Knocked Up

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• All the Live Long Day

  Once again, I have returned to the land of copy machines, cc'ing, and mysterious year-old science project yogurts stinking up the community fridge.  Yes, I'm back at work,  after 12 weeks of maternity leave, during which I (again) planned to do lots of ambitious, vitally important things, like get the dog groomed and finally get rid of all those literary theory books I have from grad school and organize our cupboards with all the dry goods in cunning glass canisters and make homemade Halloween costumes, and (again) got nothing done except occasional vaccuming.  I didn't even get the oil changed in my car.  So, I've got nothing to show for all those weeks except for this:   (Jonas, just before he again put his hand in his mouth and just after he gave me this very important message:  ooooh aarrrrr yiiiii.)    (Axel, doing his biggest "Say Cheese" smile, and me riding the train at the zoo.)   I guess that's not nothing.    "How does it feel to be back?" people keep asking me.    Read More... Posted Sep 29 2009, 03:00 PM by knockedup with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: returning to work after having a baby, work life balance, two under two

• Cuteness Interlude

  think it's time for an update on the most recent adorable sayings and doings of the boys.  Well, mostly the older boy.  Jonas is cute, but there's only so many ways to write smile, coo, tiny baby, awwww.  Here, check out this picture:       As for Axel, he currently enjoys putting things on his head, like paper bags and backwards helmets, and then going about his business.  Perhaps I shouldn't encourage bags on the head, I know.  It's hard to stop laughing long enough to say, "Bag off the head, kid," when a munchkin is hopping around doing his best siren imitation while wearing a paper helmet.  I'm thinking of investing in a variety of headwear, like a viking helmet and an electric blue hairpiece, so he'll have more options when he wants to put something on his noggin.   Axel's new words: Ah-oh-nuts (Astronauts) and Ah-oh-puss (Octopuss) It's as though he's worried about any creature that's not living on the land, from the ah-oh-puss of the ocean to the ah-oh-nuts orbiting the Earth.    Read More... Posted Sep 16 2009, 09:13 PM by knockedup with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: two under two, learning to talk, cute kids

• The Angry Pterodactyl

  Vocal chords.  Good, generally, but not always used that way when in the hands, or throat, of a toddler.    Axel has decided that screeching at the top of your lungs, like a pterodactyl's battle cry, is super cool.  Here's what happens: he gets excited.  He yells.  Sometimes he adds in arm waving and running and head shaking.  The dog also runs, wagging his tail, and barks.  More yelling.  More barking.  More barking and yelling.  More yelling and barking.  Yell.  Bark.  The cat - smart creature that he is - sprints out of the room, which of course inspires more running and yelling and barking.  Sometimes there's crying, usually from Jonas.  Then I want to cry.  It's loud.  It's hard to think.  My head hurts.   The yelling has also occured in a busy restaurant; Axel heard a kid at another table yell, and decided that it was a good idea to see if his screams could also be heard above the clinking of silverware and chatter of other Labor Day diners.  Yeah, they could. The screams were very audible.  The other diners were not all that impressed, except for the fellow toddler yeller at the other table who challenged Axel to an early morning yell-off over eggs and pancakes.  I couldn't tell you who won.  My ears were ringing from all the yelling.   Read More... Posted Sep 11 2009, 11:25 AM by knockedup with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: two under two, toddler yelling, how to stop toddler yelling

• The Naturally Occuring Fauxhawk

  Well, here's one way Jonas is different than his older brother: he sports a naturally occuring fauxhawk.  The morning after his bath, the hair in the middle of his head curls up in the middle of his head into a fauxhawk.   Yeah, he's tough like that.      Can't you tell from that grin?  He's a hooligan in the making.  He may be two months old, but he's tough.  That little pug nose is nothing to sneer at.   Read More... Posted Sep 09 2009, 02:17 PM by knockedup with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: two month old baby, two children, two under two

