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.

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.

Seven whole days, and no blogging?

Ok, so there's only so many hours in a day. And there is so much stuff to do each day. There's diapers to change, kids to feed, dishes to wash, laundry to do, tv to watch, children falling down stairs, and Facebook is dang addictive. So, that's why I haven't been here.

And then, there's those slight marital problems that keep me busy too. But enough about that.


So...

Peach tried her first real food yesterday!
And that's all I have the energy for!

Ketchup with Peach

Armondo and I have been putting off getting Peach her first round of shots. We could blame it on being busy but I think the truth is that we were just stalling, 'cause it really sucks to hurt your little baby!

Today though, we had to do it. There's an exceptionally long weekend coming up with Easter, and we weren't sure we'd get another chance before Armondo ships off again. And I really wanted to do it while Armondo was actually home 'cause it would be hard to get someone to watch Cherry.

So, today was the day, and at first, I had Armondo all ready to take her in, but I decided that I would buck up and do it myself 'cause it would probably be nicer for Peach to have her mom and her mammaries close by for comfort.

Peach had been very sleepy so far during the day, and hadn't done much interacting up until the point when I sat down with her in the nurse's office. She looked up at me and gave me one of her cute gummy smiles, just as the nurse gave her her first poke of four. That was the last smile I saw from her all day. She cried quite a bit, but settled down in the waiting room where Daddy and Cherry were playing. Once we got home, all four of us took a nap, and then after we awoke, Peach cried for an hour and would cry out again each time we touched or moved her legs. Poor kid. When I put her to bed this evening, she went down without much of a fuss, but her eyes were puffy from crying, and she didn't do any of her normal cooing. Peach doesn't normally cry. Honestly. She's one of the smiliest, quietest, happiest babies ever, and maybe cries a total of five minutes a day. So, today was especially hard. On all of us! Cherry was a bit extra whiney too today, as she's never happy when her DeDe (baby) cries. I sure hope Peach is feeling better by tomorrow!

The nurse today said that Peach was a little on the smallish side. Tonight, I looked it up, and she's almost three months old, and using the percentiles for that age, she's between the 50th and 75th for length, and she's at the 25th for weight. (24inches, 11 3/4 lbs). I'm not too worried about her size though, 'cause she seems to eat well, and she's quite strong, so I think she's pretty healthy. I could have sworn though, that she was bigger than Cherry was at the same age, but looking back at Cherry's records, she was actually right around the same size. It seems to me that she's growing out of clothing faster than Cherry did. Maybe it's 'cause I wanted Cherry to grow fast and reach each milestone faster, but with Peach, I want to savour and enjoy each little baby moment. I have to say, it is a lot easier to enjoy Peach's baby moments as she's such an calm baby. It wasn't until Cherry reached 2 1/2 months that she finally started to break out of her colicky stage. (The age that Peach is now.)

I will be having more time to blog and relax now, 'cause Peach is starting to develop a sleep routine. She'll go to bed around 7pm, which is the same time as Cherry, and will only wake for feedings during the night and will sleep well past 10 am if she is fed quickly and is not let to wake up completely. At least this is what's been happening for the past few days. It would be really nice if it keeps up, 'cause I have missed my evenings! Before Peach was born, I'd relax for a bit after Cherry went to sleep, then I'd do cleaning, and I'd either watch TV or blog. Since Peach was born, I'd have to choose between cleaning or blogging, or neither if she didn't go to bed until really late. Currently, I put Peach to bed in her crib and then I will bring her into my bed when she wakes in the night. I will probably keep this up until she needs less feedings at night, or she starts to move around a lot. With Armondo being gone most of the time, it's not much of an issue to have her in the bed. When he IS home, if the bed gets too crowded, I'll either move Peach to her crib or bassinette, or kick Armondo to the couch.

Besides that, there's not much to report. She's cute, she's smart, she laughs, she rolls over, and she's sleeping well.

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.

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.)

Breast Feeding.. Again.

What? Time for me to blog? It's amazing! The house isn't a complete disaster today, and there's not much good TV on tonight (except for American Idol, but that can just play in the background), so I have a few minutes to sit and type!

I want to touch again on breast feeding, just so that the saga is complete.

It's going well. It's working now. I'm so glad I stuck it through!

One side is still better than the other, and once in awhile there's a touch of pain, but NOTHING like it was before. And, to tell you the truth, I'm actually enjoying it now. Peach is awesome in that she just eats when she's hungry-fills her tummy, then stops. She doesn't dawdle on the n!pple, nor does she use nursing as a pacifier. (Loves her sucky though!) It's purely for nourishment for her, and I'm glad for that. If it stays this easy with her, I could probably feed her for longer than I originally intended. (Wow, things change fast!)

And, I'm becoming a pro with public feedings. I'm of the "discreet nursing in public is acceptable" line of thinking. I don't think that women should be ashamed or should hide if they're feeding in public, but I don't like it when a woman takes her whole breast out of her shirt to feed and flashes everyone. It's just not necessary! I don't believe in blankets over babies' heads if they don't like that, though, I DO believe in covering the top part of your breast with a blanket if the breast has to be removed from your shirt. In reality, only a few square inches of your breast needs to be exposed to feed, and if you're showing more than that in a location other than your own home, then you're being inappropriate. Period. However, I also believe that if a woman feels like she HAS to show off her whole breast, then whatever, she can do it. I just feel like they're making a statement that's equatable to high school punks with pink Mohawks yelling "What are YOU looking at?!" at the passerby at the bus stop. I think that they're trying to make a statement that is unnecessary!

Anyway, sorry for my mini-rant. MOVING ON!

This kid is seriously a cutie. Just ignore the baby acne. It's almost gone.

