Oh What Comes Out of a Babe's Mouth.

Bathing Cherry...

I'm washing her face, and she starts fussing and wriggling away from me.

I say: "Oh stop it! It's not like you're going to die!"

Cherry says: "I dying mom! I dying!"

Cherry's got jokes.

This joke was told a few months ago by my precious two year old. But I forgot to write about it then, and I figured it was important to document it.


Knock knock

Who's there?

Banana.

Banana who?

EAT IT!!!!


The joke has now morphed into:

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Banana

Banana who?

BANANA CHEEKS!!

My Baby *sniff* (updated)

From the moment I got pregnant with Cherry, I knew that if I had a girl, I would wait as long as humanly possible to cut her hair. My plan was to wait until she asked to get it cut. After being a regular reader of Belinda's blog, and noticing that she hadn't cut her daughter's hair until she was three years old, I was adamant that I was going wait and to do the same thing.

Until recently. When I noticed a bunch of split ends. In Cherry's baby fine hair. SPLIT ENDS! NOOOOO!

At the time, Armondo and I were cuddled with her in her bed reading a bedtime story. I said out loud how I noticed she needed a cut, and I started quietly whining to Armondo about how much I really didn't want to do that!

But then I asked Cherry if she wanted a hair cut.

Her answer: "LET'S GO!"

"Ha ha, sorry sweety, not right now! You have to go to bed now; we'll do it another day!"

That was a couple of weeks ago, and every day I've brushed her hair and almost shed tears thinking about losing her baby curls.

To me, it's more than just the curls though. It's the "baby" part. Because I had Peach so soon after Cherry, Cherry didn't have much time to be the "baby". She was out of her crib early, (partially due to the baby coming, partially due to the fact that she's CRAZY and would climb everything and was thisclose to being able to climb out of the crib.) She had her jolly jumper and swing taken away early (more because we were trying to sell the house, and our realtor told us to get them out of the way.) and I put away all of the "baby" toys on her first birthday when I replaced them all with toddler toys. (Those baby toys will be leaving the house soon all together, because honestly, I can't stand them, so Peach will be deprived of her baby toys soon too!)

Cherry was also a pretty early walker, and was fearless from day one. I wouldn't go so far as to say that she's "gifted" or a child genius, but she's always been able to talk circles around kids her age. Those two factors, combined with her being tall, have also made her less of a baby to me.

The only thing left that was "baby" was her curls. And I was so sad thinking about them being cut off. Even if she had a rat's nest mullet.

But today was the day.

Getting up onto the big chair.


This is actually a look of excitement, not fear.


"So, what do you want me to do, exactly?"

"Umm.. she has split ends, and I really don't want you to cut off her curls, but *sniff* if that's all you can do, then *sniff* I guess that's ok."

"Well, I can just take a little bit off. I don't have to take off that much."

"*sniff* ok, just do what you have to do!"




The little sister, waiting patiently.

NOT sitting still. Not even for a sucker. But not freaking out either.

Still waiting....

And Voila! All done. Still mullety....

But she still has curls!!! I big puffy heart the hair dresser!

And Cherry was so happy with her sucker, her new weird comb thing, and her new "hair tut" that she did a little pigeon toed dance for everyone in the waiting area!

And in the end, I survived. And I didn't actually cry. Mostly. And, actually once it completely dried, it actually looked quite cute. Even if it IS still a mullet. Poor kid.

Oh yeah, and Cherry did fine too.


ETA: Now, the day after, I LOVE the haircut! It's so cute! And she had random comments on it today when we were out. The curls and waves are adorable! Getting her hair cut was a GREAT IDEA! Ha ha

Cherry's "E I O Dirday Party!"

She has been begging for a barnyard themed birthday party for months, and this is the result. (Her actual birthday and the family party are tomorrow.)



Cherry playing in the hay pile. I hid a bunch of toys in the pile, and all the kids searched through it to find the prizes. One other adult, Cherry, and I, all had allergic reactions to all the hay being thrown around by the kids. All three of us took benedryl to get over it, and I managed to get by relatively unscathed, but my friend ended up almost passing out due to the drugs, and Cherry ended up with hives on her cheeks. And she's off today with Armondo to get her 2 year portraits done. She had marks on her face for the last set of portraits done with the cousins at Easter! Oh well!

