beanski

eighteen months

She's a year and a half old, which means we are as close to her second birthday as we are from her first. And I feel like her first birthday was yesterday. I feel so guilty sometimes when I think about how incredible the last six months have been and how I have been missing in action from her life from a lot of it. I have tried, I have run on little to no sleep if it meant that I got an extra five minutes to read her a story or to be there to watch her eat breakfast...even if it is from the couch, with her sleeping or nursing brother on my lap. In a lot of ways she's made me pay for deserting her. I know I have earned it, I know that she should be entitled to deal with this change any way she knows how but honestly, our last month together has been more trying and I have cried almost as many tears than I did during the first month of her life. That is saying something because I don't think I quit crying during that month. She's a daddy's girl now, always wondering where he is, spending her days standing at the door saying "Daddy HOME, Daddy HOME." She'll take me if she has no other choice when we're home alone and she needs a snuggle but if you ask her who she wants to read her a story or give her a bath or play Little People the answer is always the same: Daddy. I don't blame her and I am happy that she has a dad that has stepped up to be her caregiver, her friend, her one and only. I miss her dearly and I tell myself through tears over breakfast most days that someday, somehow I'll make it up to her. And I'll win her heart back.
 
We lost count at around 100 for the words she can identify and say and now we hardly even flinch when she says something new. She's started to refer to herself as Nae...pointing at her eyes and saying "Nae's eyes"...the word EYES said as though she's growing up somewhere in the deep south. It makes me smile every single time she says EYES.

She also learned the word NO and answers every question she is asked with a bored-annoyed-because-we-are-wasting-her-time NO. I guess I was sort of expecting a more aggressive No but really it's just No, not now people. No, I have not pooped in my pants for the sixth time today. I'm certain that if she understood the implications of rolling her eyes, she would be rolling them often.

Speaking of poop, she points at her diaper and says POOP now when she goes...which is sort of nice and has taken the guess work out of when she needs her diaper changed. And she does poop six times a day somedays. Becky at daycare told me a few weeks ago that Renee poops more than any kid she's ever had at daycare before. NICE.

She is still infatuated with her green polka blanket, now searching for two corners, one for each hand and when she finds them she brings them up to her nose, one over each nostril and inhales...almost like the scent of her blankie is the equivalent of snorting cocaine.
 
I made the mistake of buying her bath crayons at Target one day in an effort to make bathtime more fun because she went through a spell just after Cameron was born where she adamantly refused to take a bath. The bath crayons worked...almost too well because now she loses her shit the minute we say the word BATH as though she can hardly wait to get her hands on those crayons. And those crayons make the biggest mess of my tub that you have ever seen and quite frankly I don't have time to clean the tub as it is. I hate the bath crayons with the feiry passion of a thousand suns but can I take them away from her? No. And that, my friends, says volumes about my love for that little girl.

She LOVES playdoh and coloring in coloring books and still shows absolutely no interest in TV of any kind. Any TV that doesn't have The Jonas Brothers, that is. Driving home from Rama and Papa's after Christmas, I swear to God we listened to The Year 3000 no fewer than 30 times because she would scream her bloody head off if we turned it off. I have become immune to how terrible that song is. I almost don't hear it any more. You know how parents get immune to their kids screaming? Yeah well, I'm immune to The Year 3000. One of these days I'm going to get completely brainwashed and start liking it.

She ignores me flat out when I ask her to do something or tells me NO when I ask her to help me and I presume we are headed into the terrible twos. That's when they just quit listening, right? Yeah well, we're there. On rare occasion she'll surprise and do something I ask her to or she'll bend down with a sweet smile and give her brother a kiss for no reason. In those brief fleeting moments I think she might actually sort of like him. And I tell myself that at this point she probably has very little recollection of what life was like before he was here.
 
 
She still has that fire in her eyes and she still prefers to have both her dad and I in her sights at all times. Over the holidays, she roamed around my parents house saying Mama! Daddy! Baby! any time she couldn't see one of us for seven seconds. Flattering most of the time...completely annoying sometimes. She watches us like a hawk and if one of us heads for the bathroom she's there at our heels, making sure we're not going anywhere without her.

