The Recovery

Once the baby was born, the the hard part comes in. And this part I was waaaayy too familiar with and I didn't want to go through three days of recovering, getting the anesthesia off of my body, forcing my body to move and walk, which is incredibly hard since there is a huge incision that is trying to heal by my belly.
If you have seen Kill Bill, there is a great scene where Uma Thurman is trying to get her body back to moving after a 4 year coma. That was me. My will was strong and I just wanted to get out of the recovery room, into my hospital room where I can start the process of ending my stay there.
A whole new me came about on November 14. Laying in the recovery room, I really wanted to see my new son, so I forced with every energy that I had to get my legs moving. This is a hard task as anesthesia wears off slowly. About 20 minutes in there, the nurse wanted to see how I was progressing. I ended up moving my whole legs and crossed them. Her face was shocked and she said "oookay! That is a first. Wow!"
That is what I needed to hear. If I can do that, I can recover from anything. Seeing Jack later that day was my extra boost. Never did I want more than to just jump, hold him and run down the halls with him. His little face made me ache to be at home and to just relax with him. I hated when the nurses and the doctors came in, cause that just took away the extra seconds that I needed to be with Jack. After the second night, when Jack was told that I still needed to be at the hospital, he cried and said "I want to be with Mama." Those words hurt me and when he left, I just looked at Charlie, who was sleeping in his bed, and just let out a huge sob. I cried as if someone had died, and this sadness that I couldn't be with Jack was unbelievable. It was huge and there was no way that someone was going to tell my son that Mama needed to stay at the hospital another night and not with him.
The morning of day 3 came and when I woke up, the first thing that I thought was - I am getting out of here today.
I convinced the docs that I was walking ok, and I was. The docs that looked at Charlie said he was healthy and looked great, which was another incentive for us to leave. There was really no need to stay so at 1 pm, we were discharged. I still hobbled a bit, but with some regular Motrin at home, I would be ok.
And here we are two weeks later, the pain is almost gone,my back is recovering nicely, my limbs work once again, we have Charlie on a sleeping schedule and I get to see my little Jack every day.

Jack - you were my recovery. All the pain meds in the world wouldn't have done what your spirit did to me at the hospital. Thank you for being my good little boy while I was away. I am and will always be so proud of you.

The Labor

Be careful for what you wish for cause you just might get it.

I never understood why that phrase was always used so negatively. Careful what you wish for- so if I wanted a whole new Gap wardrobe ( i need one desperately) and I wished for it, and if it came true, then that is not a bad thing. It would be a terrific thing to happen.

I wished for my labor for my second child to be very different than Jack's. Jack was very simple; no contractions, straight to the hospital,have a baby via c-section 2 hrs. later. Round 2 was a whole lot different. Those contractions are extremely intense, and I have a whooooole lot of respect and admiration for women that give birth naturally.
I couldn't do it naturally however as I couldn't think or see straight when my contractions happened. My body tensed up, I couldn't breathe, I was almost at the point of hyperventilation. I needed something to just make my body relax and gave in to the epidural. Blugh.
All the while cursing myself that I wasn't strong enough to take the pain and do it naturally, as how I wanted to do it in the beginning. My mind went from "this epidural will make things a whole lot better" to " be strong! This will be over soon! You don't need this!!! Tell these docs that you changed your mind. NOW!!!"
In labor, you really need to have a Plan B or Plan C. I think I knew all along that in the end, Baby #2 would be another c-section. Something haunted me all along to ask my doctor every possible question of "what will you do when this happens? Say I don't dilate enough and I have been in labor for 20 hrs? Then what?"
Every possible scenario that I brought to my doctor happened on November 13. In the end, a c-section did happen, I was given more drugs to calm myself from screaming in the operation room. When I awoke, I saw my husband holding a baby. Our baby?
I asked him what do we have and he said "We have a boy". A boy?????? Whatever happened to all those sweet cupcake and cake cravings that I was having for the past 9 months? Everyone said that I was having a girl. In the end, I expected a girl so when I heard boy I wanted to laugh. But my tired body and mind told me to pass out again so I did. Only to wake up about 4 more times and ask my husband over and over "What did we have? "

We have another boy, born just 15 minutes past midnight and we couldn't be happier. He's healthy, he's well, and that is what we wanted the most and wished for the most.
So, be careful what you wish for cause you just might get it.
I wished for a healthy baby - and now we have one.

