Duckie, today (well, a couple of days ago) you turned 7 months. In this time, you've learned to do many more things:

you can pull yourself up to a standing position. You can't bring yourself down yet and it frustrates you.
You have done a teensy bit of cruising but are still skeptical of it.
You have finally mastered the weird stepthing from the TV room into the kitchen. This used to have sliding glass doors and were removed but the track is still there. You used to be afraid of it and would get stuck over it crying. You have managed to do it and will happily go for it.
You have busted your nose, thankfully it's better now. Please try to hold off on the jumping.
You are definitely becoming more and more mobile by the day. You love chasing your big brother around the house.

And what's more important, you are teaching yourself to fall asleep on your own. A definite plus, you may not stay asleep for long during the night, but it helps a bit.

On weds as I was getting ready to go to work, tragedy struck. I'd been in the kitchen getting some things prepared for The Kid when I heard a gutwrenching bloodcurling scream.


Duckie had falled out of bed. This wasn't your normal day to day kid fell out of bed. He'd somehow fallen at an angle and was actually balancing his body on his nose.

Poor thing, he had blood coming out of his nose like it was nobody's business. Several phone calls later to the pedi's office found me on my way to the ER to get x-rays done to make sure his nose wasn't broken. Thank God it wasn't, but holding him down while they took the xray was almost as bad as holding him down while that inept nurse that drew his blood poked him several times and shook the needle back and forth and to and fro because she couldn't find his vein. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt my baby.

He's on the mend now, all he has to show for it is a scrape on the tip of his nose but now that I'm doubly sure that he can get out of his crib and land on the bed and then land on the floor; I think that I'll put his mattress on the floor.

could love a poopy face like this.

You guys should run over and check out my other blog, baby led weaning for dummies. In it, I'll chronicle my journey of weaning Duckie into straight up adult food. No baby food for him. There will be plenty of messy baby pictures in there as well.

Saturday Ducky decided that he'd roll over from his back to his tummy for the first time. No biggie, it's supposed to be a milestone and all. he did it a total of 4 different times and each time it scared the poop out of him. Poor baby, it took me over an hour each time to calm him down long enough to be able to put him down again and he had to go on and turn.


Kids are so silly. In other news, this morning I found The Kid sleeping on top of a pillow in the living room(top half was on pillow, bum in the air) clutching a cup. When I touched him to pick him up, he turned to me smiling and said: I's stuck mommy!

Ducky, today you're five months old so let's recap on what you've done this past month.
You no longer scoot around the house in your tummy (although you were quite able to get what you wanted that way), you now rock back and forth in your hands and knees and projectile yourself forwards. It gets the job done and you've got the bruises in your face to prove it. It's not as fast as scooting, but you'll get the hang of it.
You discovered that you have toes, and that you can grab them. This is now your second favorite thing to do besides eating. You love grabbing both feet and rolling to the side.
You're in love with your big brother but wish that he didn't squeeze you so hard. At least he stopped poking your eyes. Now we just have to work on him not sticking his fingers in your mouth.
you talk. A lot. It's all gibbergarble now, but you totally think that we understand you.
Even though that tooth is right there it's still not fully coming out and it's frustrating the heck out of both of us.
You think the world is your chew toy. It's not.

So, Ducky's first tooth is poking through. Any guess as to where it's at? Anyone? Katie?

It's one of the vampire teeth at the bottom. I'm kinda hoping that he'll get all his canines before anything else so that he can look like this boy. Now that would be kewl. don't you think?



btw, I don't go around searching for goth twin preemie vampire demon babies but someone in my board posted it yesterday. which, coincidentally was the day that we saw ducky's tooth coming through. Coincidence? Casuality? Causality? You choose.

I really, really wanted to do this every month for ducky but I kept forgetting so here it goes:

At 4 months you now
laugh out loud
sleep through most of the night
suck your thumb, finger, and whatever gets near your mouth
are teething, as evidenced by the fact that you drool a mile a minute and are cranky as heck (we can see something there, but you won't let us get a good look)
roll over front to back
do the helicopter move. Right now you will crawl forwards only when you're extremely annoyed and to the point of crying. Any other time you'll just go backwards.
are a boobman
give the biggest smiles evah and have the cutest dimple in your face when you do.
have lost a bunch of hair, you still need a haircut but you've thinned out

You are such an easygoing baby it's not even funny. I haven't even thought of taking you back to the hospital once which is totally the opposite of your brother (but don't tell him I told you)

Here's the short video of duckie. Unfortunately, photobucket is being a pain in the arse and won't let me put the actual video feed in the post. So here's the link. Also, the whole thing is almost three minutes long. You get the same effect if you fast forward it, plus he looks funny that way :)

Please forgive the darkness, for some reason everything I record with the camera comes out extremely dark. Also, from about 1:44 until around :50 seconds, he's stuck on top of the remote and can't get off it.

