Thankful

We had our usual Thanksgiving festivities this year: Turkey Trot with friends in the morning, turkey feast with family in the afternoon. Jeff ran the turkey trot while I carried Amber under my coat and walked a mile of it for tradition’s sake. Jay and Rose played in the yard by the finish line with their friends while we trotted (we do the turkey trot at a friend’s house). I couldn’t keep up with the other walkers! My mile was more of a turkey trudge than trot this year. Amber and I ambled along alone, enjoying the beautiful morning (it was almost 60 degrees). In spite of my wimpy muscles, it felt great to be OUTSIDE and moving again, however slowly. My friend Ashleigh joined me for the second half of the walk, and it was so pleasant to stroll along talking together. I was sore for the next two days after that one mile. Whew!

Per tradition, Jeff’s brother Sam flew in for Thanksgiving. We see him once a year, every November. This year’s dinner was just us Whites at Dan and Leslie’s house. It was fun having a full family dinner again—normally we take turns hosting a family dinner each Sunday, but this past year that kind of didn’t happen much because of my inability to cook while I was pregnant. That made our family Thanksgiving dinner feel more special. Amber must have wanted in on the turkey action because she started crying about two minutes into the meal, so I had to balance her in one arm while trying to eat with the other. As usual for family gatherings, Jay and Rose were more interested in playing than eating.

After dinner, we watched the classic A Muppet Family Christmas on YouTube to welcome the Christmas season. Everyone was supposed to come to our house for pie, but they never did. I guess they were too full and sleepy to remember/want pie. So we have been eating lots of pie. There are worse things, but I think Jeff and I are both ready to move on to Christmas cookies. I had a goal to take a White family picture while Sam was here because since I joined the family almost 8 years ago, we have never taken a family picture! Alas, the closest I got to it was a fuzzy picture of everyone but Amber and me at the table. Better luck next year.

Here are a few pictures from the week:

My girls.

That face.

PIE!

First bath at home

This bubbly cranberry peach pie was a minor disaster in my oven. Jay and Rose dubbed it “sticky pie” because the cran-peachy juice got very sticky when it cooled. I did manage to scrub out the oven—it only took half an hour of elbow grease—feeling thankful all the while that I was not pregnant.

   

Bows: sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

 

Jay loves holding Amber. It works best if she’s really really asleep when I hand her over to him.

 

Bare baby body—favorite.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Primitive vs. Patient

I was a grown-up, real-life mom all week this week: driving Jay to school, doing dishes, folding laundry, planning and cooking dinners, and grocery shopping. I even took Rose to the library! And Amber and I went to the book club on Thursday night! But we're still home from church today. That's a load of germs we're trying to avoid for a bit longer.

Real life wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be this week. It helps that the incision in my stomach is feeling lots better. It also helps that I like food again. Simply not feeling grossed out every time I need to prepare food or eat is HUGE. The hardest part about this week was that it was another 7 days of sleeping on a newborn schedule, so I'm even further in the hole of sleep-deprivation. It's so tough to get moving and act when all I want to do is curl up in bed and snooze. 

In direct relation to the sleep deprivation, my other challenge this week was with my patience. PATIENCE! Argh! Sigh. It's so hard to have tact and patience when lack of sleep seems to blunt all emotions and weed out all but the most basic feelings. I want to say "Jay and Rose! Can you please find something else to do--maybe go play in the basement or read a book? You're being too wild." Instead I say "KIDS! STOP THAT!" Far less effective. In fact, it doesn't work at all and it makes me feel like a bad parent to boot. Sigh. Or in the morning, when Jeff asked me "Did you get any sleep?" I groaned, "What kind of question is that??" instead of just saying "no, not much." I don't fail all of the time, thankfully. I think one of the biggest challenges of parenthood is being patient without any sleep to back me up. When a basic need like sleep is not being met, it transforms me into primitive-Shaina and I have to work incredibly hard to reawaken patient-Shaina and str-e-e-e-tch her over top of primitive-Shaina. Patient-Shaina gets stretched dangerously thin to cover all the crazed emotions of primitive-sleepless-Shaina-mama. It's exhausting to keep that patience constantly stretched on top of the tiredness, but I'm doing my best. My cranky side says I deserve an award for all that effort! Ha ha.

Poor sweet Rose, as the middle child, has been...well, caught in the middle all week. There was no Grama to play with her while Jay was at school this week. All she had was her tired, emotionally volatile mother who was always feeding or holding a baby. She asked me all day on Tuesday to play with her, and I never managed it. So on Wednesday I vowed that I WOULD do something with Rose no matter what. When Amber fell asleep after lunch, instead of collapsing into my bed, I built a castle out of blocks with Rose. It wasn't much, and it only lasted about 20 minutes, but I like to think Rose appreciated my sacrifice...or at least my cool castle design. After we built the castle, I turned on a movie for Rose and then finally collapsed into my bed for a nap. Motherhood is exhausting! I don't feel like I should spend all of my time playing with my kids, because they are imaginative and great at playing on their own and I think independent play is good for them (and they like it). But I do want to spend some of my time playing with them because I think that's a major job perk of being a mom--having your kids think you are the greatest and having them want to play with you. It's just hard to feel creative and playful when my brain keeps turning off and drifting wistfully toward sleep.

 

She’s getting CHEEKS!!!

Two weeks old and not sure how she got there.

Awesome Aunt Dani and Uncle Brad sent Amber her first Underarmour shirt. Start ‘em young, they said. Oh yes. Also: every now and then I am guilty of strapping a giant flower to Amber’s patient little head. It’s just too tempting!

Jay had school pictures this week. He picked out his clothes and wore a bowtie to school all day. He said he wanted to be “extra-dapper” for picture day.

