Educating the Wheelers

So. What do you do with a 4 year old, anyway? With a 20 month old ball-of-energy boy along for the ride?

Well, she’s already a fairly proficient reader, and has been since she was 2. That’s the only good gene I brought to this marriage — early and enthusiastic reading. Even Owen is starting to recognize letters and words and wants me to read to him all the time.

Audrey enjoys workbooks, so that makes things easy. I’ve picked some up here and there for crazy cheap — you can almost always find them at thrift stores or in clearance bins. Every time she finishes a page, she likes it when we put a sticker on top, or write “100!” or draw a star on it. She’s loving her Singapore Earlybird Math — she’ll do a good 10 pages before she wants to move on to something else.

For “fun,” she loves the time4learning website. True to form, she cleared through all of the science lessons first, and then redid them. And redid them. And redid them. Then some more. But now she’s starting to explore the language arts lessons, too. She considers this her treat, not school. (Though I understand some people use it as a complete curriculum.)

I am, however, completely deficient in the arts and crafts department. So my mom got us the Winter Promise “I’m Ready to Learn” program which really focuses on the hands-on. We’re not doing it at all on the schedule, but picking and choosing what works best for us. And Audrey has her own ideas of what she wants to do with the art supplies. Humorously, her ideas are low-key enough for me to do with her. The other day, she said she wanted to cut out felt pieces to paste smiley faces on paper plates. Woohoo — I can do that! And so can Owen — he loved that one. Heck, we’ve even done it again.

And Owen? Give him a Thomas the Train coloring book and a bucket of crayons, and you don’t need to worry about him for a good 15 minutes. That’s about 4 years in toddler time, so I’m grateful.

So a little bit of workbooks (mostly math and “language arts”), a little online learning, a little hands-on arts and crafts. Then there are the read-alouds, which I’ll have to hit in another post. We usually work in about 15 minute segments, scattered throughout the day, but centered in the morning, after chores. And, when I’m lucky, they work independently at the kitchen table for a bit while I get my chores done. Works out nicely.

Though I’m able to keep a detached bemusement about it all, I had forgotten how grim post-partum depression can be, particularly for a fairly isolated stay-at-home mom. It is not helped by the fact that our children are, bless ‘em, “high need.” Owen howls if he is not constantly held. I know there are different schools of thought on how to handle those types of kids, and I don’t have a dog in that ideological fight, but in our household, his disposition means that my hands are never free. [The PP depression is not helped at all by his fussiness. Both of my children have been soothed when other people hold them and fuss when I do. The books tell you that it’s common to think “the baby hates me!” when you have pp depression, but I tell ya, my babies hate me. Heh.***]

Thankfully, this is a problem that you can help — though not completely alleviate — by throwing money at it.

I’ve managed to scrounge up a neighborhood girl who can come by once or twice a week for 3 hours and for 5 dollars an hour, she’ll play with my 2 and a half year old while I tend to the newborn, or if by the grace of God he is sleeping, I can take a shower or do laundry or something, anything.

There are no other babysitters in our neighborhood that haven’t already turned me down for being too busy, so I also occasionally hire a post-partum doula 1-2x a week for 4 hour shifts on weeks that the babysitter can’t help, and she’ll handle one or both kids, or do housework for me. That’s 15 dollars an hour.

I usually end up having some sort of help twice a week. So it’s not cheap, that’s for sure. But I keep reminding myself that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. And I just have to keep myself sane until we get there.

*** At least I can look to Audrey’s example to know that he’ll grow out of it. He’s already starting to, thank God.

I can’t believe it’s been over a month already since Owen was born. I’m in one of those funky warps where time is simultaneously crawling and speeding by. I have not been online much and in some ways it has been nice to be so disconnected.

Finance-wise, things have been uneventful. We haven’t yet received our portion of the bill for the birth, but it’ll be biggish, because our midwife is “out of network” [as if our insurance had “in network” midwives … ] and it’s early enough in the year that we haven’t chipped much away yet on our yearly deductable. On the upside, we’ve been squirrelling money away into our HSA this year, so it’ll at least be paid in pre-tax dollars.

Unfortunately, like last time, I’m in the midst of post-partum depression, and I’m just hunkering down and waiting for it to pass.