Armondo and I drew pig and cow faces on balloons, and had the kids "herd" them into the barn I made out of a fridge box.


This is Cherry waiting for her cake as we all sang Happy Birthday. She's watched so much TV that she knew exactly what was happening and was very good at sitting still!


In fact, she has seen so much tv that she knew to blow out the candle without being told to! (No, I am not proud of the fact that my child watches so much TV. But when Armondo is gone for weeks at a time, it's pretty much my only saving grace, and the only way to get her to be calm for awhile so that I can cook or clean or poop. She watches much less TV when Armondo is home.)

A close up of one of the "pig" cupcakes I made. The other ones were cows and sheep, but really, only the pigs looked all that great. I made the cake and the frosting from scratch! Overall, it didn't taste all that great, but I'm still proud that I put all that effort in. Next time the cake and frosting are coming from a box. Cheaper and faster, and will leave more time for decorating.


Cherry eating her pig. She only ate the frosting. Her nose is running from the hay inhalation.

Some of the other kids eating.


The "akk, the sun is in our eyes, and dang it, I still have my pig ears on" family shot in front of the barn I made.

For some reason, blogger won't let me put a title in! This is just a quick catch up post, to be followed by a photo post of Cherry's second birthday party!

I'm doing a bit better. The meds are helping with my PPD. Some days it's still hard to get out of bed, especially on days that I don't have any real plans or "purpose" to my day. Luckily, I've been really busy lately, so there haven't been many of those days!

Armondo has been home for awhile now. When he first came home, we had a few days of awkwardness as we worked through some issues. Things were starting to get bad between us, but I think we were able to really talk through what was bothering us, and I can say that both of us are making an effort to be better towards each other. There's no need for me to go into detail, or even record what was going on, 'cause it's just water under the bridge now. Re hashing it might just bring up bad feelings.

I've been reaching out and making more friends who have kids. I was really worried that by the time that Cherry's birthday party occurred, that there wouldn't be any children there for her! But somehow, I was able to make enough friends in a short period of time in order to have a relatively large party for her. It's funny how in high school, you strive to have friends and be somewhat popular, just so you don't feel like an idiot, then you have a few years off after school where you can just pick and choose who you want to hang out with, and it doesn't really matter, but then you have kids, and all of a sudden you have to make friends again so that THEY have friends!

Peach is still pretty much a cute little lump who doesn't do that much. She's almost 6 months old, is signing for milk, is smiling lots, loves her sister, and is almost getting teeth. I can't leave her alone on any "surface" anymore, 'cause she can scoot right off, but I think it'll be a little while until she's crawling.

Cherry is full of funny phrases. She's full of "I wuv you"s and "What zat noise?"es. She is a never ending chatterbox, and is very polite. Lots of please and thank yous and excuse mes. She now know her basic shapes, and can count to ten with some prompting. She loves to sing and will often mix her favourite songs together into a cute medley. She also sings songs about her sister. There's this TV show we watch about a bunny, and the lyrics to the opening go like this: "Miffy, cute little bunny, Miffy, smart little bunny," etc. Well, ever since Cherry was about a year old, we've been replacing "Miffy" with Cherry's name and "bunny" with "baby." Well, now Cherry will sing the song replacing "Miffy" with "DeDe" (the nickname she calls her sister) and will sing "DeDe, cute little baby!"

And umm.. let's not talk about potty training. 'Cause it's not happening. And there's nothing to talk about. Cherry's going to be in diapers until she's 12.

And with that, I will end this post and start posting the birthday party photos.

Cuddle Time.

This heat and the long days is making regular bed times an impossibility. Last night Peach woke up at about 10:30 and refused to go back to sleep until 1am. I blame the heat and all the sweat she woke up drenched in. Cherry has been going to her ROOM at her regular 7pm bedtime, but hasn't gone to sleep before 9:30pm in several days. She's usually happy to just play and sing quietly in her room until she falls asleep. But sometimes, she sort of gets a little out of hand when she trashes her room.
That's right, she's sleeping UNDER her mattress, and is using her blanket as a pillow. When I went in there and removed the mattress from her, and put it back on her bed, she very quietly woke up, said "Thank you mommy" in the cutest little voice and crawled onto her bed and went back to sleep.

