It Takes A Support Group

I don't know what the saying is about it taking a village to raise a child. I need a full on support group.

No.

Joke.

Holy cow this is hard. Thankfully I have amazing friends and an industrious husband, thanks to whom I have done very little cooking in the last three weeks. Except candy. I did make some candy. But it was easy, and necessary.

My new necessities
Wine
Water
Chocolate
Jeans that don't make me angry.

And even still my brow is furrowed a lot. Lee told me last night that he's afraid he'll come home from work one night and I'll be launching an attack on Cindy Lou Who.

He prescribed me the Christmas Pandora station today to pull me out of my stress-induced Grinchitude, but I had to turn it off because the noise was making me edgy. Isn't that terrible?

But enough complaining--this is Birthday Things* dangit!
So here you go:

Mary Bullock's new Birthday Thing: taking pictures with Baby Bruwa.

She sits down next to him and says, Mama take pictua?
And since they were both in their Christmas PJs, I obliged. Which turned into MB wanting high pives.

And this is how we wrapped up the fun:

And this about sums it up. Mary Bullock strokes his cheek and says, It's ok, honey! It's ok, honey! It's ok, honey! 
Someday he will laugh at this, right?
Poor little man.

Week in Pictures

If I've learned nothing else in the last week, it's that I can only get done what I can get done. And the rest, well, it wasn't that important anyway. So there has been a lot of laundry piling up and a lot of blogging left undone. But I am filling up those hours with baby snuggling. I know you'll forgive me this small indulgence.

And now, I will resume my baby snuggling.
Love
Suz

Thanks for Small Miracles

I may or may not have time to finish this post before my sleeping babies awaken with demands, but I'm going to start it and see how far I can get. Deal?

[Mary Bullock loves a deal.]

So-- as you can imagine, things have been pretty hectic. I'm not even going to pretend that managing two babies has been easy. And I know [OH! how I know] it's going to get much harder before it gets easier. But for all of the chaos, there have been a few small miracles.

1. Mary Bullock has slept in her big girl bed without incident for naps and bedtime every day since the baby was born. I don't know what kind of peace has come over her about this transition, but I can only assume that my prayers [and there were many, many, many] were answered.

2. I am getting more sleep now than I did in the last three months of pregnancy. I actually feel rested. Not always calm--that would be a total lie. But rested enough to get through the day.

3. Lee IV is a great eater, great sleeper, quiet crier, and patient waiter. Some day soon he might wake up a little more and realize he can be more demand-y [I mean, he IS a baby], but he is making this first week so much easier on his mama.

4. Lee III has declared that he will not stop loving me at least until Lee IV's first birthday. So when the baby wakes up and gets demand-y, and MB decides POOP TO THIS BIG GIRL BED BUSINESS, and I am getting a half hour of sleep per night, I have a little leeway on my bad moods. Up until [and including? I'll have to clarify the contract] December 1, 2011.

5. And thank you to all of you who are small miracles in my life, too. You know who you are, and you have probably seen me cry and still loved me. Motherhood is not a task to be survived alone.

And another miracle-- the babies are still sleeping! #1 on my nap time to-do list: Make another to-do list.

LOVE.
Suz

Welcome to the world

Baby Lee
6lbs, 4oz. 20.5in.
3:18pm

Well, we didn't make it to December 10th, but God has perfect plans even when I don't always agree with them in advance.

Baby Lee made his entrance yesterday at 3:18pm after a labor that I've been warned not to tell about lest harder laboring mothers poke my eyes out.

He is beautiful and sleepy [don't you just love them that way?] and easy as pie. I'm not holding my breath that he'll stay that way-- after all, he is related to Hurricane Mary Bullock, but I'll take these precious quiet days and remember them for a few months from now when I haven't showered in several days and there's nothing in the fridge for dinner.

Love to you all.
Suz & Lee

Southern Living Spice Cake

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Thanks to God and His miracle of Tylenol PM, I am actually able to include some sentences in this post. :)

So, I survived the making of the Southern Living Spice Cake.
I survived eating it, too, amazingly, since the ingredient list included

which is not a food friend of mine, as many of you know. 
What can I say? I love that husband of mine. I would never willingly bake with or consume coconut for another human being.

The citrus filling was super easy-- dump and stir. Now that's my kind of baking.

The icing was less difficult than it sounded, with all the mixing over simmering water and whatnot. But I will say that this was much more easily accomplished with Mary Bullock playing at her Pretty's house rather than stomping at my feet demanding BUCK BUCK DO IT ALL BY SELF.

So this was the end result:

I wish that I could say that this cake was the best thing I've ever tasted, and it was delicious, but between you and me, I'd rather have Buddy Pie any day. 

Want a taste? It's taking up valuable cookie space in my refrigerator. Stop yourself on by.

Thanksgiving: A Pictorial

Because Mama is tired.
So very, very tired.

I know

I have been MIA-- please forgive me. I hope to be back with something good from Thanksgiving!

Keep me in your prayers tonight-- Lee volunteered me to make this

obviously before considering my limited kitchen skill set.

But I'm going to do it, because it's practice in baking and patience and also sucking it up.

I really should thank him for this opportunity, don't you think?

But pray anyway, just in case.

A Special Toot Day Message

We love you!

Before I forget

My brain is turning to mush. Whether it's lack of sleep or late pregnancy preoccupation or whatever--it's happening.

And my brain wasn't so firm to begin with, you know? I'm struggling.

So I want to write some things down before they drift off into space never to be retrieved.

Remember when I went to Chicago in September?
Mary Bullock does, too. So now whenever we ask where she is going [like when she has her purse around her neck and is strolling her baby doll into the laundry room], she says 'Cago.
Ooooh, that's a long way, I say. I'll miss you.
Miss you, tooooo, Mama!

or we hear this a lot:
Mama, CHOO CHOO TRAIIIIIN!!!
Yes! Do you hear the choo choo train?
Choo choo train go bye bye, Mama. 
Well where in the world do you think it's going?
'Cago.