• The Little Guy

  People keep asking me how Jonas is different than Axel.  Well, obviously, he's smaller.  His hair's a little more red.  His hand-eye coordination is not so good.  It's pretty easy to tell them apart.  What they really mean is how's Jonas different than Axel at the same age.  And my answer, which I am embarrassed to say as a younger sibling who understands how important it is to take lots of baby pictures of both children, is that I'm not quite sure.    Truthfully, Axel's very recent babyhood is already a fuzzy memory.  It's an impressionist painting.  When I look to close and try to pull up details, like when exactly he started sitting up or eating solid food or sleeping through the night, I find nothing but a slippery, vague answer that would earn me a big fat F on a Major Baby Milestones Pop Quiz.  That's why people have baby books, and why I should really try to fill in the blanks for either of the boys' books before they graduate from high school and I find myself making it all up, swapping between a blue and a black pen so it doesn't look like I've done a last-minute baby book cram session.     I recently offered my sister-in-law finger foods for her not quite seven-month-old daughter, and she looked at me like, "Wait, don't you have two small children?," though she was too polite to say as much.  Yeah, I should remember things like when kids start with Cheerios and when they start going to a two-nap-a-day schedule, and I don't, though I was certain I'd remember every single moment and milestone.  That's why I now turn to Google and my pediatrician's helpful well check hand-outs for a little developmental info.    As I'm having such a hard time remembering Axel's babyhood, all baby stuff, including the babies themselves, are merging together into one mostly adorable, cuddly lightweight mass of urges and bodily fluids, Baby with a capital B.  This is why my father can't always tell baby pictures of my brother and I apart.  This is why parents mix up their children's names.  If this is happening to me with just two children, how does Michelle Duggar keep her 18, soon to be 19, kids straight?  George Foreman's family of Georges doesn't seem so crazy to me anymore.    Read More... Posted Sep 07 2009, 02:22 PM by knockedup with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: two month old, two children, two under two

• A Conversation With Myself About Returning to Work

  While nursing Jonas   Oh, look at Jonas.  Look at his sweet chubby cheeks and his fragile little toes.  I can't leave him.  How could I ever leave him?  He's so tiny and fragile and needs hugs and kisses and me.   And Axel.  He's such a good big brother.  Look at how he's loading his tools into the back of his truck, one by one.  I love the way his pants sag off his skinny butt and he talks to himself as he pushes the truck into the bedroom.  He's growing up so fast.  I can't leave him.  I can't miss those times when he walks around with tupperware on his head and waves bye-bye to me a dozen times.       Oh, now he's banging the truck against the wall.  That, I do not love.  Axel, please push the truck through the doorway.  No, not against the doorway - through the doorway.  Through it.  The truck.  Axel.   Read More... Posted Aug 27 2009, 08:42 AM by knockedup with | with 17 comment(s) Filed under: working mother, work life balance, two under two, to work or not to work, baby and a toddler

• Toddler Dance Party!

  Axel loves to move.  Almost any song can get him doing a little knee-bend/butt-drop of a jig.  That includes the tinkling ditty that strains to be heard from Jonas' jungle green bouncy chair.   Flip on the chair, and the lights make the little blue waterfall pour, a red frog jump, and an instrumental elevator music tune pour out.  Axel grins, grabs the chair, and starts dancing.  He recently decided he wants Jonas to join in, so he grabbed his brother's hand and bounced away.    I, of course, got out the camera the second time this occured, because it is rare that you see your children dancing together, especially when one of them can't even roll over yet.  Who doesn't love a good dance party?     Read More... Posted Aug 18 2009, 09:03 AM by knockedup with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: dance party, toddlers hitting, two under two, toddlers hitting babies

• The Truth about Two Under Two

  It's not that bad.  Really.    OK, yes, there's the whole exhaustion thing.  You're tired.  Just when you get the toddler down for bed the newborn decides that he will scream unless you bounce on the exercise ball and sing "Joey" in his ear for two hours straight.  Then you get to go to sleep, only to get up to nurse the baby, only to get up because the toddler believes the early bird gets the worm and an extra cupcake on top.  Sometimes you're so tired you forget basic things, like whether or not you buttoned your pants (assuming you can even button your pants...) and the name of the woman you run into at the grocery store who sat in the cubicle next to yours for two years but all you can remember is that she wore too much jasmine perfume and her name is probably not Jasmine.    Yeah, that part's no fun.  But really, it's more sleep then college kids get when they're writing three essays in one night, and more sleep than you get when you go to a slumber party in 7th grade and stay up playing Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.    And, yes, there's the general insanity of having a toddler, of living with a person who only converses in nouns (half of which are unintelligible) and who believes every one of his demands should be met immediately or he will have to throw all of his Legos down the stairs and try to ride the dog and pinch your arm until you have more bruises than freckles.  And, yes, newborns are crazy, too, with the way they, too, believe that all their demands should be met immediately or they will scream and scream and scream and throw in a heart-wrenching lip quiver just to get their point across.    Wait, I'm not making it sound like it's not so bad, am I.  Let me try this again.   Read More... Posted Aug 17 2009, 08:04 AM by knockedup with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: two children, two under two, newborn and a toddler

