Smooth Hair

I realized the other day that I've been journaling like I only have one child when in fact I have four children who may or may not all look alike (is it because Jim and I look similar?).   I think I'm also guilty of parenting like I only have one child, namely the one who is tiny and looks like a little old man or a baby chimpanzee...depending on the angle.  The one who takes life very very seriously despite his itty bitty size.   Sometimes I feel like he an I are locked in a battle of wits by ourselves with Jim and the boys flitting in the background like supporting characters in a play.   The doctor said that fourth borns often smile at 2-3 weeks because of the presence of older siblings, but William is a very contemplative little dude.  Jim says he smiles for him, but I don't believe it.  It's like the abominable snowman or the loch ness monster. 

Robbie burst into my bubble today talking.   It got through my sleep deprived zombie state because he doesn't actually know how to talk yet, so when my two year old came up and said "Mommy!" and then a few heartbeats later "eat"  and then a few heartbeats later (because finding words is hard work) "beeebee", you better believe I dropped my mouth open in shock and paid attention.   "Mommy eat baby" isn't exactly the kind of sentence that makes sense, but then he took a big pretend bite out of William's thighs and offered me a pretend piece as well, so I guess he meant it quite literally. "Eat!" he said.  And so I did.  We pretended to gobble up every delicious bite of William's slowly appearing fat rolls), while William solemnly judged us.

Charlie climbed up onto my lap and touched his two index fingers together (which is a secret code he developed for when he wants to whisper something in my ear).  "Mommy, I want to show you something" he said.  So I let him lead me down the hall to the dining room where he pointed to the big canvas family picture on the wall.  "I want that mommy back."  He said.   Ouch.   Then he told me he likes my hair better straight than "fuzzy".  All righty then.


   (photo credit to the awesome Hefners) 

I made the mistake of showing the boys a parkour video on youtube.  It's a gymnastics/extreme sport hybrid where you do crazy things like jump off buildings and run up walls.  Surely it's the sleeplessness that made me make such a poor decision because now the boys have turned my room into a parkour coarse.  While I sit in the recliner and try to feed William, they do stuff like flip off the dresser, over my head and onto the bed.  I found out our charter school pays for parkour classes, so now that's on my list of things to do once I re-emerge back to real life.   At least jumping on the bed is quieter than jumping on the floor?  I made the mistake of smiling and saying good morning to our downstairs neighbor the other day.  She gave me a nasty look and I belatedly remembered who she was and that she'd just threatened to call the police on us next time we were noisy.  Whoops.  I think we've finally faced the fact that we have to move out of this apartment.  Maybe cool people in New York City can raise four little boys in a small third story apartment, but the skill is lost on me.  If anyone has the scoop on a reasonable house with a backyard, I'm all ears.  We're officially looking. 

Jamie had a developmental growth spurt.  In the last few months he learned how to tie his shoes, swallow pills, clean the kitchen (well), read a chapter book silently and he got a watch.   The watch is a godsend for me, because I can tell him things like "don't get out of bed until 6:30", and he also gives me a running commentary on how many minutes we have.  "Mom,  you have five more minutes to find Charlie's shoes or we're going to be late.",  "Charlie, you have two minutes to finish breakfast and then it's violin.", "Mom, give me the garage keys, if you walk any slower we're going to be eight minutes late".   You'd think that would be annoying, but I truly love it.  It's normally me saying all of that... trying to prod everyone else along.  Now Jamie and I are a prodding team (mostly in regards to Charlie).   I despise being late (I'm looking at you Dad), and I'm very proud I seem to have inadvertently (hopefully?) passed this trait on to Jamie.

On the feeding front (the thing that consumes all my waking energy...and that's quite a bit considering most nights I never even lay down in bed).   We discovered that William had a posterior tongue tie and an upper lip tie (which is a whole nother blog entry).  It's a fairly common conundrum in infants and they check for it in the hospital, but Will's was hard to diagnose and easy to miss.  The good news is we got it lasered by a super awesome Dr. who I wanted to give flowers to and kiss.   The bad news is, Will's tongue spent so much time in utero in the wrong place, it made a deep nook in the top front section of his palate.  He really likes to mash my nipple up there instead of sucking and swallowing properly.   He managed to gain weight at the beginning thanks to the Niagra Falls that was my incoming milk supply, but now that I've had what...five bouts of mastitis so far?... my milk supply has gone down to normal proportions and he isn't gaining weight at all (I pump now and try to finish his feedings with bottled hind milk).   So he and I are locked in a will power battle where I expertly try to maneuver my nipple into the correct place, and he more expertly maneuvers it back into the nook and glares at me.  We do this for 20- 40 minutes until one of us gives up and falls asleep.  He is capable of nursing correctly now.  Occasionally he nurses like a ninja and I think we're making progress and then five seconds later he's back to beating my nipple to a bloody pulp.  I know you're not supposed to let your children win willpower battles, but the jury is out on this one.  I'm not sure how much more I have in me.

                                            
....plus, I have those aforementioned other children who need a mommy too.  You know, the happy kind with non fuzzy hair.