Too weird for Facebook.

I'll never forget the day my sister, my oldest daughter and I realized we all wore the same bra size.  We celebrated with a slow, majestic three-way chest bump. 

Short Story of Today.

I should make a t-shirt that says "I'm Sorry."  Then I can wear it every day.

The Worst Best Ever.

Today Harry is five weeks old.  He's lying across my lap on a pillow, sleeping for the moment.  How are things going for us?  I'm not sure.  Things right now are such a heavy mix of awesome and worry. 

The awesomes are many.

New babies smell like heaven.  I am a "smells" person.  My favorite smells are bread, cookies, Toby, my kids, leaves, grass, rain, citrus, wintergreen, and cardamom.  New baby smell is better than all of those.  It doesn't matter if the kid is freshly washed or a little grungy, it's all good.  Be warned, I sniff babies.  I hope that's not a creepy thing to admit.

Harry's little frog-shaped naked body is the cutest thing ever.  He's got a double-chin, a little hollow sternum, and a round pot belly.  His wee baby legs are beginning to chub a bit at the thighs, but the calves still look like curved little chicken bones.  Perfectly round little knobby heels remind me of how hard he'd kick me when I was still pregnant.  There is no shape more perfect than a new baby's head. 

He just started smiling on purpose yesterday.  I love when a new baby makes the transition from blank and perplexed stares to an actual affectionate expression. Sometimes when he's eating, he will gaze intently into my eyes, and I feel like he's probably having some kind of spiritual experience.

It's interesting watching the rest of the family make room for a new baby.  The older kids hold him quite willingly most of the time, and the younger kids ask to.  Cora and Loch and Ivy mostly don't slow down long enough to hold on for more than a minute, but I'm happy that they want to.  I adore watching my husband's big hands wrap around a teeny little baby.  It's just so cute.

 But then there are the worries.

Is he getting enough to eat? I always fret that the baby isn't gaining enough weight.  My kids always want to sleep as soon as they latch on, then try again in fifteen minutes or so.  That would be great if all I needed to do was sit and lactate.  We had some difficulties at the beginning, but I think we're a feeding/eating team now.  Harry is chunking out and he pees through his diaper and clothing and blanket every day or two.  It's a lot of laundry, but I am so happy that he has pee to spare.

Will I get to do something I want for five minutes ever again?  I know in my head that I have seven kids and a full-time job and one of those kids is a new baby.  It makes me feel whiny, but there we are.  I'm trying, and I know I can't do everything.  But sometimes it feels a lot like drowning in "need to dos." 

Are the older kids being neglected?  We've revamped our work schedule to ensure that Cora and Loch have more parent-hands-on time each day than they've been getting.  I don't know how much it's helping them, but I can concentrate on work better when I know they're doing something beside watch TV, arguing over the tablet, or crying for us all day.  I'm trying extra hard to spend time with the kids instead of on the internet and blogging...

Am I going crazy? Yeah, a little.  I hope it's only a some, and only for a while.  I have a hard time not crying whenever I think about...almost anything.  I may be a "sniffer"  (see above), but I am not a crier at all.  I am way more comfortable with withdrawal or anger, which is sad on it's own, I know.  What's even scarier is when I'm not sad or angry or anything.  Sometimes I just feel blank, or maybe fuzzy. 

I get so tired of advice.  I know people mean well when they tell me that this is the best time of my life, and I will miss it so much later.  I know I will.  But I won't miss all of it.  Sometimes I feel like I'm missing it right now, losing the amazing and precious because I can't focus on them through the crap.  And then I feel bad about that, too.

Harry: Proving Me Wrong

So, I had that baby.  Now I'm going to tell you about it in awesome and gory detail, so if you're not into that kind of thing, skip it and don't judge.  My boat, my rules.  It is probably over-sharing to put it all out here, but I want to remember while it's fresh in my mind.  (Mild nudity pics, shoulders and cleavage.)

