11/10/06 Katrina smiles

There is no doubt in my mind. Today, after a long nap, a good nursing, and yet another clean diaper, Katrina was in a great mood and wide awake. I made a face at her and smiled, and then she smiled back at me, maintaining eye contact, rather than fading into half-sleep as she's done before. It absolutely was a responsive smile, and it was beautiful.

And I'm also certain I heard a few coo sounds today! Once I thought she said "HI!". I didn't think the adorable baby sounds came until about 8 weeks old; at least, I'm pretty sure the boys didn't make those sounds until about then. Then again, it could be the Mom Amnesia thing (essential for procreation of the species).

I don't think she counts as a newborn anymore. She's also already losing that drowsy newborn thing. The rooting reflex is just about gone too, though she still has the newborn startle reflex.

You all might be getting tired of these photo sessions, but I'm having no end of fun experimenting. Today's experiment was with colors. I love this outfit, a gift from the Rojas family (Peggy, Miranda & Co.). It's a strong pink that looks great on Katrina. I think I like strong colors best, odd since with the boys I really didn't care much, and they wore a lot of baby pastels. But now, I have years of experience with bad pictures to shape what I like!























The boys were at Tonya's this afternoon, and will be all evening for sleepover. I feel a little guilty for enjoying the day so much without them, just me and my sweet little baby, who's hardly been fussy at all. I don't feel guilty for enjoying nursing her in peace, rather than having to yank her off time and again to go peel the boys off each other.

I think the hardest thing about this three-child thing is the differences in life phases between the boys and the baby. Part of me wants to be in little-boy mode; another part wants to be in baby mode, and I can't completely commit myself to either. It's a little schizophrenic.

It might be easier if the two life phases didn't both demand my immediate attention, but at the same time the needs of those two phases are very different. And it's really more than two phases, it's three, though Gabriel and Julian are pretty close to each other in terms of their care & feeding. Perhaps too close, since their rambunctious play together causes half the trouble!

Dave and I have a nice evening planned, with a yummy dinner from Whole Foods and catching up on our Netflix movies. Baby allowing, that is.

11/10/06

Video experiment: Gabriel and Julian goof-dancing

Steph said Aidan and Remi thought the crummy little video of the boys kissing Katrina was funny, though I can't imagine why. Maybe this will tickle their fancy though!

Originally saved in Quicktime format:


Originally saved in MP4:


Looks to me like the Quicktime version came out better. And no wonder, it's three times the filesize. Though YouTube suggests MP4, I guess I'll do QT, for movies from my videocamera (which suffered a devastating drop in the hospital and now has screen damage). Little movies from my still camera are still relegated to AVI, which doesn't convert well either.

11/9/06 The light cube

In an attempt to be an involved and engaging mommy this afternoon, I dug out and assembled a toy Gabriel got for his birthday last year that I'd put away and forgotten about. This is a Lite Brite cube, a plastic cube with a light bulb in the middle and holes you put colored pegs into. It has templates for patterns, with a single letter recommending a color to put in that hole, which Gabriel had no trouble with (even though he'd never heard of V for Violet). The toy also came with a portable version, which Julian played with. A big hit, though I can already see trouble with the zillions of tiny pegs all over the place.

It wasn't easy getting the thing assembled and the boys to clean up enough other junk to bother, especially since this all happened during a Katrina tired-won't-sleep Fuss, but Gabriel really liked it in the end.

Katrina was great today, even with the hour in the afternoon when there was no pleasing her. She was awake throughout Julian's music class, and mostly just looked around and flailed her limbs in response to all the activity. She took a good long deep nap this afternoon, another emerging pattern. We've been having less trouble getting her to sleep after the bath too; I think she almost expects it now. Life with baby is definitely a lot easier and happier when she is too.

