a breath and a prayer.

i don't know how or why, but over the last couple of weeks i've felt the ol' PPD lifting, and tonight, i suddenly feel alive, and Hello World! it's nice to see you. suddenly i can do this mothering thing, and i can leave my babies for a few hours and come back so ecstatic to see them, and maybe now i won't completely suffocate and drown without his ever-present, evident adoration. and all of this is very odd because there are so many sad things today.

late-term abortion. a momma 20 weeks (aka very visibly) pregnant with precious twin girls, who simply didn't want any more girls (she has enough). and through countless offers to adopt her little ones, she still admitted she had no compassion for them, and went through with it. i pray that You will hold them (all of them). nurture them, care for them, love them and wait for them. and for her heart. save her.

my bff's faith crises. she believed, until she felt hurt, alone, and uncared for. she volunteered and she cared until she realized no one cared for her. and now her own mind is her god, and "the universe" and a small ceramic buddha will give positive energy back to her. she asked if i'll try to convert her back; i said of course. if i've ever loved her at all (i do), i will talk and explain and care and pray. she asked if i think she's going to hell; i said i hope not. save her.

back to mothering. one of the reasons we are meant to do it is so that we can know You better. i never understood sacrifice like i do now. i can almost daily watch my body deteriorate as i give life to these new bodies. they mature and grow more beautiful as i decay. sounds a little dramatic, but i don't know how else to say it. what an amazing cycle.

booooring

for doing nothing, i sure am busy.

we've been having some difficulties with atticus. of the "i'm two" variety. nothing really big, it's just that butting heads with a little person can be explosive. and exhausting. he's really been goin' at it with david.

tonight i asked him if he'd like to hang out with us, or go to church to see friends. stupid question, apparently. he went from fussing and whining to smiling, mid-whiney sentence. we dropped him off at pioneer's club at church for 2 hours. and it was nice. and i feel like a terrible mom for even writing that.

i guess for my whole life i've been surrounded by great stay-at-home-mamas. now that i am one, i seek others out, read about them, get advice from them, read books by them. you get the idea. i don't really know how to say what i'm thinking without just saying it. ha. so here it is. it's hard for me - really hard - to avoid judging other moms. i HATE that about myself, but there it is, in black and white, and it's true. i think that most familial problems could be solved by just slowing down, staying home, and really looking at your kids until you get to know the world from their perspective. and maybe that is sometimes true, but sometimes it isn't, and i (obviously) don't know when it is and when it isn't, especially for families who aren't mine.

tonight atticus was easier. he wanted to play by himself for 15 minutes (!) when we got home. no fits, no timeouts, no whining. (of course, he's still having a terrible time getting to sleep, but that's a different story...) which brings me to the conclusion that he's bored. which brings me, circularly, to my first sentence. i'm busy. i almost never stay at home all day. how can he be bored?! we go meet david for lunch, we go to mom's pool with cousins, we have briggs over and vice versa, we go to sunday school, we grocery shop, we go to parks, we go go go.

in conclusion. is it ME? he's tired of me? cuz all of this brilliant stay-at-home-mom philosophy says that i am best for him, period. that we are connected, and that, while socialization is great and important, mom-time and home-time is too. aaaand i guess that answers my own question. that he needs both. it's just that i thought he was getting plenty action. after all, he's shy (which i'm thinking i've been also wrong about all this time...). he needs lots of down time (NOT!). all this to say, i had an aha! moment tonight.

thanks for reading.

both of you.

i'm... melting

Boy, did we have ourselves a day around here.

Olive spent a couple hours crying this morning, so I finally put them in the car and got some coffee. She fell asleep quickly, and so did Atticus, but he woke up when I got home. And then he spent the next 2 1/2 hours crying. First over the fact that we were no longer in the car, then he wanted to go to the park, then he wanted to go to daddy's office, then it was because I ate my hotdog. i mean, i've got a little cabin fever too, but come on, bro.

it's hard to stick to what i believe about parenting on these days. when he's falling apart, he needs more of me, not less. but all i want to do is GET AWAY. i don't want to lay down by him, hug him or hold him while he cries and screams. it's loud. i don't want to be patient and understanding when he's completely irrational. but i'm pretty sure both of our lives would have been a lot easier today if i had.

