7 busy takes

1

Remember how I said this year was going to be super tough and I wasn't going to be able to just sit back and survive it -- that I was going to have to put on my big girl panties and do all the things?  Yeah, that was accurate.  There has been a LOT of stuff I've had to get done lately.  I feel like I've been more energetic than I have been in awhile, but it doesn't matter because there's just more to get done, so I'm exactly as behind as ever.

Take this week: I have had to go out of the house every day so far, and skip two homeschool meetups I would have liked to go to.  Last week was the same, and next week promises to be similar!  Gone are the days when my only real commitments were grocery shopping and returning the library books.

2

Monday's adventure was getting the kids their shots.  Yes, I am finally vaccinating my kids.  It's been hard for me ... I've never had a legitimate reason not to vaccinate them.  I knew that reactions were rare, that if vaccines had ever caused autism, they no longer have thimerosal in them, so that shouldn't be happening now at any rate.

What it was, for me, was mistrust: a feeling that the medical establishment could not be trusted to have my best interests at heart, that if there were a serious danger in vaccines, they would surely cover it up and perhaps even punish the scientist who had claimed there was.  I do not know why pro-vaxxers think, "Dr. Wakefield's study was retracted and his medical license was revoked!" is evidence in favor of their position.  It is clearly the opposite, to anyone who was against vaccines in the first place.  EVERYONE KNOWS the medical establishment says they are safe, so why do people keep saying "but here's a CDC page saying I'm right!" is some kind of slam-dunk?  But I've become a lot more pro-establishment lately.  While no one is to be trusted absolutely, people who have dedicated their lives to the study of a certain topic are probably more to be trusted than those who haven't.  And as far as corruption goes -- I've been deep enough into the natural-health community to find that it's not immune from the same thing.  If you can follow the money in the CDC's recommendations, you can also follow the money to find out why Dr. Mercola sells what he does.  There is a lot of money in alternative medicine, and a lot less oversight.  And it's easy to see a contradiction in people who automatically shoot down any claim made by their doctor because they don't trust him, and then immediately share any ridiculous claim made by a random lady with a blog.  And I've realized that when a treatment has been shown with actual evidence to be safe and effective -- somebody patents it and your doctor prescribes it.

The other issue is that I always felt, on some level, that it was better for my kid to get sick of a disease that I didn't prevent than to get sick of a shot I actually gave him.  Part of the Catholic "actions matter more than omissions" thing.  I'm now a lot more of a consequentialist (though I admit there is at least some difference between an action and an omission) so I feel like I should be choosing, not the option with the least personal involvement, but the option with the smallest chance of my kids getting sick.  Yes, I would feel way more guilty if they got sick of a shot than if they got sick of a virus.  Yet that's not really the morally significant part of the equation.  The morally significant part is that I would have done what had the best chance of keeping them well, regardless of how I felt about it.

3

The night before we got the shots, I lay awake awhile worrying about it.  John joked that I don't need to worry because "what are they going to do, give Marko MORE autism?"  But, silly or not, that was how I felt ... I mean, given that he's already autistic, what if that means his system is super fragile?  I know that autistic kids massively regress for all kinds of reasons; I even read of a child who regressed and lost his language ability after the chicken pox.  And it's not impossible that Marko might regress after the shots.  I was also scared about the pain for them ... both boys had to get three shots this week, and those hurt!  I personally have a massive needle phobia, not just of the pain itself, but of the thought of foreign substances inside my body.  To get a shot, I have to think about it as little as possible.  And there I would have to be up close and personal, and put a brave face on so I didn't give the boys my own fears.  I would a thousand times rather have had all six shots myself than have to put my kids through it.

But they did fine.  Neither kid was scared about it.  Marko yelped at each jab and sounded indignant, but the second they were over he was fine.  Michael, seeing Marko's reaction, suddenly panicked and tried to fight the shots, so I had to restrain him.  That was not fun at all.  But again, the second the last shot was over he was fine, and bragged about how brave he had been.  (NOT.)  Then we all went for ice cream, and I had one of those perfect parenting moments, eating ice cream with them at the gazebo in town, feeling like, for once, we were all happy at the same time and could just enjoy being together.  (Which lasted until Miriam threw a fit about a bite of ice cream she'd given me and then wanted back after I'd swallowed it.  OH WELL.)

They have to go back next week for the other two shots (MMR and varicella, which are both live, ugh) and then after four weeks we go and get more doses of all the same things.  The frustrating part is that, since two of the shots have to be given over six months, they will not be caught up by the start of school.  I believe that this won't delay them from starting school, so long as I can get a doctor's note.  I certainly hope not; after all this effort to get everything set up for Marko to start school at the beginning of the year, when things are starting slow, it would be terrible to have to make him wait till October and then try to catch up.

4

The other thing I did this week that tore me up was signing up both boys for school.  John and I have talked the issue to death and we've pretty much reached agreement to at least try it.  It used to be that he was for it and I was against, but when we did a school tour, Marko actually looked pretty interested in everything.  And when we went back to pick up some paperwork, he was upset that we didn't get to stay and play with the special ed teacher's cars.

This is a kid who used to sob if we turned down the street the school was on, because he was so terrified of the place.  Multiple visits for various meetings have taken away the dread for him.  He's also having speech therapy there, and he's enjoyed that.  He still insists he'll never ever go to school, but it almost seems like a pro forma objection -- he likes going there and he seems pretty interested in my stories of what goes on there.

I don't think he'll learn better at school than at home.  He will almost certainly fall behind a bit in school stuff.  But what he will gain are the social skills that are his weakest point: he will get lots of practice talking to other grownups, he'll be encouraged to socialize with other kids, he'll learn about following directions.  This is stuff that a kid should know, at least a little bit.  I used to not worry about his shyness, feeling that he'd eventually be ready to talk to more people and till then, he didn't need to.  But then there was the time last year that Michael poked him in the eye with a popsicle stick.  We took him to the doctor, and he could not communicate with him or with the nurse about whether he could read the vision chart.  And I realized, a child needs to be able to ask for help from adults that aren't his parents.  He doesn't need to do it all the time, but he needs to be able to.  And Marko, probably because of his autism, is not able to and it doesn't look like he's going to just start doing it without being pushed.  He's gotten better at this in the past six months, just from all the assessments we've put him through.  There has been complaining, insisting he won't go, lying on the floor refusing to move, but in the end he has gone to all of them and talked with the professionals who are assessing him.  He just needs practice.

Of course in theory I could provide all this, by doing more homeschool groups and more library story times and maybe piano lessons or dance lessons or something.  But ... that's kind of in the alternate reality where I hadn't had a baby this year.  It is really hard for me even to keep up with his homeschooling.  I have to admit I'm not really able to provide all he needs, not this year.

And Michael will be going too, because unlike Marko, Michael actually wants to.  He's super excited about the idea of school, of playing with other kids, of getting a backpack and a lunchbox and books of his very own.  It would seem kind of unfair to send his brother, who doesn't want to go, and not send him.  Plus, I figure one year of school, right at the beginning when it's easy, will give him the social skills he currently lacks and reassure me that he doesn't have any issues.  Then, hopefully, next year we can get back to homeschooling with a bit more confidence.  I know it was very hard for me to switch from homeschool to traditional school, in part because I started so late (fourth grade) when all the other kids knew each other and a lot of the rules were unspoken.  If Michael has a year of kindergarten under his belt, then he will easily be able to transition back into school at whatever year he wants to -- whether that's fourth grade, ninth grade, or college.