11/9/06

11/8/2006 Katrina the no-fuss baby

Incredible. We had hours of Happy Baby Fun Time today, or really, time when Katrina sat peacefully in the bouncer or carseat just looking around. She even relaxed when I carried her around as I made dinner one-handed. What a difference a happy baby makes!

Our evening routine is evolving. I nurse her, give her a bath, then she's usually crying tired by then, and I put her to bed. Sort of. It's a process of cycles of calming her with swaddling and pacifier, usually interrupted by some awake time, then she'll relax if I lie down with her, swaddled and pacified. I wish holding her would calm her down, but it never does.

Last night she woke up pretty much every 4 hours, but she was awake for almost an hour starting at about 4:30am -- awake but calm. I can live with that.

It was a peaceful afternoon, if you include hammering, banging and sawing upstairs. Still, that's less racket and a lot more peace than the boys make together (I asked Tonya to keep Julian this afternoon so he'd nap).

I'm still determined to make up for my botched photo sessions of Katrina in the beautiful hand-knit outfit from Bonne Maman. I tried again today, with pretty good results. I'll never get the adorable pose I got the first time, but I got some adorable new ones.






















Here's a short boring crummy video of what Katrina does during these photo sessions. If anyone on YouTube bothers viewing this...Anyway, to take pictures, I have to guess when she's going to hold still, and when she's going to make a cute pose. I can't imagine doing this in the old days of film and waiting days, instead of seconds, to see your picture.


Katrina does so many smile faces I really am starting to think they're real. Today she looked right at me, not drowsy at all, and beamed a full-face smile, just as I'd smiled at her. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it was delightful anyway. She does it enough that it will be hard to tell when the smiles become true responsive smiles, which start at about 6 weeks old anyway. And she's almost 5 weeks old now. Already.

11/8/06

11/7/06 YouTube's newest fan

This morning I checked something quickly on YouTube, then had to go talk to the electrician. Next thing I knew, Julian was surfing YouTube, and found all sorts of little kid-friendly videos! I don't know how he full-screened the videos, nor found a skateboarding one that kept him entertained for nearly half an hour. So much for my high horse about my kids never watching videos!

Another one-wakeup night last night. I could get used to this!

I made it to the Y today, put Julian in the Childwatch, but then had to push a fussy and tired Katrina around a parking lot for 20 minutes until she relaxed and fell asleep. I even tried trotting a little -- boy am I out of shape. It'll be a while before I can really run, not that I ever did.

Katrina often cries when I put her in the carseat. Today, she got some welcome distraction from Julian showing her yesterday's preschool project. Other times, Julian tries playing peek-a-boo. What a sweet brother.


Terrific Halloween photo of me and baby! My friend Lacy is an uber-scrapper and has been honing her photography skills accordingly, and it shows.

Gabriel went on a playdate with Quinton today. Lisa (Quinton's mom) said Gabriel was pretty good, but that Quinton was naughty, trying to instigate trouble with throwing pillows off the couch, making weird sounds and motions in front of Gabriel to bug him, wrestling....GEE, sound familiar?! Naturally, Gabriel doesn't connect that he does exactly the same things.

But, thanks Lisa for a relatively calm afternoon, since Julian took a car-induced nap (transferred to the living-room couch), and I only had to deal with double-boy-duty for about 2 hours.

Which was ample time to catch them jumping on the couch and throwing toys over the fence into our neighbor's yard, and to send Gabriel to his room. I swear it seems that 95% of what I say to the boys are corrections, scoldings, directions, threats, and punishments. Brothers. Could I really have lived with another one?!

11/7/06

Video Test 2

This one started out as much higher quality & resolution, but YouTube's format conversion makes that pretty useless. Next to try is actual MPEG-4s, but that means using my videocamera instead of the video mode on my nice handy still camera.

Halloween at pre-K, Gabriel gets eliminated from his first musical chairs game.



Incredibly, hours after I'd posted this on YouTube, a few people not only viewed it, but commented and rated it?! Who on earth else would care about Gabriel's musical chairs?!

