait to get back to work when I know people who genuinely enjoy being SAHMs (or DGPMs, as Jedi Mama would say)...  But I need to remind myself that I need to be honest with myself and work with what feels right to me...  With the excitement I feel about my speaking engagement in early May, my article that's getting published soon after, and the upcoming summer reading program, I can honestly say that I belong in Libraryland -- with nightly lay-overs in and weekend trips to Homeville, of course...  Later days... 

Boston...

We traveled to PAX East over the weekend and, though we had a good time, I am super glad to be home...  The sheer volume of dirty laundry we generated over the weekend was astounding, the money we spent eating out was crazy, and my back practically had an orgasm when I went to sleep in my own bed last night!  Teeheehee...  Trying to entertain myself [and BooBooGoo] while Clark and Boogie had a "guys' day" at PAX on Saturday was difficult enough, but the cold snap made it even worse...  It meant that I could not do most of the sight-seeing I had planned on, since I had to keep very conscious of BooBooGoo's body temperature...  That and the fact that I had to keep finding warm locations in which to sit down and nurse her made it a bit more limited...  I figured we would just sit down on a park bench if she got hungry, but that was definitely not an option with the low temperatures and whipping winds...  Ugh!  I am very pleased to report that I even managed to have a pretty good day when I took the kids on my own to Quincy Market and the New England Aquarium...  I was so proud of myself when Boogie started to act up and I stuck to my guns...  It would have been so much easier to just try and placate or ignore him, but I knew I would only be setting myself up for future fits of misbehavior in public...  Thanks to 1-2-3 Magic!, I have tweaked my methods and have cut out even more of the temper tantrum drama...  A lot of parents from my library have requested this book, so I decided to check it out for myself...  It is so simple -- and works so well, pretty much instantly -- that I ordered my own copy and will be "making" Clark read it too...  I gave him the best summary I could so we could start right away, and I am glad we did...  When Boogie started to push my buttons at the aquarium, I started the count...  When he tried to "refuse" his time out, I told him that the next count would mean leaving...  He didn't think I would really do it, so he tested the limits again...  When I got to 3, I informed him that we were leaving...  He tried refusing to stand/walk with me, but I threw him over my shoulder and started out...  When he realized there was no way to get what he wanted from throwing a fit, he cut his losses and agreed to leave the aquarium on his own two feet...  He even helped me with doors as we exited, most likely trying to get back in my good graces...  We made it back to the hotel with not even one more outburst, and even managed to have some good conversations, even though we had to walk a bit and take the subway...  Now that Boogie is back in school and I have some new tricks up my sleeve, I feel so much more in control...  That's a pretty good place to be!  Now, if only the 1-2-3 Magic! book had tricks to keep BooBooGoo's poop from running up her back...  LOL...  Later days...

Improvements...

So, Boogie is doing better with the whole "violent outburst" thing...  Like, ::knock wood::, he isn't flipping shit and trying to kill me anymore... If anything, he will lean on and kinda push into me when he is frustrated [instead of full-out hitting or biting me]...  And I don't recall him hitting himself in the last few days either...  Definitely the improvement I needed to see the most...  We never ended up seeing a therapist either, with the way that things took so long to even find a contact...  While he is still really whiny -- I'm talking as soon as he gets up in the morning, whining if things don't go 100% his way -- we are actively working on it with reminders that whining doesn't improve his chances of getting what he wants/needs...  Having to remind him to re-ask in a non-whiny way is so irritating that it makes my head hurt, but it seems to be slowly improving the amount of whining I deal with...  Boogie also seems to be doing better letting me know when he would like to have a little more attention and dealing with it if/when I tell him I need a little time to finish up something with BooBooGoo...  I think that making the offer to read and do the I Spy puzzles with him while I am nursing helped...  Even though I can't lessen BooBooGoo's dependency on me, Boogie has a way to get the attention he so desperately wants...  I honestly don't think he realized it was even an option...  He just never thought of a way that they could "share" me, so he was thinking of it as an "all or nothing" kinda deal...  Glad to get that straightened out!  And, while I thought we were heading out of the woods with the whole potty training/accidents thing, I guess we're not...  Yesterday he realized he had to poop when we were at the park and made it all the way home -- walking, mind you -- without an accident...  But, then he had an accident at bedtime last night...  And again when we got home from the library today...  I make him do potty tries before we go anywhere, but I honestly think he is doing it on purpose...  We will just have to do our best not to give him tons of attention when it happens to see if that makes him less likely to do it...  He's up from his nap now, so I guess I better wrap this up...  Keep your fingers crossed for me, ok?!?  Later days...

Clarification...