I'm trying not to be dogmatic about this, to take it one year at a time, rather than mapping out our entire education.  But I'm really hoping everyone has made a ton of progress by next year, while at the same time wanting to get back to homeschooling, so that there will be no reason to keep them in school another year.  I like homeschooling.  I like being together as a family.  And as overwhelmed as I am right now, by next year Jackie will be older and I expect I'll be better able to handle everything.

5

But the school thing is so far not making my life less stressful, but more.  I have to get birth certificates for the kids; that's been a big runaround.  I have to get them shots.  Everyone needs a physical.  Everyone needs school clothes.  Marko needs to get on board with wearing underwear before August.  Of course this is all because we haven't started yet, but then once we do start, I'll have to walk the kids the two blocks to school every day.  That's a lot more leaving the house than I'm used to.

The bright side is that other things are actually getting done that needed to be.  I got my chicken application submitted at last, over a year after the urban farming ordinance was passed.  The shots, of course, had to be done anyway and I'm glad we're finally getting them done.  (I'm waiting on Miriam because she is completely unmanageable now -- there is no way I could get a shot into her without some backup.)  I bought a cherry tree yesterday, which I'm going to plant today.  I feel .... better about adulting than I have in a long time.  I'm realizing the truth of what I've read about anxiety, that the best way to get over it is to push yourself through it and then realize after the fact that it wasn't so scary.  And that's been true for both Marko and me ... when we don't have a choice to back out of the scary thing, we've done it, and been less scared about it.

Maybe I'll actually go to the dentist this year!

6

Warm weather has meant lots of pleasant time outside.  I always feel better about everything in the spring.  Except, one night, the first night we slept with the windows open, I couldn't sleep and was racked with feelings of anxiety ... because last year, when I last slept with the windows open in the spring, I had just found out I was pregnant and lay awake for hours having panic attacks.  It is going to take me a long time to get over that.  Even though I think the worst is behind me and there is nothing left to be afraid of, I still remember the fear and dread and feel terrible.

But in the daylight hours, it's all good.  I've been planting lots of stuff in my new giant garden.  Jackie has reached the age where she actually likes lying on a blanket in the grass .... though I can't let her do it for long, because I have so much anxiety that someone will step on her.  I am not sure how much of that is good sense (my kids are so oblivious!) and how much is just brainweasels.

Miriam and Michael love Jackie so much.  Especially Miriam, still, but Michael also is pretty interested now that she's a bit more responsive.  She smiles, looks at them, waves her arms around, and they always interpret this as "she likes me! she's trying to talk to me!"  I love it.

And even Marko has finally unbent enough to play with her.  Nobody else was interested in his ponies (which he got for his birthday) so he flew them around in front of her face to entertain her.  And she really did look at them, so he was perfectly content.  I've noticed lately that he plays more with Miriam, as well, because he needs playmates who will follow instructions rather than expecting to be equal creators of the game.  I'm not sure if this is entirely positive, but hey, he's not ignoring 2/3 of his siblings, so I'm going to rank it in the "win" column all the same.  Especially for a kid who, up to a month ago, was insisting Jackie was NOT his sister and NOT part of the family and he was not EVER EVER going to look at her.

7

This reminds me that I haven't mentioned yet that Marko is seven.  Hard to believe.  His current obsession (added onto his past obsessions -- he still plays Minecraft and Harry Potter a lot of the time) is My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.  It's actually not as obnoxious a show as I thought at first blush -- they clearly made an effort to include some humor and pop-culture references for the parents.  I like that it breaks down the concept of friendship into manageable, explicit skills.

For his birthday, John wanted to take him out on an outing of his choosing, just the two of them.  He picked going to a movie, but Michael was all upset that he wasn't going along.  Marko looked at Michael crying for awhile, and then came to me to say, "I know how Michael feels, because I would feel the same way if he were going to a movie with Daddy without me."  I was extremely impressed at this insight from him, which isn't common, and suggested he talk to John about it.  John told him he could bring Michael along too, and both boys were thrilled to get to do their special birthday outing together.

Michael's birthday is tomorrow; he'll be five.  He remains the sweetest boy you'll ever meet -- coming over to me often to give me hugs and kisses.  And recently he's become quite polite, since I decided the best way to curb whining was to suggest polite phrases he could say instead.  So when I give him something that isn't to his liking, he'll now say "Thank you for giving this to me, Mama, and can you please cut it in half?"  That's a huge improvement over, "I WANTED it to be cut in HALF, waaaaaaaah!"  And he's great about all the "hellos" and "good mornings" and "I love yous" that Marko generally does not say.  It makes me appreciate all these things just that much more.

Miriam is going through a very tantrummy stage.  John calls her the Destroyer of Souls; I don't think it's as bad as all that, but then, I'm not the one who has to be up with her from midnight to four a.m. when she has a bad night.  That would probably destroy my soul too.  It's clearly causing her to be a lot less amiable in the daytime; the tiniest thing causes sobs and hitting.  Letting her hug and kiss her sister often helps; hugs from us parents are loudly rejected.  The other day she asked to nurse again, after about a month of not asking.  A part of me wishes we were still nursing, because it surely would help with the tantrums, but .... it's a very small part, compared to the part that's glad to be done.

Jackie is three months today -- the magic number, in my mind, when a baby starts to get easier.  She took a two-hour nap today.  That's not an all-the-time thing, but good naps are definitely becoming more common.  And when she's awake, she's a lot more willing to sit in her bouncer or lie on the bed and just kick around, looking at stuff.

She reminds me of Marko, as a baby, which of course worries me a lot.  She's not comforted by being held unless she is also being walked around so she can look at stuff.  She won't nurse if she's upset, and screams bloody murder if you try to nurse her when she's not interested.  She does make eye contact and smile, but ... I am not entirely sure she makes eye contact as much as other babies do.  It's more of a brief glance and then she smiles over your shoulder.  Of course I know I've got autism on the brain and see it everywhere, even where it's not.

That's it for this week.  How has yours been?

7 one-month takes

1

So apparently Jackie is five weeks old today.  They certainly have not been racing by, but it still seems kind of startling when I do the math.  Five weeks is too late to change my mind and start spelling her nickname "Jacky," right?  Especially as I can't change the spelling on the tags in my sidebar.

This is the stage where you stop thinking, "Wow!  I'm recovering so fast!  The worst is over!  Every day gets easier!" and start thinking, "I'm as recovered as I'm going to be for a long time yet, and I can't believe it's still so hard."  That is, that's what I'm thinking this time around, and I remember it from last time.  I don't really remember this at all with Michael, and Marko was so much easier because there was only one of him.