Video test

Attempt to embed a video from YouTube. You've seen this already: Brother Love.

Hey, it worked! Will improve resolution for next videos.

(Thanks to Charles Statman for this capital idea)

11/6/06 Bonne Maman goes home

Extra! Extra! Backhoe meets fire hydrant. Geyser on sleepy Parnell Place!

The offending backhoe (part of a repaving crew that has closed our street all week) attempts to quell the water with its bucket.

I doubt the workers were very happy about the picture-taking (or the laughing), but I couldn't resist.



Attempted a quick photo session with a reluctant Katrina to verify that I know what camera setting ruined those adorable photos with her in the hand-knit outfit. It was the ISO AUTO HI mode, which set too high an ISO level and introduced "noise" into the photo. Now I know I can get a good picture...that is, unless baby is unhappy, which she was a lot today. The background of the photo is a beautiful flannel and fleece blanket Bonne Maman made for her.

Bonne Maman flew home today, wah! Such a nice visit, and she got to spend lots of relaxed time with her grandchildren in their home setting. And we got a lot of nice time together too. During the five days, Katrina's outlook on life improved a little bit each day, making everything so much easier for everyone.

Last night took some doing to get baby to sleep at 11:30, but then she didn't wake up until 5:30! And then went right back to sleep after nursing. Yay! But of course I know better than to think this marks a trend.

Today in the car, Gabriel was listening as a campaign ad aired on the radio, and he said, " (something I couldn't make out) for trying to win. I think there's a race!" You got it kid!

(Don't politicians know that the sure-fire way to get elected is to run on a platform of "I don't do automated telephone campaign messages"?)

Much upstairs remodeling progress (new doors arrived and being installed, electrician almost done), but that also means lots of contractors traipsing around the house. I'm so looking forward to having my house back.

11/6/06

11/5/06 Katrina at one month

One month old today! Already!

This baby is growing so fast I'm not sure what to do. At this rate, she'll outgrow the bassinet before our upstairs is done enough to put the crib in! Weeks ago, a size 1 diaper seemed absurdly huge; now they're essential. I'm digging into 3-6 month sized clothes I'd dismissed as unusable for months yet. It almost seems like she's bumping up against the head support thing in the carseat too.

What a great break for the whole family: a wonderful night and morning! Katrina woke up at midnight, 4am, 6:45am and 10am; nursed and went right back to sleep each time. I stayed in bed until 9am! Better yet, Gabriel got up and colored quietly for two hours, and Julian didn't get up until 8:30am. It was all peace and harmony around here this morning. Ah.

We stopped Gabriel just as he was setting Julian up for a "haircut" today, kid-scissors in hand, ready to snip!

Mom and I took the boys (and girl) to Ortega Park to ride bicycles this afternoon.


This was fun, but wow, I can really appreciate the effort Stacey put in chasing two bicycles and a tricycle when she took her kids and Gabriel! I had to remind Gabriel many times not to get out of sight, and a few times he took off deliberately, instigating Julian to follow.

But for the most part, they rode around happily, together and apart, including setting up a "race" on a horseshoe court. They had such a great time and got in lots of riding.


For this outing, it's essential to have two adults, one to watch the baby and one to keep track of the boys.

Then we stopped for a snack under the big rotunda in this park, a striking and unusual feature. It's a popular place for tai chi groups in the mornings.

Katrina mostly slept through the whole outing, but woke up as the boys were having a snack. And happy! She was very active looking around sitting in my lap, and Bonne Maman's lap also.

And she cooperated for another group photo session, though her brothers weren't quite so good.

I like bicycle outings, I hope we can do lots of them. Though I had to run after the boys a lot, at least I *can* run now!

Bonne Maman flies home tomorrow, wah!

11/5/06

Newborns

Hospital nursery photos.

Gabriel (left), Katrina (right), both barely 24 hours old (Julian never made it to the nursery).