Tonight (Saturday night) she wasn't so happy just playing in her room and trashing it quietly. Tonight she was upset because she was "all wet mommy." (Covered in sweat). So, I asked her if she wanted to cuddle. (I know, cuddling doesn't exactly solve the sweat problem, but I thought it would make her feel better, and I don't really get much alone time with either one of my kids, so I thought I'd take advantage of the situation.)

She was super excited about cuddling, and so was I, really, 'cause it's only been a few months now that she's actually let me cuddle with her since she was a little baby. And I mean REALLY cuddle. And she's not shy about the kisses now either, which is excellent!

ANYWAY... we cuddled for awhile, but she was no where near ready to go to sleep, and after several rounds of "I love you"s and talking about how much fun we had at the beach today, I decided it was time to go to sleep. So, I rolled over and pretended to sleep, complete with full out fake snoring. Cherry tried EVERYTHING to get my attention. She was calling out "Mommy, mommy, I love you!" and stroking my hair and everything. It was very cute, and I did an EXCELLENT job at continuing to fake snore and not crack a smile.

But then she got me.

When she knocked on my head and said....

"Knock, knock, Helllooooo? Anybody home?"

I totally cracked up laughing, which sent her into a fit of laughter, which turned into a tornado of kisses.

Then she let me tuck her in and she went right to sleep.

Aww, I love being a mom.

The Kids.

I really want to blog. But now that so much time has passed, it feels like there's so much "catching up" to do, that I just don't know where to start! So, I'll just tell you about the kids. Of course!

On May 23rd, Peach sat on her own, which of course happened at play group when I didn't have my camera. And hasn't happened since. But I had witnesses! And now that she's old enough to sit on her own, she can now go in her jumper!


Cherry is a big fan of HOCKEY! and was super excited when we bought some hockey sticks.


Not quite as exciting, but still pretty fun, is her new t-ball set.

Also fun, is her new (used and still dirty, but I know where the dirt came from) playground equipment. She's seen here with her friend O.L.



And here she is, sitting in "time out" after repeatedly pushing her friend O.L. She ACTUALLY stayed there when I put her there. First time she had a real time out, and I think it worked! It ended with her saying sorry to her friend, and she didn't push him again.

Weird Kid.

So, I'm vacuuming my bedroom, and Cherry is up on my bed watching me, when the following conversation occurs:

Cherry: Want some, want SOME!!!!

Me: Huh? What do you want?

Cherry: Want some, want SOME!!! *wildly jumps up and down on my bed*

Me: I'm sorry sweety, I don't understand what you want.

Cherry: *randomly pointing her finger* Want SOME!

Me: *cluing in* Oh!!! You want me to vacuum you?!?!

Cherry: Okay!!!!







What a weirdo!

Their love is rock steady.

She took some of her favourite things and took them for a ride in the stroller.

Took them all around the house....What are they? They are her beloved rocks. So beloved, in fact....





That she took them to bed.

Cherry "used" the potty!

I heard her grunting and saw her squatting, so I swooped her up and put her on the potty, and SUCCESS! For the first time. So, she got some chocolate and a sticker (chocolate for sitting on the potty; sticker for completing the task.)

And then Jacy stealthily snuck into the bathroom and ate the contents of the potty.

I hate dogs.

I know they're saggy.... but?

Cherry and I always rehearse body parts. This usually takes place during bath or diaper time, and usually consists of the basics: Eyes, earrrrs, nose, mouf, kneeees, etc.

Yesterday, as I was changing her diaper, we were going through the list when suddenly Cherry grabs my breasts and yells out "KNEEEEEES!"

Thanks kid.

Ketchup with Cherry.

Cherry hasn't ceased to amaze me these past couple of weeks. Every day she comes up with some new phrase or saying that just cracks me up. A lot of it is mimicking, of course, but sometimes when she says stuff, and it really fits for the occasion, it just blows my mind.

Some of her current sayings:

"Momma, (or Daddy, or DeDe) where are yoooouuuuu?"
"Let's go, let's go!"
"Bwush tee! chussh shish shish" (Brush teeth with sounds)

She can count to three, which she's been doing for months now, but I don't think I've documented it. But she can only do it in one language, which makes me think she's not watching enough Dora.