after his fit marathon, he gave me hope again. i was on the phone with david, and i started to cry because i was just so tired and frustrated, and atticus said, "oohh, you're so sad? did you get hurt? where does it hurt? right here? me kiss it?" and then i was really glad that i hadn't completely lost it with him earlier. and i wished i'd been a lot nicer. but i was doing my best. don't you wish that your best was always good enough???

pilates on the couch.

i like pilates.

like, a lot.

i do pilates-ish things all day long, every day. it's a bit difficult, shall we say, to find uninterrupted time to exercise with a new baby and a two-year-old, but pilates does interruptions just fine, thank you.

for example:

as i'm sitting on the couch typing this, i'm practicing my breathing.

how to practice pilates breathing:

• place your hands on your ribs.
• breath in deeply and feel your rib cage expand.
• breath out quickly and forcefully through pursed lips and feel your ribs constrict. imagine you're putting on a corset, and breathing out so you can get it really tight.
• get ready for wonderfully sore intercostals (muscles you may not have known you had), and better posture!

kiddos

some firsts today:

atticus changed olive's baby doll's diaper, complete with wipes. he also poked olive in the eye, but then made her smile. she's really starting to watch him a lot and be interested in what he's doing and holding. (in fact, i pointed out to him that she was interested in what he was holding, which in turn led to the poking of the eye incident. which i hope was an accident. because my kids love each other. and will never ever ever hurt each other on purpose. right?!) i mean, look at them. 

my girl started smiling a little later than atticus did, but now she doesn't ever stop. she loves to be talked to (and talking back!) and she started making little laughing noises today.

i love having a girl. i'm excited to be able to relate to her a little differently than my boy. i mean, i love to watch him play, but i don't personally love guns, superman, or throwing the ball for the dogs (and he does it for hours!). i do, however, love pretty things and shopping and dancing and baking and reading. and i wonder what she'll love. before i had kids, i was always afraid that i wouldn't end up really liking them. i knew i'd love them, but i thought that they might be weird (i'm a pessimist, as you know). or gross. or boring. or something. anyway, i'm very happy to report that i think they're pretty much the coolest people i've ever met.

image

the amazing becky kyle (http://www.good-photo.org) took some pretty great photos of my newborn olive. we were all looking at the pictures tonight, and atticus saw this one:

"mommy!" he said. it's weird to me to be recognized as mommy. i don't particularly like having my picture taken (even though becky is the master at un-awkwarding me); looking at them is the perfect opportunity to be critical of myself. atticus reminded me that my kids don't see what i see when i look at myself. he doesn't see too many freckles or crooked teeth, he sees mommy. olive doesn't see bad hair days or when i'm wearing no makeup. to her, i'm nourishment, care, company and entertainment. her tummy hurts tonight. as i stand and rock her and pace and watch her face, i wonder if she'll be a mommy someday. i hope so. i want her to love someone like i love her.

on an unrelated note, i had an epiphany tonight: daddies are not like mommies. dude. whoa.

david was trying to get atticus ready for bed, and was maybe a little less coaxing and patient than i would have been, although not unkind. it still had to be a conscious decision for me to not interfere. i want to always make things easy and happy for my children, and i'm glad to have someone who is different from me helping raise them. life is not always easy or happy, and that's probably a good lesson to learn from a father. i do want atticus to learn to be strong. a wise woman once told me that husbands and fathers don't get to stay "down" for very long; they have to keep living life and working for their families no matter what. even when they're sad. another (also wise) woman once said never to interfere when your husband is teaching your boy to be a man. i hope that i can follow her advice, but still discuss my own thoughts and opinions with david at appropriate times.

so here's some favorites.

pictures, i mean.

muscles.

atticus was due for a nap about an hour ago. obviously.

i love baby hands.

i also love her swirly hair.

the end.

whine, whine, whine.