Pretty goofy! But there's some resemblance -- to each other, though not at all to themselves now.

11/4/06 Life improves, sleepless

Instead of being up until 2am, last night I was up from 2:30am on, until about 5:30am, with more wakeups and tummy troubles. Then she was on and off all morning, but took a good solid snooze in the afternoon. More and more calm time today, and soothing activity actually works sometimes. Yay!


Look at this beautiful hand-knit overall outfit Bonne Maman brought Katrina (she didn't knit it though). Or can you? This photo session got way screwed up -- why are these pictures so grainy?! I must have messed up a setting on my overall setting-free new camera. Wah, 'cause some of these shots are SO cute.

I wish I'd been more alert today though. 2 hours of consecutive sleep, once a night, doesn't do that.

At least I got to take the edge off with short snoozes while Bonne Maman played catch with Julian. And we had a relatively relaxed afternoon while Julian and Katrina both took long naps (no contractors on Saturday, yay). I'm starting to wonder how I ever survived without Mom here! Thanks Mom!

11/4/06

11/3/06 The difference an hour makes

Wasted. More emotionally than physically I guess, but creamed nonetheless. What do you do with a baby who has you "on" for so many consecutive hours?

At times, you can hear Katrina's stomach churning from across the room, and her stomach feels taut. Poor thing. I do everything I can think of to release the gas, but all it does is make her cry more. Ironic that she has all these stomach troubles after all the gastric ills I suffered in pregnancy.

Despite starting off the day wasted from an intense evening and night, and a hectic morning from dealing with the electricians, it turned into a nice relaxing day. And all because I was able to go to my follow-up appointment with Dr. Teagle (for my "ooky" surgery incision, in her words) by myself. Mom stayed home with Gabriel and a sleeping Katrina, and I had a whole hour without constantly being on the alert for baby sounds and movements. That completely revived me, and I had a lot more energy today for the usual Katrina contortions, which were fortunately far fewer than yesterday.

Part of what made the day so easy was that Julian was at Tonya's all day, since construction upstairs makes his naps impossible. Also, with the boys together, there's a good chance I'd need to send Gabriel to his room, which I just can't do when there's a compound miter saw going in there.

And sure enough, Gabriel was sweet, delightful, funny and just great to have all afternoon. Bonne Maman read him a book she brought for him, and she noticed that he's very interested in learning to read it himself.

We actually had a lot of Happy Baby Fun Time today, including a nice walk with an awake calm baby in the stroller, and Gabriel bopping along with his beloved Teddy Bear. Later, Mom took Gabriel on an errand as I started preparing dinner. Katrina sat quietly in her infant carrier, looking around and listening to Julian and I singing made-up variations on "Jimmy Crack Corn," and then fell asleep! That was some nice time alone with a darling Julian (who hasn't been all that darling lately).

Mom is definitely seeing first-hand the dynamics of two boys -- brothers close in age -- and understands we multiple-boy-moms' lives a lot better now! Though the boys often play great together, and they clearly mean the world to each other, for us, life is far more enjoyable when they're apart.

While waiting at the doctor's office today, I thumbed through a Parenting magazine, and came across one of the most inane "tips" I've ever heard: for those days you're particularly pressed for time, give your kids dinner in the bath! Oh yeah, brilliant!

11/3/06 (Happy Birthday Aunt Stephanie!)

11/2/06 Katrina, awake

Tough evening capped off an overall good day. Baby tied up my entire evening, pretty much from dinner-making on. I got stuff done, but in quick 5-minute spurts during brief naps or crying sessions. We did have about 20 minutes Happy Baby Fun Time in the bouncer during dinner though. Finally at 2am she went to sleep for real. I wish holding her comforted her.

The day was fun though, despite a hectic morning dealing with contractors and other remodelling things. Bonne Maman came to music class, which Julian loved. And Katrina was awake and mostly happy during that time too.

