I’m striving to pay more attention to Lucas. It’s hard to do because Asher is so demanding, unpredictable, and unable to wait for his needs to be met later. Lucas is more accomodating, more patient, more independent and that often means he gets the short end of the stick.

Tonight Lucas and I had a lovely time doing all the bedtime rituals together. Instead of battling, we played. He set up a coffee shop in the bathtub and I enjoyed cup after cup of gourmet coffee. He roasted and ground the beans himself, sweetened my coffee just right, and sold me a pound of beans. We made it through brushing teeth, jammies, and stories with no arguments, no tantrums, no injuries, and no shouting. We read stories together. It was great. It segued beautifully into cuddle time–which I’m proud to say I participate in every night (with the exception of the hospital stay and a few days when I was really sick). I sing the same songs every time. That’s the way he wants it.

Ian has next week off work and I’m planning on taking Lucas on a couple of Mommy and Lucas dates. We used to have these all the time. I hope some special one-on-one time will help him and be good for us both.

Poor Asher is having a hell of an evening! He’s been screaming his lungs out since about 5 p.m. This breaks my heart and hurts my eardrums and makes me desperate. The “colic” scream has a special make-your-ears-bleed shrieking quality to it. It’s hard when nothing in my repertoire helps him (nursing, singing, holding, diaper changes, carrying him in the sling, burping him, talking, dark rooms, walking outside, etc.).

Ian’s got him now and it sounds like Asher may have finally exhausted himself into oblivion.

Lucas told his first-ever on-purpose lie this morning. He told me when I got up that Daddy had already fed him his tofu and that he was ready for his cereal. (We have a rule about eating protein first, then cereal or other carb item–otherwise he won’t eat his protein because he fills up on cereal.) Daddy had already gone to work and I was fuzzy-headed from multiple night Asher feedings. I gave Lucas cereal before I noticed certain clues pointing to the fib: Daddy hadn’t made coffee, there was no tofu-with-soy-sauce dish in the sink, the tofu in the fridge looked to be the same size as yesterday when I put it there. Ah-ha! No breakfast was made or consumed before I woke up.

Lucas maintained his lie when I asked him about it. Then I called Daddy on the phone. Lucas erupted in tears while I talked to Ian. We parents are united and collaborative.

A peaceful time out and tofu eating followed. No animals or small children were harmed in the learning of this lesson.

He is getting so chunky! Not only does he have rolls now, his rolls have rolls.
His eyes are still dark blue.
He had two dimples in his smile, but they’ve disappeared in his magnificently round cheeks.
His toes are constantly flexing and opening, as if he’d like to grab onto things with them.
His hair is a light, reddish brown. It might fall out before too long–Lucas’s hair all around the sides and back of his head fell out until he had a mohawk.
He spits up fairly often. I think he eats until he pops.
Gas makes him really mad and uncomfortable, but he’s getting better about burping.
His chin is ticklish and he frequently smiles if you touch him there.
He likes to look at lights, windows, and the framed pictures on the wall.
He and I are now having little “conversations” in which I speak softly to him and he gazes into my eyes and replies with a variety of little sounds.
He has impossibly long fingers.
Somehow, every two days he accumulates a fistful of black lint that gets stuck between his fingers and in the creases of his hands despite regular bathing. I have no idea where this black lint is coming from. Everything he touches is white, yellow, light green or baby blue.
His first nap starts at 8:30 a.m. He naps off and on all day; usually he’s awake no more than an hour at a stretch.

This post is about my breasts. Sort of.

They’re working great! I’m so very, very happy to be breastfeeding Asher. For a while there, when I was so sick just days after Asher’s birth, my milk either dried up or failed to come in. On top of being extremely ill, this was emotionally devastating for me. It seems my body couldn’t fight the infection and make milk at the same time. And I was separated from my newborn for six days. Without the pumping I did every three hours around the clock while I was in the hospital and for several weeks, my plans to breastfeed Asher would have failed completely. I remember many pumping sessions where nothing emerged. It was painful, weird, and disappointing. Then eventually I got a few drops. Then a few milliliters: 5, 12, 17, 20! I pumped and dumped the milk down the drain for three weeks (too many drugs in my system to give the milk to Asher).

Nursing Lucas was one of the greatest pleasures about becoming a mother. After a few weeks of learning how to do it, we enjoyed a beautiful two-year nursing relationship. It was comforting and relaxing for both of us, a perfect bonding opportunity. Lucas still goes to sleep each night with his little hand down my shirt (nipple tweaking is not allowed). He rests his palm on my breast and relaxes into slumber.

So when I didn’t have any milk and was freaking out with anxiety, fear, loneliness, grief, and pain, I imagined never being able to nurse Asher. I imagined that without nursing, we’d have trouble bonding, that we’d always have problems communicating and trusting each other. I imagined a 4-year-old Asher asking me why his brother got two years of mama milk and he got none. I was really out-of-my-gourd crazy during that time.

The fact that I now CAN nurse this baby makes me so happy. None of my doomsday thoughts came to pass. With tremendous gratitude in my heart, I decided that the perfect way to give thanks would be to donate extra milk to the local milk bank, which is at The Birth Center where my kids were (supposed to be) born. The milk goes to feed premature and critically ill infants. Human breastmilk (obviously) is a far superior food for human babies. Incidentally, my mother gives blood consistently. She has given 50 gallons of blood in her life so far. I admire her for it very much, and I thought, Cool! I can give milk!