Jackie (Jacky??) is firmly established as Not an Easy Baby.  All of my babies have had the unfortunate habit of waking up from naps while they're still tired -- usually after about 45 minutes.  With Marko it was easy, I simply nursed him or rocked him back to sleep and he'd take another hour or so.  But that's an option not open to me now that I have other noisy kids -- once the initial edge of tiredness has been taken off, the slightest noise gets the baby interested in what's going on and they won't go back to sleep for two more hours, no matter how tired and cranky they are.  With Michael my solution was just to have him take 45-minute naps four times a day, which was inconvenient and left him cranky and tired much of the time.  With Miriam I gave up and just held her for all her naps, which about made me lose my mind as well as causing me to neglect my other kids terribly.  And with this one, I haven't yet come up with a solution; I refuse to hold the baby for all her naps again, but I'm not keen on her constantly being cranky and tired all the time either.  I guess the only real solution is Keep Trying, because she occasionally does take a really solid nap of a couple hours.  I love these, but of course I spend the whole time worrying she is crying and I just don't hear her on the monitor, or else perhaps she is dead.  It's just so unusual that I can't quite believe a child would actually sleep that long in the daytime.

2

But she is worse than all the others in one respect, which is that she won't even GO to sleep.  Instead, she drifts off while nursing and then wakes up five minutes later with big bright eyes.  You can rock her to sleep instead, which will work for five minutes before she starts thrashing herself awake.  All the baby advice (besides the idiotically unrealistic "put the baby down awake") says you should hold the baby until they pass into a deep sleep before you put them down.  This is impossible anyway because we never ever get the half hour of relative quiet that this would take, not in this house -- someone always comes right up to me demanding a snack or having a fit or wanting to give the baby "just one kiss!"  But I know it's not just that because she spends all evening doing the same thing after the big kids have gone to bed: nurse, doze, thrash, wake up, fuss because tired, nurse ....  And she can do this for hours because the little snatches of sleep she gets are just enough to tide her over.  Eventually she doesn't even want to nurse anymore and then you're really screwed.

Obviously this doesn't happen every time because she does sometimes sleep.  But for the life of me I don't know the secret.  More awake time before attempting a nap? (Possible.)  More burping?  (Burping wakes her up.)  But the long and short of it is that naps are totally unreliable and also she stays up till eleven pm or even later every night.  She's sometimes willing to sleep in a little late, but that doesn't matter because of course the other kids are up by seven.

The one bright spot is that she reliably sleeps a good three or four hour chunk in the middle of the night.  In fact last night it was almost six hours!  This is truly delightful, especially on those nights when she actually sleeps in her crib instead of on me, but it also has the awful downside that we're not ecologically breastfeeding if she sleeps that long.  I cannot wake her, because I desperately need the sleep, but I fear the eventual result will be an early return of cycles, which, for me, means a nasty hormonal mess as prolactin and progesterone fight for supremacy all month long.  Oh, woe.  But the thought of willfully ending my nighttime bliss, the ONLY time I get to myself, and possibly triggering hours of sleep-wake up-fuss-sleep is just unbearable.

3

Despite how awful she is to deal with, I think I am beginning to bond with her somewhat.  The first week or two I was treating her like a hungry lump, but I realized that if I talk to her and treat her like a person -- even though she does not understand or care -- it helps me feel like she is a person.  I'm also taking lots of pictures, both to help me remember to appreciate her now, and to look back on later, after I do have a relationship with Jackie and want to remember what she looked like as a baby.

Miriam, of course, helps with this a lot by adorably trying to interact with her baby sister.  It seems obvious to me that Jackie either does not care or actively dislikes everything Miriam does -- I mean, getting kissed to within an inch of your life isn't exactly fun for anyone -- but Miriam insists that "her baby" loves it, so, whatever.  I don't mind playing along so long as she's not actually smashing the baby's face.

4

So Marko has been assessed by the school district now.  I didn't know this before, but thanks to IDEA, a federal law, even homeschooled kids are entitled to the same services for disabilities as the kids in school.  This includes assessment for disabilities, provided the school agrees that the child is suffering educationally from them.  That was a little scary because I had to explain to a table full of teachers why I thought Marko needed to be assessed.  Since most of his issues are social, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make my case, but when I pointed out the large number of adaptations I make to our schoolwork (like hanging over his shoulder every minute to keep him on task, and designing our entire curriculum around his obsessions) they said that this was definitely an educational problem as well as a social one.  Especially when I pointed out that he mostly will not talk to grownups and he might want to go to school someday.

This process was full of trials for Marko.  He had to have his eyesight and hearing assessed, read to a reading teacher, get assessed twice by a speech therapist, and have two long assessments by a psychologist.  In addition, both John and I filled out lots of questionnaires.  We got all the results from these assessments in writing, and then I had our eligibility meeting with a big panel of school professionals.  The whole process was scary for both Marko and me, but we got through it okay.  I was impressed with how well Marko did actually manage to communicate with the adults, despite the crying and rolling-around-on-the-floor meltdowns he had beforehand.  We could see, though, from the reports of the different professionals, that he had been very anxious and not done as well as we know he can with us.  Though really I don't suppose it matters -- if he scores low because he can't communicate very well, that's still a problem even if it's not the problem they were testing him for.

In the end they decided that he has "symptoms consistent with autism."  This is not an official diagnosis, but it is enough to make him eligible for special education if he were enrolled in school.  However, there isn't really anything they can do outside of school for him.  Speech therapy is available to homeschooled kids, but the therapist actually said it would not help because his speech problem isn't really a problem with speech itself, but something further inside his head ... she thought it was anxiety, but the psychologist thinks it's in his mental processing.  He has a lot of knowledge but has trouble accessing it quickly when he wants it.  So he might volunteer the information "two plus two is four" on Monday, but that doesn't mean he can produce the answer for me when prompted on Tuesday.  In the same way, it takes him extra time to put together and say a sentence, even if he knows all the words he wants.

At any rate we're assuming, based on this, that he does have ASD.  But that leaves us still stuck on what to do next.  I want to get him officially assessed, but that costs a mint and our fake insurance won't cover a penny of it.  I want therapy for him, but that's also not covered.  If he gets diagnosed, he's eligible for Medicaid which will pay for the therapy, but we can't afford the first step.  It may be that a regular pediatrician will diagnose him on the strength of all the assessment results we have, but they might not think it's enough and then we're out the money we spent for the appointment and are back to square one.  The whole thing is doggone frustrating.

We are seriously considering putting him in school, for next year at least, just so he can get some special help from someone who does know something about autism.  The sad fact is the "one-on-one attention" that is supposed to be the benefit of homeschooling isn't really available at home right now.  His siblings hang around and distract us both.  I've tried giving them work, too, but Marko is always way more interested in what they're doing than in what he's supposed to be doing.  Michael wants to be wherever Marko is, and Miriam wants to be wherever I am, and Jackie is of course attached to me like a tumor half the time.  So ... it's not what you would call an ideal learning environment.  We are making progress all the same, but all these assessments have really taken away my confidence that I'm doing it right, or that even if I'm not, no problem because kids are resilient/there's plenty of time to catch up.  Normal kids might be great at naturally challenging themselves and going for new things, but that's specifically the sort of thing autistic kids struggle with.  They want to stick with what's comfortable and familiar.  There have been times when Marko has a big drive to learn about something, but he hasn't felt that way since we've moved ... and I can't afford to let him learn nothing for a year, you know?  Not if he's already behind.  At the same time I know pushing too hard makes him shut down, and I dread even suggesting to him that we might make him go to school.  He hates the very concept.  I did want him to go to school someday, like in high school maybe, but he does not seem ready now, and he is terrified of other adults, large groups of kids, and being without me.  It's tough.  On Monday we are going for a tour of the school and to watch the special ed classes, so he and I can both see what he'd be in for if we did enroll him.  I think it might be great for him, for his confidence and his social skills and so forth ... but first he'd have to get past that initial terror of change.