Umn.... can someone tell my not quite three month old that he's not supposed to be crawling?

Yeah, he's moving. It's not full on crawling, it takes him awhile to get from point A to point B but he is going in a straight line. It's too funny though, I have to post a video of it. He looks like a lobster cuz he will put his feet under him and snap them out to move.

Hit him in the head with a clock...


Seriously, last night duckie woke up unconsolably crying and wouldn't stop. I tried nursing him and he was so desperate that he couldn't latch on. He was acting like he does when he sleeps too long and wakes up starvin' like marvin. Since The Hubby moved the furniture around and unplugged my nightlight, I had the alarm clock in bed with me so I moved it to the pillow to give me some light as I tried to calm down duckie. He throws his arm up in the air and hits the clock. The clock falls on his head with a loud smack, I get up out of bed quickly thinking that he's going to cry up a storm....he burps, latches on, and falls asleep in a matter of seconds.


The moral of the story, remember to burp your baby after feeding him no matter the time.

So, I was all ready to leave for work this morning. All I had left to do was change the baby's diaper. In the process of doing so, duckie decided that he wanted to poop and fart at the same time. Well, for those of you that don't know breastfed babies' poop is liquidy. He got my arm, shirt, the bed, and THE WALL!!! How the heck does one get a wall poopy??@!! I'm screamming at the husband to help me and he's calmly getting up out of bed. He approaches me ever so slowly and asks what do I need....grr! first of all turn on the light and get me about a thousand more wipes stat!

he walks with all the calm in the world to get the wipes and comes back about 5 minutes later, hands them to me and then proceeds to go back to bed. Umn, no you clean this kid while I clean me up. When I came back from cleaning me up and finding another shirt, what do I find but him next to duckie and the baby face down naked. that's right folks, he couldn't even put a diaper on the baby. I get him changed and start feeding him and what does he do next but spit up everything all over me and voila' another clothes change for mommy. When it was all over I turned to The Hubby and said: you have the slowest response time EVER!

poor duckie though, we're all sick and diseased at the house and he's getting it now. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the colds that we have. Poor poor baby.

So, there he was all cute and all laying on the floor. Next thing I know, a soundbarrier breaking shriek blasts through the house and I go flying to his side to see what went on. I originally thought that he'd grabbed a fistful of hair and kept pulling at it not knowing why his head was hurting so much. I mean, the boy has a mean grip. Instead I found him grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling at it with so much force that had his shirt been made of a flimsy material, he would've most likely broken it.

Now I understand, he was confused and scared as to why someone was shaking him and grabbing at his shirt like that. Poor kid, you really have to feel sorry for him what with his not even realizing that he even has hands. I do look forward to the day when I no longer have to rescue him from himself (yes, I know that I'm just trading in one kind of rescuing for another, but still) even if only from premature baldness.

so.. my poor The Kid, he's the one that's borne the brunt of my monster. It's as if a switch was hit inside of me where the baby could do no wrong and The Kid could do nothing right. And then I'd blow up, big time. I'll even admit it, I hit him in anger a couple of times before I got help. It was that which made me realize how wrong I was and how much help I truly needed. I smacked his butt and leg so hard because he had a small accident (we'd been potty training him before the baby was born) that when I sat him in the potty immediately after I noticed that I'd left a red welt on his leg. Oh God how I lost it then. But the worse was yet to come. He started telling me that he was sorry for what he did. Do you know how horrible it is to hear your child apologize to you for something that YOU did wrong? I just dropped down on my knees and started hugging my poor confused boy; kissing him and apologizing to him. I just thank God that it didn't get worse than that and that I'm getting the help I need. One day at a time is the most anyone can ask of me and that's how am doing it.

I've been making sure that The Kid gets the appreciation that he deserves and paying lots of attention to him. I just hope that I didn't scar him for life or that I jeopardized his relationship with his baby brother because of it seeing as how I turned into a monster after the baby came.

Today I went back to work. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I cried like a banshee. I'd really thought that this time I'd be able to stay at home and take care of my baby, see his first step, give him his first foods. But no, bills have to be paid and I have to go back to work. The only thing that's keeping me sane is the knowledge that I'm over and done with skool and I won't be coming home at 11pm every night this time around. I'm not going to be coming home just to put my baby to sleep for the night. God, it was so tough last time. I believe now that I had undiagnosed PDD that time. Had to fight the almost daily urge to drive the car into the river just so that I could stop the pain and hurt. The only thing that kept me from doing so is that if I did, The Hubby would have to feed the baby formula and my sheer stubbornness to not have a formula fed baby stopped me. That's what saved my life that time.

