7 down, 13 to go

My finger, feeling for new teeth

For the past two weeks, Zeben has been teething. Actually, I suppose he's probably technically been teething for his whole life, for the past 16 months, 3 weeks, and 1 day. But it wasn't really until a couple of weeks ago that the teething really took over our experience of life with this otherwise bouncy and chipper little guy.

There are extra tears, and extra melt-downs, and extra high-pitched screaming episodes. But the main symptom of Zeben's erupting teeth is lots and lots and lots of extra nursing. He is nursing pretty much all night long, and at least 30 times a day--no exaggeration! Aside from the occasional banana binge, Zeb is still nearly exclusively breastfed, so some part of this huge amount of time spent at the breast is certainly due to nutrition. But I never could have imagined that he could nurse as often and for as long as he has been lately. Some days he pretty much just nurses all day long. He is happy when he's nursing, and for the time being my nipples are mostly up to the task, so I guess I should just feel grateful that I have this perfect solution literally built-in to my body. But while I do feel a huge amount of appreciation for my breasts these days, there are also times when I feel a bit exasperated and fantasize about being able to temporarily remove them and leave Zeben blissfully nursing without having to hold him in my lap.

One new tooth has appeared so far, bringing the total tooth count up to 7. There are 13 more to come. Hopefully, at least a few more of them will appear within the next week or so since it's hard to fathom that all this fuss and neediness has been due to one measly little tooth.

Along with his newfound love of breastfeeding, Zeben has developed a new appreciation for his amber teething necklace. The thought behind the teething necklace is that the baltic amber is said to act as a natural anti-inflammatory and provide pain relief within the vicinity of the necklace. So, a baby wearing amber around his neck should feel some reduction in the pain associated with teething. The necklace is not meant to act as a teether itself. But Zeben doesn't know that.


I'm sure letting him gnaw on his necklace is both dangerous and likely to lead to the necklace breaking apart, but it's hard to stop him from doing anything that makes him smile these days, especially when it has nothing to do with my breasts!

Better Late Than Never?

Because we were in an airplane all day on March 20th, we missed out on our usual celebration of the Spring Equinox (the Pagan holiday, "Oestar"). This didn't come as a huge loss to me (usually we celebrate by eating an egg-rich brunch, doing an egg hunt, and by blowing out chicken eggs and filling them with birdseed (and then throwing them at trees and making a wish for spring)), and we likely would have just gone along without taking much notice if it weren't for the boys finding an abandoned plastic easter egg at the park. Clearly, this was evidence that they had missed out on one of their favorite activities. I explained that we had be in New Mexico, and we had missed the Spring Equinox this year.

"But we can still do an egg hunt, mom! Better late than never!"

I guess so.

So, on Tuesday of last week, Jasper and Zeben and I walked into town to hunt for chocolate eggs. Most of the stores had packed them away or sold out, but we managed to find a couple of bags, 50% off at our favorite chocolate store (of all places!).

It was odd to be in town with just Jasper and Zeben, pushing them in the twin stroller. I'm so used to looking down and seeing two same-sized legs and same-sized feet, and it was fun to instead see two kids of such different sizes. Zeben loved getting to sit next to his big brother. This was probably one of the last trips to town with the double stroller, though, since Jasper is definitely just about bursting out of it at this point (well, he is five afterall!).



When we got home, we quickly got to work hiding the eggs for Lukas to find when he got home from school. The rules were that the eggs had to be hidden in such a way that you could still see them without having to move anything (other than your own body).




Lukas was thrilled (to put it mildly) to get home to such a surprise. He took his job as egg hunter very seriously. Jaz stood by excitedly while Luke found all the eggs.