I feel very mixed-up about this emotionally.  On the one hand, I love homeschooling.  I don't want to stop.  He's my little boy.  How can I trust other people to take care of him as well as I do?  While on the other hand, I can't help but admit it does kind of appeal, to have one less kid to worry about during the day, and to know he's getting the sort of extra help he needs without my having to neglect the whole rest of the family to give it to him.  And maybe we could go back to homeschooling another year.  I just don't know.  I don't want to be wedded to the idea of homeschooling if it's not working ... but on the other hand, I'm not sure it isn't working.  Yes, there's stuff he struggles with, but would he be doing any better in school?

5

I should say, though, that Marko seems to have pulled out of the rough patch he was in throughout December and January.  He no longer cries a dozen times a day "because he misses that lamp we used to have" or "because he's not excited about anything like he used to be."  I can't remember whether or not I've blogged about that.  My feeling was that he felt upset and sad about the changes in his life and was latching onto small details to explain it.  But he seems a lot happier lately -- fewer tears and fewer meltdowns.  He and Michael have a healthy balance of different obsessions that they pretend about all day -- Harry Potter and My Little Pony mostly, but Minecraft is still getting plenty of attention, and yesterday they surprised me by playing Redwall again, after about a year since it was a major interest.  Another reassuring thing is that he's stopped having so many accidents ... which, given that he has been potty trained for four years now, certainly worry me when they happen.

My friend with two autistic children, who has been a major resource to me right now, asked me the other day what behaviors Marko has that he most needs help with.  What things would we address in therapy, if he had access to therapy?  And I wasn't sure what to say.  He's mostly really great!  I don't actually have a lot that I think he needs to change.  But on the other hand, there are lots of little things.  I wish he would at least try to stay dry at night.  I wish he would more reliably use his fork at meals.  I wish he wouldn't say things "don't even exist" when he doesn't like them.  I wish he would introduce himself to other kids or say hello or goodbye to his friends.  I wish he wouldn't run and hide when a strange adult comes into our house.

Perhaps I should try to encourage these things more -- arrange more playdates, with prior coaching about how he can say hello to the other kids.  Go to story time at the library and ask him to say hello to the librarian.  The trouble is that he just doesn't want to try these things, and I'm not sure how to get him to cooperate.  He told me the other day that he has one friend and that is enough, he doesn't want to meet any more people ever.  Yet I suspect he would really enjoy having more friends if he would get past the initial fear of meeting them.

It's just so hard to know when to push and when to give him some space.

6

Michael is my relaxing child right now.  He has no real issues.  He's not even a little bit anxious or neurotic.  Sometimes he throws a fit, and normal decent parenting works to de-escalate it.  He had a tendency to be rude, I have been reminding him about please and thank you, and he's started saying those things very reliably.  He often gives me a hug and kiss for no reason, or a big smile and a hello.  He's suddenly taken an interest in letters and seems to know a great deal more than I've ever consciously taught him.  I do not worry at all about him.

And Miriam, aside from her tendency to maul the baby with love, has been doing fine as well.  She occasionally asks to nurse, I offer a book instead, and she's fine with that.  I really wish she could talk in a volume under a shout, or play independently EVER, but, well, she's two.  She's slept through the night for many nights recently, though not for the past couple.  Anyway it seems she is making progress on that.

We've had some really nice weather for a few days, which is such a help.  I can kick the kids outside while the baby naps and rid myself of all the stress I normally have about the noise they're making.  (I am not sure the noise they make makes any difference to how much the baby naps, but I always worry it will.)  So they run around being completely bananas, the baby naps for her brief moments, and I get some peace and quiet to drink tea and read mystery novels.  (Dorothy Sayers; highly recommend.)

Jacky giving big sister the stiff arm

7

And how am I doing?  Eh, I've been better.  I've also been worse, so, bright side there.  Sometimes I am totally fine.  Days when Jackie naps are delightful.  I do some chores, lavish attention on my big kids, and then have some wonderful time to myself.  Days she does not nap are horrible.  I get so touched-out, I want to crawl out of my own skin.  I start feeling irrationally angry at the world.  I put all my hopes on Jackie actually napping later on, and then when she fails to do it, I get even more angry because of the disappointment.  I am very proud of myself that I haven't yelled much or hit anybody at all, even when they are totally responsible for waking the baby.  I figure so long as I can keep my ticked-off feelings from affecting anyone else, they're no different from a headache -- just something I have to get through.

I just wish there were a cure for them other than long periods of quiet and no-touching.  Exercise does help, but since I'm not fully recovered from childbirth, I probably shouldn't knock myself out with long walks or vacuuming or whatever.  At any rate hopefully I can start some exercise soon, and then maybe I'll feel better.

When I'm not feeling angry, I cycle through all the other bad feelings.  I've had a few days of inexplicable sadness, a few days of excessive anxiety, a few days of intrusive thoughts.  The intrusive thoughts are probably the worst: I can't seem to get my mind off the possibility of some gruesome thing happening to the baby, or the fact that I will someday die.  Or I think about how great my life would be right now if Jackie had never been born, and then feel overwhelmed with guilt.

But the anxiety has been bad some days too.  I always thought religion was no comfort in distress until I lost it; now I can see just how crippling anxiety is when you don't think there's anyone to bail you out, or any long-run plan which will make it all worthwhile.  Basically it means there is no one looking out for your kids besides you, so you have to make sure you worry about All The Things, certain in the knowledge that if you fail, it means the extinction of everything your child is or could someday be, which will be 100% your fault.  If it were just a matter of my preferences, I'd love to believe this stuff were out of my hands.

Despite all the various kinds of sadfeels, I also feel happy sometimes.  This nice weather is great, and every time I am able to spend some time just sitting under the open sky, I feel very happy and relaxed.  Of course it's only five minutes before I hear the baby cry on the monitor, or Miriam starts demanding I go into the magnolia tree with her and play house, but it's something.  I also find a lot of relaxation in reading; I might not be able to knit or spin while holding the baby, but I can read for hours and it helps distract me from the "ahhhhhh someone's always touching me!!!!" thing.

As during pregnancy, I have to focus on either the moment or the long view.  I can't think of the months ahead when I will still be dealing with all the same things I am dealing with today.  I have to remember that by midsummer I will have a baby who can sit up in a high chair and let me eat my dinner with two hands.  Or that within a year, my little girls will be playing with each other for real.  Conversely, I can stay in the moment, and think "hey, right now the baby is sleeping and I am able to write this blog post!"  Nothing worse than a whole nap going by and you realize you never appreciated it, but only scrolled mindlessly through facebook getting mad at strangers.



And how have you all been?

7 quick grievances

I hear today is Festivus, the day for the Airing of Grievances! I don't have many grievances from this year, because most of the things that have gone wrong aren't personal, but let's see if I can come up with seven, in honor of the day.