The children are, of course, as beautiful and awesome as usual.

I hate having to make the decision whether to go to the ER. [Or to the doctor at all, for that matter.] It’s expensive, it’s almost always unpleasant, a long wait sitting around people who may very well make you [or, worse, your child] even sicker.

Sometimes I’ll sit and dither for a day or two, and by the time I call and wait for the day the appointment comes, by the time I get there, the thing has passed on its own. And then I feel like they’re making a little “Hypochondriac!” note in my chart.

But last night, it didn’t take a lot of wondering before we brought Audrey in. She started with a bit of an itchy rash for awhile, and by the time I took her in, she was one big head to toe red rashy welt. Poor girl. A lot of benadryl, a shot of adrenalin, and some oral steroids and she’s doing better now.

But why do these things never happen M-F during office hours? I can’t wait to see the bill. [And why do the bills always seem to come several months later?]

There are many reasons to breastfeed your baby, and of course the one most relevant to this blog is that it’s substantially less expensive than formula. And, hey, it’s the natural thing to do, blah blah blah.

It can also be terribly difficult.

Unfortunately, that is the boat that we are in. Both of my children have been born with large overbites, with very short and physically traumatic labors. I have heard fairy tales of people who are able to put their newborns to the breast and they magically latch on, but that’s nothing like my experiences have been.

Audrey didn’t eat at all for almost the first 72 hours after her birth because she could not latch. Thankfully, I already had a really great pump and my milk was already starting to come in. At first we fed her with drops of milk on our fingers, then we used a plastic syringe, and then finally we graduated to the small bottles that come with the aforementioned Medela pump. We then worked with Barbara Wilson Clay, a nationally renowned lacation consultant/expert who thankfully happens to be local, and she was able to get Audrey to occasionally latch with the help of a nipple shield. But it was still a matter of pumping every two hours around the clock for those first three months until one day, magically, she was able to latch on her own.

After the proverbial “10 fingers, 10 toes” wishes I had for Owen, the next was “Please oh please, let him latch.” But it wasn’t to be. On the other hand, it hasn’t seemed as bad this time around. Perhaps because we’ve been through it before and I know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, or perhaps because the situation is not quite as bleak this time around — after the first few days, I’ve been able to get him to latch about once a day, when the circumstances are exactly perfect. Audrey was so frustrated by latching that she would cry whenever I held her. Those were dark days. Owen doesn’t do that. With his rare latch, plus Audrey’s continued nursing, I only have to pump every 4 hours or so, which makes a huge difference. Plus, with Audrey’s help, I’ve so far been able to avoid engorgement and mastitis, both of which plagued me when she was the little one.

I am a terribly, terribly stubborn person and it’s funny how the same trait that made me a pain in the rear as a child and in the majority of relationships in my life has been such a great boon to me as a mother. Not only can I unflappably outlast any tantrum/meltdown, but I see the prospect of another three months of pumping as a challenge I know I can beat.

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since Owen was born, it’s gone by in such a blur. I sure appreciate all the goodwill everyone has been sending this way. We had some complications with the birth, but thankfully everyone is fine, and we didn’t even have to transport to the hospital during or after the birth. [We just barely dodged that bullet, though.] Owen had his first appt with our pediatrician this morning, and was declared to be strong, healthy and recovering quite nicely.

For those who are curious and appreciate a good birth war story [heh], it turns out that we had “velamentous insertion of the umbilical cord.” This is apparently a fancy pants term meaning that the cord was loosely attached to the placenta. We were very, very blessed that it did not detach from the placenta at any moment in time before the one that it did — he came out with the cord around his neck, and as the CNM was removing the cord from his neck, it detached from the placenta. Had it happened before then, it would have been an almost certain death situation. As it was, he was a bit blue when he came out, but she gave him mouth to mouth and he bounced right back. Unfortunately, we could no longer get the placenta out by tugging on the cord, so it had to be removed manually. That wasn’t a lot of fun, but thankfully it worked and I didn’t have to run to the ER to get it out.

We are also having the same breastfeeding latch issues with Owen that we did with Audrey, but I’m going to make that a whole post of its own later.