I guess we're going through a hard time right now. it's helpful for me to recognize and admit this because it means that this is a phase, and phases don't last forever. this isn't just how life is going to be now, and that's hopeful.

the business has been, shall we say, struggling. we lost our only big client a few months ago and have been through lots of events since then that have led to having nowhere near enough income, either for the business or personally. late bills all around. and discouragement. and anxiety. and we're only driving one car to avoid getting more tickets on expired registration on the other car. so i stay home. alllllways at home.

atticus got sick a couple of weeks ago, and even though i tried so hard to keep olive well, she's had a stuffy nose for a week and a half. having a 2 year old and a newborn isn't exactly a walk in the park, but when they're sick, it's mommy-break-down-time. add to that the fact that atticus has rarely slept through the night since the arrival of olive disrupted his life, and the fact that david always takes care of his night wakings (thank you!) and always falls asleep doing so (shoot), and it means that i take care of nasal spray, nose suction, nursing, diaper changing, diaper blowout, fit from said nose suction, etc. every night alone.

so many people have offered to help us through this time, and i'm extremely grateful because it means i don't feel so alone. but there is not much anyone else can really do. babysitting atticus seems to disrupt him more, whether it's just more insecurity, a missed nap, catching a cold, or not being able to eat while he's somewhere new.

oh, and our washing machine broke (but our friends lent us one!). and all of the light switches in our house are calling it quits, one by one. and atticus's birthday is on thursday. and our children are wearing highwaters. someday, we'll look back at all this and laugh... i think...

little boy blue

WARNING: this is an annoyingly vague, emotionally dramatic post. enjoy.

i'm lonely tonight. i feel judged by some people who are close to me, and judged about things that are very close to my heart.

i feel like they must not love me because they disagree. they think that i'm wrong. maybe i am, but it isn't really a choice. i am who i am, and i do what i do because i can do nothing else. i read and study and obsess and live accordingly. i think that this kind of disagreement should make me feel more loved, not less. i think that our love for each other is proven by the survival of friendship through disagreement. but i feel betrayed and vulnerable, and i want to withdraw and protect, and to carefully try to regain my aloof status. oh well. either way sounds lonely.

so let's talk about something else.

i've been missing my boy like crazy since olive was born 3 weeks (!) ago. things are different. david spends more time with him, and the time i get to spend with him is shared with olive. things will never be the same (just me and atticus) again. he has seemed so different these past few weeks. my happy, silly boy turned serious and quiet, explosively angry, whiney. and i can't even type that last sentence without getting all runny in the face. ANYWAY. tonight was different. i got a precious few minutes alone with him, and he came back. we talked and laughed and joked about things that we knew would make the other laugh. it was just what this momma needed to be able to start a new monday in the morning.

weepy.

i guess i'm having one of those postpartum days where i can cry over anything. today, it is mostly the mention - or even just the thought - of all things financial. it turns out that owning your own business has more ups and downs than... falling into a pit of boiling lava. yeah. so maybe it just has downs.

anyway, today i have chosen to let myself dwell on the fact that we probably won't have any more babies, and that i'd really set my heart on sending out cute birth announcements for olive, and that right now, that would be an irresponsible waste of money. i also keep getting all choked up about my boy turning 2 in a couple of weeks, and there will be slim pickins in the presents department.

these are, as you may have guessed, "1st world problems." you may also feel the urge to tell me to suck it up. i don't blame you. i blame postpartum hormones.



*this has been another overwhelmingly positive, upbeat post from the desk of holly patrick*

put some meat on those bones!

i guess you could call me a private person. when i'm in public, i don't care who you are or why you're looking at me, but you will probably get glared at if you don't look away fast enough. after all, is it more rude to glare, or to stare? (i know i'm silly.) when i'm pregnant, i feel especially conspicuous. complete strangers stop me in the store to ask me about when i'm due and my weight gain. now maybe i'm confused, but isn't weight gain a personal topic? maybe they think if they repeat a complement enough times, that a rude question is no longer rude?

i didn't have the easiest pregnancy. i was nauseous through 2/3 of it and couldn't manage to gain any weight until i was 20 weeks along. my blood pressure was normally 100/55 (near fainting all the time). i did a whole lot of sitting on the couch instead of all the fun things i wanted to be doing with my boy. i did a whole lot of worrying over whether my new baby would have the nutrients she needed, whether she'd be underweight and have to spend time in the NICU, whether i'd be healthy and strong enough to have the baby naturally the way i hoped. everything has turned out great; i have a healthy big baby and i got my home birth. my blood pressure is getting back to normal and i'm feeling better and better. tomorrow will be 1 week postpartum, and i don't really look like i ever had a baby. and yes i am happy, lucky, blessed, whatever all those strangers want to tell me i am. i know that almost all women struggle and agonize and cry over post-baby weight, and that i don't have to. but if i could have chosen between looking this way now and having been able to play with my son and spend more quality time with my husband the past 9 months, guess which i would have chosen?

