Atomic Tonic

By the time we brought Matilda home from the hospital, I was So Excited to have my body back that I felt like spending the night in gold hot pants at Studio 54 spinning in Disco Inferno circles and spilling my cocktails all over the dance floor.

...OK not quite, but pretty close. Basically, I was shocked at how much I was loving not being pregnant, seeing as I didn't mind being pregnant. I mentioned to Niclas that I never wanted to be pregnant again. "Can we adopt the rest of them?" Knowing full well that he would not go for it. "But look how cute this one is!"

I always said I'd rather adopt (after I stopped saying I never wanted kids) and I still would like to, but I'm discovering that adopting is like raising kids in New York City. You really have to be loaded to pull it off. We're not. And since we don't seem to have any problems getting pregnant, I'm guessing I'm going to be going through all this a second time.

Which (sort of) brings me to my point. These last four weeks (Almost. Matilda is a month old tomorrow!) has seen me swing from one end of the spectrum to the other. Sometimes I look at Matilda and I can't wait to get started on the next one because this one is so gorgeous and adorable and every day she discovers something new to BREAK MY HEART INTO A BILLION PIECES. Other times, I look at my flabby stomach at 3AM when I'm up and in the middle of a 2-hour feed and can't imagine putting myself through this again. Flip. Flop. Except honestly, I know I'll be putting myself through this again and if I don't want to spend more money on maternity clothes, we'll be trying come next May or so. *Heart Palpitations*

When I was pregnant with Matilda, I lost the ability to hold onto things. I'd pick something up only to watch it drop to the floor. That's stopped. Good thing right, else I might drop the baby. Now, I forget what I've done with things. Example A: My eye cream is no longer in the medicine cabinet. I have no idea where it is. Example B: There are two Twix bars in the kitchen somewhere, but I don't know where. I moved them on Sunday from Known Location A to Unknown Location B. I'll be sure to let y'all know when they show up.

Matilda is six weeks old today. Thankfully, I'm still here to enjoy it. (Not dead yet!) I spent yesterday alternating the baby and a heating pad on The Clogged Milk Ducts That Ate Staten Island hoping to avoid mastitis. My left breast resembled how I imagine Pamela Anderson's chest to be constructed: Angry hot rocks shoved under the skin and stapled shut. Sexy! Or, a whole new realm of feeling full.

Anyway, at six weeks old, Matilda is at the peak of Crank. This according to her pediatrician. Apparently, babies go bonkers around this time on account of rapid brain growth. Earlier, she was asleep on my legs, alternating between smiling and crying. Her face was on a see-saw while her brain was in the REM position. Last night, she was crankier than usual and still awake and kicking, literally, at 11. While that was a bummer because along with Strick Couch Rest, the lactation consultant I spoke with told me to get some sleep, in general, Matilda's pretty easy to deal with.

She continues to gain weight. Her cheeks are getting rounder. Her legs are filling out and her belly is downright bloated. Her pelvis, however, is skinny and narrow. Ain't no way that pelvis could hold up the heft of her torso. While she still doesn't know that her hands are hers, she is now aware of being uncomfortable. If she needs to burp, she gets cranky. If she's about to poop, man, she gets cranky. She smiles now and then, but we've yet to really figure out what makes her smile. And until you've tried to make an infant smile, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LOW YOU CAN GO. Or how high your voice can get.

In the last month and a half, the cat has barfed on the following:

· the kitchen floor
· the living room floor
· the dining room floor
· the placemat under her food and water dishes
· the living room rug
· the dining room rug
· a newpaper on the scanner in niclas' office
· the kitchen island
· the down comforter on our bed
· the couch

I just watched a guy in a navy blazer with a black garbage bag in one hand and a leash attached to a Golden Retriever in the other let himself into our neighbor's back yard, pick up a piece of rusty pipe, beat a squirrel to death with it and dump the body in the garbage bag.

YOU TELL ME.

The very end of pregnancy can bring with it a host of things signaling upcoming labor. The first time I did this, the bodily signs went right over my head. I wasn't even 40 weeks. I wasn't that uncomfortable. It was my first pregnancy. I assumed I'd go over my due date so when my body started to empty itself, I didn't pay attention. The night before labor started, my back hurt but I didn't think anything of it. I was nearly 10 months pregnant. Of course my back hurt.