It's been so long since I've updated my blog, does the internet even know I was having another kid?  This is number seven for us, after about two years of me swearing that Cora was the end, amen and amen.  Except, she wasn't.  Yeah, I got pregnant again on purpose, not that it's anyone's business.

Okay, it's not the smartest thing in the world for a costumer to be due two weeks after Halloween.  It's the busiest time of year for us, work-wise.  I seriously thought I'd be due at the end of November when I was contemplating the timing.  Then I was pregnant, and realized my mistake.  Oh, well...


You know joke that women have amnesia about labor and delivery, because no one would ever have a second child if they could remember what it was like the first time?  That amnesia worked for me...four times.  With Lochlan and Cora and Harry, I remembered in lurid detail.

Let me tell you about my brain.  It is my worst enemy sometimes.  It knows me and my weak spots better than anyone, and uses them against me.  This means I spent the last few weeks of my fifth and sixth pregnancies in a state of controlled panic, with the deepest parts of my head telling me that   I.  Could.  Not.  Do.  This.

If there is one thing I've learned about having babies, it is this:  relaxing makes things easier, being tense makes them more difficult.  Loch and Cora were both long and stressful births for me, and I struggled with depression and feelings of inadequacy for months after each one.  Thanks, brain, for setting me up for failure like that.

I wanted this time to be different.  This is most likely the last baby for us.  I'm 35 now, so practically an adult, and adults deal with things like this, right? 


My lovely doula friend, Natalie, recommended some prenatal relaxation music/meditations for me to listen to.  I felt silly having some lady's voice soothingly telling me that I could do this thing, that my body works just fine, that I and my baby are healthy and strong...but I would take all the help I could get to combat the voice that ran in my head the rest of the time.

I made it through Halloween.  Then the day after, our whole family got a stomach bug.  I spent three days flat in bed with nothing to do but watch Netflix and worry between trips to the bathroom.  All the panic I had been fending off hit me like a freight train. 

One thing that kept me going was the knowledge that I usually have babies pretty close to my due date.  I've probably told twenty people this very fact in the last month alone.  I had nearly two weeks to go, so I'd just worry about having the baby later.  I was working hard at heading off the waves of anxiety by replacing the painful flashbacks with an image of meeting the new baby. 

I struggled through two half-hearted days at work.  Tuesday night I made an effort to spend some time with the kids by watching TV with them while Loch and Cora jockeyed for position on top of me.  After more than enough of that, I dragged my enormous self off to bed at 8. 

I had just managed to doze off when POP!  Oh, not that.  But it surely was my water breaking.  I felt sick.  Toby got the kids ready, and we headed out the door for the the 2 hour drive to my midwife in Arkansas.

I had three contractions before we got to the first town. Maybe I'd have to stop and have the baby in one of the three hospitals we'd pass on the way....but things were slow but steady on the drive.  I tried to think of a way to tell Toby I wanted to change my mind.  Finally, I just did.  He reassured me that I've done this before, and done it just fine. Not what I wanted to hear.

(I've had this much typed for almost a week, and I have been thinking about how to finish.  I feel like this post should be in two parts:  1) Jill is afraid.  2)  Jill does it anyway.  Now on to part 2.)

It rained off an on all the way to my midwife's place in Harrison.  It was 11:30 or 12:00 when we parked the van and I headed in while Toby started unloading kids.  Water ran ankle-deep on the edges of the road, and the streetlights were reflecting brightly off the rain and damp.  I still felt kind of half-numb because it wasn't time yet in my head, and half-panicky because it was time anyway.

Three midwives waited in the living room.  Candy has now  delivered five babies for us, everyone since Maggie.  She recently broke her ankle spelunking (my midwife is is awesome) and was still getting around with a giant boot on her foot and a medical-grade scooter.  Candy's apprentice and a backup midwife named Diana were there to help. 

They checked me and I was at four.  I did swear in my head.  Cora took twelve hours from that point.

Here's where things changed.  I was still having contractions and still scared, but I was in the routine of something I had done before.  When I thought about what I did and didn't like about my previous birth experiences, and realized that I had done very little decision-making or requesting what I wanted.  So, instead of falling into a pit of despair, I asked if I could get into the tub.