new arrival

my little girl was born today. what a crazy experience to bring a new person into the world! more on that later. she can't sleep unless i'm holding her hand or touching her, and i'm okay with that. i waited for her for a long time. also there is the obvious fact that she never has slept without touching me. wouldn't it be crazy to get used to sleeping alone after spending your whole life sleeping inside someone?

poor atticus might be in for a rough time. at first i thought he'd be okay. he's been okay with us holding other babies for a few months now. when my mother-in-law brought him home at noon today, david went outside to meet him and hold him. then he brought him into our room where olive was laying on the bed next to me. i made a point to be excited just to see him - not only for him to see the new baby. he patted my tummy and said "mommy's tummy? baby?" he remembered all our talks about it! he was happy to see her and gave her a kiss. but later in the day, he saw her nursing and got angry. since then he's been saying "all done, baby" and "put down? hold you?" he's had a long couple of days and missed out on 4 hours of sleep last night, so hopefully tomorrow will be better.

anyway. i can't believe it's over. and that i went through that today. and that maybe i'll never be pregnant again, never have a new baby again. and that our lives changed so much today. so relieved and happy.

37 weeks.

Tonight I am hot and uncomfortable. This baby feels like she must be bigger than I am, and I definitely have torpedo belly. In the morning I will be full term. And I am trying my best not to wish away what might be my last 0-5 weeks of pregnancy. Ever.

I watched David make airplanes out of spoonfuls of almond butter tonight, and Atticus had the biggest smiles ever. The three of us went to the park today and just walked across the grass. We talked about the birds in the trees and hit things with sticks. Life is about to change. A lot. And I can't wait. But it is awfully precious as it is, just me and my boys.

Even though I am not, never have been, never could be, one of those women who say, "I love being pregnant," these are some of my last moments feeling a person move and kick inside me. There is something beautifully feminine and vulnerable about pregnancy that I had never felt before. So even with all the sleepless nights and uncomfortableness and pain of it, there will probably come a day when I will miss it. Maybe. At least that's what I'll try to tell myself for the next month-ish.

introspection.

I took homeboy to the library and he walked around the children's section saying "Happy birthday" to every kid he saw.

We had our midwife's home visit today; the one that means that the baby can come any time now, and that she can be born at home because she wouldn't be too early even if she came tonight (!!!). All of Olive's (say that out loud) little tiny pink clothes and blankets are sitting in her co-sleeper next to our bed now, because we had to have the birth supplies ready for inspection. Atticus has learned to squeal, "ooohhh baby!" just like I do, apparently. She has some really cute things to wear, okay?!!?

So. Being the world's foremost authority on over-analysis, I think a lot about what kind of mother I want to be, and what kind I don't want to be. I DON'T want to be the screaming or yelling kind. This is sometimes very difficult. It's so easy and natural to yell - yelling gets his attention quickly, I've always had a quick temper, and sometimes us introverted folk learn to overstate things as compensation for what we often leave unsaid.

Anyway. Atticus is a great reminder of why not to yell. When I mess up, he buries his face in something and takes in one sobbing little breath. Breaks my heart. I know that "Attachment parenting" isn't for every parent (although I may or may not be persuaded that it is for every child), but I am soooo grateful for the attachment I have with my boy. He trusts me, and I understand him. He is very affectionate. He likes to fall asleep holding my face squished against his. He rarely throws fits, but when he does, they're usually solved by a hug from mommy (but of course I do not give in to the actual object of fit-throwing). He's a sweet little guy - stealing toys, hitting, pushing, etc. are completely normal toddler behavior - but not for him. And of course I know that I could just be getting lucky so far in all of these things I love about him, and they could change tomorrow, but for now I'm thankful that there is nothing terrible about his twos.

Insert random picture of him throwing rocks into water: "I drop it!"

some days are like that.

Today my morning went a little like this:

Realize Atticus is still sick. Eat a donut.

Clean up house from the aftermath of my sick day yesterday. Eat a donut.

Take the boy outside to play. Share a donut.

Run inside for water refill, watch through the window as Atticus sits down in the mud. Eat a donut.

I bet this will help me get well fast.

