Animals?

Aiden gave me a good laugh today and I thought I'd share it with all of you.

I was watching the noon news as I was nursing Nathan and an ad for the National Guard came on. Aiden looks up from playing with his blocks, points at the TV, and yells "Hippopotamus!!". I'm not quite sure why he thought the National Guardsmen looked like hippos, but I got a good chuckle out of it anyway.

He's become quite the joker for a 2 year old. I said something to him yesterday and he looks at me and says, "Silly mommy, you've got a nose!". That really didn't didn't have anything to do with what I was saying to him, but I'm glad he's creating full sentences.

Naptime, naptime, where have you gone?

Nathan is apparently not interested in sleep during the day. I can get him to take little power snoozes, but he's fighting long naps for some reason. I can tell he's exhausted, although he's not really fussy. He just wants constant attention. I think he's beginning to hate his pacifier too. It was right around this time (6 weeks) when Aiden spit out his pacifier and never took it again.

Last night was interesting. Aiden woke up from his nap around 6:45pm and was screaming, saying "Ow! Ow!". I'm afraid he might be getting an ear infection from the cold he's had for nearly 2 weeks. So he was screaming and crying, which set Nathan off. So I try to calm Nathan down, which makes Aiden mad, so he starts screaming louder. Both boys are screaming at the very top of their lungs and I am lost as to how to handle it. Luckily, John walked in the door from work (a look of shock on his face as soon as he walked in) and we each took a kid. Hello, Zoloft!! :^)

Speaking of Zoloft, I'm beginning to feel a little better already and it's only my 3rd day on it. It does make me sleepy, which sort of stinks since I'm generally tired all the time anyway, but at least it's not causing insomnia. I can definitely tell that I feel a little more focused and calm. I was able to spend nearly an hour playing with Aiden without feeling the anxious urge to do the dishes or fold the clothes. I think Aiden really enjoyed truly having my attention for once.

Just a little glimpse at my day

We had a great weekend with lots of family, mainly people we don't get to see very often. It was loads of fun to show off Nathan and pass him around. We took some pictures, so I'll get them on here as soon as I can, but you know how long that could take with a 6 week old baby around (funny enough, he woke up and started screaming the minute I wrote that).

Today, I feel, is the beginning of some change for me and I'll tell you why. First though, I have to tell you about what I found when I went into Aiden's room this morning to wake him up so I could drive John to work. Aiden has a habit of taking his diaper off at night after we put him to bed and then putting his PJ pants back on, falling asleep, and wetting the bed. We started putting Pull-Ups on OVER his diaper at night to make it harder for him to do that and it was working. But this morning I walk into his room only to be greeted by the sight of a naked little bottom pointed at the door. He had somehow managed to take the Pull-Up off and remove his diaper. I guess he was just too tired to put his PJ pants back on this time though, so he slept mostly nude. Needless to say, his bed was absolutely soaked. Fun.

On to the beginning of my change. I had my 6 week post-partum checkup this morning and I knew I'd have to take the depression screener. I filled it out truthfully and gave it back to the nurse. She takes it to the midwife, who looks it over before she comes in the room. My midwife walks into the room and says, "You scored a 12. That's not good.". Apparently, they want you below 10. I immediately burst into tears and begin a long rant on how I'm getting stressed really easily, I'm anxious all the time, I'm worrying about things I shouldn't be, and how I'm still (obviously) crying all the time. So, she wants me to see a counselor and gave me a list of counselors who specialize in post-partum depression. She also put me on a low dose of Zoloft, which I agreed to after making sure it wouldn't affect Nathan in any way. She pointed out that if I'm upset and stressed all the time, it's going to affect him so much more than any meds would. And enough stress can actually begin messing with milk production and screw up the nursing. Nathan likes nursing WAY too much for me to let that happen.

Hopefully things will start settling hormone-wise very soon and I'll be feeling more capable of being a mom to two small children. I got cleared for exercise and I think that will help me tremendously. John and I spoke about getting me signed up for a ballet class once a week and I'm really looking forward to having that as some time away each week. John and I are also going to make a point to work out together a few times a week. I'm sure it will relieve a lot of stress for both of us and give us some time together that would otherwise be spent with John on the computer and me watching TV.

I want to thank everyone who has helped out with meals. It is extremely helpful to me while I get myself to a place where I can juggle making dinner and taking care of my babies. And the food is so yummy too! :^)

Our apartment

To put it lightly, I'm getting towards done with this apartment. Yes, we just moved in here at the end of May last year, but there are many things that we could not have forseen before choosing this place to live.
For those of you who don't really know the story, John got a surprise job offer with an engineering company last May (about a week or so after we found out we were pregnant). This was great in terms of finally getting John into the career field he was wanting (why he's currently in school). He was working for the Red Cross as a lab assistant, fairly far from mechanical engineering. It also was going to significantly boost our income, so I didn't have to worry about working. He took the job immediately, but it was based about 45 minutes away from where we were living (in good traffic - nearing 2 hours during rush hour). So we had to find an apartment FAST. We looked at 3 places and this one had an immediate opening and was the best looking. So we're here.