She can identify hearts and stars and circles, but has no interest in squares or triangles, etc.

She's still as crazy as ever at the playground, and today figured out how to climb UP the slide at the park. A very TALL slide. And no, I didn't have my camera. We might go back there tomorrow though.

She's starting to be more of a cuddler, which I'm enjoying immensely, and I'm thankful that Armondo is home right now so I can pass off Peach in order to spend time with my first born.

But the biggest news:

She will now sit on the potty.

That's it. No peeing or pooing on the potty. Just sitting. And she gets her tiny piece of chocolate reward. This is a HUGE event though. Just last week she would cry and run away from the potty if we mentioned it. (I have no idea why-there was never any tragic event, I don't think.) And now, she'll ask to sit on it. Obviously she's only asking in order to get chocolate, but hey, it's a start! I'm not expecting any quick progress in this area, and in fact, I'm not even totally ready for her to learn how to use the potty. We're planning on a huge road trip in the summer, and I'd hate to have to pull over every time she felt the urge to pee. Diapers might be easier. But then, there's that whole "impact on the Earth" thing that I feel so guilty about. *sigh*

She's going through some terrible face problems right now, which sucks. Her nose has this crusty scab in one nostril and it hasn't stopped running for two weeks now. It looks horrible, and it hurts her to wipe it, so most of the time we just let it run. Which is pretty gross, and makes me one of those parents that lets their kid run around with a snotty face. I always said I wouldn't be one of those mothers. Grr. She also has a pretty bad case of acne right now too, which is unfortunate. Needless to say, there hasn't been a lot of photos taken of her so far this month. I hope things clear up a bit before Sunday, 'cause we're doing all of our Easter celebrations that day at the MIL's house, and all the cousins are still around. And where there's cousins, there's many, many photos being taken. Oh, and that zit I mentioned, like 8 months ago that was on her chin? Still there. It's been there for about a year now, if not more. The same zit. Never goes away. Unlike before though, I don't get the chance to pop it as often as I used to.

So, it's midnight now, and I should head to bed. I might write something interesting for YOU guys someday soon. We'll see!

Torturing my children.

Today Peach rolled over from her back to her front. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures until she sort of rolled back onto her side, but dang it, I tried...

You can sort of see in this picture that her hips are both on the bed, front down!
And I didn't help her roll back onto her back until she started crying. That was child torture event number one today.


***

I've been having a lot of trouble getting Cherry to let me brush her teeth lately. Most times I'm met with screams and kicking when the toothbrush is placed anywhere in the vicinity of my first born. So I thought I'd try a battery powered toothbrush.

"Hey! This looks pretty cool!"

"Hmmm... Maybe I'll give it a try!"

"Yep, yep, I could live with this! Hey mom, I bet you're wondering why you didn't think of this earlier, eh?"

"Ahhhh, pure teeth brushing pleasure!"

After five minutes, I tried to take the brush away from her. I tried again after ten. At fifteen, I figured it would be a darn good idea for this kid to stop brushing before she took the enamel right off her teeth.

Cherry, however, thought that taking the brush away was the worst idea EVER!

Thus ends child torture event number two. Good thing there's still a few hours left before the end of the night. I might be able to torture them some more.

What Cherry's been up to!

Cherry, my darlin' girl, you're such a joy to hang out with these days! Every day you come up with new phrases or activities that just make me smile with joy. You're becoming such a cool little person and at just over 20 months old, it's been awhile since I've documented your phrases and favourites, so here, is a sampling.

We'll start with some of your favourites.

Movies:
~"Non-Hee" (Monkey movie, aka Curious George.)
~"Fiss-hee" (Fishy movie, aka Finding Nemo)

TV shows:
~"Non-Hee" (Monkey show, aka Curious George.)
~"Ollie, Ollie, Ollie" (Rollie Pollie Ollie)
~You also like anything "ELMO!"

Foods:
~"Ssssssnick" (snakes aka, curly fries.)
~"Teeessse!" (cheese)
~"Seer ee oh" (Cereal)
~"Snack" (any kind of food that comes in a package that we feed you between meals, but usually refers to granola bars.)

