heather

A Farewell to Toes

Today I realized that I would have to start putting socks on my youngest. For the last many months, his feet have been free and naked. At some point this spring, when the mornings were no longer marked by frost and visible breath, I gave up on re-socking and re-shoeing Thomas once he (five minutes after being shod) inevitably tore off those accessories as if they were wrappers and his feet were delicious, juicy hamburgers. Eventually, I stopped putting footwear on him at all.

I know that this puts me on the slippery slope to toting the kids to Wal-Mart with nothing on them but sodden diapers and mystery chocolate. But what’s the point of shoes on a crawling baby, really? Sure, they’re cute. But he doesn’t need them and refuses to wear them, and HIS TOES ARE JUST SO DARN CUTE!!!

Unfortunately, as we live in Canada, this will not work year ’round. We’re entering sweater weather and, although he still pulls off his socks — and pants — it won’t be long before he will realize that the draft he is feeling is related to his lack of footwear.

So, goodbye, cute little toes! As soon as we find Thomas’ socks (so, January?) those little feet are going to get covered up every day. And one day, when frost begins creeping up the windowpanes, he will decide to actually keep those shoes on.

Get Pumped

I go to the gym every chance I can get. Please don’t hate me.

It’s not so I can fit into these skintight pants (after all, my skintight pants are not designed to be skintight — it’s just that I love eating and hate the next size up!) or impress people with my big guns. It’s so that I can be clean and sane.

“I don’t know how you find time to go to the gym with three kids,” other moms often tell me. Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! How the heck else am I supposed to get a shower?

Now for people without kids, I suppose the 15 minutes of dressing and packing for the gym might be a hassle. It might be inconvenient to spend an hour working out and follow that up with a shower in a crowded, sometimes dirty locker room. But consider how inconvenient, crowded and dirty your shower would be with three kids in it. Yeah.

Don’t get me wrong; there is a place for screaming and pooping in the shower. It’s called Labor and Delivery. It should not be one’s daily ritual. Imagine, fellow moms, applying mascara and blow-drying your hair undisturbed by the tugging, whining and brazen lipstick banditry of your little ones. Imagine, if you will, an hour of time in which you are moving your body without 35-pound barnacles encumbering your limbs, in which you are free to wander in thought without interruptions of “Make Jamesy stop lookin’ at me!” or “I’m so bored, Mommy,” or “Mommy, can we get Timbits?” (Timbits are my great weakness because they are cheap and delicious, and this question is always launched after a stressful day but before I have eaten. My children are very crafty.)

Once we’ve gotten the kids packed up and driven to the gym and dropped off in the playroom, that 90 minutes of workout and shower is an oasis in a day filled with chaos and noise. Treadmill time isn’t just exercise for my body; it’s a chance for my mind to put aside, for a few moments, the list of reasons (kept at the ready constantly) that we are not stopping for Timbits or going to EnergyPlex today. For that half-hour, I can focus on exactly how we’re going to get through the rest of the day on time and with all the equipment we need.

Weights are a time to problem-solve. Whether it’s what to do for Halloween costumes or how to get my hands on a few thou to fly to my brother’s wedding, a little pec flying and leg pressing usually helps me push through life’s little problems. (Also, being deep in thought helps me avoid seeing my back fat and bat wings in the omnipresent mirrors.)

Using my awesome mommy powers (you know, the same ones that allow me to see what my mischievous daughter is doing from two flights down, and to carry four times my body weight in kid stuff at any given time), I have managed to distill all my hygiene and beauty needs into a short half-hour. I shampoo on odd days and shave on even days, and I have to say that I don’t look awful for someone who has 15 minutes to apply makeup, blowdry and style her hair. And that is 15 minutes that you can bet I wouldn’t be getting if I showered at home. (At least not without lipstick on the walls and a baby stuck in the toilet.)

