Things That Happened.

Last I left you, my dedicated @#%! friends, I was very pregnant and a little angry.

Rest assured, eight weeks later, I am no longer pregnant! 

*throws confetti*

You may have already known that if you follow my instagram or facebook, and if you don’t, well you should be because then you wouldn’t have been waiting two months with bated breath for this press release.

Adding a tiny new member to the family was an easier transition than expected, although it helped immensely that Little A started part-time preschool so he’s out of the house three mornings a week.

*throws more confetti* 

I also had a steady stream of help in the way of grandmas and paternity leave so I was rarely left unattended to deal with the two mini hell-raisers. But that’ll change next week

Please send bourbon.

The birth-by-induction was a wee bit harder than the first but I’ll tell you all about that someday. She’s here, she’s growing, she’s starting to smile for realsies and she’s pretty @$^$!@# awesome. I don’t even hate pink as much as I expected to.

I need to knock the dust of this old blog thing. Anything you’re interested in reading from me? I need ideas, otherwise you’ll get a whole lot of MY BABY IS CUTE SO SUCK ON THAT.

And I think I can be more interesting than that.

…….right?

 

 

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The Waiting Game

First, let’s discuss some missing details and catch up things because I’ve been absent from this blog, for the most part, for the last nine months.

That’s my Over It face.

I’m due tomorrow.

It’s a girl.

She is still not 100% named.

I have been calling her Mini B because she is baby #2 after Little A and she is showing signs of my bitchiness. Mini Bitch. Mini B. Get it?

I guess that’ll help fill in the gaps. On to business.

Kenya !@#% Believe It?

Fact: Below is one of the first posts I drafted when I started this blog almost 11 months ago. ELEVEN MONTHS AGO. And it sat in the draft pile week after week after week because sorting through 1500 pictures just seemed like too big of a chore. And then it got to the point where I forgot. And then it got to the point where if I waited a few more weeks, it would fall on the year anniversary of the trip. So here we are.

A year ago this week, I came back from the GREATEST vacation I’ve ever been on. GREATEST. EVER. I wrote a travel pamphlet in like fifth grade on Kenya and since then, I wanted to go to there. Never in my wildest dreams did I actually think it would happen. But it did. And I loved it more than I could have imagined and I am beyond thankful for the opportunity.

The country and the people and the atmosphere touched me in a way that still moves me. I felt incredibly homesick in the days after I got back home and I still get that pang. I’m not a stranger to homesickness – I grew up in Minnesota and every time I visit I still get teary when I leave, especially if I am flying. It was the only place I would cry over. Until last year. I was practically sobbing as the plane took off from Nairobi. I felt like a fool but I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was leaving a part of myself behind.

Little did I know I was bringing part of it home with me. And really, what were the %^@!$ odds of THAT.

Below is the original post, finally with photos.

Dear @#$* Baby,

You don’t need to know the how. You’ll learn that from TV eventually. But you should know the where. Because the where is awesome and you need to embrace your “roots”.

We made you in Nairobi, Kenya while on an epic vacation. The doctor is dating you a week later because apparently that’s how you measured at Week 13*. But I’m not the Virgin Mary and you’re definitely not Immaculate and Big A was 7000 miles away since we didn’t travel home together, so that’s a load of crap. We know the truth. Anyway, you’ve already been on safari, climbed a volcano and flown over the Atlantic. I wonder if I can claim extra air miles. I hope you’re grateful. It took me 30 years to get to Africa and you’ve already been there.

*Yep, I have had this draft written since Week 13.  It has seen more than its fair share of edits.

Check out some of the shit you were a part of…

Held a Baby Crocodile

Fed a Baby Giraffe

Saw Orphan Baby Elephants

Saw Amazing Scenes Straight Out of Lion King

Rode an Ostrich. And then ate one.

Saw Lion Cubs Wrestle

Climbed a Volcano

You also sort of helped fed a monkey and pet a baby cheetah but I can’t find the videos of those things.

We’re sort of hoping you come out half African, just so you know. And a terrific runner.

You also probably sucked in nutrients from a lot of Tusker beer (which may or may not contain formaldehyde) and smoke from several hookahs. Sorry about that. Earlier this year, we were debating how I could fly out and you could be born there, because how awesome would dual citizenship be? But we figured the 16 hours worth of flights may not be the most rational thing to do so late in the game.

But we’ll get you back there, someday. If not for you, for me, because for whatever reason, my week in Kenya causes me to be homesick for it and I miss it terribly. But at least you’ll be an everlasting souvenir.

Pregnancy vs. Motherhood – Honestly.

I wrote this mid-July, when Little A was about three weeks old. I was in the throes of emotional breakdowns and constant stress and never-ending tears. I debated about posting it at all, since it is pretty raw and jarring – mostly to me. I vividly recall how I wrote it – sitting on the floor of the nursery, exhausted, sobbing, pounding this out on my tablet as the kid slept in the crib after hours of fussing. I am honestly surprised there aren’t more typos. It’s not a perfect post by any means, but it is a recollection of that moment of time for me.

Things have gotten WAY better since this. WAY BETTER. We’ve found a groove, we’re working on a schedule, I am no longer freaking out about feeding. I still think being pregnant is way easier than motherhood – but it is incomparable. Pregnancy does not deliver the smiles, the faces, the grunts, the personality of your spawn. Motherhood is awesome…just not for the first few weeks.

Pregnancy is a hell of a lot easier than motherhood.

Maybe it is just me, but there is a whole lot of guilt, about everything, once that fetus is a baby. And with all that guilt is a whole shitton of tears. And more ugly cries than the entirety of the pregnancy. And I can’t stop.

It’s over stupid things like a photo not turning out exactly right or being peed on.

It’s over legit things like having an ounce of breast milk thrown away that took you two pumping sessions to obtain or the blinding pain of the first few days of nursing.

It’s over regrettable things like not taking enough pictures in the hospital or in the first few days.

It’s over things only I would get emotional about, like not appreciating the labor process enough, being in the moment enough or wanting a do-over.

Yes. A do-over. I often wish I could rewind a few weeks, enjoy and revel in the last few days of pregnancy more, take in and be more in the moments of labor and birth, appreciate every moment that gets spent. I would go through every moment again in a heartbeat if I could take these lessons I’ve learned and use them to have a less emotional time about all this. I would take thousands of pictures, make other people take thousands more, write whenever I had a spare moment so I wouldn’t forget a single detail, I would cherish everything.

Instead, I’m tired and frustrated and impatient and constantly on the verge of tears because I can’t shake the feeling I have done everything wrong and there is no going back. And while I know that is far from the truth – we are all healthy and had zero serious complications throughout this journey – I still feel an intense need to rewind and start again.

It’s hard place, knowing you’re being irrational but unable to contain it. I snap at Big A, I have to walk away in frustration from Little A, I swear a lot.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m in the post partum depression zone, but I also can’t help feeling that this is also a little beyond the baby blues.

Gratuitous Photo Alert

Yeah, this has been in the draft pile since, like, Memorial Day. Well, these photos were taken Memorial Day weekend, so maybe it was a week or two after that. Either way, I sort of don’t look like this anymore. But  I still wanted to share. Because this is my blog. And I do what I want.

Shout out to Melissa McClure Photography  for being willing to put up – as always – with my crazy faces during this shoot. She’s awesome. And she knows it. You should know it, too.

I tend to dislike the cheesy shit, so this is what happens when it gets brought up in jest.

And one of Baxter because he’s Baxter and he kicks ass.