Beverages:
~"Na!" (Milk),
~"Dooce" or "jus" (said the french way for juice.)
~"Wow-ow" (water).

Hard to choose between some of your favourite things! What do you go for? The snakes? The soother? or the juice?

Things:
~"Soo Zdurr" (soother)
~"Non-Hee" (You have three stuffed Monkeys, including a Curious George one, and you also like your "Barrel of Monkeys")
~You also love your Dollies, which, when you talk about them, sounds like you're calling them "daddy", which is pretty funny to me sometimes.
~You have taken over some of Daddy's Star Wars figurines, and you love Chewy the best. When he's in the house, you'll take him to bed with you, and when he's in the car, you'll hold on to him the whole car ride, and I'll hear "MmmWA!" over and over as you give your furry friend kiss after kiss. The rest of the Star Wars figures are cool too, but not as good as him.
~"Fwower! Woks!" (Flowers and Rocks-which you collect on our walks.)

Flower in one hand, rocks in the other-PERFECT!

~Your pink flower blanket, which you have yet to name, which surprises me, 'cause you really, truly love it. In fact, one day, when you saw that I had put Peach on it, I saw the quiver in your lip and the rage in your eyes, so I quickly scooped up your sister and avoided near disaster!

Activities:
~"Walk!" (said faster than normal though, making sound more like "Wok")
~"Snow!" (play in snow)
~"Pway!" (go to play group)
~"Pooo!" (go to the pool)
~You also like to step on your sister which makes "De de sad!" (baby sad) But to make up for it, you say "Sew wee" (sorry) and you give her a kiss.
~Another thing you like to do is "Seeee!" (Which means colour with crayons, but sounds nothing like it!)

~You also like to talk on the phone, real or play, or anything that sort of looks like a phone. (Like remotes, etc) One day, when your sister was crying, you said into a fake phone "De De Sad!" When talking to your daddy, you said "See soon" (see you soon) and a few days later (Feb 25th), you told my grandmother "Dunno say!" as you shrugged your shoulders (I don't know what to say). These were some of your first real sentences.

~You also like to sing, and you usually make up your own songs. You often sing about "NAnnie", "Osssie", "Jee Cee", and "Fwowers". (Annie, Ozzy, Jacy and flowers) Sometimes you'll also sing about Momma, DeDe and Daddy. You will also sing songs from TV shows and movies, with "Ollie, Ollie, hoo aay, Yay!" (He's Rollie, Pollie, Hurray, Hurray) and "Fwip Fwap Fwy!" (Flip Flap and Fly) being among your favourites. You also attempt to sing the "Wonder Pets" song, which is a song we sing together with you filling in the blanks.

Me: "Linny, Tuck.."
You: "Ning ning oooh!" (Ming Ming too)
Me: "We're wonder pets, and we'll help you. What's gonna to work?"
You: "Eee Ook!" (Team work)
Me: "What's gonna work?"
You: "Eee ook!"

~You like to play with all of your toys, and part of the joy of playing with them is removing them ALL from their proper places. You're always quick to help clean up though. You just get distracted easily. And you now know the proper answer to "Heeeeyyy, WHO MADE THIS BIG MESS!" which I ask you every evening, and to which you always reply with a huge grin: "NeeeEEE?" (Me?)

Part of your mess making includes taking all of your clothes out of your drawers and, now, your new thing is to throw the clothes in your dirty laundry basket, which is a habit I SO DON'T APPROVE OF, but I'm able to laugh about it, 'cause every time I open your drawers to put your clothes back, there's always some sort of little prize to be found from sippy cups to teddy bears to neatly lined up Little People.

Other things you say and do:

~"Momma, Daddy, I Tuck!" (Momma, Daddy, I'm stuck!) When ever you're stuck or hurt, or whining, you always yell "Momma, Daddy" instead of just picking one of us. It's pretty cute.

~"A HOW! A HOW!" (Help! Help!) you've learned to yell this when you REALLY need us, and are not just whining. When you use this term, it's usually combined with "I tuck!" as you seem to get yourself into the strangest spots sometimes. (Legs caught in your headboard, climbing half way up shelves and can't get down, twisted through the bottom rungs of your rocking chair, flopped over your toy horse-head down, etc.)