1

My uterus. Seriously, I hate that dang thing. Not only does it get pregnant when I don't want to, it's giving me Braxton-Hicks contractions all the dang time and I hate those.

My pelvis is also as out-of-joint as it's ever been, so grievances for that too.  I take good care of it, and it just does not return the favor.  The big thing that kills it is lying down with Miriam at night, which I have to do half of every night because it takes her a lot longer to fall asleep than it takes me ... so long before she's still enough for me to creep away, I've drifted off on the floor mattress beside her.

At this point I have some really painful separated abs -- every time I bend over to pick something on the floor (an activity I can't easily avoid) it feels like the baby is going to clamber right out the front.  Hurts like the dickens.  And my stomach is too squashed to eat much of anything, and yet somehow I can't quit snacking all the time.  Especially if it's dry Cheerios, which I've oddly become addicted to.

Anyway, I won't be dealing with this much longer, because I'm 36 weeks today. And yet, I'm not to the point yet where I want it to be over, because I know what comes next.  Hint: it involves screaming.

2

Miriam.  Don't get me wrong, she's still sweet and cute and hilarious, but she is in the thick of a difficult stage.  She wants to nurse every half hour or so, which I won't let her do, so there is wailing.  (She is on my lap wailing right now.)  She can't bear to be more than about twelve inches from me, and even when she's right on top of me, that's not good enough unless I am nursing her, feeding her, reading to her, singing her a song, or otherwise giving her my undivided attention.  If she's not getting that, she'll go deliberately break something in front of me in the hopes of getting it back.

This is either the effect or the cause of her terrible nighttime sleep, which ranges from one wakeup a night to five or six wakeups.  Or sometimes an hour in the middle of the night where she can't go back to sleep and just kicks the wall and whines.  I wanted to nightwean her but I honestly don't know what else I'd do -- she always wakes up a little panicky and if she doesn't get to nurse she screams.  No reasoning with a half-asleep child ... but of course if you get her fully awake then she might stay that way for some time.

John is going to be taking over her night waking soon and I am not sure what he's going to do.  I don't think he knows either.  He can get her down for her initial sleep better than I can, but in the middle of the night she only wants me.  It's something I worry about a lot.

3

Michael.  I'm pretty aggrieved at Michael just now, which mainly isn't really his fault. He just whines a LOT.  See, he likes to play with Marko, but he is about done with Marko dictating all the rules of every game and yelling at him for any detail he attempts to improvise on.  And he likes to play with Miriam, but she's gotten very grabby and pushy lately.  So there's a lot of him either lashing out at one of them or running to me screaming and wailing that they're being mean. And they are.  It's just, I used to be able to count on him to be the mellow kid who'd adapt to his demanding siblings, and he just isn't right now.  Instead he flips out long before they've actually done anything to him, because he's so sure they will.

What he really wants, more than anything, is to run around wild, screaming and roughhousing.  In the summer there are ways he can do that that don't make me lose my mind ... in the winter, not so much.  So I find myself telling him to SETTLE DOWN and BE QUIET 47 times a day, and I feel bad because he needs to get that energy out somehow.  Sometimes I allow some craziness downstairs while I'm upstairs, or upstairs while I'm downstairs (yay big house!) but he really can't moderate his wildness so often he or someone else gets hurt.

Also: did he really need to spend half an hour sobbing this morning because I poured the milk into a measuring cup (to sniff it and make sure it was still good) before I poured it into his oatmeal?  I think not.

4

Wouldn't want to leave Marko out! I'm aggrieved at his extreme rigidity.  Hard to say if I'm noticing it more now that we are working on his assessment, or if he's stepping it up to match with his siblings' demandingness, but it feels like anytime he's crossed at all, there's yelling.  He throws a fit if I ever serve chicken.  He throws a fit if anyone says something inaccurate.  He throws a fit if someone pretends differently from how he's pretending.  Last Saturday he screamed and cried and tried to hit people for half an hour because, I kid you not, Michael said his lizard, Swampy, was made of scales, and Marko says no one is allowed to pretend that because lizards in real life aren't entirely made of scales.  I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, and it's not fair to his siblings either to have to always be telling them "just don't talk to Marko, you're upsetting him."  (Though that's something I have to tell every kid, because every last one of them seems addicted to repeating over and over whatever phrase they have found makes their sibling scream the most.  It's the worst.)

About Marko's assessment: the bad news is, our stupid fake insurance will not cover him seeing the specialist he is supposed to see.  The good news is, the school district will "unofficially" assess him on their own.  By law it doesn't matter if a child is homeschooled; if a child has or may have a disability that is affecting their ability to get an education, the school must provide him with whatever it provides the other children in the district -- whether assessments or specific educational help.

The further bad news to that is, they're taking their own sweet time setting it up, and that's not great for us because now is a great time for me to be taking Marko to appointments and a month from now is not.  Legally they have to move on this by February, which, hello, is no comfort to me at all.

John recently introduced the boys to Minecraft, having heard it's really educational and so on, and Marko latched onto it with the full force of his obsessive personality.  He talks about it so incessantly I fear my brain will leak out my ears.  He's only allowed to play on weekends, and only if he's done schoolwork every weekday (which means we are being a lot more consistent about that, and no real power struggles about it), but the rest of the week is all taken up with talking about it, asking questions about it, flipping through the Minecraft books he got from the library, playing "real life Minecraft," refusing to wear any clothes but dark pants and a blue shirt like the character in it wears, etc.  He's suddenly amazingly cooperative, but only if you remind him that only good listeners get to play Minecraft.  So much for my self-motivated, no-rewards-or-punishments approach to education.  And every time I try to do something else fun with Marko -- convince him to go outside, read a book to him, get us all playing a game that another kid wants to play -- he tells us he just isn't excited or interested by anything else anymore but Minecraft.  He even spent a few days hating Christmas  because he was afraid he'd miss the chance to play Minecraft because we were opening presents and eating cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  I kinda hate Minecraft by this point.

Yet, when an obsessive kid has an obsession, you have no choice but to read up on it and try to take an interest, so I have.  And Marko is getting a Minecraft action figure for Christmas.  I have hopes that it will make him appreciate Christmas at least a little -- and that he'll use it for some creative play instead of just following me around reciting different rules of Minecraft.

6

Might be cheating, but my sixth grievance is all of my kids together.  They just are all going through difficult stages at the moment, and these stages work together synergetically to result in a massive cluster of awful.  They spend their time antagonizing each other, winding each other up in wild games, or fighting over who gets to be closest to me.

That last is probably the most annoying.  You know how you can go outside and it seems pleasant and not buggy at all, but within five minutes gnats are swarming around your head?  That's what the kids do whenever I attempt to sit down.  They all want to sit next to me, and of course three kids can't all sit next to the same person.  So they either start pushing and pinching one another, or they try climbing on top of me to stake out my lap.  But of course once one kid has done that, the others get jealous because someone else is closer to me than them, so there is screeching and pulling at each other.  A couple of weeks ago we all had the stomach flu and every time I tried to lie down on the couch, they would actually pile on top of me like a rugby scrum, kicking each other (and me, accidentally) and wailing.  Mothers should never have to be sick; it is simply not feasible when you have children.