People keep telling me that what's going on is perfectly normal and that "all first born children do this" when a second baby is born...  While I agree that there is probably some level of moodiness and misbehavior because of jealousy and such, I have a feeling that my child is doing way more than his fair share of freaking out...  The other day, Boogie was supposed to have a two minute time out...  He melted down and came at me -- trying to tear my shirt off, punching me in the breasts (most likely because he knows they are sore from breastfeeding), kicking me in the shins and stomping on my feet with his dress-up cowboy boots, and even biting my arm...  Since I could not stop the attack with my first few attempts of restraint, I gave in to my raw emotion and ended up hitting him to make him stop...  A full hour later, after I was a wreck and his baby sister was hysterical because I had to ignore her hunger cries to deal with the situation, he had finally stopped throwing things around and screaming/crying like a lunatic...  I felt bad, but I was actually happy to see him huddled up and whimpering in the corner...  Then, two nights ago, when we had the terrible night that led to the post about being a bad mother, Boogie was actually screaming that he WANTED me to hit him again...  He was shouting, over and over again, "I want you to hit me!  I want you to hurt me!"  Today, we tried to give him some extra attention to show him that we still love him and to see if that would help matters...  We left Booboogoo with Flower and took Boogie to the movies -- just Mom and Dad time...  No baby sister to take away attention from him...  And, guess what?  It didn't even make a difference two freakin hours later...  We tried to go to the mall to get Clark some workout equipment for a new fitness thing he's gonna try and then to look at a new stove, but Boogie started being "that kid" in the middle of Dick's and we didn't even get a chance to step foot in Best Buy...  We got in the car and headed for home because we were not going to deal with this in public any longer than we had to...  Boogie asked if we could go out to dinner and we informed him that his behavior had made that option go away...  Rather than trying to sweet-talk us back into going out, he started screaming that we HAD TO go out, then began kicking Clark's seat...  We calmly told him that screaming and crying will not get him his way and that he needed to stop kicking the seat...  His answer?  He started spitting at us and kicking harder...  He even took off his glasses and started hitting them against the car seat, trying to break them...  I don't care what anyone says -- this is NOT normal...  And there is only so much I can take before I feel like I am going to end up completely losing it and beating the crap out of him...  Which is what I was referring to when I said I was just like my mom...  I swore I would never hit my kids because my mom beat the shit out of us as kids, and I am so close to going over the edge that it's not even funny...  I understand that the peeing and pooping in his pants is "normal" regression because he wants to be mommy's baby or whatever...  But trying to beat the hell out of me [and purposely hurting himself or hitting his head off of things] when he is angry?!?  WTF is that all about, and how the hell do you respond to something like that?  I can't just ignore the behavior because he is going to end up hurting himself if I don't stop him when he's hitting his head off a wall...  And I am sure as hell not going to become his punching bag so that he can get the anger out...  The one psychologist I called doesn't have anything anytime soon, so I will be making some calls to more child psychologists tomorrow and praying that we find someone who actually has appointments for new clients sometime soon...  Wish me luck, please...  Later days...

Wrecked...

How is it that the answer to so many of my prayers and one of the best things to ever come into my life has also torn my life into shreds?  In the last month, I have watched my beautiful baby daughter thrive and begin to develop a personality all her own...  But, I have also watched my son turn into an jealous, angry, hateful, and violent child...  I have felt the sting of failure, but been held aloft by friends, only to have my usually-supportive husband tear me down again...  What was once a dream family is quickly becoming a nightmare...  Before I got pregnant again, Clark said that he was worried having another child would ruin the relationship we had with Boogie, and he seemed almost happy the other day as he pointed out that he was right...  In the last two weeks, he has often said that he doesn't understand why I have such a hard time dealing with our son's outbursts, since he has nowhere near as much of a problem with Boogie...  And then tonight, he said he feels like he should just go back to work for the rest of the week and come home this weekend because this is all ridiculous and there's no reason I should not be able to handle a 4-year-old...  Sure he apologized a little while later...  But, what good does that do?  I already felt like a failure, and he just confirmed it for me...  I think he feels bad that he made me cry and regrets saying it out loud, but I don't think he said anything he didn't really mean deep down inside...  The truth hurts sometimes...  A lot...  Why bother sugar coating it anymore?  I'm bad at being a mother...  I always worried I would be a bad mom, and now it's just becoming evident that my fears were warranted...  I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, huh?  Later days...