If the story ended now, it would have been a lovely story. Instead, as soon as Lukas had found all his eggs, Jasper decided it was his turn to be the hunter. Jaz covered his eyes in the living room while Luke got to work hiding eggs in the playroom. There was calm for all of about 20 seconds, until Jasper burst into tears because, as he said, "I can hear where you're hiding them Lukas!" Music helped to drown out the tell-tale signs of which hiding spots Luke was choosing, but Jasper's raw state didn't really improve. As he was hunting, he kept insisting that Lukas was giving him too many hints (which, honestly, is kind of true), and there were so many tears and much yelling on behalf of all three kids (Zeben got upset because he wasn't allowed to find the eggs). It was pretty miserable.

When all was said and done, we were left with a bowl full of chocolate eggs. So now I can be the mean mom who says, "no, you cannot have a chocolate egg for breakfast," and the apathetic mom who says, "sure, fine, go ahead and have your 5th chocolate egg of the day. We're not having dinner for another two minutes anyway." And of course, by the end of the week, my thoughts on egg hunts had changed from "better late than never" to something more along the lines of "we're never doing this again!"

Homebody

We survived our whirlwind travels to New Mexico and back, and have now entered the recovery phase of the trip. Bags of wrinkled clothes are exploding all over the house, toys litter the floor, and we're still on New Mexico time (the kids went to bed at 10 p.m. last night and woke up at 9 a.m. this morning).

The actual travel experience wasn't really that bad. All three kids managed to remain mostly mellow and content throughout the flights and the long car rides, due in large part to three incredibly useful things: our portable dvd player, and each of my breasts. Luke and Jaz watched movies almost continuously on the airplane and in the car, and Zeben was free to nurse whenever he wanted to (I could even nurse him in the car while we were both safely buckled in). We made it through security with 3 car seats, a stroller, 4 carry-ons, and 3 kids (though sadly, our yogurt was confiscated), and our timing was pretty perfect (we didn't have to rush to catch the plane, nor did we have to wait around forever before we could board). All in all, the experience was mostly encouraging, and I felt like we could do it again if we needed/wanted to (not at all how I felt after flying with Luke and Jaz at 20 months to my other sister's wedding).

It was the time (2 days and 3 nights) we spent in New Mexico that I found most challenging. Sleeping in a different bed is particularly hard for us since we are used to the heaven of our ginormous family nest at home. Squeezing all five of us into a King-sized bed is possible, but nobody slept all too well. Eating all of our meals in restaurants was also harder than I thought it would be, as was not really having a place for the kids to just run freely and play. The lack of trees and the barren landscape made me feel thirsty and I longed for the puddles and green spring shoots that we had left behind in New England. I felt unsettled, and my children acted as though they felt the same way.

The best part of the trip was getting to see my sisters and my niece, all of whom were lovely. The wedding went well, and despite Lukas and Jasper first refusing to participate in the ceremony (they were supposed to be co-ring-bearer's with the groom's nephew), and then refusing to go to the wedding all together ("but that's the whole reason we came to New Mexico!" "That's not why I came; I just came for the airplane ride!"), they ended up rallying at the end and walked down the aisle afterall as a co-ring-bearer and a flower girl's assistant.

I didn't bring my camera with me, but here are a few pictures that my dad took:

Luke and Jaz watching a movie on the portable dvd player (a.k.a. our saving grace)
while Lena and I got ourselves ready for the wedding

Standing with the flower girl (their 3-year-old cousin, Araela) just before the ceremony

The beautiful bride (my sister, Fiona) just before she put her wedding dress on

The bride and groom (my new brother-in-law, Jon), cutting the cake

I am so glad that we were able to be there for my sister on her special day. She was so beautiful and it was great to get to see her with her love. But while I'd like to think that I am the kind of easy-going, care-free parent with easy-going, care-free children, who can up and leave for any destination at any point without any trouble, the sad truth is that I'm just not. Zeben is still in the phase where he's pretty much at home wherever I am (read wherever my breasts are), but Luke and Jaz have reached a stage in their development where they're quite attached to their usual routine. Taking them away from it does terrible things to their moods, especially for Lukas (who is "highly sensitive"). And it's likely that they've inherited this unfortunate trait, this love for the familiar, this appreciation for sameness and plainness and boring repetition, from me. Because I am, pretty much, the definition of a homebody. And it is oh so good to be home.