Dressing your kids in matching clothes is SOOO awesome. More pics on flickr.

Blog entries to come: The conclusion of my relationship with my mother. A few of Cherry's favourite things. Peach's birth story. And others. Soon, I promise.

Pffft

More on flickr

Thank you. And other stuff.

Thank you all for your feedback regarding my mother. I was sort of surprised by the emotional response I got from some of you, but I appreciate the thought that has gone into the emails and comments. And yes, Andrea, you're probably right on both counts.

On another note... I've noticed lately that a lot of people's RSS feeds are not working. I've discovered that I haven't been keeping up with some blogs because Bloglines isn't picking up your feed. It seems to be happening with some blogs that have switched over to the new blogger. So, if I haven't been commenting, but you're on my list, that might be why. I simply do not know that you're updating! (and if the same thing is happening with my feed, please let me know!)

Holy crap, the laundry doesn't stop! Peach is going through 4-5 sleepers and blankets a day right now due to spoiling them with various bodily fluids. Add that to Cherry' average of three outfits a day due to messy eating, along with regular household laundry, and I tell ya, there's just no end to it! I used cloth diapers with Cherry in the beginning, and I'd love to do that with Peach too, but the thought of MORE laundry almost makes me weep!

Oh, and I never mentioned this before, but Peach was really RED when she was born, and her feet and hands stayed pretty red/purple right up until today. Now they're nice and peachy coloured! (Just in case you care, of course.)

How's that for a random post?

Breast Feeding Continued.

Wow, you are all so awesome. Thank you all for your support and the tips on my last breast feeding post. Things are getting better. They're not great or pain free yet, but they things are getting better.

I had to keep Peach off of that one particular nipple for two whole days while it recovered, and I was able to express about 6 ounces a day from that side. Of course, I wasn't making enough milk from the non-bleeding side, so we had to give her more bottles. I really don't think she's got nipple confusion at this point. Maybe she did for a day or something, but I think she's got the latch thing down now. The big problem though is that she's just so darn strong. Like Armondo said, it's like she's giving me h!ckies on my nipples.

It seems like we'll be able to continue to breast feed, and that it won't be too horrible, but it seems as though I'm in for some more pain, at least in the short term. The worst part of knowing each time that it's going to hurt is the whole being tentative thing, and sort of stalling a bit each time I try to get her to latch on. This has caused more than a few cranky outbursts from the little one!

But, breast feeding difficulties aside, holy crap, this baby is easy! And cute! And so strong! She can already hold her head up for several seconds at a time, and if she's sort of propped up with her arms supported, she'll put almost all her weight on her feet and will push to a standing position. (Almost, it's not a perfected thing by any means!)

One of those pictures I'm going to get in trouble for posting when she's older!

"What IS that furry thing I see walking by?"

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!

Welcome to Little Miss Peach!

The Details:
Water broke 2 am after about 2 hours of hard labour, baby born 4:35 am. NINE minutes of pushing.

8lbs, 2-1/2 oz. 21 inches long.

We're home, we're doing good. She's a good little eater. I have lots of broken blood vessels all over my face from pushing hard.

I cursed three times.

Time to relax! Thanks to all of you who have been so supportive during my pregnancy!

More to come later, of course!

Minutes old.

The big introduction.

A kiss from big sis!

Sleeping soundly.

Dear Peach*

Hello there. I just want to start this letter off by directing your attention to that little counter in the top left hand corner there. That's right. It says I've had you in my belly for approximately 40 weeks and five days. That's a long time, you know? And I'm getting pretty anxious.

I can understand that it's nice and warm and snuggly inside, but there are a lot of people out here who would like to meet and see and cuddle you. Maybe you're just smart and know that it's freekin' freezing outside and that the ground is covered in snow. Not even born yet, and you're already showing signs of good common sense; you and I are sure to get along.

I am trying to be very patient while I wait for your arrival, but it's very difficult. You push on my bladder, you kick me in the ribs, you cause me to have heartburn, and make it very difficult to function on a very basic level. I'd love to house you for as long as you are comfortable, but you're not being overly gentle with your poor mamma.

Your Daddy isn't feeling very patient anymore either. I keep on getting contractions, and when I mention them to him, he sort of rolls his eyes and claims I'm "crying wolf". Daddy has been really awesome lately by taking care of pretty much all of the house hold and child care duties, and he hasn't complained much about it, but I KNOW he's ready to be able to snuggle his new little girl, and be able to take a rest from the house work after I've had a chance to recover.

Your big sister only sort of knows what's going on, but I'm sure she's ready to meet you as well. She knows there's a "De-de" in my belly, and she loves to run up to other babies and tries to hug them. I'm sure she'll love you to bits. For her sake, I hope you come soon, because Daddy and I purchased a special "big sister" present for her, and we've been dying to give it to her. (We bought it before Christmas, thinking you'd be on your way soon, and we put all 5000 pieces of it together the Saturday before Christmas in order to get it all ready for your not-so-impending arrival. It took two hours. But I'm not complaining.)

I can't wait to hold you in my arms and to gaze into your eyes. I can't wait to smell your downy head and tickle your newborn toes. I can't wait to study your personality and learn your little nuances. I can't wait to take hundreds of photos of both you and you with your sister. I'm looking forward to introducing you to all the special people in our lives including some of our family and several friends.

It's time for you to make your arrival, the world is waiting for you babe!

~Your loving Momma.

*I've decided on just "Peach" instead of "Peaches", 'cause um, there's just one kid coming out, and not two, so having a plural name is sort of weird. That, and it's confusing figuring out where the apostrophe is supposed to go when writing out possessive sentences.