We had to take Gabriel to the pediatrician for an ear check, then went to Whole Foods to grocery-shop. All three kids were asleep in the car by the time we got there, so Bonne Maman stayed with them in the car while I shopped!


We managed to get in a little photo session today too.

11/2/06

11/1/06 Bonne Maman visits

Another tough evening, but good night, with only one easy baby wakeup.

I asked Tonya to keep Julian all day today, since electricians upstairs make his nap impossible, and he's missed a nap for two days now. And it shows. He's been a real pest lately.

Before going to see Dr. Teagle today about my poorly healing surgery incision, I stopped by Learning Game and got some maze, connect-the-dot, coloring, and magnet books for the boys. Score! Gabriel spent the entire afternoon quietly coloring and working on mazes, with one red crayon. He didn't even pull his trains out.

But when we picked Julian up, he was clearly glad to see his brother, his energy level skyrocketed and he wasted no time instigating trouble, though later both boys tackled their new coloring books peacefully.

Katrina slept ALL day, though I woke her every 3 hours to nurse. Then I took her to SFO to pick up Bonne Maman! She woke up after we got home, and her grandmother got a good dose of Katrina-land (WAH-WAH-WAH after sleeping all day, being fed, and with a clean diaper). She calmed down after the bath and Dave got her to sleep pretty easily...for now! Let's hope for another good night.

11/1/06

10/31/06 Happy Halloween!

A packed day, and I welcome it, since I'm physically able to do that now. In fact, the day started with a quick warm-up workout at the Y, where I discovered I could ride the recumbent bike a lot longer, and lift a lot more weight, when I was pregnant than now!

Dave commented tonight that it seems our garbage is constantly full now. I told him that's because I'm so much more productive! I'm actually cleaning up around the house now, getting rid of things in the fridge, going through those months worth of magazines, culling toys...amazing how much you can get done 10 seconds at a time while bouncing a baby around.

Then I took Julian and Katrina to Gabriel's pre-K, minutes too late to see their Halloween parade. But I did get pictures of his class, and then the whole school (well, the older kids)



After picking Gabriel up from pre-K, I actually dared to take all three kids to Trader Joe's. Eeps! But it worked out well. I gave the boys each one Trader Joe's sack to carry, and put various light items in the sacks, and they took their carrying jobs very seriously. Katrina slept the whole time.

I'm finding that these sorts of things (a grocery outing, a trip to brother's school) are a little more possible and predictable when I make a point of nursing baby every 2.5 - 3 hours. When I'm at my wits' end and nurse her after just 2 hours, she consistently doesn't nurse well (a bad thing when battling thrush) and cries afterward anyway.

Once again, a great afternoon despite Julian's not taking a nap (too much construction upstairs, and he resisted a living-room "campout"). We also took some photos of all the kids lying down, at Gabriel's request: he wanted to see how much bigger he was than everyone else! They both insisted on being next to the baby for these pictures.

But the no-nap thing was OK, the boys had an early dinner and we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. I took a fussy Katrina in the Baby Bjorn, which basically worked. It was nice to reconnect with our neighbors -- I haven't talked to any of them even since being pregnant! So un-community-like, even though we have very nice neighbors, and some have kids exactly the same age.

Yesterday evening was tough; lots of baby crying and waking up 10-20 minutes after falling asleep, and being inconsolable inbetween. I think she's just tired, so I'm now trying to get her calm, then put her down, maybe give her the pacifier and stroke and rock her, then let her fall asleep on her own. When she wakes up and cries, I pick her up, try to calm her down and go through the whole thing again. Last night it was about four hours of this, with nursing every 2 hours or so. But then we had a great night and she only woke up once and went right back to sleep after nursing.

Something tells me I'm not the only mom relieved Halloween is over. It was fun, but now I'm ready to put costumes, parties, parades, and piles and piles of candy to rest for another year.

10/31/06

10/30/06 A surprise day

So many things went well today I don't even know where to start.

