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7 weeks
she’s two months old, just about. i of course feel like i’m completely screwing up everything, all the time. she is so absolutely beautiful. so pure and completely real. i think…i think Jackie is a bit more like me in many many ways. Alex is too but less so. believe me when i tell you i seriously never want my kids to be like me. i’ve heard many stories from multiple sources that i was difficult to handle. and as far as i can remember i’ve had difficulty dealing with myself. and no one has ever completely been able to. perhaps, my husband is the best there is at it. but slowly and surely i’m chipping away at his patience. as far as i can tell it is clear that Jackie likes to be understood. needs to be understood. it is a hard way to live to innately feel misunderstood. you feel as if you can never convince anyone of anything. you feel as if you are completely alone in your own beliefs and that your world is bizarre. it’s exhausting and i never would have wished it on my own children. my mantra is: who better to deal with it then, than one who understands? so we’re just plugging along. i’m enjoying this time with Jackie while Alex is in daycare. yes of course i feel like an ass about being content with my first born out of the house all day. But Alex had this time with me too when she was born. She had a full year of being the very center of my earth moon and stars. Jackie will never have that. She shares that center. However the days during the week while Alex is accounted for at daycare, she is my main focus. She deserves that. I need that. It’s doing both of us a world of good. I am completely in love with her. She smiles so big all the time. I find i never have any problem making her smile. Initially she gave only me her smiles, but that quickly changed to both her parents, and now she pretty much smiles and everyone and shadows. wow what a smile. she can be completely intense, having a melt down of epic proportions and then turn on a dime and break out into a radiant smile. and then again just as suddenly continue to melt down. she makes hilarious sounds. so much so that i have to remind myself to make sure that she doesn’t feel laughed at. i have to make sure that she feels like she’s being taken very seriously as all people should feel, but i swear the kid sounds like a cat in heat. how can i not laugh?! Alex must have her hands on Jackie’s face all the time. I’m trying to breast feed an infant and explain to a two year old about respecting personal space. I have to somehow make sure that my two year old feels special as i tell her to share her mommy and not touch her baby sister in anyway that might smother her. it’s impossible. Alex has a wicked cold. her nose is a fountain and her hair around her face is crusty. she coughs like a grown man. cries every other minute. can’t sleep. probably can’t really taste any of the food we put in front of her. it’s pathetic and it breaks my heart. my father just heard her on the monitor and asked me if she snores. i said “no that’s the sound of her trying to find a steady way to breathe”. My poor kid. i have a choice…i can tell Alex to back off her sister and don’t touch her and further fuck up her psyche or risk my infant getting a cold she’ll inevitably get. I choose the cold. I can’t help but feel that very very soon these girls will move as a unit. It’ll no longer be “Alex, eat your food” or “Alex, it’s time to come in and wash your hands”. it’ll be ” Girls! for the love of life go to sleep!!”, and “Girls! what are you two doing?!” or “Girls! must we make tidal waves in the bathtub???”. I am so doomed. I’ll be outnumbered and they’ll be in cahoots. They are going to be unstoppable. They are going to forever be sisters. And they will be absolutely beautiful. They will be a force to be reckoned with and I will be the maker of that force. It’s almost as if i should the world. Watch out world. The Twisted Sisters are about to appear. Fasten your seat belts.
ps: if there’s one thing a parent must always have in spades and steady and ready supply it’s love. i do not have a problem there. there is nothing my children could do to make me not love them. this is written in stone. however even though i have the parenting basics down pat…this is what happened in the last couple of weeks:
passing Jackie’s room Alex makes a sound and wakes her baby sister. we hear a wail. Alex looks over her shoulder at me and says “Oh Shit!”. just a couple of days later Alex passes Hamish my eleven year old fat tabby cat and he hisses at her. I’m having problems with Hamish. My fur baby. If the problem escalates I’ll deal with it then but he’s never enjoyed the kids. However clearly Alex demonstrated her feelings for him when she looked up at Dave and I after being hissed at and said “fucking cat!”.
I’m a shitty ass parent.
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Photo by: Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve
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makes sense
i just heard of the term “Sandwich Generation”.
used to describe being stuck between our parents and our kids.