One thing that was absent from the days leading up to my labor was the nesting. We'd gotten all of that out of the way in the first and second trimesters as we'd moved into our house just as I was missing my period. Since we were painting and moving anyway, we continued on and did Matilda's room at the same time. The walls were painted and the furniture was assembled. The tiny clothes were washed and folded away in her dresser months in advance. The hospital bag was packed. We were set. We spent the last month of that pregnancy watching Law & Order re-runs.

This time, I did the majority of the new kid's room early on. But now, in week 37, it's still not complete. It requires yet another trip to IKEA.

My hospital bag is packed for the most part, I guess. The tiny clothes are folded into the new dresser but that's only because this kid is a girl so we already had the clothes. I'd say we're 85% ready, house-wise, for this kid to make an appearance. I'm 110% ready to not be pregnant anymore, but my body, the very one that was so anxious to expel this kid at 32 weeks, is now holding tight. No bodily signs aside from the aching back, but then again my entire body aches.

I have the desire to nest. My brain thinks another trip to IKEA sounds fine. It's all for cleaning the kitchen floor and vacuuming the living room and making skor bar for the L&D nurses but I can't seem to drag myself into a standing position to accomplish any of this. The insomnia is doing a number on what should be my waking hours. I feel like I'm wearing a suit made of lead. I sit on the couch and glare at the toast crumbs on the floor and the piles of laundry. Looks like labor is nowhere near.

My kid keeps using my stomach as a canvas. I can see the appeal. It's only a marginally smaller spread then the wall.

I broke down and bought (fake) Crocs because hey! They are padded and comfortable and a welcome slab of cushion between my swollen, sore feet and the cold, hard floor.

I am glad, for once, that I did not purge a nearly useless household item we've had since 2002. I remember arguing with myself over whether to toss it in the Goodwill pile at least once in the last year. I'm guessing I didn't because I thought Niclas might suddenly decide he wanted to use it and I'd have a hard time explaining why he could not find it.

(I do that a lot, toss things in the Goodwill pile.)

What was that I was saying about two?

I posted the night before Matilda's birthday expressing my enjoyment of two. The language and joking and the jumping, bouncing, pint-sized crazy. Then she went and actually turned two. It's like a switch was flipped and now the crazy is deaf. Half a week ago, she'd listen to me. 80% of the time, I could reason with her. Now, days into the actual third year, I can't even get a *blank stare* from her. She just carries on with whatever she was doing.

This afternoon, what she was doing was screaming "no no no no no," tears and snot running down her face demanding...hell if I know, actually. We were in a Marshall's. I tried to carry her down one of the toy aisles "Look Matilda, books!" and she lost it. Dropped the plot, arched her back and bawled her eyes out. I asked her what the problem was. Where would she rather go? Back here? Over here? Another aisle? What? Did she want to see the teacups again?

Nothing. Just hiccuping hysterics and tears until she finally put her head down on my chest and requested we go home for a nap. (She'd already had her nap. It was longer than usual.)

We came home. She did not nap. She was happy and full of beans. Made Niclas lie down on the floor so she could jump over his legs. One and then the other. Over and over. Used her new Bingo paint dots on my stomach. Ate 5 clementines. I'm guessing the easiest way to deal with two is to assume nothing. Her past actions have no bearing on any future actions.

We have a two-year old. We know nothing.

Yesterday morning we went to a birthday party with balloons and juice boxes and cupcakes. Matilda spent a large part of the party climbing the stairs and jumping on a bed. Linnea spent the duration crashed out in a pouch on Niclas.

We arrived back home around four to find the house a little chilly. Like, the heat wasn't working chilly. It's February and Linnea is two and a half weeks old and we have no heat. Matilda was up till nearly 10 the previous night playing with cousins and is now hysterically tired and we have no heat. It's a Saturday night and we have no heat. We should never have been allowed to buy a house because we have no idea who to call when we have no heat. It's a good thing our neighbor is handy as we have no heat.