Yeah, the gym keeps me in good shape considering my three fairly-recently-born children and my amazing ability to make chips and Timbits vanish in mere seconds. I will tell you that I don’t mind seeing my triceps and obliques. But will you ever see me attending a weight-loss seminar at the Lulu store with the Stepford spinners? Probably not. “Eating clean” is all fine and well, but my fitness regimen is driven more by actually being clean.

And now that I’ve answered the question of why I go to the gym and however do I find time for it (HA!), I have a few questions for the other moms:

1.) How do you NOT have time for a kid-free shower?

2.) Do you get a shower? How do you get a shower? Why can’t I get a shower without driving 20 minutes to my gym??!

Bag of Tricks

Four years ago, when I was still a new mom, I had the most perfectly organized diaper bag imaginable. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place.

I had a miniature tin of diaper cream, a tube of lanolin that remained unopened until the day I rediscovered it last year, an adorable nursing-pad cozy which was replenished before each time I left the house, at least a day’s worth of diapers (just in case a grocery-shopping trip somehow turned into an overnight stay), a backup outfit, a backup backup outfit, and a pair of pajamas because heaven forbid my child should sleep in her clothes! There was also an emergency can of formula and an empty bottle in case the bottle of expressed milk ran out and I was run over by a truck, because that happens all the time and one wouldn’t want the baby to go hungry while the paramedics ran out for formula.

Of course, once Maddux was on solids, I always had a tin of Gerber puffs, several Mum-Mums and often a fresh banana squirrelled away in the side of the bag farthest away from the diapers. I had bottom wipes and face wipes in appropriate sections of the bag. And in one of the front pockets, a giant bottle of sanitizer stood at the ready.

A year passed, and the diaper count went from 12 to five. Once my second child was born, it was five diapers apiece. Things were squashed and moved around so that I could accommodate both my emergency bottle and formula and a sippy cup and a container of cheddar bunnies (which was wont to burst open and fill my once-tidy bag with delightful orangey crumbs).

The emergency pajamas were jettisoned to make room for a onesie and sleeper for James (now out of luck should he soil his outfit — he’d have to wear jammies to the market). At some point, Maddux’ spare outfit was pared down to a spare pair of pants.

The bottom wipes and face wipes were used with such abandon that they frequently ran out, resulting in the occasional face being swiped with a Pampers wipe and bottoms occasionally being washed with antibacterial Wet Ones. The fresh bananas were occasionally allowed to become not-so-fresh. And while there was a place for everything, not everything was in its place.

And then. Then I had a third baby. Like a once-austere neighborhood that’s crumbled over time and been overrun by porch furniture and vandals, my diaper bag has gone to the dogs. There are still five baby diapers in there. Somewhere. The last one I pulled out had to be shaken free of mystery crumbs. My attempts to pack Pull-Ups for James are usually hampered by the fact that the diaper bag is full of Happy Toy packaging and empty-but-for-crumbs sandwich bags and won’t zip shut. I wind up putting his Pull-Ups on top of the diaper bag, fully intending to clean the bag out at a traffic light, but instead forgetting about them and leaving them in some dusty corner of the car while I go wherever I’m going (where, invariably, James will poop himself).

I still have clothes for each kid. There’s a 3-month shirt (no sign of the matching pants) for my burly 1-year-old, a hoodie for James that might possibly fit Thomas, and until last week there was a pair of girls’ Pull-Ups in the size that fit Maddux when she was 2. (Please, please do not ask what happened to those Pull-Ups. I plead the fifth. A mother does what she has to when her 2-year-old poops his pants at the gym and refuses to wear a baby diaper.)

There are no wipes. Anywhere. My magical bag, which used to proffer anything and everything a mom could want, has turned on me and now swallows package after package of both bottom-cleaners and Wet Ones quite indiscriminately. What are they used for? No one knows, but Thomas was recently cleaned using a brown paper towel and water.