I applied to be a milk donor, and everything was going great until someone read on my questionnaire that I lived in Europe for 9 months in 1993-94. I am automatically disqualified from donating my milk because I have been exposed to Mad Cow disease! It’s weird and kinda funny. But it’s also deeply disappointing. It’s surprisingly disappointing.

Oh, and I’m now wearing a D cup.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/60111?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

RoRo broke her fell and broke her hip a week and a half ago. She had hip replacement surgery and spent 5 days in Mercy San Juan Hospital. Visiting her there, just weeks after my own stay there, was super-creepy: same lights, same sounds, same routine and uncomfortable procedures. She was even dressed in an identical hospital gown as the one I had. Yuck. She is now at Eskaton in Fair Oaks; she’s receiving care and physical and occupational therapy there. She’s ornery and bitchy and extremely demanding. But this is better than the wacky and delirious ramblings she was spouting after the surgery. Day by day she gets more lucid and normal. The bizzare things she’s been saying are evidence that surgery is traumatic to the body and the brain, especially to older people, they tell us. I’m happy that she is now less confused. We’ve been visiting her every other day or so, but I can never stay for more than a couple of hours. She wants to hold Asher the whole time I’m there. If I have to take him back from her, to feed him, for instance, she pouts. If I have to leave to pick up Lucas, she pouts. If I don’t come every day, she pouts.

I’m working a tiny bit. I have a client who would like me to be working more on a project that has a fast-approaching deadline. I have to buckle down and do it because I’ve made a commitment, but it’s hard. Asher is taking up all my time. Although he sleeps a lot, he doesn’t sleep very well or long when I’m not holding him. I’ve been getting computer time in chunks of 10 minutes here and there–not enough to accomplish much.

Lucas is doing well, although I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that sometimes he drives me crazy. I’ve been trying to keep him busy with fun things, play dates, etc. He has two weeks of spring break coming and I don’t know if we’ll both survive it. I can see that he is changing. His fifth birthday is only a month away.

I compose many LJ posts in my head but cannot seem to find a moment to input them, and before I know it, I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say. I rarely have two hands free and there are just so many jobs around here that require two hands!

I’m not getting enough sleep. I need a big 6-hour chunk and it’s just not gonna happen. This is discouraging at times. Thank heaven for 5-HTP. I’m taking two capsules per day and I think it’s helping my mood. I wish I had known about it when Lucas was an infant. Perhaps with it I wouldn’t have been so down and bluesy all the time.

My days are full of caregiving, household chores, occasional lunches out with friends or Ian, nursing, napping, and boredom.

Shit! I have $64.00 in library fines because I got sick and totally forgot I had books checked out! I can’t renew online because I’ve exceeded maximum level of sucky patronage allowed and must hang my head in shame and pay for my sins in person. $64.00! Goddamn!

EDIT: Went to the library today. It turns out that the max they will fine you on any single book is $5 (their website lies). I had two overdue books out, and some assorted tiny fines on some of Lucas’s books that were turned in late. Total damage = $14.60 I very happily payed the fine. They even let me renew them so I can finish reading them.

We’re doing this getting-to-know you dance now.

It’s like slowly filling in the gaps of information about a person after you’ve already fallen in love with him. Day by day we learn little things; we guess at what will make him happy, what will satisfy. We’re slowly learning his language. We wonder who he will be, who he will look like, whether his eyes will change from deep ocean blue to brown like mine or grey-green like Ian’s or slate blue like Lucas’s. We wonder what he will be amused by, what his laugh will sound like, when he’ll reach all his “milestones.”

I’ve been home now for six weeks. At first I felt disconnected from this tiny being, felt like an outsider coming into a family unit that was functioning without me (especially since I remained pretty sick for the two weeks following my discharge from the hospital). I didn’t know how to feed Asher formula from a bottle (having never done it before), what his sleeping/eating rhythms were, what tricks would comfort him. The last six weeks have been an intensive training time, during which he’s taught me all kinds of things.

I know now that he’s more of a snacker at the breast than a gorger. This means shorter intervals between nursing, which can be tiring. At first he seemed to prefer the bottle, possibly because the milk flows quicker. That seems to have changed though. I spent several weeks working to build up my milk supply (drinking gallons of water and special tea blends, taking fenugreek capsules until my body odor smells like maple syrup—go figure), and pumping with a torture device known as a Medela Symphony 2 (a $1400 breast pump we rented). For a while he was still drinking one bottle of Enfamil per day. It’s been at least a week and a half since Asher had any formula so I think we’re safely off it now and breastfeeding exclusively.

I know he prefers to sleep on me (or someone else) or in my arms to sleeping by himself. His favorite place to sleep seems to be at my side with his head just beneath my armpit and his body curled into my body. His cheek rests on my breast. He’ll sleep for hours this way, but if I move away to go do something else, he’ll sleep only a fraction of the time. Perhaps he likes my maple syrupy/milky smell. I know he doesn’t like to wake up alone. Already. I don’t blame him there. I don’t like to wake up alone either.

I know that the hours between 5 pm and 8 pm are especially hard for Asher. We call it Fuss O’Clock; other parents call it the Witching Hour because all babies go completely nuts during this important and hectic time of day. We’re trying assorted strategies to calm him, but the truth is most likely he’ll just have to grow out of it.

Asher can smile now at us know, and witnessing this new expression appear is like inhaling a breath of sweet spring air or watching the sun come out from behind a cloud. It’s a goofy and lopsided toothless grin and it melts my heart.