It's Sunday and we still have no heat. We've had a man from the gas company, the previous owner, our neighbor and his electrician all banging around our basement in the last 24 hours and we have no heat. The furnace is missing a part. It's Sunday.

We showered at our neighbor's house this morning. I just pulled the driest turkey ever to miss a Thanksgiving dinner out of the oven. We've got a space heater on in the basement to avoid busted pipes and one in the living room to avoid freezing babies.

I want this post to be better. I want my parenting to be better. It's a Sunday in February and we have no heat. The two-year old is willful and whiney and playing deaf. The two-week old has officially eaten her way through my birthing hormones. I am tired. The young one is hungry. The old one is testing limits like it's her job. I am fat. I know I just had a kid but I am big and I'm not comfortable with it. I meant to run yesterday but I didn't get up in time. I meant to run today but didn't because I have to plan my runs and showers around a ravenous (chubby cheeks! double chin!) newborn and we were showering at our neighbor's house and I didn't have the time.

It's a Sunday in February and we have no heat.

I had the cat put to sleep today. She hadn't eaten in days. Had been barfing clear fluid. She'd spent most of last night sleeping on the dresser in our room. I heard her fall off it sometime around 2. Vet said she had a giant tumor in her stomach. I feel guilty for not taking her in a few days ago. She was really suffering.

She was nearly 16. Her life was pretty good, at least until the kids came along.

I'm all alone. I'm sitting on the couch with the laptop and a Tivoed episode of Lost (for noise mostly as I hardly pay attention to TV anymore and Lost lost me ages ago and I might have seen this episode before, actually) and I'm alone in the room. Both kids are asleep in our bed with a pillow between them to protect Linnea from Matilda's tossing and rolling. Niclas is working in the room next to them so he can keep an ear out.

I'm alone in the room. I'm eating the easter bunny I bought Matilda weeks ago thinking I could convince myself to forget it was in the house. I'd forgotten until now, alone in the room with my arms free and my shirt on and the house in relative order for tomorrow.

The dishes are washed, the toys are picked up and my coffee is ready to go, but there's laundry to be folded. There's always laundry to be folded, however, and I'm putting this batch off to sit on the couch alone. The folding of this load doesn't matter as much as the washing did. This load contains this dress

which Matilda hardly takes off long enough to be washed. (She didn't wear it today but started asking for it before bedtime. I told her we had to wash it but she could wear it all day tomorrow. She helped me put it in the washing machine. It was important to get it into the dryer. She will be asking for it as soon as we get downstairs tomorrow morning.)

I haven't been alone on the couch with the TV and the internet and things wrapped up at the end of the day since Linnea was born.

I saw the OB I used for my pregnancy with Matilda this weekend. She told me the new girl working at her front desk has six kids and that's why she hired her. Figured anyone who could manage six childred would be on top of whatever her job could throw at her. I'm not ready for six kids. I've got two and I think we're doing ok but I spend all my time organizing and cleaning and planning weekly menus (oh yes, yes I am) and mapping out how to get to the bank or the post office and making sure Matilda's snack tray is stocked and ready to go the night before

so I can pull it out in the morning and put a stop to the "eat eat eat eat" chant and have a cup of coffee in the relative peace of a nursing infant. (The trays are working and the joy is spreading.) I'm busy distracting one kid while the other eats and then distracting that kid while the first one eats. I'm pulling out playdoh and starting dinner at 2 so it's ready when Matilda starts asking for it at 5.

I'm busy trying to catch all the things Linnea is doing. The grabbing and grunting and kicking and smiles.

I'm making faces at her and rubbing her soft round head. I'm talking to her when she's nursing to see her raise an eyebrow, kick a leg straight out and pop her seal on my nipple. I'm trying to include Matilda in all this. Reminding her to be gentle with the baby. Sitting with her so she can hold her sister. Not get headbutted in the process.

I asked the OB, who has four kids herself, if it gets easier. She walked me through her mornings. By 6:30, she's done two loads of laundry, served three cups of tea at two different temperatures, one cup of coffee and four breakfasts in three shifts. So no. It doesn't get easier. Being alone in a room becomes slightly less novel but I gather the laundry never lets up.