My number one beautician, Rose, outdid herself this week.

 

 

Perfection is a sleeping baby.

Primitive-Shaina’s summary:
No sleep=hard.
Patience=trying.
Kids=love.

Baby Bubble

For the past 12 days I have been living in a blissful baby bubble. I love the newborn days when I take care of my baby and my mom/husband/friends take care of me. All I need is a baby and a book (and a camera) in my comfy chair, and I'm happy. My aches and pains have subsided enough for me to stop taking medication. This past Thursday was the first time in 9 months that I have not had to swallow a single pill to fix various prego/post-prego issues. Wahoo! Now if only there was a pill to treat sleep-deprivation...

The first thing that happens when I'm sleep deprived is I get weepy and extra emotional. But even if I wasn't low on sleep, I think I'd still feel emotionally wobbly whenever I look at my darling baby Amber. It's amazing how much I LOVE her even though she did her best to kill me for 9 whole months, ha ha. She is just so perfect (said every parent of every newborn baby ever). But Amber really is a dear. I can hardly believe that I get to keep her! I also can hardly believe I was blessed with THREE amazing babies before I had to stop. One small part of me wishes I could have more kids, but the other, bigger part of me is in awe that I even got to have as many as I do. I feel so grateful for them! I love them so much, it kind of makes me feel bad for getting annoyed at Rose for not going potty when she obviously has to, or when Jay tackles Rose and makes her cry. Of course their infractions don't change how thankful and GLAD I am to have them.

This morning I looked down at my stretched-out, pregnancy-ravaged, surgery-scarred stomach and thought "Wow, you've been through a lot!" Then I thought "You have been well used, old friend. Now you're done." Maybe the second thing that happens when I'm sleep deprived is personification of inanimate objects? Whatever. Being DONE [having babies] is so strange. I'm sure this won't be the last time I ponder it. I'm 28 years old and DONE. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that I got my tubes tied. This isn't about regret. It just makes me feel quiet and thoughtful to realized that this is my last tiny newborn to take care of. I'm trying to relish her sweetness and her little sounds and funny faces and then let them go gently instead of mourning their loss (too much). 

I always get kind of emotional on my kids' birthdays because it's sad to think of them growing up and leaving me. Amber is not even 2 weeks old yet and I'm already feeling sniffly about her growing too fast. I try to remember Jay and Rose's babyhood and I think: did I enjoy it enough? Did I appreciate how few times I'd get to do this? Probably not at the time! That makes me never want to stop holding Amber. With Jay and Rose I was paranoid about holding them too too much because I wanted them to be able to sleep well on their own. So far with Amber, I don't care about that! I just hold her till my eyelids droop shut and then I put her down and go to bed. I don't think it's damaging her sleeping abilities, and often MY eyelids droop shut before hers do! It's good for both of us, even when she poops all over my shirt.

My baby bubble is about to burst. The Relief Society has brought its last meal. My husband has gone back to work. My Mom has come and gone (leaving behind a fridge full of food--yum yum). Today Amber and I are staying home from church, but tomorrow I have to be a real mom again--driving Jay to school, figuring out dinner, etc. People do this all the time! They have babies and then continue Normal Life. But I still feel kind of overwhelmed at the thought of being in charge of life again. Part of this feeling comes from the fact that I haven't felt "in charge" of myself for 9 months--my pathetic pregnant body dictated my every move, and I feel physically weak and kind of destroyed from it all. Another part of this feeling comes from the fact that I have to take Jay to school every day--we have Somewhere To Be at 8:50 am every morning, whether Amber is happy or not. The last part of this overwhelmed feeling comes from my rediscovery of food. I like it again! But it's been so long: 1. since I felt hungry without feeling queasy, 2. since I planned more than one meal in advance, and 3. since I cared about food at all, I hardly know where to start. I can barely tell when I'm hungry these days because the hunger is not accompanied by nausea. How am I supposed to figure out, shop for, and cook actual real dinners? It's going to be an adjustment. Thankfully there's no law that says I have to suddenly be as kitchen savvy all at once as Old Shaina was. I have time...and a hungry family. 

My baby and a book. Happy.

Long fingers.

Blonde eyelashes.

 

Hoodies.

Milky coma

 

Before and after: us girls had a beauty parlor yesterday morning. Rose picked out the bows and we did each other’s hair.

Wow, these blog posts are all over the place lately--one minute I'm all heavy and thoughtful, and the next I'm fluffy and carefree. I guess that's kind of true to the real Shaina. I think I'll go enjoy the last few hours of my baby bubble now…

My babies

One second Amber looks exactly like baby Jay, and the next she looks just like baby Rose. Then sometimes she looks like her own self.

At the hospital, left to right: Jay, Rose, Amber. Amber was our least puffy eyed baby yet. And her hair is more blonde than red.

Here are two more sets of Jay, Rose, and Amber at about the same age:

 

And now I’m going to indulge in a large round of Amber pictures. Jeff found a sweet deal on a used iPhone 5 and gave it to me for my birthday. I have to admit I kind of love the convenience of a phone with a good camera on it. I have only taken like 5 pictures of Amber on my real camera. The quality of cell phone pictures isn’t quite as good as my trusty camera, but it’s so much easier to take pictures with my phone that I usually sacrifice quality for convenience. Shocking, I know.

[Rose loves that giant crazy headband—yikes]

[sleep smiles—it’s always blurry when they’re the cutest!]

[soaking in the SVU vibes from Daddy’s sweatshirt]

One morning when I went in she was awake, quietly studying the branch hanging on her wall. I knew she’d love trees.

I love newborn skinny bodies.

Wrinkly newborn knees—my favorites!

Baby boots! Everything is cuter in baby size.

 

Angel with a sunny halo

My babies. Love.