The funny thing is, I was looking at old posts the other day and saw that at this stage of Miriam's pregnancy, the exact same thing was going on.  Lots of fighting, and lots of clinginess and jealousy.  What is it about being massively pregnant that makes children misbehave?  A few months ago I felt a lot worse than I do now, was crankier and more prone to neglect them, and they just played downstairs half the day and left me out of it.  I know that pregnancy makes sensory stimuli more annoying to me, but I'm pretty sure that objectively, they really are being more overstimulating now than they were then.

One possibility is that we just aren't leaving the house enough.  It's too cold and wet for them to want to play outside, and there are very few places around here to go in winter.  And, of course, every time we do go anywhere they come home with the plague, so I'm not eager to try.  Once I hit 37 weeks I'm planning to cloister myself because they pick up germs so easily and you all may remember what a disaster it was giving birth with sickness in the house last time.  But that always does leave the kids bored and bouncing off the walls.

Another is that I'm feeling a lot less willing to treat Miriam as the baby lately.  I do hold other children on my lap now, even when she throws a fit and tries to pull them off yelling "MY Mama!"  So instead of the peaceful coexistence of "Mama belongs to Miriam so everyone else had better go find something else to do" there's jockeying for more lap time.  And Miriam gets super needy because she's not getting the attention she's used to.  I could just go back to open season on nursing and hold her 100% of the time she wants, but ... that just would be pushing back the inevitable, and I'd rather get it out of the way now so it's not a new-baby thing.  Though experience with Michael was that it took him over a year to get over the not-the-baby-anymore wailing and clinginess.  I certainly HOPE Miriam doesn't react the same way.  She certainly is excited enough about everything baby-related.

And maybe it's just a matter of them all just happening to be having a hard time at the same moment, or one kid's hard time spreading to the others, and therefore not really my fault.  I may be able to help -- I think adding a bit more structure to our days has been good, when I've done that -- but in the end the kids might just have to struggle through it and hopefully be done with it by the time the baby gets here.

7

You know what?  Six is enough grievances and I honestly don't feel that negative about life.  So I'll cheat and talk about good stuff that's going on.



First, I still have a pretty decent energy level.  While it's true that I can't do much of anything without putting my hip joints in excruciating pain, I still would pick that over the horrible dragging feeling that I dealt with a few months ago.  When you have energy but lack mobility, you can still knit, spin, read challenging books, write emails to friends, and come up with activities for the kids.  And I am getting more housework done than I was then, albeit at the price of some pain.  And the thing about pain is, you can kind of get used to it, especially if it's not one of the really bad kinds like headaches or labor.

Second, I've been getting a lot of good crafting done.  No time like the third trimester to knit hats.  I even dug out my loom for one special gift.

Third, everyone has been extremely nice to me lately.  Friends keep showing up at my house to listen to my problems and sweep my floor.  I was in a panic about childcare for labor and a post to the local parish's Facebook page got me a ton of responses.  The person we've found is so perfect I want to adopt her.  I remember having all these doubts about being the "heretic" among the tight Catholic community here, but the reality is that these are great people with an actual functional community and that's not the sort of thing one should give up.  Maybe I don't fit in perfectly, but I am being welcomed and treated with kindness even by the people who know my Awful Secret.  Whereas the other friends I've made in the past year or two?  I still like them, but I wouldn't call them up in a pinch because I just don't feel like our relationship is up to favor-exchanging yet.



Fourth, with the leaves off the trees I get gorgeous sunrises and sunsets every day.  I really like living here.  Still puzzled by the radiator -- why does the thermostat downstairs read that it's set to 66, the actual temperature is 76, and the radiator is on, while the thermostat upstairs reads it's set to 70, it's actually 68, and the radiator is not on?  Or why, in the middle of the night, is it boiling in our room and freezing in Miriam's room, even though the thermostat in the hall supposedly controls both radiators?  But propping doors open is mostly taking care of all the weirdness.  Our fridge also started to fail recently, but it turned out it was covered in our home warranty and we got a whole new fridge for a $100 deductible!  Not too bad at all, even though it took them forevvvveeeerrrrr to get to it.  Home warranties are pretty cool, and I'd recommend them to anybody who doesn't have a lot of savings.  If you've got the savings to buy new appliances as needed, you'll save money just doing that, but if not .... the amount of panic that you are spared when you realize that you pay this month exactly what you pay every month, even though a major appliance broke, is definitely worth the money.  It means that one terrible month can't wipe you out.

I would have liked to visit family for Christmas, but of course that isn't feasible at 36 weeks pregnant, and it looks like we are going to have a very nice Christmas at home.  And it's nice not having to stress about travel.  Our plans are very simple and relaxing; no 12-hour drives or plane flights or anything.  I've baked cookies a lot lately. Tomorrow we're having bacon and orange juice and some kind of sweet bread for breakfast, and then for dinner a beef roast which hopefully everyone will enjoy.  (ONE DAY where no one complains about the dinner would be delightful.)  Our tree is set up in the living room, where it does not dwarf our entire living space, and I have a wreath outside.  It's all very low-key, but that's kind of how we roll.  John even has the next week off, so he and I can knock out some new-baby chores and maybe go for one last date.

I hope you and yours have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Guess that baby!

 Round two!

The rules are easy: guess which baby is which in each group.  Some groups have only two babies.  They are not necessarily exactly the same age in these photos, just roughly the same size so they could fit in the same outfits.  Click to enlarge.

If you can't tell, don't feel bad -- I'm their mother and I don't see any differences either.

Group 1 - stripey shirt

Group 2 - baseball outfits

Group 3 - smashed newborn faces

Group 4 - blue jammies

 Group 5 - robot shirt

My kids are annoying

There.  I said it.  From time to time, my kids really do drive me bananas.

I get praise all the time for how patient I am.  I don't mind waiting in line, and I waited for years for my husband to like me back.  But that's all small potatoes compared to the patience that small children demand.

Michael?  Sure, he's sweet and snuggly and adorable ... comes with the territory of being a baby.  But he's also needy and clingy and fussy ... which also comes with the territory of being a baby.  And there are times when I have used a frustrated tone (that one might calling yelling except I would NEVER yell at a poor, sweet, defenseless baby) and said, "Why won't you just be happy and let me put you DOWN?!"

I am NEVER crabby.

Marko?  Well, naturally he is a force of destruction.  He's two.  High on ability, low on responsibility.  He can easily comprehend how to open the fridge, but he just doesn't seem to get it when I say "No, you may not play with the eggs."  I have yet to find a tone of voice between "doesn't even hear me" and "melts down into a puddle of misery on the floor because I yelled at him."  And whichever tone of voice I use, the WORDS I use seem to be utterly lost on him.

Me?  Trouble?

His special talents are scaling furniture, raiding the fridge, and dumping stuff.  If there is something to be dumped, you bet your britches he is dumping it.  Dog's water, cat's food, salt shaker, baking soda, clean laundry ... I have heard some people FOLD their clean diapers.  What madness is this?  He dumps our diaper basket a dozen times a day, and if you want me to fold it, well, you might as well just commit me to a mental institution now and save me the trouble.

And then there's that thing.  That thing that's a perfect storm between my two children.  The thing that ruins my day, except the part where it often happens several times a day.

