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I've been doing a fair bit of contemplating lately about my life as a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). I am so grateful for the opportunity, but I've realized that I haven't been taking my self seriously. That is, that when I would think of the role SAHM, my mind would picture the idealized version that we see in the media (movies & cleaning product ads) and I projected that image onto other mothers and assumed that I was the only mother who didn't clean my bathroom every other day, for example. I felt vaguely guilty when people complimented me for being able to do certain thing, because they said I must be so busy with two children now. Guilty because I don't feel busy. I realize the reason that I don't feel busy is because I'm not spending my days working.
I'm starting to see now that part of being a SAHM is the time spent playing with my children, walking with them or just hanging out talking, reading, whatever. That is being a parent as much as having a clean house or a nice dinner. This is what I've been doing, I just have started giving myself credit. I didn't understand how I could be tired at the end of the day. I know from experience in customer service that just being available to people all day, answering questions in a pleasant and thoughtful way is draining and really parenting is the same sort of work. And the only way to see the result of that work that I do every day is not whether the laundry is folded, it is to see how the children are growing and learning. (hard to put into words without resorting to cliches). 
While making diiner tonight, Amelia was on her stool, doing her dishes as usual. I left the kitchen for a few minutes and when I came back, she had her little fingers in the flour and cornmeal I had started for the cornbread and was eating it. "Oh," I exclaimed, "you..." "cheeky monkey" she said. Yeah, that fits.
Our computer isn't speaking to our camera right now, so the cute picture of Burke lying on Amelia's belly will have to hold...Four weeks in, and all is well. for the past week or ten days, Burke has been cluster feeding and fussy from somewhere between 4:30-6:00 until 8:00 or 9:00. really not too bad considering Amelia's fussy time was from10pm-2am. the only problem is that Amelia doesn't go down on her own, I need to lie with her until thos eyelids fall. This all means that I get through my days fine, but then the evenings do me in, and by 9:30 I am exhausted, especially if Lance has had to work late.Some little things about Burke; he's got tufts of hair on his ears, its very cute and Hobbit-ish and I've got to get a picture before it falls out (for blackmailing purposes 15 years from now!), he gets grumpy and does this growly, complaining noise if one tries to move him or even put a blanket on him while he's asleep. Now, of course, I can't remember the other things I was going to write about. Next time.And Amelia is so sweet with him. she loves to help with diapers and clothes. And when her bedtime is going smoothly, it involves me nursing Burke, and Amelia lying with her head on my shoulder, stroking Burke's head.Ooops, naptime's over now, bye!
Here we all are, in our backyard. Burke is now three weeks old! I will write more soon, but it's almost bedtime and Burke is getting ready to wake up for the next meal...
Here's Amelia in the beautiful sweater that auntie Molli made for her. I can't believe she's 2 already! of course, she looks huge to me now, compared to, oh about 9 days ago...it's all relative.
Lance and Amelia are over their colds. I am too except for a bit of a cough. Now I get to go for a root canal on Thursday (my first ever!)(sounds fun). Burke is such a good sleeper, he should be fine without me for a few hours, plus he's happy to suck on our fingers or his thumb if he finds them, so I think if I send a bottle along he should be fine. Amelia would've been a different story. She nursed more frequently, and only ever accepted the nipple.
He (unnamed as of yet) was born Sunday, Feb. 12 at 9:58 am. I had started having subtle contractions Sat. morning and by two in the afternoon, knew they were for real. I laboured at home till 2 am, then we went to the hospital. (a dear friend, who also made Amelia tis fantastic cape, stayed over with Amelia and looked after her on Sunday). At the hospital, I was only 3 cm dilated! I felt like I had done a bit more work than that... They kept us (second child, things could just pick up), and I slowly but surely progressed. The doctor who was on call, (my dr. shares on-call duties with a group) came into the hospital at 6 am and stuck around. At 9:15 am, my nurse (who I wasn't liking) went on her 45 min break, and my body took that opportunity. My water broke, I fiercely pushed and within a few minutes he was born. (no drugs throughout). That last pushing was like nothing I had ever expected. oh my!! I damaged my voice. I yelled, things like 'I can't do this', and 'get it out of me'. Lance wonders where in my yelling the air intake came, I kept up the yelling so long. I hope those rooms really are soundproof.