• Rocking Chair Discipline

  I've got a problem.  How do you encourage a toddler to behave when you're glued to a nursing chair?     A better question might be how do you get a toddler to behave...   OK, moving on.    By "behave" I simply mean getting the toddler not to hit his brother/pinch his mama/play with the lamp cord/attempt to get a concussion by doing Evel Knievel impressions off the back of the couch.  I long ago - well, a month ago, when Jonas came into the world - gave up on addressing more minor concerns, like not rearranging the furniture or not throwing all of your books on the floor or not bringing your breakfast into the bedroom and then yelling at the dog for eating the breakfast that you yourself put on the floor in front of the dog.   I have lowered my expectations to the core rules: do not hurt other people (or animals) and do not hurt yourself.    Read More... Posted Aug 11 2009, 03:11 PM by knockedup with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: two under two, toddler and newborn, discipline

• Strep Throat Causes Global Warming

  And now, Axel has strep.  I thought a day alone with a newborn and a toddler was a messy, chaotic, topsy-turvy experience.  Add strep throat on top of that, and you end up with even less sleep, more tears, and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and insanity and loneliness and lots of desperate prayers to please please please please for the love of God stay asleep.   The strep throat diagnosis is good, because it explains the night wakings and it means that the odd breakdowns earlier in the week - like when Sean killed a fly with a magazine, sending Axel into hysterics so profound that half-chewed raisins flopped out of his mouth - are not just a result of having a whole new person with whom to share his parents.  It is bad because it's strep, and it hurts and disrupts sleep and rudely interrupts Axel with painful reminders that he's sick when he's happily setting up a tea party for his mama and brother with his new tea set.    Because Axel's throat hurts, he's doing his best to avoid swallowing.  His shirt is drenched with drool and he takes a sip of juice, then cries because it still hurts.  He's refusing to take his medicine, whether it comes from a dropper or it's mixed in applesauce.  He clenches his jaw and holds his breath and sobs and screams and spews sticky antibiotic all over.  Last night he ended up biting his lip during our medicine battle, tinging his drool with blood, and with both ended up crying over spilled antibiotic in the bathroom.  He doesn't understand that medicine will make him feel better, despite my frequent repetitions that it's for his own damn good.  The angry, defiant, sorrowful look in his eyes implies that I'm trying to poison him with fruity Barbie-pink fluid.   Later today, he's going to get a shot to kill the evil strep, since the quarter doses of medicine that have snuck past his clenched jaw will not be enough to cure him.   Read More... Posted Jul 30 2009, 12:04 PM by knockedup with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: two under two, newborn and a toddler, strep throat

• One Against Two, Or The Five PM Breakdown

  We were doing a pretty good job handling two under two.  That's the problem: we were doing a good job.  Then Sean went back to work for 26 hours.  The job I did with two under two involved a lot more tears, chaos, and relaxation of rules.   Two parents with two kids works much more smoothly than one.  I'll spare you the over-used sports metaphors about man to man vs. zone defense, which I don't understand anyway because my team sports participation basically consists of doing cartwheels on the soccer field at age 10.    Here is what I've learned in one short, yet so very long, day:   1.  Showers are impossible with a newborn and a toddler, unless they take place at 3 am.  Baby wipes and deoderant are an acceptable substitute.  Try to remember to brush your teeth, or your toddler's teeth.  Just getting one person's teeth brushed is probably a reasonable goal.   2.  Tricks and treats should be used judiciously, spread out over the course of the day.  During my first 26 hours alone with Axel and Jonas, I used up my positive, creative ideas for toddler wrangling in the first 45 minutes.  I generously distributed snacks to Axel while nursing Jonas, created an attractive toy and book box next to the rocking chair, ate 20 course meals of imaginary food made by Chef Axel, danced to an old school version of the Hokey Pokey, chased Axel back and forth across the living room, and watched as he piled all of his musical toys in the bathroom (where the acoustics are better for wooden xylophones) .  By 5 pm, Axel had exceeded his RDA of Cheerios, and was eating PlayDough, defiantly standing on the coffee table, on his second round of Momo (Axelese for Elmo/Sesame Street), and throwing bowls down the stairs to the basement.   I had low blood sugar (see number four below) and a headache, and I could not muster the enthusiasm or creativity required to suggest a new fun activity, and Axel ignored all of my suggestions that he play with regular old puzzles and trucks.  Multiple time outs, tears, and don't no no nos for the tenth time get away from that electrical cord! ensued.    3.  Some rules are unnecessary, like the don't sit on the coffee table rule or the only eat at the kitchen table rule or the no TV rule.  The no TV rule has now gone from no TV before 18 months old, to no more than 15 minutes every other day, to please, please, please sit and watch Elmo for 20 minutes, won't you?    Read More... Posted Jul 26 2009, 02:56 PM by knockedup with | with 19 comment(s) Filed under: two children, two under two, newborn and toddler