She's my big girl, my first-born, the keeper of my stars. She's challenged me more than I've ever been challenged before over the course of the last eighteen months. They call her difficult or whiney or clingy or spoiled but her mom? She wouldn't have her any other way.
 

meeting santa

We finally broke down and brought Renee to see Santa at the mall after THREE unsuccessful attempts to take her to see Santa outside with his reindeer at Fitger's. Tell me WHY do they schedule those things from 12-3. I mean SERIOUSLY. She eats at 12 and then naps until 3. Pretty hard to take her to see Santa. Who exactly are they catering too? ANYWAYS the Santa at the mall was sort of creepy and I think he was a jerk because I refused to pay TWENTY DOLLARS for a picture that I could take myself. So here is what I got. Both of them glaring at me. On that note, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
    
And Cam doing what he does best. SLEEPING. Ski wouldn't let me have Santa hold him because he might "drop him on his head." Next year :)
 
Well, he's awake sometimes...it's just usually in the middle of the night!
 

holiday spirit post #3: we really hate snow

This month the weather has SUCKED around here. We've alternated between blizzards dumping 12 inches of snow at a time and FORTY BELOW temps. I have told anyone that will listen that having a November baby is not really on the top of my list of fun things to do because EVERYTHING is difficult. Going to the blessed grocery store is hard enough with two children under 1.5 but you add on the snow pants...and the boots...and the hats...and the gift wrapping and buying...and the starting of the car while praying that toddler doesn't throw baby's car seat down the stairs while you're gone and I have been one big ball of holiday cheer. FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA.

A couple of weeks ago we got a fairly light snow with temps that weren't in the too-cold-to-step-outside category and I was having one of those days where I think it is a good idea to introduce my delicate little flower of a daughter who HATES change to new experiences. And I was just itching to try out the new snow pants and boots and I decided to take her outside to "play."

Cue dramatic horror movie music.

She started off by crying, complete with her patented pout.
 
And then she cried some more.
  
Then she slowed down a bit to the point where I thought she might calm down and start liking it. Like she MIGHT be curious about this whole new world of entertainment possibilities.

Let me check, NOPE.
  
Finally, the crying turned to her perfect little glare. And we went inside to play Little People.
  
She now points at the snow and says SNOW every time it snows...like she's all excited and wants to go and play in it. And for some reason, I just don't buy it. Maybe next week the infant will sleep for more than two hours in a row at night and I'll get the energy to try it again. And I'll again do what any good mother would do: I'll stand there and take pictures of her while she freaks the frick out.

holiday spirit post #2: sugar cookies with rama

As promised, holiday post #2 involving sugar cookie making with Rama. Renee liked the flour the best, demanding MORE! so that she could pick it up and dump it all over the floor. Rama let her. Rama also let her dip her utensil into the frosting a few extra times for good measure. They had such a good time. The recipe is my Grandma Jeanette's and when I think of Christmas, those cookies ALWAYS come to mind. They almost ARE Christmas to me and to celebrate the holidays I have eaten about 3-4 dozen of them in the last couple of weeks.
 
  
  
Lots of frosting and a few sprinkles later, she was all smiles. Next year we'll double the mess when Cameron doesn't sleep through the festivities.
 

tagged

Anne tagged me for this...you are supposed to take the sixth folder from the pictures file on your computer and pull up the sixth picture and post it.

This is my sister-in-law Jill in 2003 when my sister and her husband and Ski and I took her and her husband camping on Rainy Lake. Looking through the pictures from the trip makes me feel warm and fuzzy and somewhere other than sitting here in the middle of the great blizzard/cold spell that won't end. These pictures are why we live in Minnesota. For a month or two every year, Rainy Lake is bliss.

Here we are at Kettle Falls. All I can think when I look at this picture is WHERE ARE THE KIDS? Between the five people in this picture there are now SIX KIDS and the possibility of ever doing something like it again are slim to none. My second thought is GOOD GOD I want to be skinny again. I'm going to print this and tape it to the candy jar...AFTER Christmas :)
  
Greg's walleye...and the only fish we caught that day. Abby, Annie and Taber's dog, had gotten into raw eggs over breakfast and we couldn't fish very long because she was farting uncontrollably in the boat and no one could stand the stench. 
  
I wish I was right here right now with a Bells Two Hearted in one hand and a s'more in the other. And that my friends is why I'll never be a size zero again.
  
I'm tagging Tara, Davina and Heather if they are so inclined to play.

holiday spirit post #1: trimming the tree with nena

I'm so far behind on blogging things that I want to document. I'm so far behind on Christmas. And wrapping. And baking. And cleaning my house. And getting my haircut. And doing laundry and well, you get the idea.

