Rutabaga Dreams

I had forgotten what it was like to travel with a newborn.  Unfortunately they are not entertained by audiobooks, and you can’t hand them a snack and a sippy cup and expect all to be well.  We did reach the destination of our somewhat spontaneous trip though, only about an hour and a half later than we would have otherwise.  There was a point at about an hour in when I was really wondering if it would be better to just go back and forget the whole idea, but thankfully that ended up being the lowest point and it did get better from there.

As most of my readers know, there’s been a lot of fire activity in my part of California, and while there aren’t any fires all that close to where we are, we’re getting tons of smoke.  The smoke is so bad that everyone is being told to stay indoors and not do anything outside - which is not a lot of fun when you live in a little apartment.  Even in the apartment with everything closed up my head still aches, my sinuses hurt, and my eyes burn.  When I go outside I can feel it in my lungs and on my skin too, and I wonder how it is for Nathan.  Emma and Gregory seemed to be feeling it too, and they were not really appreciating being cooped up in the apartment.   Emma was supposed to have swim lessons all this week, but they’ve been cancelled because of the extremely poor air quality.  My mom had come up for a visit on Sunday to visit with Nathan and help out with the other two, and we all decided to head back to her house in the Bay Area today to escape.  

The drive was going well until I had to stop for gas, which of course woke up Nathan.  I stopped to feed him and he pooped, which necessitated an entire outfit change.  We drove for about another 20 minutes and he woke up again, needing to be fed.  I had fed him a great deal just before we left, but apparently it wasn’t enough!  Emma and Gregory were also complaining of being hungry, so I stopped at the first fast food place I could find and got the kids out of the car.  I found Nathan soaked for no apparent reason, so I dug out the diaper bag and hauled that into the restaurant as well.  The restaurant had no diaper changing station in the bathroom (argh!!) so I just held him and nursed him, wet, while we all ate.  I changed him once again - diaper, outfit and all - in the driver’s seat (not the easiest thing in the world…  sometimes I do wish we had a bigger car!) and found out that we had a (*ahem*) positioning error.  You’d think with having one boy already I would have thought of that…  but apparently not.  But at least at this point everyone was fed, dry, and relatively happy again.  We hit the road again and thankfully made it almost the rest of the way with everyone quite content.  Nathan woke up shortly after we got off the freeway, but we made it to my Mom’s without too much trauma and I fed him while my Mom unloaded the car.  

So now we’re here, and I’m not looking forward to getting in the car to go home this weekend!  I think I might try driving in the evening, after dinner.  Perhaps that will help…  or maybe we’ll leave at around 2, when Nathan usually takes a long nap?  I’ll have to think about it.  But for now I’m glad to be here, and thankful for the change of scenery and the increased amount of play space for the kids!

1.  I can make french toast and nurse a baby in a sling.  Yay me!

2.  92 degree temperature + working in full sun in the garden for an hour and a half + baby in a fleece pouch = very hot, red, and sweaty baby and mommy.  And that cotton pouch is looking better and better…

3.  Why on earth did I hear bagpipes being played at great length this afternoon?  Oh, right, I live next door to a cemetery.  Too bad the bagpipe player wasn’t a little more talented…  

4.  I can go grocery shopping with three children!    Although, really, Nathan has been with us these last nine months - and in some ways it is easier to do things with him in the pouch than it was when he was still in utero.  I certainly have more flexibility and energy now than when I was pregnant!

5.  I have no idea - I used to though.  I wish that nursing didn’t reduce my brain power and memory by at least 20%.  

Speaking of which, Nathan has noticed my absence.  I leave you with this picture, which I call “One down, one to go”

You haven’t lived until you’ve chased a toddler around the family room in order to wipe his hands while nursing a newborn.

Gregory:  Nathan drink Mommy’s fresh milk!

A couple days later after repeating this refrain just about every time he saw me nursing…

Gregory:  Nathan drink Mommy’s fresh soy milk!

So far things are going pretty well.  Granted, Matt hasn’t gone back to work yet (that happens tomorrow, yikes!) but we’ve started to figure out what Nathan likes and dislikes.  The big likes are nursing (duh - but thankfully not as in “I must be doing this all the time or I will scream”), the fleece pouch (which I see now comes in cotton and other fabrics…  tempting!), and being held so he can watch either his parents or his siblings.  He most emphatically does not like dairy in my diet (sigh).  He is sleeping pretty well - we usually get one five hour stretch with about one and a half hours on each side.  So far he is much more like Gregory than Emma in temperament (although I wonder if I had figured out the dairy thing with Emma earlier if things would have been a lot more pleasant for everyone!), and looks like him a lot too.  I think he’s going to have brown eyes and brown hair though, so the resemblance will not be immediately obvious.  

Emma has decided she wants to start doing a little bit of school again.  She was trying to do some writing and was having trouble with it, and got frustrated with what she didn’t know and had forgotten.  She wants to do spelling/handwriting practice, math (so long as it doesn’t involve worksheets), and Latin.  For the spelling/handwriting she’s working on a fairy tale using free paper from Notebooking Pages (funny how nifty paper can be such a motivator).  For math we’re going to do a variety of math games, some from the Math-U-See teacher’s book and some of our own devising.  Yesterday we made a board game and played it using two ten sided dice and a +/- die.  We’re reviewing Latin with flash cards that she can go through and review or match together.

I feel pretty comfortable about the mornings through the early afternoon, but I’m not entirely sure what we’ll do after about 2:30.  At that point my energy starts to fail, Gregory starts to fall apart, and the dog needs to be fed and the garden watered at the property.  I probably should just drag myself out to the property, plop myself in a chair and let the kids run around to burn off some energy (being stuck in this little apartment all day is not good for any of us!) but I think getting myself moving will be challenging.  I’m not sure I’m going to have much of a choice though!