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

Despite the fact that I am majorly sleep deprived right now [read: slept about 2 hours total last night], I am pretty excited about a couple of things...  First, I did a trial freezing of my breastmilk and found out that the random problem I had when I was nursing Boogie has corrected itself!  Flower actually sent me an e-mail earlier today to tell me that she was talking to a friend who had the same problem with her first baby but not with her second and that I might wanna do a test freeze -- but I had already tried it last week...  After the first (very small) batch froze and thawed successfully (i.e. not "turning" upon thawing), I decided to start freezing some extra breastmilk to at least have an easier time getting my initial bottles set for daycare...  Then, I got nervous and wondered if it was a fluke, so I thawed a full bag of milk and found that it really does work this time around!  You have NO IDEA how happy this makes me!  No more freaking out about being a few ounces short for a single day and disappointed that another day's surplus will likely go to waste...  W00t! 

The second thing I am really excited about is the fact that I have everything all set to go back to work earlier than originally planned...  I will be returning to work on April 12th instead of May 3rd -- yay!!!!!!  It's not that I don't love my children...  Please believe me when I say that... I am just not a homebody...  I NEED to do my own thing a lot more often than being a SAHM allows or I start to feel like I am drowning...  Maybe if I just had the girl to take care of, I would be able to better handle things...  But, when Boogie starts throwing things at me and hitting me because I dare to demand he eat lunch and/or take a nap when he got too few hours of sleep at night, I feel like I am going to lose it and put him through a wall...  I am sure that the sleep deprivation has played a major role in things, but I have had a couple of panic attacks this week and I need to feel more in control of my life...  Since I have a fulfilling career working at an awesome library with some of my best friends, being home all day with a bi-polar preschooler and a sleep-terrorist baby just doesn't have much appeal, you know?  I'm sure it also makes a huge difference knowing that the kids will be attending a great daycare, which happens to be right downstairs from the hubby's office...  Very "win-win"...

So, yeah...  Breastmilk win!  Work win!  Daycare win!  If only I could get a "sleep win" or "preschooler behavior win," I would be a super happy mama!  Later days...

Birth...

As the title of this post insinuates, I will be sharing Booboogoo's birth story... If you cannot handle reading details about labor and childbirth,

YOU

CAN

SAFELY

LEAVE

THE

POST

NOW!

I don't want any whiny comments about it being TMI...  You have been forewarned!  Also, it's an e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y long post, since it was a very long labor – I'm talking almost 4 pages, single spaced kind of long...  You're gonna need some time to get through this one, so don't bother to read it unless you've got a bit of extra time!  Teeheehee...

Going into labor was something I was completely paranoid about this time around, since I had no idea I was in labor for most of my labor with Boogie...  Every cramp was evaluated as a possible contraction...  Every twinge as possible cervical changes...  I didn't want to be obnoxious about it, so I didn't call the midwife every time I thought something might be happening…  I didn’t even bug Clark about it every time...  I mostly just dealt with my paranoia in silent contemplation...  Not the best solution, to be sure, but I saved other people some major frustration in having to listen to me waffle about whether or not it could mean I was in labor…

At about 10pm on Monday, January 25th, I was having some pretty regular cramping, so I decided I needed to call the midwife…  Because of my history of “fast labor,” she came over to check me out...  It turned out that I was having contractions, but I was not really dilated too much...  At about 3am, the midwife went to bed in our spare room and I went up to my own bed...  In the morning, I was still having contractions, so we called over Sportzy (the friend who would be watching and helping out with Boogie during labor)…  We kept track of contractions and everything, but nothing was really changing…  Tried stripping my membranes, but it wasn’t effective...  3cm dilated and 75% effaced was about all I would see that day...  At about lunch time, even the contractions went away, so the midwife left and said to call her if things picked back up again...  I cried pretty hard right after she left, and then I cried on and off for the whole rest of the day...  I was so disappointed that my labor had "stalled"...  I had no idea that was even a possibility, really, so it hit me like a ton of bricks...

I went to bed Tuesday night feeling pretty down, but determined not to let it get me down the next day...  I would just wake up and force myself to get on with the day...  Fate, however, had different plans...  I woke up at about 3am with crazy shakes [like I had fever chills] and a very cramped lower back...  I made myself go back to sleep, but I woke up again at 4am with the same thing...  I decided I should probably call the midwife when I noticed that I was also having contractions...  Because I felt bad calling again, though, I tried calling the [hospital] childbirth center I had gone to for Boogie's birth...  I figured those nurses were already awake, and they should know if this sounded like labor!  They told me to stop feeling bad and to just call my midwife...  She thought it was pretty funny that I called the hospital and insisted I should not worry about "bothering" her, especially since it sounded like I would need her to return...  She said to drink some water, take a shower, and call her back to let her know how I was feeling...  When I was in the shower, I started feeling "pressure" from the baby hunkering down really low, so I had Clark call and let her know...  She decided it was time to come back, and suggested we might want to call Sportzy and see if she would be able to stay home from work again...