Katrina slept like a textbook baby last night, waking up every three hours, nursing, and going right back to sleep (except once when I had to hold her for about half an hour sitting up).

Gabriel woke up at 5:30am (urgh!) but played quietly, and then Julian joined him around 6:30am. And they played together without a single fight or Julian crying until about 7:30! They still got in trouble for throwing a ball indoors, but at least they were cooperating.

Once the boys were off to "school," I was able to get some pressing things done, not the least of which was get another Diflucan prescription for what I'm pretty sure is thrush returning. My nursing pain had been diminishing, but has picked back up the past few days, so I'm glad to get some medicine for it again.

Katrina had lots of awake happy moments today, though they often involved some work. Still, she let me have breakfast while she sat in the bouncer and looked out the window.



I experimented with getting some closeups, but it's very hard with a baby so young there's no way to get their attention and their movements are very jerky.

She was also content to lie on our bed (in our upstairs bedroom, finally!) and look around while I took care of a few things upstairs. These little moments of her being calm while I zoom around throwing in one load of laundry, folding one blanket, putting away one stack of little boys jeans, are a huge help.

But how would I do in the afternoon, with both boys home? And construction going on in all rooms upstairs, so no way to get Julian to take a nap in a usual place?

Incredibly, it went really well. I tried to get Julian to "camp out" in the living room for a nap, but he was too distracted and got up after about half an hour. Still, it was enough time for me to get a take-the-edge-off short snooze myself.

Then the boys spent the entire afternoon doing very basic things: Gabriel colored for hours. Julian dumped cards out of a box and put them back in one by one. Gabriel played with a puzzle.

Julian cut his preschool "project" (a sheet of paper with Halloween images he'd colored) into tiny little bits. (I had no idea he was so good with scissors!).

Gabriel too cut out a "dark pink" house he'd colored at pre-K, with his usual meticulous attention to detail.

I made pumpkin-bread muffins with the boys, to bring to Gabriel's school tomorrow for Halloween. It's so nice to be able to bake again! And all afternoon, Katrina slept, and the boys quietly concentrated on their projects and barely fought at all. What a relief!

Before dinner, I got some nice awake-baby time, though once again I had to work at it. I sat with her and put her on my knees and bounced her around while Julian and I sang to some Music Together songs. Then I tried wrapping her up and just setting her down in the bassinet -- she was acting tired. I had to pick her up twice and calm her down, but ultimately I was able to set her down and she went to sleep on her own. That was very encouraging, having been able to do it without a lot of crying.

oh dear, but now we're having a hard time getting her to sleep. well, it was still a good day. such a contrast to the angst of yesterday.

(happy birthday cousin Remi!!)

10/30/06

10/29/06 A nice picture

Incredibly, Paul was able to get a good photo the day he visited with his new Nikon dSLR camera. A real challenge since Katrina was all fuss then, and I'm not much of a model either! Paul is also expert at post-processing in Photoshop, and it shows.

I love this picture. Another so-so moment turned into a nice memory by a photo.

10/29/06 Mom reflects on life

Last night gets a 6 out of 10. Katrina woke up a lot, but pretty much went back to sleep after each wakeup and nursing, though a few times I had to jiggle her in my arms for a while. Then I fell asleep sitting up holding her, and got two separate hours of sleep that way, which is never really restorative sleep. Still, that's a far sight better than pacing her around for hours.

I still can't believe it when other people talk about how exhausting a baby is, waking you up every three hours at night -- and they're talking about babies that go right back to sleep! I'd be thrilled with that "problem!"

Today I took the boys (and girl) to another Halloween party, a nice small one due to space limitations in the house, but wonderfully decorated and thought-out. I love these events, and love hanging around with other moms and watching the kids play...but on the drive there, I saw a couple of motorcyclists on sportbikes, full leathers, cruising with one hand on hip, in that "ah I had my ride, now I'm just hangin'" sort of way I remember so well, and I was overwhelmed with sadness. I am so far removed from that life, one I loved and thrived in. It set me off.

