I hired a babysitter!

I hired someone to watch the kids for 1/2 a day a week so I can get out of the house, work at Din's office a bit, and run an errand or two.

I know this sounds like a mountain out of a molehill to you, but this is big for us. Okay, for me. Since April of 2006 no one has watched the kids who doesn't either share our DNA or ought to, with the exception of the 30 minutes that we left Chris in the care of the pediatrician while we went to lunch while she circumcised him.

I found her through an online sitter agency, interviewed her, ran a background check, and shadowed her yesterday while she interacted with Bean and Chris. Bean adores her. She actually kicked me out of her room while they were playing together and reading Kat's copy of Where the Wild Things Are.

It took two years of convincing my husband that it didn't make us neglectful parents and wasteful spenders to call in some help now and again. Our family is wonderful, and have taken the kids plenty of times, but they are busy with their lives and jobs and other grandkids, so it's been difficult to secure a regular family babysitter.

I'm excited TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE WITHOUT A STROLLER. With my sister helping out on Bean's gym days and now Nina coming once a week, maybe I can remember that my name is Jen and not just "Mama" and "Honey, where's the extra diapers?"

Men: Not what you think.

I got the kids dressed and ready to attend preschool story time at the local library this morning. It started at 10, and I'm proud to admit that I got there at a measley 10:03. Not bad for two kids in diapers, I think.

We were too late, though. Apparently, this story time deal is a big one, and the stroller patrol gets there a half an hour early just for a chance to get into story time. I'm not kidding. They only let 72 kids into the story room, and the librarian snickered when I asked at 10:03 if we could go in to listen to the stories.

She told me that my best bet was to get there at least 30 minutes ahead of time and try to get a number to go in.

Who knew Mother Goose still had it?

As far as nursing, the lactation cosultant basically told me to tell the pediatrician where she could stick it. She showed me how which growth chart you use will wildly change percentiles. The doctor was apparently using a growth chart supplied by Ross Pharmaceuticals (formula company) - so Chris' 3rd percentile wasn't really a fair assessment. She showed me World Health Organization and National Institute of Health growth charts for exclusively-breastfed, healthy babies, and he's on the 12th to 15th percentile.

Also, she told me that the chart contains data only for healthy children, not crack addicts and midgets, so he'd be in an even higher percentile if the chart included all babies, not just the healthy ones.

She set my mind at ease by telling me that she's seen scads of genuine Failure to Thrive kids and Chris doesn't look anything like any of them. He's just a bit of a dink, which makes sense since he has two short parents. She made me repeat after her "he's fine, he's fine, he's fine" and recommended that I start shopping around for another pediatrician, one who has more experience with exclusively breatfed babies.

So I feel a lot better after meeting with her. I have another feed and weigh scheduled at the first of the month, but I feel 95% convinced that I'm not starving my child.

I’m here. And I’m okay. I just literally have no time for myself, and so my posting has been absent. I’m sorry.

Here’s what’s going on in a nutshell:
1)Fatigue: I’m at the point where I pity myself because I haven’t had a full night’s rest in over 6 months. My ass drags around day after day because I can’t get enough sleep. Mr. Man still doesn’t sleep through the night, and his weight isn’t enough yet (see below) for me to feel comfortable Ferberizing* him like I did with Sophie. I understand why they use sleep deprivation on detainees at Guantanamo. It messes with you. I have luggage under my eyes that airlines will charge me for.

2)Weight Gain: Not mine, although there is that (sigh). Mr. Man went for his 4-month checkup. The doctor tells me that his weight is in the third percentile. Yes, you read that right, THIRD. So basically, line up another 99 4-month-olds by weight, and the only ones smaller than he is a crack baby and a midget. I think the doctor thinks that I’m starving him. I explained that his sister was little, too, but she’s throwing around terms like “failure to thrive” and tells me that unless I start feeding him solids his brain development might be affected. How’s that to make sure you don’t sleep well at night?

3)Nursing: I brought my lactation consultant into Mr. Man’s weight gain issues to help increase my supply. I have a feed and weigh appointment with her on Friday to see how much milk he gets from me at each feeding. Cross your fingers for me. I don’t want to have to give up nursing.

4)Tahoe: Dim and I got away for a weekend in Tahoe to attend a friend’s wedding. I went on a ski lift for the first time. It was pleasant and scary all at the same time.

5)Sister: My sister’s been coming over once or twice a week to help me with the kids so I can run errands. It makes a big difference in my week, my temperament, and my refrigerator. I like spending the time with her. We never got along as kids, but I feel like I’m rediscovering her now that she’s an adult. She’s actually a nice person, not the annoying little turd that always tried to flick boogers at me. Oh, wait. That was me doing the flicking. Never mind.

*For the uninitiated: Ferberizing means getting him to sleep through the night by learning to self-soothe. It involves letting the kid cry it out until he can discover that he can fall asleep at night on his own. It took three nights of horror to get Bean to do it: the poor thing cried so hard she threw up several times. But it was only three nights, and she’s been a good sleeper since.

The irony of this d-bag's statement makes me want to scream:

Dobson Accuses Obama of 'distorting Bible'

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said.

"... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

This from the guy who denounces Spongebob Squarepants as a menacing agent of the Homosexual Agenda and who urged politicians not to pass a hate crime law protecting gays from violent bigots.

Some people make my head hurt.

11 Days.

Wow.

On day 10, I took him to the doctor, just to make sure everything was fine. It is, but the poor fellow had to endure a rectal thermometer check. It wasn't to take his temperature, it was to see if, well, if there was a train expected to arrive at the station any time soon.

The doctor sent us home, telling me that the thermometer likely would cause Something to happen either that day or the next. And it did. And did. And did.

The doctor told me that he was most likely going through a growth spurt, which is good, because his weight puts him in the tenth percentile, and weight gain is a good thing. However, apparently my milk production hadn't kept pace, so he was using every calorie he could get from me. She told me to give it a month, and we'll see where his weight is at his next check up.

I'm relieved, but still a little anxious. One side of my head says that things are fine, that Bean was small too, and she doesn't have a tail. The other side of my head says that I'm failing as a nurser, and that my milk not nutritious enough for him, and remember that stash of hospital formula in the medicine cabinet? It would be sooooo easy to reach for it.

I'm thinking about emailing my lactiation consultant for a pep talk, since a crisis of confidence about breastfeeding is not a good thing for a fragile mom's ego.

But in the meantime, I'm glad to be mopping up baby poo, even if it is 11 days overdue.