This time around, I felt the monster way before I even went back to work. Didn't want to talk to anyone, barely left the house, couldn't eat, barely slept, didn't even want to bathe, horrible uncontrolable mood swings (mostly directed at the poor The Kid who didn't recognized the monster that replaced his momma), fighting the urge to hurt The Kid. Seriously, this is not something to play with. Thankfully I've been given some good herbs by the midwife (totally bf friendly) that are helping me a little. I pray to God that it doesn't get worse now that I'm working again since that's when things got out of control last time. If you ever feel like something is not right, get help before it's too late. And don't try to talk to my husband about it, he's no help. When I told him about how I'd get these uncontrolable anger spells and I'd start yelling at the poor The Kid for no reason and how I couldn't stop myself, his words were: well then, stop doing it.

Husband of mine, I have one thing to say to you:

rubber, glue, back to you.

It's been terribly hard to even get on the internet since well, sleeping is more needed and wanted at this point. It's not that The Child wakes up 75,33,4356456 times during the night; it's that in between the 75,33,4356456 times that he wakes up he's making the weirdest noises (think the horse from Mr. Ed) when he's asleep. He's so loud when he shouldn't be that it's keeping me up. Plus he has the most horrible habit of waking up at quarter to six and staying up until around 8:30am ish. But I digress. My point for posting was this: there was something that I neglected to tell you guys about the birth story. Something that I've just now been able to deal with.

When The Child was born, the cord was wrapped around his neck and he wasn't breathing. His apgar was only 2 when it should've been much higher. They had to use a breathing mask on him and stimulate him for the longest minutes of my life before he started to cry and breathe well. He was so purple and mewey before that happened that I really thought I'd lose him. It's the worse feeling in the world and I don't wish that on anyone at all. I don't know what I would've done had I lost him, I would've seriously considered killing myself most likely. I don't think I would've been able to cope. Seeing his teeny little body being taken from me so that they could help him breathe ripped my heart into shreds. Thank God that he was okay and was able to come back into my arms soon after since I would've probably lost it if he would've had to go to be taken to the hospital. But now my little boy is sleeping soundly by my side and thriving and I can't be more thankful to God. The Lord has truly blessed my life with this little boy and I can't begin to say how much better my life is now that he is here.

Daniel! (or The Child as he will be reffered to from now on)

Friday morning I woke up with some braxton hicks and went in for my 38 week apt and was told by the midwife that I was 2-3 centimeters dilated, 90% effaced and baby was engaged. Of course, I hadn't bought a car seat, the prefolds had not been dyed, bags haven't been packed and I hadn't even bought the stuff I needed for postpartum. Fortunately I was able to get out of work early and swing by the store to pick up the car seat. I continued to have more braxton hicks through the day but around 8pm they became real labor pains (took me talking to the mw for awhile to realize that they'd become real labor pains). I guess I should back up a bit and say that on Weds nite I felt a "shift" in my body but wasn't sure what it meant. I tried to get some sleep friday nite but the contractions wouldn't let me sleep. They were 15 mins apart and at 2am I told The Hubby to take me to the birth center because I was sure that this kid was coming this weekend. By the time that my MIL came over to watch The Kid (we didn't want to wake him to take him with us), we swung about 15 mins the opposite way to find an open pharmacy so that The Hubby could get some antacids, and made it to the birth center, it was 3am.

When we got there she checked me and I was dilated to a 6-7 but the cervix was still at 90%. By the time that the tub was filled the contractions were coming in around every 5 mins. Dear lord it was sooo good getting in that tub. Of course, I stalled my own labor by relaxing so much I fell asleep in the tub twice so The Hubby made me stand up and walk a bit in the tub between contractions. The last little bit of the cervix just would not give and it was still a bit too thick for her to be able to slip it under the head so at 8:30am we decided to break my water. Stubborn cervix still wouldn't give way until just past 9am. Near the end, the pain was so great that I'm pretty sure had I been at the hospital I would've begged for a csect. It was only the encouragement from the mw and The Hubby that kept me from being transferred to the hospital even though I kept telling them that I couldn't do it and they needed to figure out a way to get that baby out NOW! At 9:15 I got the go ahead to start pushing and he came at 9:26am. The cord was wrapped around his neck once and it took a bit of help to get him breathing properly. Turned out that he was a bit earlier than expected. The mw said that going by his feet, ears, and the amount of vernix covering him; that he'd JUST turned 37 weeks. Figures that my due dates were off.