~"EEEWWWW!" Said while changing your diaper.

~"Pleah" Said while sticking out your tongue, and is a companion term to the above.

~"A Hans!" Commanding me to let you wash your hands.

~"A teess!" (Brush teeth.)

~"Neeeerrrooom!" Said when listening to airplanes fly over our house, which is in a landing path for a small airport. You also make the sign language sign for it, but you wrap your ring finger awkwardly around your pinky, which makes no sense at all, as it's not the easiest thing to do!

~"Yee Haw!" Said when riding your toy horse, seeing a horse, talking about horses, etc.

~"Ollie Ollie ollie Yee Haw!" Your yodel, which started a couple of months ago, which is a combination of "Rollie Pollie Ollie" and Yee Haw.

~"Seeee!" (Oopies!) Said when you drop something. (slightly different than the "seee" used to describe crayons, or when you say you want to see something)

~"Duh Dye" (Buh bye.)

~You also say "Peeeesss" and "Tan you". And you're always good to say "sssuuse me!" when you fart or burp.

~You also say "Huuuh?" in a long, drawn out, inquisitive voice, which always cracks me up, and which made me think for a minute "now where could she have got THAT from!?!" (answer=me)

~Any time you hear your sister talk or cry, you yell "De De!" and run to her. You're also quick to give her kisses and cuddles and you're always sharing with her. Even when it's something she totally could not find any use for!

Cherry sharing her crayons with Peach.

~Bed time is also a fun ritual with you. You love "stow-ees" and one of your favourites these days is Robert Munsch's "I'll Love You Forever" which you so fondly refer to as the "Momma!" story. It's a great (but sad) book, and I love to rock you back and forth as I sing the lyrics to the song in the book. When Daddy is out at sea working, we'll also pray for his safety every night, and every time I mention him, you yell "Daddy!" in a very enthusiastic voice that makes me giggle. One night recently I said "Yes, we're praying for Daddy! Do you love your Daddy?" To which you answered with an enthusiastic nod. Then I asked you "Do you love ME??" to which you answered by rolling over and closing your eyes. (You brat!)

There are many more things you say and do that amuse me everyday, but the list is so long there would be no way for me to record it all. But I will try, and I will be adding stuff to the end of this list as it comes up.

Just do it outside, ok?

Funny how when a year and a half old comands a dog to "sit", it can sound a lot like a command to do something completely different.

Wisdom From CeCe (with two new ones I forgot last night)

~It is acceptable to wear a toque to the dinner table when your wood stove is malfunctioning and your house is an ice box!

~When the power goes out, and leaves three digital clocks flashing, it is ok to only re-set one. And when you (accidentally) re-set that one an hour ahead, it's ok to (purposely) leave it like that, 'cause you've got to change the time on all of your clocks in a month anyway.

~It is perfectly fine to wash your kid's shoes in the kitchen and leave all the dishes for another day.

~It is also perfectly fine to leave those shoes in the dish drying rack.

~But don't wash all the shoes in one day, 'cause then your kid will have no shoes to wear.

~Be careful when "testing" your freshly boiled perogies. I went to try one, and boiling water dribbled out, burned me, and left a blister on my lip that looks like a cold sore. And it bloody hurts!

~Taking a walk at dusk with your two little ones just to see if you can "find some horsies" can be a lot of fun. Even when it takes you so long to walk up the road that it's dark by the time you get to the farms and the horses have "gone to bed", the walk itself can be fun as you pick snow drop flowers and gaze at the moon and point out the geese flying overhead.

~It is ok to take 48 pictures of one child in 10 minutes just to get a couple really good ones. (red eye doesn't count.)

Why It's Awesome to Have Handy Relatives!

Her uncle made her this toy/hope chest and brought it over for her today. He's 17 years old and on his way to being a pro woodworker!

I'll blog more soon, I promise!

You know Daddy's been in charge when...

She goes to playgroup in the middle of winter wearing a light spring dress.

AND...

Later that day, wakes up from her nap and she's still wearing her BOOTS.


Not that I'm criticizing or anything... I just think it's funny!

Breast Feeding-the early days.