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the going’s on in our life right now
in a nutshell:
My Husband’s father is a man that i instantly took to. I can only hope he truly likes me even a fraction of how much i truly like him. There seem to be many many similarities between father and son. Luckily there are also similarities between his father and myself. Cancer is torture. He is not the man I first met anymore. I already morn the passing of that man. Cancer’s torture could last years and years. This man does not deserve such a thing, and I can only hope. How can I explain to my very young Alex that Zaide has booboo’s that will not go away unless he does? How can I help my sweet husband to withstand the loss of his father? the answer is more easily said than done…i just must. I don’t sense that he’s a man who would enjoy a goodbye or a serious talk of any kind from me. I have not known him long enough. Even if I did, it’s clear he’s a man who likes to make his life out to be as smooth as possible. I promise to remember the day he was leaving my home just two weeks ago. He bent down to give me a hug and a kiss goodbye. It isn’t easy for him to bend. I tried to get up and he told me not to. He bent down very gracefully, kissed my cheek and said “take care of your family”.
Eric…I swear to you, I will. I will also tell my children that you will always be there somewhere with us at all times. i will also tell them how much I like you. How cool you really are. Cooler than us all. I will tell them how you seemed to have the true gift of a story teller. I will tell them how much you love your family. I will tell them how proud i am that your blood runs in theirs. and how lucky they are to be able to say that they are your only grand daughters. i will tell them that your hands have held them both, hugged them both and loved them both. You’re a great Zaide, always will be. and you were very good to me. thank you…
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like i’ve been run over by a truck. i don’t remember the last time i put on makeup.
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about me
i have two children. Alexandra, my toddler. Jacqueline, my newborn. My husband is Dave. It’ll be our third…third? no, fourth! wait a second i have to check, holy shit … we were married June 29th, 2008. so … 2009, 2010, now 11! it’ll be our third anniversary this summer. you would not believe the changes we’ve made to our lives in these last three years. feels like at least a decade of change. we sometimes talk about a dull life and how we crave one. our life seems so crazy to us. we tend to get dramatic, it’s true, but that’s exactly why i signed up here. i need a way to keep track. so long as I stick to it. which i won’t. who has the time?? maybe to see it in written form can help me make more sense of everything and then i can better compartmentalize the serious from the not so serious. i need a way to vent about everything good and bad. things are mostly great, not to worry. people have told me they enjoy reading things i’ve written so i thought i’d try to make it public instead of private. i do have an account on blogger but firstly that was when i had only one kid, now i got two so life has changed, yet again. and is there a way to link it here? i have no clue what this tumblr thing is all about yet so … here goes …
i have set up my life so that nothing suffers when i need to let myself out. my friends and family accept me as much as they can and i am so eternally grateful for those precious few people. i promise i recognize them, and do not take them for granted. it isn’t unheard of for me to say “Dave? I need to fuck off as soon as i’m able to. when can we set this up?”. luckily i’d rather let loose with Dave next to me than anywhere else. he’s my best friend and the coolest guy in the world. he’s hilarious and down for pretty much everything i’m down for, almost. he taught me selflessness. i would do anything for him.
right now there is no letting loose. there is no fuck offery at this time, at all. nope. i’m in the zone. again. the baby zone. my life is not my own. i am in the process of trying to read the mind of a person who has lived for only one month and a day. it is impossible. and this time i have to do it with another kid hanging around. granted, we did really well with the first kid. Alex is normal, sweet, funny and fucking adorable. thank god. so far.
okay in the last 30 minutes or less the baby woke up, freaked out, didn’t want to feed i tried three times. Dave came home with Alex. I sense some sort of inner turmoil from him about the state of the living room and kitchen (Dave is the craziest neat freak i’ve ever encountered). Alex got a talking to about being calm around her baby sister, and general respect for human life. Jackie got a social insurance number (get crackin’ daughter mine…you’re expensive). I got a thirteen dollar bill from the hospital. i carried and cooed Jackie to sleep in my arms until her breathing evened out and she closed her eyes, twice. then i put her down in a vibrating seat with her satin and faux white fur blanket and she woke up. i have yet to do up the straps from my nursing bra. such is my life.
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tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
i can remember not being able to see over the railing on the family deck outside. i can also remember someone telling me someday i’ll be able to see over this railing, and i will not remember never being able to.