The sanitizer is a hot commodity when one has three kids, so it is saved only for those special occasions when I can actually, with the naked eye, see germs writhing on their hands. There is no formula, no bottle, no sippy cup. Perishable food has been verboten since the Sandwich Debacle of ’08 (we’re not sure if the sandwich itself was from ’08, but that’s when it was discovered). If ever we found ourselves stranded on the side of the road in the country and needed food, we would have to choose between a dusty, unsealed bag of pecans (always a great choice for the under-3 crowd, right?) and the inch or so of aforementioned mystery crumbs. I’m sure that when the cavalry arrived, they would find us shaking out those wadded-up “clean” diapers into our open mouths, trying to figure out whether the crumbs were from Cheerios, Gerber puffs or the Sandwich of Questionable Origins.

And they would click their tongues disapprovingly and think to themselves, “If only she knew how to pack a diaper bag!”

The crappiest place on earth

Once upon a time, there was an independent little girl who grew up wanting to be, among other things, an astronaut, a doctor, a double agent, and president of the United States (although not, one hopes, the latter two at once). Sure, she went through a brief horse-and-ballerina phase, but in general she imagined her adult self as an intelligent and powerful individual who was not defined by her gender or appearance. That little girl grew up, went to university, graduated summa cum laude, worked as a newspaper editor and went back to school to study medicine. Then that little girl had a little girl of her own.

This, friends, is where the story should end happily ever after. But alas, an evil sorcerer named Walt Disney had placed a terrible curse upon our fair heroine. As soon as that new baby girl turned 3, she decided that her life’s ambition was to become a Real Princess.

Instead of playing astronaut or drawing pretend anatomy charts, the wee damsel wore dress-up clothes every day, changing in and out of bejeweled satin garments with Cleopatralike frequency. She never tired of watching princess movies, reading princess books, and wearing tiaras to the grocery store (the horror!). When asked what she wants to be, the little girl consistently replied, “A princess.” If any other suggestion were offered (including the enticing proposition of ballerinadom), her reply was always, “No, I going to be a Real Princess and live in a castle.”

So her mommy became inventive and told her that in order to become a princess, she would have to go to university and meet a prince, since she was not to the castle born. The poor mommy could not have forseen that this would only result in any mention by any person anywhere of the word “university” being met with a very proud, “When I’m grownup, I am going to go to Princess Universary! And become a Real Princess!!!!” (this last sentence being said in a squeaky-excited voice with both shoulders and nose scrunched up). The mother ran into the garden bathroom and wept and wept. Unfortunately, there was no fairy godmother to save her from the curse of Disney.

Just when the downtrodden mommy thought the ridiculousness couldn’t get any more ridiculous, her little daughter said this:

“I am going to have a beautiful wedding cake with candles all over it.”

Mom: “Sweet pea, wedding cakes don’t have candles. Birthday cakes have candles.”

Princess Maddux: “Well, I’m going to get married on my sixteenth birthday. My prince will have a young bride.” (I am not even kidding. This is an exact quote.)

Mom: “Don’t you think you’d rather wait until you’re 30?”

Princess Maddux: “No, if I wait that long I will have what (anonymous acquaintance) has — (stage whisper) wrinkles!!!”

Mom: “I’m even older than 30; do I have wrinkles?”

Princess Maddux: “YES!”

Mom: “Well, I can assure you that I didn’t have any wrinkles when I was 25. How about you wait until you’re 25, and then you can get married.”

Princess Maddux: “Maybe. We’ll see.”

And so was the mother dispatched (after all, you can’t have a good Disney fairy tale with a mom in it!), and Princess Maddux lived happily ever after in her own imaginary kingdom, until she grew up and discovered that, in addition to universities not offering a Princess Studies major, no employers were looking to hire a new princess. She also found out that the only position that falls under the description “singing to animals and dancing in the forest” is that of crazy bag lady. And so she became a contestant on “The Bachelor” and her mother immolated herself in protest at the gates of Disneyland. The End.