Three New Haircuts

Jaz Before

Luke Before

Jaz After

Luke After

I don't have any "before" hair pictures of myself--it had gotten pretty bad (i.e. long and scraggly), to the point that I was avoiding the camera--but here's an "after" picture of me:

I guess we're ready for the wedding now!

Smile

Photos from the Past week that make me smile.

Green shoots appeared in the gardens that surround our house.

In the absence of snow, Lena's garden heart rock collection is once again visible.

Jaz wrote this note for me without any help or prompting.

I made a baby carrier for my sister-in-law's sister-in-law
and her sweet newborn baby boy.
This was my first attempt at copying the style of the Babyhawk Mei Tais,
and it was really fun!

The spring shoots turned into the first spring flowers!

I made a second "Mockhawk" baby carrier. This one is for my very pregnant Sister-in-Law and our nephew-to-be.

Jaz and Lena trying it out and having a snuggle. I don't know what I'll do when Luke and Jaz don't fit in carriers anymore.

The flowers opened up even wider in the midday sun. Hooray for Spring!

Dream Magic

Tonight we had our very good, most beloved friends, Katie and Aaron, and their two-year-old twins, Elijah and Aryeh, over for dinner. A friendship that started before Katie and I even met Lena or Aaron (who also already knew each other from high school) has only grown stronger through the years of fun couple-against-couple pinochle games, our small, quiet weddings, and the miracle of us each ending up with a set of twin boys. We still stare in disbelief at each other over the chaos of our dinner table full of FIVE hungry sons and exclaim over the unlikeliness of it all. Surely if someone had whispered a hint of this future to us during one of our many shared dinners in college, we would have declared it impossible.



Katie and Aaron actually didn't know that they were having twins until Aryeh--the second baby, not a placenta--was born, and when Katie called to tell me the news minutes later, I was 100% sure that she was joking. Just weeks before, while organizing all of the two-of-everything, hand-me-down baby clothes we had lent her, she had said to me, "I keep having to remind myself that I'm not having twin boys!" And really, what are the chances that it would have worked out this way? But I truly am just so grateful that Katie and Aaron are on this crazy journey with us. How lucky for us all. How amazing and crazy and perfect.


We try to get our broods together at least once a week or so, assuming that none of the children are potentially contagious with the dreaded stomach bug (which Katie and I are both Totally Paranoid about), and despite all the age differences, the kids have all fallen in love with each other just as we hoped that they would. Tonight, however, Lukas and Jasper were in "rare form." "Rare form" is a code phrase that Lena and I use to mean something along the lines of "absolutely insane and in danger of being thrown out the window." Luke and Jaz had been playing outside with the neighbor kids pretty much all day, and we'd mostly forgotten to feed them. Rule #1 for keeping our kids from collapsing into "rare form" is:

Keep them well fed

We also kept them up really late last night, since we stayed in Boston until 8:30 p.m. hoping that they would fall asleep on the way home. Instead they stayed awake for the entire 2-hour-drive (actually Jaz fell asleep almost exactly 1 mile from our house), which meant that they only got 9 hours of sleep last night, a blatant violation of Rule #2:

Keep them well rested

So it really shouldn't have been any surprise to find the boys in an extreme state of "rare form" just in time for all nine of us to sit down to (a slightly late, but totally delicious) dinner. Jaz was having an especially hard time and couldn't stop screaming and crying (he didn't want to say good-bye to the neighbors, he was mad at me for not letting him eat rice cakes with his friends instead of coming in for dinner, he didn't like what we were having for dinner, and he just couldn't stop crying). As he finally gave into his overwhelming hunger and started eating, the rise in blood sugar corresponded to an immediate improvement in personality. We began to catch glimpses of the boy we know. He stopped crying. Eli smiled and exclaimed, "Jaz is happy now!" which, of course, prompted Jaz to growl in his direction and start crying again. Lukas was in a slightly more controlled but equally unpleasant funk, and it was clear that the only thing to do was to put them both to bed.