Now it seems my life is void of joy. I'm constantly on edge, always feeling strained and stressed, unable to concentrate, and unable to find comfort in the small rewards that make full-time mom life fun.

What fun? I have a fussy baby who at any moment can derail my day with hours of crying. My patience with my backtalking shrieking boys is nil, and all I say to my resigned husband is barking an order here or there. I'm supposed to cherish every moment, since it all "goes so fast." I'm supposed to adore my children, be awash in warmth and gratitude for my idyllic life. I hit the jackpot after all, three healthy vibrant children, a loyal reliable husband who I love, a nice big house, basic financial soundness...all we're missing is the picket fence.

Even the girl thing stresses me out, irrationally. I sort of wanted a girl the second time around, but now I feel like it will split up the family. Silly, and premature, I know. And of course, I have what I have, and there are so many wonderful things about having a girl, though for me that will come later. Much of what people say excitedly about having a girl relates to things that have never meant much to me (clothes, cute things). It almost seems a waste for a computer-hacking motorcycle-riding wannabe-carpenter mom to have a beautiful baby girl. So far, all I have is a fussy crying unhappy baby.

Then there's the guilt. Guilt for not being overjoyed with my perfect life. Guilt for being annoyed at the boys all the time. Guilt for not completely loving my baby at all times. Guilt for dreading hearing her wake up. She's just a 3-week old little creature with a troublesome gastric tract, poor thing, none of this is her fault.

Rationally I know how to cope with this -- I should, since at 43 I have plenty of experience pulling myself out of dark moods. I know this baby phase won't last forever. I know that the pain from the surgery incision will go away eventually (a constant mood-drainer). I know that a regular exercise routine is essential to mood stabilization for me. I know I'll get regular, predictable sleep again, someday. I know that I'll have wonderful, warm happy moments with Katrina, and all the kids together. I know that someday, I'll ride again.

Meantime, today at the party, I talked to another mom of three (girls), whose youngest was 10 months old. And she related to and confirmed every negative emotion I've been feeling. She assured me it does get easier as the third gets older, that joy does creep back in, that guilt dissipates and that you do start to feel like yourself again. That helped so much, I felt so much better. When you're overwhelmed like this, the first thing you lose is perspective, and having some injected from someone who's just stepped out of the cloud is a huge help.

And so I'll take photos of everyone appearing to have a great time, and later I'll forget that at the moment, I was tense and in some or other form of pain. It helps a lot to be in a good, happy situation, surrounded by genuinely happy people. It rubs off. I am very lucky to have so many wonderful friends.

Gabriel and Julian had a grand time at the party today. A battery-powered tractor -- with trailer! -- was a real score for Gabriel (and he was actually OK about getting off it for other kids' turns, at least that I saw).

Julian liked a little razor scooter and even sort of was able to ride it, to my surprise.

But the real fun came from a play well. First, it was about pumping water.

Then somehow it devolved into throwing water at each other, until all the boys involved were completely soaked. Somehow Gabriel and Julian managed to be the most soaked, Julian especially (apparently he got a pumpkinful of water dumped over his head by his older brother). We had to borrow clothes just to get home!

There was plenty to see and do at this beautifully decorated and entertaining party, though Katrina mercifully slept through most of it, and mostly looked around when she was awake.

Actually, she's been asleep pretty much since we got home, minus wakeup time for feeding. I'm grateful to have a break from WAH-WAH-WAH, but dreading it coming in the middle of the night again.

Tomorrow starts a new week: the boys will be home every afternoon! But, Bonne Maman is coming Wednesday night, so it still won't be a completely normal week. I'm determined to stick out November and December with all three all afternoons, then ramp up childcare again in January if I'm really struggling. But Katrina will be older by then, and hopefully she will find awake life a little more fulfilling. And hopefully I will too.

10/29/06