The only good thing about having him early was that he weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and his head measured 14 inches. I can't even fathom how much bigger his head would've been had he been full term. AND I had no tearing! I was so relieved by that! Even though he was born at 9:26, they couldn't get him weighted or measured until 11:30am because the boy would not come off the boob Everytime that I thought he'd finished and would remove him from the breast, he'd complain. He's been nursing so well that my milk's almost fully in and he's had four bowel movements already. Hope all that meconium is fully out cuz I forgot to put a liner in the first couple of diapers and they got dirty with meconium. He needs a haircut in the worse possible way too

We got discharged at 1pm but I had to wait a while while The Hubby went and got the carseat installed and took The Kid to the sitter's. Of course, when MIL came over the house to visit the first thing out of her mouth was "I thought you were having twins, they left one inside you." If looks could kill, I would be in jail right now. Her only saving grace was that the pastor's wife was present and she steered the conversation away. But the whole time I was giving MIL the deathlook and didn't speak to her directly for the rest of their visit. I doubt that I'll be as cordial to her next time I see her. Here he is with big bro

It's been hecka crazy busy around here between work and home. Plus, I've been trying to get to 1000 posts on the mothering board I belong to so I've been neglecting you guys in the process. sowwey.:( Still working, still pregnant, am huuge. Am so big, if I went to seaworld dressed in black right now, they wouldn't let me out. Katie, where the heck are you? You better be hooked up to a murder machine or be repeatedly stabbed in the eye with a spork or I'll go over to where you are and do it myself. Geez woman, you act as though JTHM has you in his basement or something. Although knowing you, you probably went to find Johnen and discovered that JTHM does exist. No fair, I wanted to be there when you went to his house. Hopefully this bean will come out before the 10th of Jan so that I can go on maternity leave already. It's getting to be ridiculous to walk/bounce up and down the four flights of stairs every single day.

In The Kid news, we're starting potty training. yay(can you tell am extremely excited? snort) easier said than done with someone that will purposefully NOT do anything in the potty when sat on it for two hours and wait for the moment you get him up to poop on himself and hide. I swear he must like the squishy feeling....

And we have some sort of beetle infestation in the house. We have no idea what the heck they are except that they:
a)look like teeny beetles (smaller than a grain of rice)
b)are brown
c)fly
d)seem to like the food pantry
e)the bomb thingie doesn't do anything for them
f)are NOT fleas

we think that they came in the house through some non refridgerable produce bought at the farmer's market and we don't know how the heck to get them out of the house.

So, I'm at the grocery store loading up the truck (Ford F150 all blinged out). Am not wearing a wedding ring bc my fingers are swollen and look like sausages (mmmm sausage....) when who comes up to me but a Jehovah's Witness lady. Now, I don't have problems if you're a JW. But I do have a problem with judgemental people who judge you and then try to force you to go to their church. What does this lady say to me you ask? okee, me her got it?

Look at you, all pregnant and married I suppose. People do still marry before they get pregnant, right?
Umn...yeah, okay....
Blah blah blah, Atalaya magazine blah blah blah
did I mention that at this point she's blocking me so that I can't open my car door?
I don't want your magazine, I have my own church that I go to and like very much. Thank you though, good bye.

That's when I managed to get the truck opened and left. She was bewildered standing in the parking lot holding on to my cart. Geez, how can people in this day and age be judgemental towards a very heavily pregnant woman without a wedding band? I mean, I know to expect that stuff if I go to say the Dominican or some Muslim country but in the U.S.? It's not like this country is uptight or something, we'll probably have a gay president much sooner than we do a female one (no offense to gays out there). People, be nice to big fat pregnant women without a wedding band. She could be driving a Ford F150 and run you off the road.

Fluff: I bought a whole bunch of cloth diapers before I even knew that I was preggers (but coincidentially after I conceived). The only problem is that they're all girl diapers. Like hot pink and flowers and butterflies. I even bought dye to dye some other diapers that I had around that weren't of any particular color. My whole stash was complete until almost potty training time. I spent around $300 on that stash. Granted, some of those diapers were actually bought for The Kid and a lot of the stuff can be interchanged between the both of them. My only problem right now is that I don't think The Hubby will let me put a diaper on baby D that says: Daddy's little princess. But gosh, cloth diapering is so addictive that the first thing that crossed my mind after I got over the shock of having another boy is: Great! Now I get to sell all my diapers and buy new ones! Whoo-hoo! Which kinda sucks at this moment since it seems like everyone who cloth diapers is having a boy making all the boy stuff very expensive. Also making all the girl stuff up for sale very cheap. I'm hoping to recuperate the money I've invested in the girl fluff enough so that I can buy the boy stuff. It might not go as planned. I went through my stash and at least half of it is gender neutral enough to be usable with a boy and since I didn't get to dye those diapers, I'll be able to dye them boy colors instead of the hot pink and violet that I planned. My only question is this, will a lavender diaper be manly enough for a boy or will it wuss him out?
Stuff: You see that little thingamajig on my sidebar that has a lil fetus on it? Well, imagine that same thing, only with a fetus that is tapdancing on your bladder and whose head is pressing so hard against your back nerves that it hurts to walk.

That's me in a nutshell.