You know how good a warm bath feels when you're tired and achy?  It certainly doesn't make the pain go away, but it's cozy and relaxing and it helps support your body.  I've labored in the tub a couple of times, with Hollis and with Cora.  I'm a bath kind of girl, and warm water is a happy place for me. I hesitantly removed my shirt, revealing my huge stretch-marked belly, and climbed in.  I've never been totally naked before with lots of other people around, but hey, everybody there was going to see everything before it was over, right?  That was quite literally the last time I even thought about being exposed.  It stopped mattering.

Contractions kept coming in pairs, and it seemed to me like they were stacking up quickly.  Here's another thing I did that was new:  I breathed slooooowly as I could, and tried to keep my body limp.  Not easy at all, but it helped.  Toby sat right over the side of the tub from me and held my hand, and every time I had a contraction I stared right into his eyes and tried to relax as hard as I could.

Sample dialogue:

Jill:  Tell me you love me.

Toby:  I love you.

Jill:  A million times.

Toby:  Yes, I love you a million times.

Jill:  I know.

Toby:  Just relax.  Relax your shoulders.

Repeat, about every three minutes, for two hours.

I think I should get nerdy bonus points for Han Soloing him repeatedly (I love you, I know).  Some tiny part of me was laughing, even at the time.

Once, I really felt like I needed a bit of a break, and I said so.  I don't pretend to be one of those people who understand and can control their body perfectly.  My body and I are awkward partners and we misunderstand each other all the time.  But when I said I needed a break, I had one.  Things stopped for ten minutes or so, and I was able to relax.  Then we were off again.

A few times, I curled into a tight ball and squeezed my eyes shut.   This is how I remember handling contractions the last two difficult labors.  I always felt like a scared rabbit in the path of an oncoming truck. I could tell such a difference in how tight and stressed I felt, so I went right back to the routine.

My hair kept getting into my face and it was getting annoying.  That's the beauty of having a hair professional in the family.  Laural twisted my hair into two little ponytails at the front of my head, like a little yappy dog that's been to the groomer.  Don't judge her skills by how it looks in the pictures, though.  My hair was dirty and sweaty and we only had a few minutes between contractions.

I cannot emphasize enough how much Toby helped me out here. At one point right before pushing, I had turned over onto my hands and knees, and Toby was kneeling right across from me outside the tub.  I pressed my nose and forehead into his and probably breathed loudly into his face while maintaining eye contact.

I was vaguely aware of a few conversations around me, like when the midwives were discussing when I'd be ready to push.  I wanted to have a handle on how much progress I'd made.  I felt like things were pretty serious and really working, but was I at 7 or 10?  So, I asked for someone to check, and it turned out, I was past 9. Diana told me that I could push when I felt like it.  We weren't in for a 12 hour labor this time.

Yes, I had willingly done this before.  Yes, I felt, and still do, that having a baby with a midwife outside the hospital is the way I want to do it.  But deciding to push a baby out of my most tenderest bits?  Uh, I changed my mind.  I was not going to push until I couldn't help it.  I am a total pansy like that. 

At this point, I think I reminded Toby that I was not mentally out of it, like I had wanted to be.  I proceeded to plan a vasectomy and tubal ligation for us.  I also told him that he needed to be a doula.  Then I felt a bit like pushing...and I didn't.  Then I felt like pushing again...and I did.  It hurt, but not as much as I had been remembering and dreading.  I passed the point of no return and it didn't matter.  Diana told me to wait a minute while she checked for cord around the baby's neck, and then out came Harry.  I grabbed him and lifted him onto my chest, while sitting back against the side of the tub. 

I know I had this big goofy grin on my face.  Nothing hurt anymore, and I was holding the baby.  I did the gender check, and Toby said he knew it was a boy as soon as he saw his face. I said the first thing I always say after a baby gets here:  "I'm so glad that's over."  Truth.