No riding the baby

As most parents will tell you, it’s not uncommon after birthing a child or two to find oneself uttering phrases one previously swore would never pass one’s lips. “Because I said so” and “Not while you’re living under my roof” come immediately to mind.

However, there are plenty of phrases we never imagined we’d utter at all — not because of any philosophical objection to them, or the negative emotional connotations based on our own upbringings. It’s just that some of the things kids come up with boggle the imagination.

For instance, I never imagined that an occasion would present itself in which I would be forced to say “No riding the baby.” And yet, it happens. On a daily basis. (Why IS it that babies are so immensely fun to ride? And why, oddly, do they not seem to mind terribly much that they are holding 30 pounds of bouncing 2-year-old on their backs?)

Since my kids are only 4, 2-and-three-quarters, and 1, I’m sure many more things will come out of my mouth that I never imagined would need to be said. But here are a few tidbits from the not-far-distant past:

“We do not paint with poop!” (Said every naptime and many mornings for a good eight months. One day, it happened three times and I ran out of sheets. *Cry*)

“Hairbrushes do not go in the VCR.”

“You cannot climb in the baby’s Exersaucer, especially while he is sitting in it.”

“We do not use markers on our brothers and sisters.”

“We do not use the Barbie bathtub to bring water into our room and pour it everywhere.” (We’re talking probably a half-hour of repeated trips during naptime; it’s lucky the second floor did not collapse after the resulting deluge.)

“Only Mommy is allowed to change the baby’s diaper!” (Technically, volunteers are appreciated, but not 3-year-old volunteers who fail to ask first.)

“Who ate the top half of all these yogurt cups?”

“Why are all your barrettes and clips in the toilet?”

And the list goes on, and on, and on. I will grant you that some of these statements have periods at the end of them when, in real life, their utterance was followed by a fair number of exclamation points. The remarkable thing is that I get so many compliments on how well-behaved the kids are, and what fabulous manners they exhibit (except, of course, when we are at the mall past naptime and the mirror-licking commences, always at the fanciest — and quietest — stores).

With all the admonitions against using babies in lieu of trikes and human waste as an artistic medium, “Well, I’m not (such-and-such kid’s) mom, and you’re not doing/getting (X forbidden thing)” doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

The great depression

During the late second and early third trimesters with James, I suffered from prenatal depression. It wasn’t something I talked about much, mainly because admitting that one has daily fantasies about driving off a cliff and sinking to the bottom of the lake is a bit of a conversation killer.

One of the ways I first knew I was pregnant this time around is that I started having mood swings and feelings of paranoia and self-loathing. But because of the possible teratogenic effects of antidepressants, I had really hoped to avoid going back on them until the second trimester. I figured I’d rather be a little cranky and unmotivated rather than have a baby with an omphalocele. Just my personal preference!

But this week, I’m throwing in the towel. At some point, the needs of the few are outweighed by the good of the many. My little bean has gotten in an extra four weeks of development, but now it’s time to think about mood-swinging, unmotivated Mommy, who can barely gather the energy to feed and dress the kids. And Maddi, who enjoys pushing boundaries but would prefer for Mommy not to yell at her for tiny infractions. And even James, who is a very empathetic baby and can sense that all is not well with his mommy.

So hopefully, by next week, I will be feeding and dressing the children once again, and not screaming psychotically at my toddler for dumping sodden Cheerios into the “clean dish” side of the double sink, and not being tempted to smack James’ bottom when he tries to leap off the change table to happy, naked freedom.

Meanwhile, I have bought my first transition clothes to wear while I am too pudgy for my regular wardrobe and too slim for maternity, and I’m anxiously awaiting my next appointment in nine days, when we hope to hear a heartbeat or see a baby.

Conception confusion

On Monday, I went into Dr. Goncalves’ office expecting to see a baby on ultrasound. (Actually, with the abundance of early symptoms and my already-rounding tummy, I expected to see two babies on ultrasound!) Instead, the doctor found a sac that measured 5 weeks 2 days rather than the 6 weeks we estimated. Dr. G offered to schedule a better ultrasound at the hospital, but I declined. If the baby was OK, we’d see or hear it at the next appointment; if it wasn’t, there was nothing we could do anyway. I felt a little numb as I left the office.