Katie and Aaron are, in some ways, at an advantage in our relationship in that, having had their twin sons 2-and-a-half years after we had ours, they are on the receiving end of hand-me-down clothes, toilet training tips and our (untrained) medical advice. Most everything that they go through with their twins, we've already been through with ours. On the other hand, they've been given the--perhaps unfortunate--gift of getting a glimpse into their future by witnessing what we go through with our kids. They've been robbed of the first-time parents' naive assumption that it only gets easier as the kids get older. Thanks to us, they've been prematurely informed of the truth. As the kids get older, things just get more complicated, confusing, and challenging. And I always feel bad when our innocent friends (and their impressionable children) have to be privy to such horrors as the scene that went down at dinner tonight (though really, it's hard to imagine the sweetness of 2-year-old Eli and Aryeh ever turning into the moodiness of 5-year-old Jasper and Lukas . . . maybe Katie and Aaron will luck out after all).

Getting the boys upstairs and in pajamas with their teeth brushed all happened to the soundtrack of much screaming and crying. I had clicked over into all-business, super-fed-up-mama mode and so there was no joyful tooth brushing game or joking about putting pajama pants on the arms instead of the legs. It only took me about 3 minutes to get both tear-streaked kids ready and in bed. And, then . . . then, it was time for me to perform Dream Magic.

I can't remember exactly when I started doing Dream Magic. It was long enough ago that both Jasper and Lukas took me at my word when I said that I could do magic to help them have good dreams. They still believe in it--in me--wholeheartedly, but now there are more questions.

"Why are you so magical, mom?"
"But how did you get to know how to do this magic?"
"Are you really sure that this is magic?"

No, not really sure, but I'm becoming more convinced with time. Dream magic consists of me placing my hand on the boys' heads (one at a time) while they lie in bed, just before they fall asleep. I pour every little bit of good energy that I can into them--mostly I just think about how much I love them--and imagine it filling their dreams with sweetness. So far it's worked out quite well. I don't recall that the boys have ever had bad dreams after a dose of dream magic at bedtime. These days, I have to do dream magic every night, thanks again to the loveliness of the movie Hook.

And on nights like tonight, it's a task that is especially daunting. I forced myself to push all of the frustration out of my mind and take a deep breath. I placed my hand on Lukas' head and tried to let the good energy flow. Slowly, but surely, the twisted muddle of my anger and impatience gave way to love, and I felt Luke's body relax under my hand. After a minute or two, I brushed his damp bangs to the side and kissed his forehead before moving on to Jaz.

"I don't think the Dream Magic is going to work tonight," Jasper whimpered, "I know I'm going to have bad dreams."

"Of course it will work, baby."

"But you're so mad at me. You don't love me. It's not going to work."

I was struck by his accusation, not just because of the heart-breaking enormity of such a statement, but because I hadn't realized until then that he knows what the dream magic is about. He's somehow figured out that the Magic is Love.

"Of course I love you. I always love you. Even when I'm angry and frustrated, I always, always love you. Nothing can ever change that. And the Dream Magic will definitely work."

I sifted my fingers through his hair and rested them on the top of his head. The love flowed easily then, and Jasper accepted it and his body became peacefully still. And I felt the same kind of warm peace spreading inside myself. And it was then that I realized that Dream Magic can do more than just keep bad dreams at bay. Way more.

Banana Baby

Somehow Zeben managed to eat FOUR bananas (or "nya-nyas" as he calls them) today. One for breakfast. One when he woke up crabby from his nap. One alongside his brothers after they got home from school. And then one that Lukas slipped him without my permission right before dinner. Zeben is now 50% breastmilk and 50% banana. I can only hope that all that nya-nya makes it through his system okay!