All day, Wednesday, I was having contractions but not getting anywhere with dilation…  At about lunch time, the midwife suggested that we try a homeopathic additive in my water bottle to see if that would do anything…  Nothing…  We tried a hot shower with “nipple stim”…  Nada…  She suggested castor oil, and I almost threw up from the very thought of it…  She said that maybe an enema would work as well as castor oil but without making me puke, so I conceded…  ::shudder::  …  Sadly, it did not work…  She also said she could try to strip my membranes again…  She said that she could try to do that every 15 minutes for 2 hours but that we had to admit defeat if that did nothing…  Well…  It got me up to 5-6cm dilated and I was having contractions every 3 minutes like clockwork…  Everything seemed to be working again!  At about 9pm, the midwife said I should go up to bed to try and get some rest before the final stages of labor kicked in…  I wondered how I would get myself to fall asleep while having contractions every 3 minutes, but exhaustion took over and I did fall asleep…… Only to awaken at nearly 7am…  Labor had stopped again…  I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream…  I just knew that I was not likely having the baby that day either…  After breakfast, the midwife left…  Sportzy went to work, but Clark stayed home with me in case labor kicked back into gear…  I updated the midwife later that night that there was still nothing going on, and we went to bed…

When I woke up on Friday morning, I knew that there was little chance of anything happening labor-wise…  Clark went to work, and Boogie and I stayed home…  I wanted desperately to be able to call Clark and tell him to come home, but I knew that he had to try and get some work done because he had missed most of the week…  At work, everyone kept congratulating him – under the assumption that I MUST have had the baby by that time…  On Facebook and via e-mail, I kept getting requests for updates, but there was nothing to update other than the fact that I had one of the most frustrating weeks ever and no baby to show for it…  I went to bed Friday night praying that I would finally go into labor but wondering if it would still be days until that finally happened…  When Boogie woke up with his nightly nightmare at about 1:45am, though, we were about to jump back into labor-mode…  After getting him settled back into bed, I tried to get myself settled in and felt a “pop” as my water broke!  When I got back out of bed, I felt a little gush…  I went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and had another little gush…  This was it!  I was so excited because I finally realized I was in labor for Boogie when my water broke, and that was only 2 hours before Boogie graced us with his presence!  So, we called the midwife and Sportzy…  They both came rushing over, and we got into preparation mode to make sure that everything would be set out and available as needed…  The midwife even contacted the assistant to let her know that we were going to need her that day – definitely progress!

It was slightly disappointing to find out that my cervix was still not really dilating, but at least I knew that the baby HAD to be coming along now that my water had broken…  Right?!?  When we hit lunch time without gains in dilation, the midwife and her assistant started to formulate plans to kick things up a notch…  We started with the homeopathic stuff [natural equivalents of pitocin and cervadil] – but in more concentrated drop form, and every 15 minutes instead of just being mixed in to drink casually via water bottle – along with more “nipple stim”…  When that didn’t do much, they mixed up the much harsher herbal forms of the same stuff…  They said I would just have to take it like shots and use a juice chaser to get rid of the nasty taste…  Just one major problem with that plan – I CAN’T DO SHOTS!  So, I had to do my best to get it down quickly without puking it up…  Doesn’t sound too difficult, but take this into consideration – the stuff smelled like Witch Hazel…  Literally…  Go get a bottle of Witch Hazel, unscrew the top, and take a good whiff…  Un-freakin-believable how nasty that crap was…  I got down two treatments of that crap, and I could take no more…  We were starting to run out of options…  And the clock was ticking…  If I got anywhere near 30 hours after my water breaking, we were going to have to head to a hospital and talk c-section…  I asked the midwife what she would do and she said we had two “natural” remedies besides the herbal stuff…  The castor oil and the enema…  I didn’t think I could even look at the castor oil, but the enema wasn’t exactly a fun option either…  Clark ran and hid in the basement with Sportzy and Boogie while I had my “prison date with Bubba” as I jokingly called it…  Had to maintain humor or I was gonna start freaking out soon…  What if this didn’t work?  What would I do?  What COULD I do?