****
Mary Bullock has just realized that the moon is up even during the day. Whenever we are outside, she asks Moon go? Which loosely translates to Where did the moon go? So then we have to spend a few minutes looking upwards to find it in the sky.
The other night in the bathtub we were discussing this SUPER THRILLING subject, and how when the sun goes down it gets dark outside.
Whycuz? she asks.
I don't know, I say. [Not because I don't understand that the sun makes light, of course, but because we've already had this same discussion several times that day. And the day before. And the day before.]
She thinks a minute.
Know why? she says.
Why? I ask.
Don't know either, she says.

Last night while we were putting her night-nights [pajamas] on, she thrust her round bare belly at my face.
Zuhbuht, Mama. [That's zerbert to the rest of us.]
Zerbert? How many do you want? One or two?
TWO, she says. She holds up two and half fingers. She has trouble getting that third finger to lay down.
I give her two big zerberts on her belly while she squeals.
How many do I have left? I ask.
TWO, she says. She gets her math skills from me, apparently.
But I give her two more zerberts, because what she doesn't know won't hurt her, right?
Thas enough, Mama, she says.

My girl is such a delightful mess.

Almost there...

So, after a tearful freak out on the phone to my sister last week, she hopped on a plane and came down here for the weekend to help us get the baby room settled. I cannot even describe how amazing it is to A) have a sister who loves me enough to do this, and B) actually have the room semi-ready. Both of those things have gone a long way towards calming my very anxious mind.

Lee put the finishing touches on the furniture, and we triple-teamed the painting of the walls. By the end of the day on Saturday I was able to start putting the baby's clothes in drawers and managing the general feeling of chaos that has consumed our house in the last few weeks.

We're still waiting on some details like window treatments and such, so I'll wait to show you what it all looks like. But MB seems to love it and has slept in her big girl bed with no problems the last two nights. So I can mark another one off of the worry list [for now]. She is even *knock wood* napping in her bed as I type. This is another HUGE relief.

Nothing will be perfect-- not the room, not the timing, and certainly not me, but it's coming together. And fairly soon [hopefully no sooner than December 10th, dear baby, if you're listening!] we'll be a family of four!

Plus or minus a dog.
Anyone want a dog?

Just kidding.
Not really. But that's a separate post.

Almost as good as a nap

I woke up at 4:15 again this morning. I have been waking up early in general, but the time change has thrown my early-but-sane wake up time into the ballpark of the truly ridiculous.

And I'm not kidding about the ridiculous part. Being tired makes me behave very oddly, like when I found our normally super clingy dog lying in our bedroom all by himself this morning and laughed until it almost turned into crying. I'm teetering on the brink here lately. Hormones + little sleep + a to-do list that never gets any shorter= scary laugh-crying.

Anyway. Mary Bullock climbed onto our bed this morning while I was getting dressed. She put her head on the pillow.

Nap Nap, Mama, she said.
Light off!
I pulled the covers up around her.
Mama lay down, tooooo? 
I climbed in beside her and closed my eyes. I could hear her heavy breathing getting closer to my face.
I love that sound. So innocent.
She put her hands over my eyelids, and I opened my eyes to her sweet baby face inches away.  I had to stop myself from covering her cheeks with kisses.

Nap over, Mama. 
Get uuuuup!

Playdate, by MB

This is my friend Mattie.

We have been friends since we were little. See?

But now we're big. And we can do lots of things.

Like

make a big pile of blankets on the kitchen floor. That was super fun.

And we can also

draw. We like to trace our hands because tracing our hands is also super fun.

And we draw princesses!!!! Yeah!!!!!  My mommy says our princesses look like hands.
But I don't see what she means.

We clean up all our toys and hug bye bye because now we are big.
I love my friend Mattie. 

The End.

Life was good today

If you haven't talked to me in person lately, you might not know that the last few weeks I have lived with a very clear and present danger of head explosion.

If you have seen me in person, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about, because I probably mentioned it at least once, and the stress in my voice probably freaked you out, and you probably told me that it doesn't really matter because the baby won't know the difference if his room isn't ready.

And in theory I can see your point. Really, I can. I think I've actually said those exact words to worried pregnant women before.

But it doesn't stop the dark cloud of worry from following me around. My eyebrows are in serious peril of being permanently knit together from all the furrowing I've been doing. Especially since the countdown is now at less than 4 weeks.

But today I was able to put aside some of my worry, if only for today.

Doughnuts for breakfast helped. But doughnuts help lots of things, I think.

I feel compelled to assure you that we do not eat doughnuts on a regular basis. But they are more fun to eat than eggs.

Then Lee set to work on the furniture for the nursery-- the never ending project. We finally moved indoors away from the tornado of dog hair outside on the deck.

Of course, that means our dining room is Lee's new workshop. But it's a small price to pay if it means that this project will soon be coming to an end.

While Lee worked, Mary Bullock and I sorted baby clothes to take inventory of what we still need. Answer: absolutely nothing. Baby boy may or may not have a place to sleep, but he will be definitely be well clothed, wherever he lands.

We took a break from our sorting to have some popcorn and watch Daddy work.

Buck Buck likes popcorn. She even likes the uncooked kernels [girl after my own heart]. Thankfully, she also likes to share.

We rounded out the day at a birthday gathering for MB's friend Claire.

She totally has a future in percussion. I think she gets her rhythm from me.
[Ok, now Lee's head is exploding. Isn't that great symmetry?]

And then we were sent home with extra cake.
Greatest day I've had in months.
The End.