The whole thing, from water breaking to holding Harry in my arms, took 5 1/2 hours.  Can I say I felt like a rockstar superhero?  A naked, stretch-marked rockstar superhero in a bathtub full of really bloody water?  Well, I did.  (The pictures are black and white for a reason.  Bloodbath has a whole new meaning for me now.)

We all spent a few minutes admiring our handiwork.  It's like a party, after the baby comes and everyone is all right.  Eventually, I handed little Harry off to my Mom while Toby and the midwives helped me into the bedroom.  I put a shirt on and snuggled up the the little guy.  He looked so much like his older brothers that I kept giggling about it.

Cora was the only kid to stay awake the whole time, but she watched TV and didn't come in and howl for her Dad once.  Maybe she knew I needed him more?  We showed her the baby, and she wasn't terribly impressed.  She climbed onto Toby's lap and fell asleep immediately.

I don't know where to end this.  It's been 3 1/2 weeks since Harry made his early debut.  I'm still remembering little flashes of things, like watching my turquoise toenail polish flake off in the water during transition.  I am so glad things went better than I thought they would.  I am thankful that I had the boy early, so I didn't have more time to worry.
 
We are enjoying getting to know our new little guy.  I can't wait to see who he will grow up to be.  Our kids have a distinctive look, and it's so funny because he looks so familiar.  It's like we've known him forever.

It's taken me this long to get it all out, because the reminiscing is emotional for me.  I seriously feel like I climbed Everest.  I am overwhelmed by how well Toby took care of me every time I needed it.  I told him on the way home that it was the best thing he's ever done for me.

That's the story of how we became a family of nine.  I can think of about three people who will read this far, so high five to you! 

To Lochlan, Four

Loch, you are four years old today.

You love Dr Who, but it also scares you.  You want us to spike up your hair so that you look like David Tennant.

You carry around a "sonit sprewdriver" (sonic screwdriver) that Hollis built for you out of Legos.  Also a little Lego TARDIS.  Mom made you a little red bow tie for part of your birthday.

You still love Thomas and trains, deeply and obsessively.

You are very talkative, and the way you say everything is painfully adorable.  So much so that we have a hard time correcting you. 

Best example:  "Holy Feepin' Pap!"  (uh, Holy Freaking Crap.)  Yes, you learned this from your mother, when we looked at tornado damage in Joplin last year.

My other all-time favorite Loch-ism:  "spwissy."  (Squishy.)

Anytime we drive past a junky-looking place, which is every five minutes where we live and also includes our own place, you ask if that house was hit by the tornado.

You are the only snuggler, out of six.  The others were all affectionate, but thrashy.  You love to get a blanked and cuddle, while gazing up at me through your amazing eyelashes and maybe trying to feel me up a bit.  No, that is not acceptable, but you still try sometimes.

You like for things to be just so.  You get overwhelmed when things don't do what you expect or want them to do.   Lego thingy fell apart?  Meltdown city.

You love to help build and make things.  You dig holes and play in mud, but you like to be cleaned up soon afterwards.

In spite of your cleanliness, you've had a difficult time with the toilet thing.  I think you don't want to stop whatever it is you're concentrating on at the time.

You do not like shorts.  It's difficult to convince you to wear them, and you will always wear your pants and underwear backwards...on purpose.

Your favorite food is "um, tate."  (Cake.)

When I asked you about your favorite food, you talked about "Prismas."

Now I have to wrap this up, because you're talking to me and I have to have a full conversation, not just say "yes." 

We are so lucky to have you and you are adorable and funny and smart and sweet.  Thanks, Loch.

Why Handmade Matters

I have two brooms that I use for sweeping the floor in my house.  One of them, I probably bought from Wal-Mart (I know, the shame!), and it was made I know-not-where-but-most-likely-China. The other is from a little company named Broomhilde, made by hand, by a man and woman I look forward to visiting every year in Muskogee at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival.  