I never understood why women would get so upset if breast feeding didn't work out for them and their babies. I've heard many stories of babies who didn't latch properly, women who didn't have enough milk, and babies who couldn't tolerate the proteins in their own mother's milk. To me, it didn't seem like a big deal. I mean, just buck up and buy some formula already, what's the big deal?

I understand now. Peach is a good eater. She's been getting plenty of milk, and had surpassed her birth weight by several ounces in less than a week. She doesn't, however, quite have the latch down yet.

The other day, she ripped one of my nipples to shreds to the point where I stopped nursing her on that side and just expressed and froze the milk so that that nipple would have some time to heal. By the end of the day, it seemed to have healed enough to try again, and we had a successful day and a half using both breasts.

This morning, my midwife came for a scheduled visit and we discussed the latching problems. She observed, and saw that Peach's mouth was wide enough open, and that she seemed to have a good latch overall. I could see this as well, and thought that maybe we had it all worked out. My midwife went on to suggest switching up on different nursing positions in order to change up the spots where the most stress was, as well as showed me some ways to utilize pillows better to keep Peach's latch. When the midwife left, I was feeling confident that from there on in, Peach and I would have this whole nursing thing down pat.

That is, until early this evening when I looked down while she was feeding and watched as the blood pooled around her mouth and my nipple and ran down my belly. She got me good. Real good.

Right away, I took her off the breast and started to thaw out some expressed milk so she could have a bottle. For the past couple of nights, I've been giving Armondo bottles to feed her so they could have some bonding time while I got things done, like shower.

I told my midwife about the bottle a night thing, and of course, she told me what I knew already: feeding a young baby a bottle can cause nipple confusion and can lead to latching problems.

So, after I took her off the breast and handed her to Armondo to hold while I thawed out some milk, I couldn't help but start crying. Here I was, making her a bottle so that she's not ripping my nipples to shreds some more, because she has a bad latch, but in making her drink out of a bottle, I'm making it harder for her to learn how to latch properly. It seemed like a bit of a vicious circle, and at that particular moment, as I took Peach back from Armondo, and started feeding her the bottle, I could not see any way of resolving this issue. Armondo was finishing up giving Cherry a bath at the time, and I sat in the living room feeding Peach with tears running down my face.

I had calmed down significantly by the time Cherry's story time came around and all four of us went into her room to take part. Cherry was drinking her last bottle of the day as Daddy read the story, and I had Peach in my lap and she was drinking her bottle.

Well, Cherry finished her bottle first, and wanted Peach's bottle. She has never shown any interest or want for the breast (she was weened at five months), but when she saw Peach sipping at that bottle, Cherry wanted it. NOW. She started tantruming, so I handed Peach to Armondo, and they made their exit while I tried to calm Cherry down and explain to her how the milk was different, and that she had already finished her bottle anyway. Yeah. She's 18 months. I'm pretty sure the whole concept flew over her head. So she screamed. And screamed. She wouldn't let me hold her, she wouldn't get into her bed, she would not let me help her calm down. So, I turned off the light and left her in her room. Then I went to the couch (Armondo was in our bedroom with Peach), and I sobbed by myself for the next 15 minutes while Cherry pounded on her door and continued to tantrum about the injustice of it all.

So, now, not only was I failing Peach by giving her a bottle, and further ruining any chance of getting this latch thing down right, but I have also upset Cherry, who otherwise had had a pretty tantrum-free day.

I felt like a pretty crummy mother.

See, being a mother is all about nurturing, right? I mean, it's about hugs, and kisses, and love and giggles, and it's also about nourishing. And as a mother with plenty of milk, I should be able to nourish my little one, and that is being threatened, and it scares me.

I can't completely articulate what it feels like, but I'm sure it's sort of akin to a man with impotency problems.

But really, what's the big deal? I mean, just buck up and buy some formula, right? Well, that feels like giving up. It feels like failure.

And part of the whole problem is in my head too. And I think that in itself is making it harder for Peach to latch on. I KNOW it's going to hurt when she gets her grip, which makes me tentative, which makes it harder for her to get a good latch. (I'm having the same problem with another bodily function in that, I KNOW it'll hurt my stitches when I sit down to take care of business, which only makes me dread it, which, in turn, is causing constipation, which in turn, makes the whole business even MORE painful.)