In other news, David took him to the optometrist yesterday. Atticus is very far-sighted and needs glasses ASAP, and will probably need them his whole life. I know that it's really no big deal and that lots of kids need glasses and that he'll get used to them. I know that it could be much, much worse. I know we're extremely blessed to have a healthy, smart, happy little guy. But I cried.

I felt like I made him wrong. (I know, that makes no sense.) There's something wrong with him that he'll have to deal with forever. He's about to be that "fragile" toddler, more than he already is (since he's small for his age). Anyway, I took my sad half-hour yesterday, and we're movin' on. So, when picking out glasses for a not-even-two-year-old-boy, can I still make "cute" a priority over durability and whether they will stay on?

tantrums

This is a great article, especially the end.

http://mothering.com/parenting/a-fresh-approach-to-tantrums?page=0,0

I've wondered a lot about the line between punishing bad behavior and teaching healthy expression of emotions. It seems especially complicated since we're raising a little man. Men are "supposed to be" rough and tough, and even a baby or toddler that cries often is seen as weak in our culture. Call me crazy, but I think that's a problem. It is already more natural and easy for women to express themselves and communicate, so why do we add more trouble for men through our tough-guy expectations? I hope that my boy will grow up with an ability to have a wonderful marriage relationship in which he is able to be heard and respected and to know and understand his wife the way women long to be known. If I can help him get there, I will. And marriage definitely isn't the only area in his life that will benefit from healthy self-expression. It seems that business life is often complicated and unnecessarily difficult because of egos, or lack thereof. I want my boy to know that he has lots to offer and nothing to prove.

And if his finger needs a kiss when he bumps it, I'm sooo there.

Tuesday baby brain

Every day before I put Atticus down for his nap, I (33 weeks pregnant) hold my big almost-2-year-old boy like a little baby and rock him back and forth and sing rockabye baby to him. He goes limp in my arms and just watches my face. Awwwww.

I can not stay out of the kitchen today. I gained 4 pounds in the last 10 days (finally!), and I'm sooo hungry! This is very good news!

I've been struggling with feeling very anxious about this birth. People like to say that giving birth is as energy-consuming as running a marathon, and for most of this pregnancy I've been too weak and tired to get off the couch. BUT I finally discovered the secret to being able to sleep at night is getting exercise every day. I usually do just 15 minutes of yoga or pilates at night, and it's helping me believe in my body's ability to have this baby without having to be sliced open!

My friends gave me an amazing baby shower over the weekend. They held it at my favorite coffee shop and decorated it beautifully with tutus and ballerinas, since that's my nursery theme. They also took tons of pictures, since they know I'm camera deficient. It means so much to me to have friends who know me so well and care about making a shower special for me.

This was 31 weeks!

Peaceful

We're having a quiet morning. Atticus played with the laundry and then the basket in my room for a long time this morning while I dozed. I really should have gotten out of bed, but hey. I'm 31 weeks pregnant. Then he played the piano for awhile, and now he is shaking drops of water out of his sippy cup and cleaning the table with a paper towel. Sometimes I wonder what he thinks about so seriously in that little head. I almost feel like I'm intruding just by watching him. He is just as captivating to me in his quiet moments as in his loud ones.

And that's a good thing, because he just started a dance party. Quiet time is officially over.

pretty cool.

i was just contemplating making my ancient private blog public, and logged on to further consider the possibility only to find that my account has been deleted. i guess that answers that question. i've definitely changed in the seven or so years since i started it, and maybe it didn't accurately represent me anymore, but i'm a little sad to lose it. hohum.

this blog will still be more of a journal than anything else, and most likely very ramble-y and introspective, so if you don't care, don't read! :)

lots of times since i became pregnant the first time, i've thought about the loss of... street cred? dignity? ...mass appeal? (as if i ever had it. ha!) that pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering seems to bring with it. it's hard to dress like a gangsta with a basketball under your shirt, i never thought ANYONE would see me as i was during atticus' birth, and consistently wearing spit-up and/or messy fingerprints is pretty rad. and then there's the fact that i know now every single word to every song on walt disney's pandora station, and pretty much nothing about current music of any other genre.

before:

after:

which brings me to today. i took my boy through a drive-thru to get myself some coffee, and then another drive-thru to get some mexican food (no, you can't really call it that). then we came home, sat on the couch, and listened to my music. and he leaned on me and he ate his burrito and bobbed his head to the music and talked about superman. and i sat and thought about what a cool kid i have.