Like any red-blooded worrywart mom who’s been offered an extra ultrasound, I naturally changed my mind within 5 minutes of leaving. I tried really hard to stick it out, but after a day and a half I caved. I called the doctor’s receptionist this morning to have her put in a requisition for an ultrasound and expected to have an appointment early next week.

Much to my surprise, the hospital ultrasound lab called me at 10:30, told me they had a cancellation and asked if I could come in at noon. I took the fastest shower humanly possible and we piled into the car and hightailed it to the hospital. But the news was the same. The sac measured 5 weeks 4 days and while a yolk sac was visible, a fetal pole wasn’t, nor was a heartbeat. Then again, a 5-week fetus isn’t as likely to have a heartbeat yet. So either I ovulated five days late, or the baby stopped growing five days ago. We’re hoping for the former and we’ll see on Feb. 27 at my next appointment.

It’s not the answer I was hoping to get, but it’s not the death knell, either. On my way out, another mom told me she had the same experience with her last pregnancy. A few months later, at her 18-week ultrasound, they found twins.

As expected

Well, it’s no secret we’ve been planning to have baby No. 3 basically since James’ birth. What we didn’t expect was to get pregnant on my very first cycle after James’ nighttime weaning.

Yep, that’s right. We’re expecting a new Phillips due Sept. 22. Now, normally, Chris has to force me to take a pregnancy test when I’m significantly late. I was only three days late on the 17th, but even before my period was due, there were symptoms.

Let’s begin about a week earlier. Yes, I had slacked on cleaning after Christmas, but the house was finally spotless once more about 10 days later. Until last week. Suddenly, instead of acknowledging the benefits of a floor the kids can (and will) eat off, I ditched my daily sweeping and weekly deep clean and decided to become one of those people whose crazy houses of filth are featured on Dr. Phil (well, OK, it was just a few Cheerios on the floor and some cat hair on the stairs, but still!)! Instead of tidying and cleaning, I sat around in a sea of toys and crumbs, wondering where my energy went and trying simply to survive until 7:30.

Instead of having combination skin, my body decided to re-enter those glorious high school years. But not my high school years, where I had the same combination skin I have now. Nope, I got someone else’s high-school skin — someone who had to take Accutane. And instead of being the relatively patient mom who yells maybe once every few days, I became a crazed harridan, not unlike the mom in “Malcolm in the Middle” (unfortunately it’s less comical when it’s your actual life!). And when I wasn’t channeling Joan Collins, I was inexplicably blue or paranoid. Considering I’m normally a pretty chill gal, mood swings are an indicator that hormones are at work.

But the one thing that confirmed to me that I was most likely pregnant was my workout the day before I peed on that stick. You see, I do 30 minutes of cardio four times a week, and the fifth day I do an hour on the elliptical at a pretty speedy clip. This has been my routine (with a few breaks for bedrest and RSV season) for the past few years. I have absolutely no problem doing my cardio and probably don’t even push myself as hard as I could. But on the 16th, with my period two days late, I hit the 15 minute mark and started flagging. And by flagging, I mean wanting to die.

I kept up my “ellipticalling” for another 19 minutes (Wednesday’s my all-cardio day) at roughly two-thirds my normal pace before practically collapsing off the machine 34 minutes into my 60. I decided to do some core work instead, but felt so exhausted that I hit the shower 10 minutes early.

I knew that this was no ordinary PMS. This was the fatigue of a knocked-up lady!

I had vowed to wait a week before taking the test, but the next day I thought, “What’s the point?” For the first time ever before taking a test, I knew without a doubt that I was pregnant.