The funny thing is, I don't even like nursing. I don't like the feeling of my breasts filling up, I don't like the heaviness, I don't like the leaking, or the sweatiness that goes along with it. I don't like having to sit down and stop what I'm doing in order to find a comfortable position and location to pull up my shirt and feed my child.

But I like the IDEA of it.

I like the idea of nourishing my child from my own body. I like the forced closeness (Cherry stopped cuddling when she was weened, and really hasn't been much of a cuddler since.). I like that there's no waste involved, in that you don't need bottle liners, you don't need to wash nipples (except in the shower once a day, but you know what I mean), you don't have to heat the milk (not that you really have to with formula if you don't want to, but just stick with me here). And that it's "natural". You're feeding your human child human milk instead of formula derived from a completely different animal.

And, being that I'm a mother, I'm SUPPOSED to be able to feed my child.

And that's what's bothering me the most.

I'm not giving up yet. In fact, I still have one nipple that's still usable for the time being, so I have fed her with that one since the bloody incident, and have expressed a bit from the injured one. But I am thisclose to switching to formula. And that bothers me.

Keeping you up to date.

Peach and I are doing surprisingly well. I'm sore and tired, but have been feeling better these past couple of days than I had been feeling for months!

Peach is an awesome eater, and my milk is in real good. I've been stuffing cabbage in my bra to help with the pain, which Armondo finds more than a little amusing. He's a big fan of "b00b salad".

I haven't been getting a lot of sleep, which is expected, but Armondo is so awesome with helping out as much as he can, that there's barely any burden on me.

Cherry, however, isn't doing so well. She seems to be experiencing some sort of night terror on and off. It's seems to have happened about five times in the last month, and it's quite upsetting. She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, and it takes about from an hour to three hours to console her. She had another episode last night. I mentioned it to my midwife today, who mentioned one possible medical reason, so we'll be exploring that, as well as doing some research on toddler night terrors.

Cherry's very interested in the "de de". She loves to come over and look at her and poke at her, but she's extremely rough. I don't think she's TRYING to be mean when she's interacting, but she'll poke Peach, push her around, and today even smacked her in the face. It's not like she's got a mean look on her face, or that she's making any motion that she's trying to hurt her, it's just that she just doesn't know how to be gentle. Sort of makes me wonder if I should have waited a bit longer to have a second child. Cherry's also acting up quite a bit these days. It started before the baby was born, but has sort of escalated these past couple of days. She's quite whiney, and very clingy. She's demanding more attention from us than usual, and if she doesn't get it, she'll throw a tantrum. I've been trying my best to make sure we have some special time together while Peach isn't feeding, but it can be hard, 'cause newborns are literally quite attached to their mothers. Cherry IS, however getting lots of attention from Daddy, which is good, but makes me worry that she might distance herself further away from myself.

Back to Peach. She's so much easier so far than Cherry was. She rarely cries, and when she does, it's either 'cause she needs something, or Cherry has smacked her in the face. She sleeps often, though not for long stretches, and when she's awake, you can just leave her in her bassinette and she'll just quietly look around and coo if someone isn't there right away to pick her up. Cherry screamed for the first two and a half months straight. I know that part of the difference is due to the fact that they are different individuals, but I'd also like to think that with more experience, and more spousal support, that I'm doing a better job this time. (When Cherry was born, Armondo was working 6 days a week, often upwards to 11 hours a day.)

Anyway, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I'll be calculating the contest entries soon enough, as well as writing out the official Peach "birth story" which will be the next part in my "Love Series". (The love series can be found on the sidebar.) I also have to do some template changes, including updating my "belly" shot on the side, and changing my title graphic to something a little more current.

But to tie you over, here are some more pictures:

When we got home from the hospital, we pulled out Cherry's "big sister" gift.

I think she likes it!


The following pictures were taken today, at 3 days old:

And here's a picture of Peach, looking suspiciously very much like her daddy.

What is it with newborns always having "red eye" in photos? (This one isn't TOO bad, but it was the best out of a series that I took.)


Exhausted after a good feeding.

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments and for all the de-lurking that's been going on. I really appreciate it! Oh! Babe's awake, bye for now!