The thing is this.  Michael is not a good napper, obviously.  He is related to me and therefore sleeps about as deeply as Argos.  But we've kind of got a routine going that works okay for him.  I nurse him in the rocking chair until he's asleep, then transfer him onto my bed.  There's a magical moment right after his eyes have shut when he can be moved; go too soon or too late and you lose.  I used to do the whole process in the bedroom, but that means leaving Marko unattended, which results in several kinds of disaster.  So here's what happens instead.

I sit down in the rocking chair in the living room with my yawning baby who is clearly at that exact perfect point when he will go to sleep with maximum ease.  I nurse him.  His eyes begin to droop.  He doesn't care at all about the general background noise of Marko running around and singing nonsense songs ... so Marko is careful not to do that.  No, he is perfectly silent, say, playing with the dog.  Michael's eyes drop to 98% shut.  And then Marko suddenly decides the dog is not playing the game right and lets out a massive, blood-curdling shriek.  Michael unlatches and his eyes go as wide as saucers.  Latch back on?  Ha.  He is ALL DONE.  And ALL AWAKE.  For about five minutes, Michael is as happy as a clam.  And then suddenly he realizes that he is now overtired and dissolves into whining and fussing and sobbing and clinging to me.

Half an hour later, he's finally willing to try again.  We nurse.  His eyes shut.  Stealthily I sneak out of the chair and into the bedroom.  Just as I reach the bed, the door bangs open.  "Play in the helicopter!" Marko announces, leaping onto the bed.  Michael still doesn't wake, so we're good.  But he is on the bed and bouncing so I can't lay him down.  So very, very softly I whisper, "Please move so I can lay the baby down."  Eyes fly open.  We lose.

Michael only ever naps 45 minutes at a time.  He would be willing to be lulled back to sleep for another round, if only I could get about 20 minutes of perfect silence and calm to do it.  In other words it never happens.  So he takes 3-4 naps a day.  Odds are good that at least one and probably several of my attempts to put him down to sleep will fail.  And then the poor child is sooooooo crabby.

Occasionally I try putting Marko in his room and shutting the door before beginning the process.  But then he howls like he's been committed to Alcatraz for life, and I feel terrible "punishing" him before he's actually done anything wrong.  I sometimes put him in there after he's woken up the baby, but then it's kind of pointless because the baby is already awake, and I honestly don't think he understands the concept of what I'm asking him to do.

It's just FRUSTRATING, you know?

But I have discovered one thing.  It's that my mood makes the difference between calmly whispering, "Please don't wake the baby" and screaming "YOU WOKE THE BABY AGAIN!  I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!  GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I DO SOMETHING I'LL REGRET!"  The results of option A are superior to option B, and yet when I am angry, option B sounds more appealing.

So my job is to manage my OWN mood as carefully as the children's.  I keep Michael happy by making sure (to the best of my ability) that he gets food and sleep.  I keep Marko happy by making sure (to the best of my ability) that he has plenty to do and that I give him adequate attention.  I keep me happy by a number of different methods. 

The first is to IGNORE that stupid impulse I get when I am stressed out and behind on the chores ... you know, that still small voice that says, "The house is a mess.  Why don't you skip doing the chores and instead try making homemade pasta for the first time?"  I don't know why, but the more stressed out and behind I feel, the less I feel like doing chores and the more I feel like cooking something I've never cooked before, or maybe starting a complicated and messy crafting project.  My guess is this is the origin of Pinterest.  Just out of the margins of those pictures is a massive pile of scattered toys and half-eaten PBJ's.

The second thing is to change the scene.  I just pick them up and go: "Hey kids, Mama's gonna have an aneurysm if you destroy ONE MORE THING so we are going to go play outside."  It helps like you wouldn't believe.  For severe existential crises, the playground is indicated.

The third thing is the most important.  I simply cannot, canNOT do what I just did above.  I can't say "my kids are annoying."  Because if I give myself five minutes to think about it, I can think of a dozen more ways they drive me crazy.  (I had to stop myself from telling you about Juicemageddon of yesterday.)  And the more I think of them, the angrier I get until I'm speaking in furious monosyllables and getting in fights with the cat.  Yeah, not sure how that last one happened.

What I TRY to do (and often fail) is to pull the child who is bothering me closer, instead of pushing him away like I want to.  This of course has the effect of calming that kid down and stopping the avalanche of bad behavior that happens on a crabby day.  But more importantly, it helps me see the good in that child.  So I take Marko to the couch and I read him a book, and snuggle him, and the whole time I repeat to myself, "How much I love this child.  How big he is getting.  How hilarious his comments are.  I just can't get enough of him.  Soon he'll be growing up and he won't be this fun age anymore.  I know, I KNOW I will miss it."  Or I pick up Michael and coo at him, and sing, and tickle him, and rub his head.  His hair is about as long as a buzz cut now, only softer, and there is nothing in the world more fun than rubbing it backwards so it all stands up.  I could do it all day.

If I characterize my kids as annoying, I see that in them.  If I characterize them as fun and sweet and lovable, I more easily see that.

I am WORKING on it, anyway.  The past few days have been maddening and I feel like my brains are slowly leaking out my ears.

But John just walked in the door from his business trip, so I think things are going to be okay.  Nothing makes me see how great my children are like seeing them being held by Daddy ... i.e. happy and NOT being held by me.

Nursing two not-so-different babies

Marko was so hard to nurse.  So, so hard.  A lot of things went wrong, and I didn't really have any idea what I was doing.  I hadn't read a single book about breastfeeding.  I assumed that having seen it done was all I was going to need.

After he was weaned, I was looking forward to having another baby and getting it right this time.  The next would be easier.  And it has been -- but it still hasn't been effortless.  It's required some thought, and I've spent awhile trying to figure out various issues.  On the other hand, it's cast a lot of light on the problems I had with Marko.

With Marko, you may remember, he didn't nurse right away when he was born.  He was taken away from me to suction and didn't show any interest in nursing when I got him back.  I was told that he would sleep for about twelve hours and I could feed him when he woke up.  About nine hours into his epic sleep (only as a second-time mom do I now realize how weird it is for a baby to sleep twelve hours!) a lactation consultant had me wake him.  He still showed no interest in nursing.  He was sleepy and wasn't rooting at all.  The LC kind of shoved his face at the breast a few times, and when that didn't work, she told me I had flat nipples and he would never be able to latch.  Then she gave me a silicone shield, and we got him to latch with that.

It was only the next day that I learned that it's very hard to wean a baby off a shield, and also it might harm my supply.  The second LC told me I would have to pump after every feed.  I was very upset.  I had thought nursing was going to be so easy, and all of a sudden it was getting really complicated.  It was only the third LC I saw in the hospital that actually got Marko to latch on without the shield ... once.  But then I was discharged and it took me 11 weeks to get him off that shield for good.

When I weaned Marko off the shield, my supply went through the roof, and my cycles, which had returned, went away again.  (I have never heard of this happening to anyone else!)  Clearly that shield was doing some harm.  I was thrilled to have more milk and all was well for about ... a week.  But then suddenly Marko started doing something strange.  He would cry as if he were hungry, and I would put him to the breast, but he'd turn his head away and scream.