Way at the back of my mind, I knew once the head was out it'd be ok. And it was. I held him right away and uninterrupted for the next 45 minutes. He figured out the nursing right away, and now is better at it than Amelia was at three weeks. They let us go early because everything was looking so good, so we left the hospital just after 4 pm. And here we are, doing well, sleeping, eating, nursing, and taking care of a sore throat ( i went in with a cold, and the yelling did not help).
love you all!! ps, 7lb 11oz or 3505 gramsand i can't remember length,
Here is a picture of Amelia at the aquarium earlier this week, but the real reason for this post is that my labour started this morning, so probably by the end of the weekend we three will be four... (and the baby turned last weekend, so everything's hunky dory!)
need I say more?
I was just listening to CBC this morning and there's an interview with Aubrey Nealon. He' has written and directed a film called A Simple Curve. about growing up with hippie, back to the land parents in the Slocan Valley in eastern BC. Molli and I are two of those children, and I am aquainted with Aubrey. I haven't seen him for 10-15 years, but I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. Molli and I didn't spend as much time in the Valley as this group of people, but the experiences he's described in the interview still resonate.
This is Amelia while I make dinner.
And we could use some upside-down thoughts for tiny baby, s/he's head up right now. It's not a problem yet, but we just need to start thinking that way (especially since I'm aiming for 3 weeks from now. (due date is 5 weeks, Amelia was 2 weeks early and that's still considered term, and sounds good to me!)
Good friends babysat Amelia tonight so that Lance and I could go see Narnia. I was already a bit weepy but thought I had it under control by the time we parked. Then, one of the (many) previews was for a Disney movie about a team of sled dogs that had to be left behind in Antarctica and who saved themselves (you can imagine the story...) (its called Eight Below). I started weeping. Back under control. Movie starts, so far so good, until the mother has to send her children away from her in war-time London. Weeping. Ok, ok. Fine for the rest of the movie. Then, as we're leaving the theatre with everybody else there's a little girl a few steps down looking back up the steps with big dark brown eyes calling "mommy". I stop where is her mommy?? Oh, there she is, ok, good. I start weeping. Walk to the car, fine. And on the car ride home, poor Lance keeps sneaking looks at me (is she ok now, how about now, will this red light set her off?)Not much longer now, right?
top left, Amelia modeling sone of Daddy's outerwear, (all Arc'teryx, of course!)
top right, Amelia and bear, with bibs on, both eating, (I don't know why they're eating off the floor)
bottom left, the soup that they were eating (eggplant top, fig newton, juice, water, salt, red pepper and a little olive oil!)
bottom right, reading.
She made this face first...
Amelia and I had a nice morning today; I had been needing to clean the window frames in our bedroom; they were moldy and all three of us have been waking up a bit stuffed up. Amelia kept herself busy on the bed, we had little conversations about what she was doing (putting the baby to sleep, singing and reading to baby) and what I was doing (cleaning with a special cleaning toothbrush, that only Mommy and Daddy could use, not children - not Mia(her nickname for herself)). At a certain point, she decided she wanted to help, so she tottered off downstairs by herself to get one of her cloths and came back and wiped the windowsill. Very sweet. I know I'm going to have to stock up on moments like these now while it's still just the two of us, everything will be different soon, good too but different. I'm scared of the change but excited and impatient to meet our new family member!
Sorry for the lack of posts or pictures! We've had a very nice season. I am so loving having a home where people can be. Where more than two people can fit in the kitchen, and not be in single file. Where people can sleep over and they can have their own room! We had some friends over for New Year's Eve and I was ready 1.5 hours before they came. The house is easier to keep tidy because the living space is just that, not also the storage space. Ahhh. Plus, we got a dishwasher!! We took advantage of a friend in town for the holidays (how's the arm C?) and did some plumbing adjustments and got the dishwasher installed. I haven't lived with a dishwasher for 13 years. WOW.Of course, the main impetus in getting a dishwasher now is the impending expansion of our family. I'd say since mid-december I have been feeling very pregnant. I'm fairly certain I'm not any larger than I was with Amelia, but I feel like it. And this one is more active. And I've been getting heartburn, which I've never experienced before. But I also already find myself thinking of this as a new member of our family whereas during my pregnancy with Amelia, everything was abstract, and I had to constantly tell myself that there would be a baby soon.So now Amelia and I are trying to get back into the swing of things, She's been a clingy sleeper the past few days, she doesn't sleep long If I'm not there with her. And now I have to start pulling out the baby things, getting space for them in the upstairs. 7 more weeks, but Amelia was 2 weeks early, so if you see me carrying a piano up the stairs in 5 weeks from now, don't try to help! ;)
I heard a little cry from Amelia towards the end of her nap-time, but then nothing else for about 15 minutes, so I guessed she had gone back to sleep. She had, but she made it this far first. This is how I found her, sound asleep, I was able to take two flash pictures before she woke up. She had needed her diaper changed, so that's what woke her in the first place. As I was changing her, she was complaining that her knee was hurting. I guess so!!