And, for the cherry on top, our blog hosting provider totally went casters up last week, and almost all of Andrew’s really nifty blog formatting and whatnot got totally hosed. Hopefully we’ll get that straightened out soon, but it’s a little lower on the priority list than it would usually be right now. Heh.

All of our photos are up at our Flickr page, but these are some of my favorites:

Owen, waking up from his nappy this afternoon
Audrey, what do you think of your new baby brother?
Dada and nakedbaby Owen, out getting his sunlight for his jaundice.
Gratuitous cute Audrey photo
Okay, one more gratuitous cute Audrey photo
Mama and Owen
Audrey looks dubious

Owen Patrick Wheeler was born at 1:40 this morning.  He weighs a wopping 8lbs, 15oz, and is in high spirits.  Mom is in good spirits, too, and is recovering reasonably quickly.

This birth was definitely rougher than our previous one, and has left us a bit shaken.

Photos, details, etc., to soon follow!

I’m trying to keep the food budget tight, and more importantly, I’m trying to avoid lengthy trips away from the house now that we’ve passed 38 weeks.  Audrey was born about 5 hours after my very first contraction, and within about 20 minutes after my first contraction, I was 2 minutes apart and would have been completely unable to drive myself home … or even tell someone else where I lived.  Heh.  [In fact, about an hour of that short labor was because her shoulder got hung up.  It would have been even shorter!]  With second labors statistically going shorter than first labors … well.  I’m getting leery about even running errands right now.

With that in mind, our meal plan this week is primarily out of the pantry and cleaning out the vegetable crisper of what we already have:

• Sunday: Gnocchi with Pesto and Turkey Sausage & green salad [It was very yummy, and Andrew’s getting the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.]
• Monday: Pot Roast with Carrots and Mashed Potatoes
• Tuesday: Chicken Souvlaki Bowl
• Wednesday:  Penne with Blue Cheese Pesto, Walnuts and Asparagus
• Thursday: Baked Taco Chicken and Broccoli
• Friday: Thai Roll-ups or Vietnamese Chicken Salad [depends on whether I’m willing to go get a cabbage for the salad]
• Saturday: Low-fat Hamburger Gravy on Whole Wheat Biscuits and Broccoli

With this menu plan, I should be able to avoid going to the grocery store all week, though we will run out of green leafies pretty early in the week. 

[Update on previous post about Audrey’s sickness: She’s better now, thankfully.  She was able to feel better enough around 7:30am to go back to sleep until about noon.  She’s been pretty normal since she woke up.  I, however, am a zombie.]

 …I’d run with my hammer, and trip in the pile of leaves!

(Anyone know how to get pfblogs.org to not aggregate personal posts?  ) 

I’m about 32 and a half weeks pregant now, so I need to get moving on getting things ready for the little guy.

I’ve been on the lookout for good deals on diapers [I decided not to switch to cloth for this guy, though I kicked it around for awhile], so I’ve got a bit of a stash already. All other diaper changing gear [wipes, cream, rags, etc], we already have plenty of since Audrey is still in pull-ups.

I haven’t ordered a Medela parts kit for my old pump yet, and I need to do that. That’s about 25 bucks. I know you can reuse the parts with yourself, but I gave my pump a thorough thrashing before Audrey could finally attach at three months, and looking at the old thing … it just doesn’t feel like even a thorough boiling and sterilization procedure is going to make it feel clean again. Oh, and I’m going to need new milk freezer bags, too. That’ll be about 17 bucks. Again, I’m paying more than I have to here, there are cheaper varieties, but these will hold up for 6 months in our deep freezer. So if we don’t need them in that time, I can donate them to the Mother’s Milk Bank, like last time.

I picked up a handful of “new” outfits for Little Guy at the thrift store in MN, practically brand new stuff for about a dollar a piece. Didn’t feel bad about that, though I’m sure I could have made do with Audrey’s unisex hand-me-downs.

The freezer is already full, but mostly with meal “parts” rather than completed meals. I’ll want to change that ratio a bit before he arrives, because I won’t want to be doing any cooking for awhile.

I think that’s really all that’s left to purchase. [I’m not counting the actual cost of the birth, etc.] Lots to do, but not lots to buy. That’s a plus.