That got worse and worse for about two months.  I had to fight to get him to nurse at all.  Some weeks I had success by nursing him really often -- like every 45 minutes.  Some weeks he would only nurse lying down, or while I was walking around.  Going on a strict every-two-hour schedule helped more than anything, which was a surprise to me.  It didn't mean ignoring his cues, because he never asked to nurse.  I had been just nursing whenever he fussed because it was the only cue I had.  When, at nine months, he crawled into my lap and lunged at the breast, I almost cried.  It was the first time in his life he'd ever shown that he actually wanted to nurse.

I considered many issues: teething, oversupply, undersupply, overactive letdown, underactive letdown, tongue tie.  I dismissed tongue tie, though, because he seemed to be swallowing fine when I did get him to nurse, and because I wasn't having any pain.  It couldn't be undersupply because I could easily express milk when he was refusing it.  It really seemed to me like nursing was hurting him somehow.   I suspected reflux, and went on an elimination diet which did help, or which at least seemed to help.  Occasionally, when stressed or overstimulated, he still refused to nurse occasionally.

When, at five and a half months, he was looking pretty thin (he'd been quite chubby at three months, but had actually lost a little weight during the worst month) I let him grab food off of my plate like he'd been trying to do for weeks.  He scarfed it right down.  There was very little he tolerated at that age -- mostly just meat and beans -- but he was soon eating three meals a day and loving it.  He still nursed in a businesslike way, though usually because I offered it.  He was easily fussy and frustrated while nursing; the only way to calm him was to let him play with (read: pull) my hair.

He nursed till 19 months, when excruciating pain confirmed that I did not at all want to nurse through pregnancy.  He hasn't seemed to miss it, and I don't really have any regrets about that.  I figured we'd had a good run.

Well, let me tell you, it was a huge shock to me when I noticed one day, while brushing his teeth, that he has a tongue tie.  A very visible one -- a thread under his tongue that you can see whenever he lifts it.  When I asked him to stick out his tongue, he could only get it a little way out,and it turned heart-shaped.  I asked him to touch his nose with his tongue, which I did to show him, and he could barely get it over his upper lip.

All I could say was no.freaking.wonder I had trouble nursing this child!  It was actually a relief, realizing it wasn't all my fault.  That silicone shield might have been the only thing that got him nursing at all, when his mouth was still tiny and nursing would have been hardest.  And I have recently learned that nursing with a tongue tie may be painful for the baby and not for the mother.  Stretching the tongue up to nurse makes that tight frenulum hurt.  I wonder if that could have been one reason he was so resistant to nursing.  On the other hand, a tongue tie can also cause reflux, because it gets the baby swallowing air.  So he might have had that too.

So then I had another baby.  Michael had a much smoother start.  He latched on within thirty minutes of birth.  And then he pretty much stayed latched on for the first 48 hours or so.  Once my milk came in, he shifted to nursing every hour or so, which was delightful to me -- I could eat and go to the bathroom!  It was pretty obvious to me from the start that I had an oversupply.  I had a lot of milk with Marko, but this was way more.  Michael was sometimes overwhelmed by it, choking and pulling off to let the milk spray everywhere.  But it didn't discourage him from wanting to eat all the time.

He is a very burpy, spitty baby.  Our biggest issue with cosleeping was having to get up after each feed to burp the baby.  It was hard for awhile to get him to burp at all -- it's much easier now.  But he still spits up a lot.  I wondered for awhile if he could possibly be keeping anything down, but he was gaining weight at a phenomenal pace, so clearly some was getting through.  But around three months old, I started trying to work on that oversupply by doing block feeding.  Nothing drastic -- just trying to make sure he was emptying one side before offering the other.  I'd made the mistake up to then of switching sides every time he pulled off to burp, when really he wasn't finished.

Only that was not a success.  Michael does not want a half-empty breast.  He wants a full breast.  He wants the milk to let down instantly, and he wants it to flow so fast he can barely keep up.  He might be choking, but he likes that.  I think he is used to it.  If I put him on the emptier side, he fusses and yanks at it.  The same for after the letdown is over -- he pulls off and on again, or clamps his gums and pulls.  There is definitely milk there; I can express it easily.  But it isn't hosing him in the face like he's used to.  Like Marko, he always unlatches himself when he's done.  He rarely stays on for a leisurely nursing marathon -- instead the yanking-off increases until I declare the nursing session is over.  Once I've burped him, he doesn't often want to get back on again, unless I give him the other side.  But if I give him the other side, he spits it all back up again.  Occasionally he does what I dread more than anything -- flings his head away from the breast and screams.  Luckily I can deal with that easily enough, especially compared to Marko (who once starved himself for four hours, screaming the entire time, before I calmed him down enough to eat).  I just calm him down, do something else, and try again later.  Or I put him in the wrap and he falls asleep instead.  I'm not worried because he still nurses really often.

Elimination communication has been very reassuring to me, because I have been able to see that he isn't at all dehydrated and has been getting plenty of milk.  On the other hand, he is rather constipated.  (Yes, I know exclusively breastfed babies aren't supposed to get constipated.  But he IS!)

It's frustrating though.  I thought with this one it was supposed to be easy!

I can't be quite sure Michael does not have a tongue tie.  He doesn't have an obvious one like Marko has.  He does have an upper lip tie, but that is stretched out enough now that he has no trouble flipping his lip out correctly when he latches on.  But I know there is such a thing as a posterior tongue tie that isn't visible.  I don't know of any local expert who could tell if he has one or not.  They do run in families, so it is quite possible that I could have multiple children with tongue ties.  (If you are interested in the genetic causes of tongue tie, read the last link on this page -- apparently one issue is not being able to turn folic acid into folate, which leads to a folate deficiency resulting in tongue tie and other problems in a woman's unborn children.  Certainly motivated me to eat my liver instead of relying on prenatal vitamins, whether or not I have this mutation.)

It could also just be that he's accustomed to a fast flow now, and doesn't want it to slow down.  He never learned to suck hard because he never had to learn.  So now he's kind of lazy about it.  He can't keep a pacifier in either.  He'll suck on it for a bit, and then it falls out.  Marko was the same.  Neither of them has ever been willing to nurse on an empty breast to increase supply.  They could be starving, but once they realize the milk isn't going to come rushing out, they scream and refuse to try.  It's of course hard to say, because I have so much milk that this rarely happens and so maybe they just haven't been hungry enough to try.  All I know is, they have both preferred a full breast and a quick letdown.

Here are some links that I've found helpful.  The first two are about oversupply and the second two are about tongue tie.  You'll notice that a lot of the symptoms are the same for both.  And if I have oversupply AND the kids have tongue tie ... would those help cancel each other out?  Most tongue tied babies have trouble getting enough, and supply goes down.  In that case oversupply might be a blessing.

Colic in the Breastfed Baby

Gaining, Gulping, and Grimacing

Feeding problems from a tongue tie

One genetic cause of tongue tie 

I'm going to see if I can get to a La Leche League meeting, just to ask around for some tips.  Since Michael is eating well -- albeit every hour, with lots of puking -- and gaining just fine, I'm not exactly worried.  But I'd like to know what's going on.  Is this his personality, or is he honestly having trouble?  And am I going to have to nurse five kids before I can say I know what I'm doing?

Brothers

 Can you tell my boys apart yet?
 

And a few together because I can't help it:

Some fine-looking young men there, wouldn't you agree?