Fast-forward to today. The rent is a little high for our tastes. We have to walk a long way from our parking spot (not good with small children or groceries). Our side deck is about to fall off the building. In the summer, we have to deal a never-ending line of ants and cockroaches. In the winter, we've got mold. The windows, doors, and outside walls are so poorly insulated that there is gross greenish-black mold growing in every single window, on the walls above our shower, and now up the walls from the carpet in the master bedroom. We've told the management and it took them 3 weeks to send a guy over with a bucket of bleach and some paint. Two weeks later, the mold was back. I've taken to bleaching everything myself almost every other week.
The poor insulation isn't only causing the mold, it's causing our energy costs to skyrocket. Plus, this is apparently the only apartment complex in all of Beaverton that doesn't pay for water and garbage. We have to foot that bill ourselves. With everything added up, we're spending nearly $1200 a month to live here. And because of that, even with John's income boost, we're right back where we were financially. I'm done with this place.

Luckily, our lease was only 10 months and so it's up at the end of March. We're going to be looking for somewhere else, even though we really wanted to not move for quite a while (we've moved 3 times in the past 3 years). But we're going to take our time and really look around for the place that will fit all of our needs. We have talked about buying a townhouse, but I think John wants to wait another year or so before buying. I'll probably post on potential apartments in the coming month or so. Let's hope we can find one soon!

This is hard to do

I will warn you all now: I'm going to be very open in this post and it's going to sound a little down.

Nathan is now 5 weeks old and while I'm definitely getting used to him being here, things are still very difficult in some areas. I don't feel quite as sleep deprived as I did in the first 2-3 weeks, so that's good. I think I'm pretty much recovered physically, although my hips and knees still bother me during the night. I'm still having some issues with crying a lot at the drop of a hat. I'll need to be truthful about this with my midwife when I see her next Monday. Part of me is going to want to lie and tell her that I feel fine, because she's going to want to discuss post-partum depression with me. When I went in at 3 weeks, I told her that I was still very emotional and she told me that it was somewhat understandable since I was taking care of a newborn AND a 2 year old by myself during the day, but that she wanted the crying spells to be nearing an end very soon. Well...2 weeks later and they don't seem to be nearing an end.

I do have a lot of trouble in asking for help, even if I desperately need it. This, I believe, is due to the fact that while I was growing up, if I asked for help with something, I would get the response of "Why? Are you stupid?" from my mother. I have trouble shaking the feeling that if I ask for help even now, people are going to think that I'm incompetent and lazy. I definitely have the super-mom complex.

This is very hard for me to do, but I must because I promised my husband that I'd get over myself and ask for assistance. I seem to be handling housework and laundry OK, but I am having a very hard time in getting dinner on the table. I know this is very impersonal, but I want to put out there that if anyone who lives in our area that reads this blog would like to help with dinners, I would be more than grateful. Even just a store-bought frozen lasagna would lift a lot of stress from me right now.

I'm surprised how hard that was to write. I know that you all love me and have offered help, but it's extremely hard to fight the fear that you all are going to look down on me for asking. Just know that I appreciate all the help that we've received up to this point and it really has made a difference in our lives while we continue to adjust to having a new baby.

A Valentine's Brag

While I certainly could fill the blog with how the retreat went (not relaxing) and other things that are stressing me out right now, I wanted to have a happy entry to Valentine's Day. Although I do need to get those other things off my chest, so I will blog about them later. But I have two beautiful boys and I'd like to show them off a little!

Nathan is one month old today. It's hard to believe that he's been a part of our family for that long, but at the same time, it feels like he's always been here. I guess that just means we're how we're supposed to be. He's gotten so big (probably nearing 10 lbs now) and he's so aware. He'll stare at me while I change him and then give me huge smiles (yup, smiling already!) and little baby coos as I talk to him. He's beginning to grow out of some clothes already, mainly due to length. That makes me a little sad. This baby time is going by a little fast for my liking. We just need to take plenty of pictures to remind us.

Pardon the blur of this photo. I had to take this picture one-handed while he slept on me. It was too precious to pass up!
For some reason, he likes his face to be snuggled while he sleeps. He did this to the blanket himself.