My China-Mart broom is serviceable.  It will get the job done, and it was cheap.  I don't remember buying it at all, since purchasing a boring broom isn't something one writes of in the old journal, is it?  It is not a thing of beauty or sentiment, but just an object that exists to perform a service.  I have no qualms about sending the kids out with it to sweep the front porch or to play witch in the field.

This broom has the generic look of all things made in factories:  round pale cylindrical handle, broken and dirty straws clamped flat by a slightly rusty metal bar.  It is like every other basic cleaning utensil you picture in your head.  I hang it up in the hallway with the other cleaning supplies for which I don't have closet space in this old farmhouse.  I try not to think of who made this broom, because it would make me sad for so many reasons.

My Broomhilde broom is a different animal.  It has a mottled pattern of dark red and lighter yellow wood on the knobby handle.  Instead of blunt straws that don't pick up all the little bits on the floor, it has actual broom-corn for the business end.  Flat, shapely canes are fastened to the handle with brass nails, and the bristles are natural golden-brown with some interesting splashes of a dark red to match the handle.  It is a thing of supreme functional beauty, and I am proud to hang it on the Dining Room wall for all to admire.

Here's the best part:  when I hold it in my hands, I always think of my friends who made it.  Selling corsets, we have made some dear friends that we only see a few times a year.  There is something that bonds people together when they've shared dramatic experiences, and working at a Renaissance Festival must surely count as dramatic.

How lovely is that?  I have a useful household tool that I use, ahem, "every day."  Whenever I use it, I marvel at how nice it looks, how wonderful it feels in my hands, and I think of the folks who made it.  I take special care with this broom, not because I am unwilling to buy another, but because it is special to me.  You know the saying about how you should have nothing in you house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful?  My handmade broom is both.

There are so many things in life that are not useful or beautiful.  I  don't like to think of things as having feelings, but handmade things are ineffably different than mass-produced ones.  For lack of a better term, I feel that they have more "soul" to them.  I want to appreciate having fewer meaningless possessions and focus on having the ones that we really need, that are fearfully and wonderfully made by loving hands.  

I love selling corsets on the internet, and I am so grateful that my husband and I can work from home and  take care of our children.  Sometimes, though, I wonder if we're losing out on making a deeper human connection with our customers?  I would love to think of women all across the world lacing a corset and fondly remembering the people who made it with love and care and skill.  That would make me very happy.

She was born two, and looks to continue being so....

Oh, little Cora.  You are the most delicious little redheaded round-blue-eyed thing.  I can't stop calling you "wee nubbin," or sometimes "nublet." You got those little laugh-lines under your eyes from your Dad, and they are awesome on both of you. 

You are old enough to go to nursery all by yourself now, but have had The World's Longest Cold for what surely has been months.  We've stayed at home together many Sunday mornings.

You are still breastfeeding.  I feel that you are only nursing in the morning, at nap time, and at bed time.  You, however, disagree.  You rarely sit in my lap without groping me suggestively, or thrashing towards my chest while peering up at me and asking, "Uh-Huh?"  (This is either your word for milk, or eat, or feed-me-now, woman!)    I have tried to tell you to ask politely to eat, but you aren't having it.  You will smile at me by squinting your eyes, because you don't want to let go.

You are endlessly curious about whatever is in every bottom drawer in the whole house.  You will open the drawer, rifle and toss its contents all over the floor around you, and then move on to the next one.  Child, you are making your mother consider those latch-things.  You'd probably figure them out as quickly as I could install them. 

You are the only kid in our household who loves the dog unreservedly.  That is a whole story for another day, but suffice to say that our dog, Luna, is terrifyingly affectionate.  She is an eight-month-old Great Pyrenees, which means she is bigger than some ponies.  All the kids are afraid of/annoyed by her attentions, except for you.  Your favorite words are "Puppy-the-puppy!" 

You are a kisser.  Big, wet, sloppy kisses that are usually snotty, too.  (See Worlds Longest Cold, above.)  Unfortunately, you are also a poker, a pincher, and sometimes a biter.  We're working on these things.

You're a lot of work and a lot of fun all rolled up into twenty pounds of intensity.