Ski's mom was here at the beginning of the month helping out and while she was here we put up the tree. We usually put up a real tree but this year I just didn't see how logistically that was going to happen and Cam's pediatrician said a real tree was probably not a good idea for him this year anyways. Ski's parents happen to be spending the holidays out east with his brother and his wife so she lugged their fake tree up here for us to use this year. And I immediately was like WHOA DUDE, that was IT? When it was up and had lights on it and there was no mess in like seven seconds flat. For once I understand why people go the fake route. I miss the smell though. And I miss watching my husband get all pissed off moving it in and getting it in the tree stand and then hauling it back out. I am sure I'll miss it sitting in the yard until spring just waiting to catch fire. What fun are the holidays if we're not all pissed off? I'll find something else to be pissed off about, don't worry.

Renee thought the show was fun. She watched in amazement as we put it up.
   
She proceeded to rip off every ornament we hung. Our tree now only has ornaments on the top half. And no candy canes. And no ribbons. SWEET. I refuse to take a picture of it until I get my presents wrapped and pretty to arrange under it. Which is more an IF at this point than a WHEN. So you can see our tree next year :)
  
She had a good day and was smiling. She needs to be busy to be smiling. And we are now on day 15 of either blizzard or sub zero weather (like FORTY BELOW) and we are both going stir crazy. The boys in this family seem to sort of like it. The women? We start to LOSE OUR MINDS after day five of not leaving the house. 

Nena held Cam. Holding babies is Nena's specialty and he loved it too. 

One of Ski, his mom and the kids. I had never realized how very much he looks like his mom until I saw this picture. The mouth is a little different but from the nose up OH MY GOD. I think Cam sort of looks like his dad/Nena at this point. We'll see if it lasts. Renee used to look like me too and I don't think she does as much anymore.

The next installment of my holiday spirit posts will involve large amounts of flour all over my house courtesy of sugar cookie making with Rama...followed by how my kid hates snow pants and boots and snow and all things winter...followed by a weekend stuck inside playing playdoh with Charlie and Sarah...followed by whatever fun is about to happen next week. I'm scared of what is going to happen to our perfect little routines with all of the traveling. Hold me.

one month

He came into our lives by storm one month ago today awakening me out of a dead sleep with a contraction that said 'Hi Mom, GET READY...HERE I COME.' He followed that one up with another of equal or greater magnitude about ten minutes later. The third one made me get out of bed to head downstairs to time them, wondering if this was really it. I was halfway down the stairs when my water broke. I turned around, walked to Ski's side of the bed and said 'Honey, wake up, we're going to have a baby today.' We made our calls, Lindsey showed up around 4:30AM to take care of Renee until my parents could get to town and we collected our things and headed to the hospital. I remember thinking, 'Wow, I feel totally calm...this is totally different than last time.'
 
When I told the nurse that we were going for the VBAC I had to swallow a huge lump in my throat. A lump that said 'Seriously woman, you don't have anything to prove. Why are you doing this?' I spent most of the day waiting for something to go wrong. I asked each and every person that came into my room if things were going OK and then accused each and every one of them of lying when they said things were going perfectly. When I made it to 10cm and got the urge to push I remember wondering how long I had before I would get whisked away for the inevitable c-section. And I remember being sad because I was tired. Everyone kept telling me I was doing everything right and when he came rushing out and I heard his dad say 'OHMYGOD, IT'S A BOY,' I knew that this journey that we started 10 months ago had finally come to a close. When I kissed his forehead and looked at his face for the first time, I wept because I was so relieved for the happy ending I spent my entire pregnancy praying for. It was a bumpy road but there we were. Everything had gone according to plan.

We named him Cameron some time during the evening. We reflected on one of our first conversations about names for our unborn children, a conversation that happened some three years before Renee even became a speck on our radar. Five years ago, we were watching the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup finals and the goalie was named Cam Ward. I remember saying, 'I like the name Cam. Cameron. I think it's solid' and Ski responded with something along the lines of 'Yeah, it's not too basic and not too new age. I like it to.' And now we have our very own Cameron. I can honestly hardly remember at this point what life was like before he was here.

He kept us awake for basically 23 straight nights with his grunting and moaning and insisting that laying in bed next to mom was the only place for him. He refused to stay awake long enough to eat during the day and we made at least ten trips to the clinic for weight checks. And I cried a lot. And my hoots bled and I wondered how I could have been so successful at nursing Renee only to fail so miserably this time. At two weeks, he was still 3 ounces shy of his birth weight. I gave him a bottle that night, weeping, wondering how I could really give up on him and live with the guilt. I decided to give it three more days...until his next weight check and that was it. I couldn't starve him anymore. I couldn't live with starving my baby. At the appointment he had gained NINE OUNCES in three days and we haven't looked back. It's like one day he just woke up and figured out how to do it and that was it.