I don't write about Aiden too much, except when he's being naughty, but I guess that IS a fairly large part of a 2 year old's life. Actually, he's very well-behaved for his age (compared to other 2 year olds I've seen). He's also pretty darn smart, if I do say so myself. It's still a little difficult for people to understand what he's saying a lot of the time, but he's picking up many new words every day and it's fun to hear him create more and more new sentences all the time. He even made up a little song yesterday! We're so proud of him. He knows his entire alphabet and can read all of the letters. I decided to check a few educational sources and apparently, that's not supposed to happen for most children until age 5. He can also count to 15 and can read the numbers up to 10. We'd like to get him into a preschool-prep class. There was preschool-like childcare at the church retreat and he just ate it up. He never complained about being left and he got so into the arts and crafts they had for the kids. I think he'll love school.
A very big smile from our big boy!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Procrastinating

But I don't like to call it procrastinating. It's just....taking a break. :^)

Today is ending up being a little busier than I wanted it to be. We leave this evening for our church retreat at Twin Rocks and there are many things that need to be done before we go. And it's already 2pm. We ended up sleeping in a lot later than normal this morning because Nathan had a bit of a hard night. It was only his 2nd hard night since being born, so I guess I can't complain too much. What I need to get done is taking longer today because Aiden is getting into everything. I think he knows I'm preoccupied with the baby and other things, so he has to get attention somehow. Oddly enough, just as I was writing that sentence, he got into some recycling that I didn't think he could reach and dumped an entire box of packing peanuts all over the floor and into the baby's diaper bag. Fantastic.

On a fun note (fun for a housewife, at least), I finally bought a slow cooker. I was quite pleased with myself for finding a nearly $30 slow cooker on sale at Target for $17.99. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but am really looking forward to trying it out. So if anyone has any good slow cooker recipes, send them my way!! Evenings tend to be when Nathan wants constant attention, so making dinner is getting to be a bit of a problem. I figured if I could spend his downtime in the morning/early afternoon putting a meal together, that would open up my evening and reduce my stress.

Well, I'd better get back to laundry and everything else on my long list. I really hope this weekend will be relaxing and fulfilling. I've been wanting to attend the annual retreat for the past 2 years and this is the first year we've been able to. Sadly, I'm not more excited about it, but I think that's just due to being overly tired from the new baby. Hopefully I'll have some great things to write about when we get back.

More pictures

I've finally gotten around to doing this, so enjoy! You can see the full album by clicking on the title of this post.
We're getting ready to go home from the hospital.
All dressed and ready to face the world!

Checking out his "womb bear".

Finally catching up

I think I'm finally catching up on things. But I wouldn't have been able to do the majority of what I've gotten done if I didn't have such a great extended family. Last week felt very long and like everything was crashing down around me. Then, Saturday we got some much needed help from Brady and Carrie. They were kind enough to watch Aiden for us while we went grocery shopping (we had virtually nothing in the fridge) and they even cleaned the apartment and bathed Aiden! Awesome!
Sunday ended up being an odd mix of a terrible morning (lots of fighting and crying spells) and a really fun afternoon (I finally enjoyed the outcome of the Superbowl after 4 years of disappointment). Monday morning I got my first experience of hauling the kids of bed and taking John to work so I could go to an appointment with my midwife. Luckily, I was able to get babysitting for Aiden at basically the last minute Sunday night. It was very unexpected to have John's grandparents offer to watch him, but I'm so glad they did. I had to sit in the office for nearly an hour past my appointment time. It would have been extremely difficult to keep a 2 year old occupied for that long around lunchtime. And then Tuesday I received a phone call from John's other grandmother (dad's side), asking if she could come over and help! I got so much housework done! She held the baby for a few hours (he had a great time sleeping on her) and then she played with Aiden while I nursed Nathan.
All in all, because of this much appreciated help, I finally feel like our lives are coming together again. And strangely enough, I'm beginning to not feel quite as tired now that things are getting done. It's odd how massive amounts of clutter can bring down your energy level. I'm so thankful for the help I've received. I'm so appreciative of John's family, especially since I don't have any of my family readily available in the area.

I'm glad I've finally been able to post something at least somewhat happy. I know my posts have been a little down lately. John keeps asking if I'm feeling like I'm struggling with depression after the birth. I really don't think so. I'm definitely still all over the place with my emotions sometimes, but I realize that we're still in the adjustment period of bringing another person into the family. And having a toddler makes it harder because we need to help with HIS adjustment to it as well. Recovering is taking longer this time (but in speaking with friends, I'm glad longer recovery isn't unusual for the 2nd child) and I'm very tired much of the time. Everything I've read has said that it takes a minimum of 6 weeks for a family to begin to fully adjust to a new baby (when they have children already). Anything before that is just going to feel crazy and all over the place. I think we are gradually beginning to get into some sort of groove and Aiden is slowly getting used to the idea of his brother. I know it will get there. It just may take a while yet.