Ninneready means Dinner ready, and Amelia says this when she's hungry, but also lately when she's stalling her nap. Today was the first meal-time for some of the animals and so they needed their "bib-on" then it was "ninneready".
Need I say more?
She got her own bib out, put a bowl on her tray (I took it back to put food in it) and the next thing I hear is her squawking, and hear she is. She only just discovered that she can climb onto a chair, and tonight discovered that she can get to the table from there. I think she may have been going to attempt to get into her chair but got distracted. Watch out world!! ps. To anyone worried, this is not something we let Amelia do, or will encourage. I didn't know she could do it. Now I do!
Amelia's slept every night in her room now since we started. She wakes up once or twice, and I either spend the second half of the night with her, or manage to get back to my own bed. I'm so pleased and proud of her, although she hasn't seemed to really have noticed much, except when she wakes in the night and I'm not right there, but even that's been not bad at all. These are the guests she invited into her bed tonight, and she had me kiss them all too, how could I refuse? When she slept beside me, she never slept with a stuffie or doll, and didn't really seem too attached to them either. During the move, this Shirley Temple doll re-surfaced, (that our grandma had given to me and Molli as children), and Amelia fell in love. In my ideal plan in my mind, Amelia's first doll would be the Waldorf doll that Molli is making that we were planning to give to her for her second birthday, in time for the new baby in the house. We have put a rush on that doll, it will be more cuddly than this stiff plastic one. Amelia has tried a few times to go to sleep resting on Shirley's belly, but it's just not made for that!
Amelia is very sweet with Shirley, she doesn't do everything with us, but when she's around she'll join us for storytime, get kisses if she falls, walk up the stairs (which is tricky if you already are using your hands to get up the stairs), watch bathtime (from a safe distance) and, of course, go to sleep with us. Sometimes, some of the stuffies will join us in our activities too if they happen to be around (like tonight).
It's interesting for me to watch this play naturally unfold, I don't remember playing with animals or dolls much as a child, I wasn't a tomboy and we did play with Barbies but I never was much into dolls like this that I remember, granted my memory is not that good... But the play that Amelia engages in with these has unfolded quite by itself. The first time she found the doll, I showed her how to hold her gently, and once she dropped her down the stairs and Lance told Amelia that's not how we play with dolls and gave Shirley a hug for the fall, and that's all the guidance Amelia has needed. When the child is ready the doll shall appear???
Amelia has a hat with tassles on it, and she calls my pony tail or bun a tassle too and so i put one in her hair for the first time. She loved it!
Another first; tonight I put her to sleep in her own room for the first night-time sleep. (waa for me, she may be ready for her own room but am I??) She's had about 6 naps in there so far. I didn't think I'd start transitioning her for another week or so, but the way the night-time routine went it just happened. I have her on foam on the floor and just went to check on her, she's now on the floor on the other side of the little room(she's rolling into the bi-fold closet doors as I . We'll see how this progresses
This is Amelia just after her nap at the top of the stairs. (please note the lovely colour of our carpet, they've said we'll get new carpets in the spring)
I've been doing a fair bit of contemplating lately about my life as a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). I am so grateful for the opportunity, but I've realized that I haven't been taking my self seriously. That is, that when I would think of the role SAHM, my mind would picture the idealized version that we see in the media (movies & cleaning product ads) and I projected that image onto other mothers and assumed that I was the only mother who didn't clean my bathroom every other day, for example. I felt vaguely guilty when people complimented me for being able to do certain thing, because they said I must be so busy with two children now. Guilty because I don't feel busy. I realize the reason that I don't feel busy is because I'm not spending my days working.