He is the sweetest little baby on the planet, hardly ever crying or demanding anything. He usually starts grunting when he's hungry and I change his diaper to get him ready and then I feed him. He doesn't really even ask for it but seems so grateful that I suggested the idea when he's eating. Like he's glad his mom is there to hang out with him and he's happy about the cuddle. Honestly, so far he is the polar opposite of his high maintenance sister and at least 100 times in the last month I've wondered what I thought was so hard about having a newborn last time. And I'm sure I just cursed myself and tomorrow he'll wake up screaming his bloody head off and won't quit until he moves away to college or something.
 
He HATES to have his clothes taken off and his diaper changed but I think that has something to do with the fact that our old house is COLD and he is freezing to death. He throws a holy hell fit every time we do it and then calms right down as soon as he is warm.
 
Renee is already trying to teach him tricks, always showing him her toys and talking in her own little language. I'm certain she is already telling him all about The Jonas Brothers. He likes to watch her play with her toys...well, at least until she starts trying to shove the pacifier down his throat. 
  
  
This is what happens when his mother has one blue hat that happened to be in the wash and needed to go to the grocery store. If you're reading and know my husband: SHHHHHHH. I don't think he'd approve of his son wearing a pink hat out in public.  
He's perfect and getting better and better at sleeping on his own without us holding him, going almost perfectly through the three hour eat, play, nap rotation without hardly any prodding from me. Then, almost a week ago he went for SIX HOURS without eating in the middle of the night. I was sure it was a fluke and then he did the same thing for the following five or six nights and SWEET JESUS I almost feel human again. A five hour sleep stretch is all I needed to feel like I could do this. That I could be successful at parenting these two babies at the same time. I have no idea how long it will last but I will continue to awaken at 3AM gushing and kissing and promising him that he is the best thing to ever happen to me.

And now when we're having our alone time in the night or when his sister is napping, I look at him I can't believe I ever wondered if having him was a good idea. Because it was the best idea I never had. Thanks Cameron, for having other plans. For deciding that you didn't care whether we were ready for you or had planned for you...you were coming anyways. I'm so glad you did, my sweet baby boy.
   

welcome to the most random blog on the planet

I am apparently no longer capable of putting together a post that contains any sort of transitions or coherent thoughts. I am currently averaging 2 hours of sleep per week so get off my case. Go pick on someone else. 

First and foremost, go over to Kim's blog and tell her awesome she is for coming over to take newborn pictures of Cameron. She is the Baby Whisperer, I swear to God. I had taken his clothes off trying to get pics at least five times in the three weeks he has been around and he has screamed every time. She walks in with her magic bag of tricks and look how sweet he looks.

Also, how cute is he? Fricking cute. And I don't even have to upload my own picture. How awesome is that? AWESOME. But here is one anyways so I can prove how much better she is at taking/processing pictures than I am. I need to take a class. I'll get right on that...in all of my spare time.

Cameron is fun to have around except for the fact that he prefers the daytime for sleeping. And when it is winter in MN and it is night time for more of the day than it is day time, that SUCKS BIG TIME. Dear Cameron, get your days and nights figured out already. The pediatrician told me it would take two weeks. She LIED. I hate her.

Speaking of [the lack of] sleeping, I curse the fact that the damn teething waited for this time when we have a three week old baby to rear its ugly head with Renee. She's not sleeping either. SWEET. NONE of us are sleeping. I take one, Ski takes one and we both look at each other in silence over breakfast with looks that say WHAT IN THE HELL WERE WE THINKING? Inevitably I say something like, "So, you want to have some more kids?" Then she throws her cup on the floor for the seventeenth time and my head explodes. And then I cry because we are only on number SEVEN OUT OF TWENTY TEETH in the next 18 months.

Then there's this. My mother-in-law has been here for the last few days helping and CAN SHE STAY FOREVER? PLEASE? Or can someone please come and live with us forever? The extra set of hands is SO FRICKING NICE. My mom is coming for a few days next week and then I'm on my own. Like as in I have to take care of two kids all day every day BY MYSELF. Please send chocolate chip cookies. I need a steady drip of chocolate chip cookies.

And finally, my girl is a ham. And I love her. She's STARTING to love me back again, the little brat.
 

Now I need to go take a nap. They are both sleeping and I'm blogging. PRIORITIES, I tell you.