Even though I had just used the bathroom 30 minutes earlier, I took a test. And somehow, those two drops of pee managed to turn that sucker pink instantly! Of course we aren’t telling anyone (except Chris’ mom because he’s a big blabbermouth who will not be told of the fourth baby’s existence until it springs forth from my womb), but I’ve never known I was pregnant this early (or ever, without being confronted with concrete evidence!) and the abundance of symptoms and the magical immediate pink line suggest this baby’s here to stay.

To insanity and beyond

Before my darling wee daughter was born, I imagined what she’d be like. In some scenarios, she was an obedient, eager-to-please little girl — a smaller version of Kaija. In others, she was a feisty little firebrand like her dad and I were — in short, the way she was up until her 30th month. Never, however, did I imagine her clad in a spacesuit, leaping from furniture in her attempts to defeat her archenemy, the ruthless emperor Zurg. No, I never envisioned giving birth to Buzz Lightyear.

And yet, there he is, in my living room, each and every day, yelling “Buvv Wightyear!” before tackling me in midair from the ottoman. Resisting my hugs and kisses and protesting “I Buvv Wightyear” when I say “I love my sweet Maddi.” And even in dance class, my little space explorer insists on being called Buzz.

But that’s not all. Oh, no. Because should you call Chris anything but Woody or me anything but Jessie (from Toy Story 2), Maddi will quickly correct you. Baby James, depending on how affectionate Maddi is feeling, is alternately Zurg and Zurgie. In the morning, she will trot out into the office and cheerfully hail her father with the words, “Hi, Woody!” When we go into James’ room to retrieve him after a nap, it’s “How my Zurgie?”

The first day, it was cute. The second day, it was grating. Now, when I awake each morning, I wait to see how long it takes before our dear princess remembers that she is not Maddi, but actually Buzz Lightyear, sworn to defend the galaxy. It has been about a week and a half since she watched Toy Story 2, but each day it continues. In fact, so used to the Buzz Lightyear regime have we become that I find myself correcting myself pre-emptively before she can remind me of her identity.

So I was relieved beyond the telling today when she put a sticker on her upper lip, said “I have mustache,” and then pronounced, “I Poppa. You Nana, Mommy!” and insisted on being called Poppa all evening.

Unfortunately, as I asked her by name to pick up her shoes on our return home, she looked at me reproachfully and stated, for the 37,865th time, “I Buvv Wightyear, Mommy!”

In other news, at the 30-month mark, Buzz measured a healthy 36 inches tall and 31.5 pounds in weight.

All fours

It seems like not too long, we had a teeny, tiny preemie who, for the longest time, couldn’t even hold his neck steady. Now we’ve got a big, burly 8-and-a-half-month-old boy who has four teeth and is just about to crawl!

James has been inching around the floor for a week or so, bum in the air and face on the ground in such a manner that he is more likely to get rugburn on his forehead than actually reach his intended destination. Occasionally, he’ll get up on all fours; usually, the fruit of his efforts is little more than a bit of rocking followed by more face planting. But yesterday, all the stars and planets aligned properly and, for the first time ever, James took two little crawl-paces! (And then promptly fell on his face and cried.)

I’ve set about trying to babyproof the living room, which is easier said than done. I’ve removed everything “chokey and pokey,” such as crayons, Barbies and the beloved broom, from Maddi’s toybox a half-dozen times and explained to her that these things belong in her bedroom or the dining room. But every time I turn around, I find a new product of Maddi’s frequent “shopping trips” she likes to take around the house — a pointy dinosaur tail here, a Mr. Potato Head nose there — right in the middle of the living room. Again. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time scanning the floor for things that I’ve already removed.

Today, it was an orange crayon. I took Maddi to the potty and returned to discover James grinning and covered in gleaming day-glo slime. Photos are in the offing!

In other news, his fourth tooth made an appearance. As expected, it was the left lateral upper incisor, and he is well on his way to a very unique smile indeed. (And, as some have been quick to point out, to the orthodontist!)