• Brothers

  It's official.  Axel and Jonas are brothers.  Here's the photographic proof:   Axel at a day old:   Jonas at a day old:     It's not just the stripes.    Other proof they're related:   Read More... Posted Jul 15 2009, 08:23 AM by knockedup with | with 17 comment(s) Filed under: siblings, poop, two under two, brothers

• The Big Brother

  Throughout my pregnancy, people have asked me if Axel is excited to be a big brother.  Ummmm, not really, I would say.  He's 16, or 17, or 18 months old.  He's excited about dogs, airplanes, the refreshing taste of apple juice, and spinning around until he falls over.  Big brother is not a concept that he gets.  He does not know there's a baby coming.  His favorite two word phrase is "Hi, truck!"    Well, all of a sudden, he seems to get it.  About a week ago, he added the word baby to his vocabulary.  We installed the baby's car seat, next to Axel's seat, and told him that it's for his baby brother.  He looked at the car seat, asked, "Baby?" as in, "So, where is this mysterious baby of which you speak, hmmmm?  I know what a baby is, and there's not one around here, I can tell you that."    Axel seemed to think we were full of crap, with all of this baby talk for a baby that, quite clearly, did not exist.    Then, a few days later, he said baby, looked at Sean, and pointed at my belly.  He gave it a gentle pat.    I was shocked at this cognitive leap. He gets it, I thought.  It's amazing! Read More... Posted Jul 01 2009, 09:47 AM by knockedup with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: siblings, two under two, big brother, 20 months

• Any Tips for Wrangling Two Under Two?

  One month from today, the little guy that's been beating up my stomach is set to arrive.  That is, if he doesn't arrive sooner than that.  With the way the Braxton-Hicks contractions have been ramping up in frequency and force, the general achiness of my body, and the number of times people have acted surprised that I'm still walking around, it looks like he just might.  And hey, little Mr. Fetus, if you're listening, please note that my body would have no objections to an early arrival.     My body, at 36 weeks pregnant, is ready to be done.  Done, done, done, done.  Mentally, though, I'm far from prepared because, oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god, we will soon have two children under two in the house.  We will join a club full of chaos, sleeplessness, and constant admonishments not to hit your brother.   Here's the advice I've gotten so far from people with similarly spaced children:   It's great because they always like the same rides at the amusement park. They're fantastic playmates!  They roll in the mud together while I cook dinner. It's like having two little hurricanes whirling through the house.  But good!  It got much better when one of them was out of diapers. Use birth control.   It's too late for that last one.  As for the first three, it sounds like I have something to look forward to, once the boys are both, ummm, walking and feeding themselves and house trained.    So, I've created my own desperate plan for the first few weeks.  It looks like this:   1.  Ask husband to do lots of stuff with Axel.  When he's not on shift.  For 24 hours at a time.  Leaving me alone with two children, two pets, and postpartum  hormones.    2.  Ask parents to come and help.   3.  Create a basket with a few new toys and books near the nursing chair.  Hope Axel looks through them instead of playing tackle the baby.    4.  Get a few more new toys, like a tea set and a truck and a sand and water table, with which to bribe Axel.    Read More... Posted Jun 12 2009, 07:23 AM by knockedup with | with 19 comment(s) Filed under: two under two, newborn and toddler