Since things were not exactly rolling, the midwife’s assistant went home to nap, feed her kids dinner, and get them ready for bed…  Sportzy went home to shower and rest, too…  We didn’t know when we would need them back, but we figured we would probably have enough notice to get them back and at least had the midwife here if things blew up all at once…  Getting to that point was still a mystery, though…  Until, suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my midwife’s head…  She turned to me with eyes the size of saucers and said, “You have an electric, dual breast pump, don’t you?”  When I said I did, she told Clark to go and get it…

It had suddenly occurred to her that we could get a whole lot more oxytocin [the stuff pitocin simulates] into my system if we had me hooked up to a breast pump…  Unfortunately, though, the storage bottles were not in the bag – so we had to improvise and try to balance some of Boogie’s plastic Star Wars cups under the units to collect the colostrum that would inevitably leak out in the process!  We kept turning the unit on high for the let-down-induction mode and turning it off when it switched over to the long-draw…  We would wait about 3 minutes and start it up again…  All of the sudden, the contractions started to hit me with a thunder, and we knew we had done it!  Labor was in full-swing, and we didn’t have to worry about giving up on the home birth!  For the next couple of hours, we just breathed through contractions, got Boogie into bed so he could get some rest before the baby came, and waited for things to get closer to the pushing phase…

At about 9:45pm, I started to feel like I would have to push soon…  It was time to call Sportzy and the midwife’s assistant and ask them to come back!  The most notable thing at this point was the fact that I was, in fact, feeling the contractions – actually hurting from them – which is something I never actually experienced with Boogie’s labor and delivery…  It still wasn’t terrible pain to the point where I wanted narcotic or epidural painkillers, but it was certainly uncomfortable…  And, while I knew it was unlikely to even take the edge off, I did ask Clark to get me some Tylenol to help deal with the aching in my lower back…  Figured it couldn’t hurt, right?!?  Teeheehee…  When Sportzy and the assistant got back, we woke Boogie and told him that his baby sister was finally ready to arrive…  Towels and disposable liner pads went down all over the place, Clark literally rolled up the legs of his jeans, and I ditched my nightgown so it would be easier to just roll with the punches…  I started to push at about 10:45pm, so I figured I would have a daughter by midnight…  Ha!  Wrong again! 

While I had only pushed for about 20 minutes with Boogie, it turns out that there was a bit longer to go for Booboogoo…  When Booboogoo changed positions, my cervix could go from 9.75cm back down to 6cm, so the midwife had to keep holding my cervix open to allow for pushing…  Add that to the fact that Booboogoo’s head never molded AND the fact that she was resting her fist up against her chin the whole time, and you get a way more difficult baby to push out!  I had planned on squatting so that gravity would help, but I ended up too tired and had to lie down on the couch for the final bit of pushing…  The one thing I didn’t have to give up this time, though, was being able to see as the baby came out…  We had the mirror ready and waiting because this was my last chance to see myself give birth, and I didn’t want to miss that part of the miracle this time around…  It was definitely surreal, but I am so glad I was able to have that extra bit of incentive to keep going when it got tough at the end…  Seeing my beautiful daughter’s tiny little face before she was even fully born was simply amazing! 

The fact that we had a daughter was actually not confirmed for a few minutes after birth, though, because we were all just fawning over her and cleaning her up…  I kept saying “baby girl” and calling her by name, and then Clark suddenly asked, “Has anyone actually checked to see if it’s a [girl name] or [boy name]?”  The midwife replied that it was our job to check, so I [rather unceremoniously] grabbed and lifted a leg to see that we did, in fact, have a baby girl!  Teeheehee…  Boogie, btw, was there to see his little sister come into the world, and he did an excellent job as a birth coach -- though he did bow out of cutting the umbilical cord with Clark...

So, there you have it…  More than you could ever possibly have wanted to know about my second childbirth experience…  But, like I told Clark – I wrote out my birth story for Boogie, so I had to do it for Booboogoo too!   It just took a whole lot more to tell hers…  Hope those of you who read this far thought it was worth it…  LOL…  Later days!

BooBooGoo...

Just realized that I never posted an update to my Vox account...  People who don't know me "IRL"have no idea that BooBooGoo (babytalk for "baby girl") was born in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, 1/31/10...  She finally arrived at 1:21am, weighing 7lbs 6oz, and measuring 20.25 inches long...  I plan on writing a long post some time soon, with all the crazy details, but I thought it might be a good idea to just post a picture for now...  Isn't she cute?!?

mama-n-baby

Later days!

Stalling...

Went into labor @ 10pm on Monday, but stalled out around lunch time Tuesday... Went back into labor at about 4am Wednesday and was in "early labor" still all day... Made it up to about 5-6cm and contractions every 3 minutes last night... Midwife said to try and sleep so we would be ready for the final bit of labor when it kicked in... But labor stopped again... Midwife left for the second time this morning and I haven't had more than a few random contractions all day... She's never seen anything like this before, and I certainly haven't ever heard of this happening to anyone...  WTF?!?  Later days...