The Circus

The Time Outs

Time outs are horrible for me. If I could just snap my fingers and magically, my son would understand on what he did was wrong. that would be the only magic power that I would want to possess. Jack rarely gets time outs, and when he does, it is for something quite severe.

Jack, if you are reading this when you are older, please know that it pains your mom to give you a time out. And it hurts even more now that you have perfected the pouty sad face. I want to cry right along with you but I have to be the strong one.


Jack yesterday was in rare form, and I had him in a time out. We sat at the stairs and I wanted him to just be uncomfortable there enough to:
a. know what he did was wrong
b. say that he was sorry ( and quickly) because I was uncomfortable sitting there. A stair is not enough room for someone who is almost 39 weeks pregnant.

We sat there for about 20 minutes. A 5 minute time out turned into 20. In those 20 minutes, I explained to him in every which way possible of what he did was wrong, why it was wrong and what happens when we act in bad form. All this time, he didn't want to say he was sorry and when he saw that Brian had to leave to do something , that was when the pouty face became the crying face. I asked Jack if he was sad, and he said yes. That was when I just held him close to me and let my tears flow with his. It killed me to see my son admit that he was sad.

I am not the harshest person to put someone in a timeout. My theory is that if you gently talk to your child about what they did, all the while giving them comfort, they will get it. No need for shouts, no need for spankings. Just gentle words and understanding. And they do learn their lesson. Jack does learn his lesson when this happens. And it he seldom does the same bad thing twice, since he does remember on what a horrible time he had with his time out.

If you did something wrong, wouldn't you want to be held and caressed while at
the same time , someone is telling you that what you did was wrong? I know I would.

My theory was proven last night. In holding Jack, he in turn confessed to telling me on something that he did at daycare . Something that he wasn't supposed to. He didn't have to tell me that, but because he was understanding the difference in right and wrong at that point, he learned how to tell someone that he was sorry for what he did. I told him how proud I was that he told me that, and in an instant his little face brightened up a bit.

If it pains me to see my child unhappy, nothing makes me happier to see my child happy because I told him that I am proud of him. If he understands that and he does, then all the timeouts are worth it.

I held true to my word with the time out. We didn't play games, we didn't watch TV, we just read a book and he nestled into the sofa and drifted to sleep. The night started out roughly, ended up blissful.

And I have to do this with two kids soon? Incredible.

The Halloween of 2011

My son has unfortunately inherited my fear of all things scary come Halloween. He didn't like the masks , the goblins, the ghouls and the werewolves that wandered around the neighborhood. We tried to tell him that it was fake and that they were silly, something that he accepted as a reason last year.
This year, he finally realized that scary masks are indeed not normal and not fun to look at all. I hate them myself. To even look at a mask of a clown will make me sleepless for nights.
I was surprised that my son took the same sort of fear that I have. I have not shown him that I was scared of such things. Even when it came to look at bugs or spiders, of which I absolutely abhor, I made sure to point it out to Jack. Just so that he knows that it it something to not run away from.
I do, I want my son to not.
Do kids sense the fear inside? Interesting stuff, but if adults can sense an uneasy vibe in an office or at home, surely kids can sense the same no?
It did take a while for Jack to see that masks are not real, and after a good couple of minutes he would nervously laugh and say "Oh, that was just a kid."
All in all, a good Halloween was had. He got tons of candy and I am ready to hide that candy and hopefully think that he will forget it over time. Hopefully.