Here are some more photos for everyone.  Enjoy!

Here’s the closest I’ve come to a picture of Gregory and Nathan together.  We took them out to the property yesterday and they were both zonked by the time we got there.  (And notice how we’ve been able to put 3 carseats across the back of our Subaru Impreza?  I’m so glad that we’re going to be able to use this car as our family car for another year…  especially with gas now at $4.59/gal!)

Emma loves to pat Nathan’s head - I’m not entirely sure why.  This was taken today during a particularly long alert period.

As you can see, Nathan is quite fascinated with Emma too!

And this is what Gregory was doing while the two above pictures were being taken this afternoon.  Doesn’t this look like the result of a toddler bender or something?

And while I’m sure this is no where near as fun as baby pictures, here’s a shot of our garden as it was yesterday.  

And for comparison’s sake, the photo below was taken almost exactly one year ago. but a little to the left.

And this is after quite a bit of chain saw work already!  Whenever I feel like progress is slow, it always helps to go back and look at old pictures like this.  After all, I’m standing where the house is now in the picture above!

Nathan is now a little over 24 hours old, and he’s doing wonderfully.  He’s nursing like a champ, and doing all that other lovely newborn baby stuff.  Both of his grandmas have been able to meet him, and Emma and Gregory are back in the apartment as well.  Emma is enthralled with her new brother, and loves to hold him and watch him.  Gregory is not too sure about the whole baby thing, and would prefer to just ignore Nathan’s presence for the time being.  He’s warming up to him bit by bit though, and I do catch him quietly watching Nathan.  He was quite fascinated by the whole diaper changing process in particular.  I’m doing well too, recovering nicely and enjoying sitting in bed, nursing Nathan, reading to the kids, and visiting.  Matt has been doing lots of laundry as well as keeping people fed, so that has been wonderful.  

The birth was not really as I expected, but it went quite well.  I had expected to go into labor at night, and to have things proceed pretty quickly.  Instead I started having contractions at about 9 a.m. and then didn’t have him until a little after 6:30 p.m.  The contractions were reasonably strong and regular, but they just stayed at 6-7 minutes apart all day long.  Matt came home at around 9:45 and Matt’s mom took the kids at about 10, and we let the midwives know what was going around then as well.  They came by and set up around 11:30 or so, then left to go walk around downtown and do some errands.  We had their pager number to give them a ring when things got more intense.  Matt and I spent a quiet day taking walks, resting, playing a game, and hanging out together in our very still apartment.  It was a rather strange day, all in all - we haven’t had a day like that in I don’t know how long.  I was perfectly comfortable, since the contractions, while strong and about a minute long, were leaving no impression on the resting time in between.  

At about 3:30 I called the midwives to let them know how things were going and to see if perhaps I should start taking the homeopathics again (they gave me them at Tuesday’s appointment, and I had taken some on Tuesday afternoon and evening, as well as in the morning when the contractions started) or if I should take some of the labor tincture they had also given me at my 41 week appointment.  They said that either would be fine, but that the labor tincture would probably be more useful at that point, so I started taking that every 30 minutes as they directed me.  It did help to speed things up, and after three doses the contractions were much stronger although not that much closer together.  I was resting upstairs during this time, and realized I had been totally drifting in labor land for almost an hour so I figured I should probably let Matt know what was going on.  It was good timing, because two-three contractions later my water broke (this is at about 5:10) and things definitely got moving along!  Matt called the midwives and they were here by about 5:30.  I started transition at about 5:50 or so, then was ready to push by about 6:20.  And then at 6:36, there was Nathan Michael!  I could tell right away that he was a big boy - he was much more *ahem* interesting to push out than the other two.  With them the hard part was the head, and then the rest just followed…  with this guy I had to work to get his linebacker shoulders and his sturdy little torso out as well.  I was definitely challenging at the time, but of course all was immediately forgotten afterwards in the joy of finally getting to meet him!

So all in all, not quite as mellow of an experience as Gregory’s birth, but still everything went extremely well and I’m really pleased with how the labor went.  And of course I’m ecstatic about meeting our new little guy and very happy not to be pregnant anymore…  for now at least.  ;-)  

Nathan Michael

Born: 6:36 PM at home

Weight: 9 lbs 8 oz

Length: 21 1/2 inches

Everyone is doing well. I am tired, but comfortable and happy to be able to hold him.

More to follow.

The tomatoes and squash are finally planted in our new garden area!  Matt very kindly took a break from working on the house to help me prepare the soil by removing sticks and branches and turning the soil.  I feel somewhat guilty for this because it means he hasn’t been working on the house, but on the other hand, there’s just no way I can do what he did at this point in my pregnancy.  

We went out after work, ate our picnic dinner, and then got to digging and planting.  It was really neat to be out there working as a family on it all.  Gregory picked up sticks, raked and dug random holes, Emma worked on her little flower area and on finding worms in the compost pile and seeding them in garden, and I planted out our 10 tomatoes and 17 squash plants.  We planted Better Boy, Early Girl, Jelly Bean and Sungold tomatoes, two types of pumpkins, zucchini, and yellow squash.  We still have some basil and cucumbers that need to be planted, but they aren’t quite ready yet.  I was pretty impressed at what I was able to do, even at 41 weeks along.

It was quite a productive and enjoyable evening - too bad we didn’t bring the camera!  Now if we could just have this baby…