Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Life's A Trip

We took the kids to Disneyland for a holiday gift. We got back very late last night, I kinda woke up feeling hung-over this morning. Tova nursed on Pirates of Caribbean, on a walking tour of Cinderella's Castle (TYVM), once in Fantasy Land, once in New Orleans, once in Tomorrowland, once on Main Street USA, and once while waiting outside of Splash Mountain. Pirates of the Caribbean was, by far, her favorite 'restaurant,' she's such an action junkie ya' know. Everyone else had a super-dog good time, even Lars -- who freaked me out at the beginning of the trip by trying to convince me that we had maxed out our credit card.


At the hotel, Tova was getting pumped up for her first Disneyland adventure.
Soren did The Robot in Downtown Disney.
"I'm so happy!" at the tram the next morning.


Sometimes it seems unfair to the rest of the planet that MY kids got all the looks, I suppose it's my cross to bare. It's painful.

In line for the Matterhorn, Annike came running off screaming that a "Betty" jumped out at her (it was a Yeti).

Dang! Even my husband is handsomer than all the rest. Another burden, mine alone to deal with. Try not to feel sorry for me.

"Put your hands in the air! Wave them like you just don't care!" About to speed down the track.

On the long tram ride back to Mickey and Friends parking structure -- I was wearing Lars' sweater over all my clothes, Petra was in all her own clothes, Soren was swaddled in Tova's pukey blankie, Annike was wearing my long coat. We were super tired but mostly very happy. Petra was a little rankled because she wanted to stay until midnight but the little ones were "sewiously cwamping" her style with their sorry sleepy selves.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Grateful

I am grateful because:
1) I no longer have to try to remember what side to feed Tova on because she's taking both sides. No more sloping ta-tas, yahooo! Now, if I could just get her to spread out her nighttime feedings from every 1-hour to every5-hours . . .
2) Maggie was groomed the other day so now we have a reprieve from doggy smells.
3) we have health insurance! We received an "Explanation of Benefit Payments" from BCBS, my hospitalization for Tova cost $13,826.64.


Me and Mary (my MIL)
4) we have a self-cleaning oven, which means that I didn't have to scrape drippings from Lars' Roast out of the oven. Never mind that the self-cleaning oven mode filled the house with burning cow smells and burning cow smoke, 2-days later and the house is finally cleared of carnage.
5) this crazy SoCal weather is over. It was very chilly, like in the 40's. Plus, it was raining. Poor me. All you Northern folks may start thinking things about my disposition (and yours for that matter) but you need to remember that I've just never been cut out for frigidity. I'm fragile in the cold. I like places like the Equator. Yep. We're in the high 50's/low 60's today with a bit of sun.

Little Annike
6) Tova is eating like an oinky pig all night long but we still love her in morning despite not getting any sleep.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

It's been a week since I last blogged: A Photographic Review

Not much, and yet so much has been going on in our lives. Rather than tell you, I'll show you. Sit tight, there's a lot of pictures.

Lars has been spending a lot of time in our master bedroom closet brewing his beer. All of our clothes smell like hops and brewers yeast.

Tova just keeps getting squishier and squishier.

We made gingerbread houses at Gramma Mamma's.

Our gingerbread roof was delectable.

All the gingerbread architects.

Janelle wore Tova. Tova was super content. Neither Lars nor I have been able to recreate this position in our sling for Tova, I guess Janelle has all the moves.

Tova got some lovin' from Conner and Kaitlyn.

Jeff bowled Petra through the living room.
Lars got the giggles.

Janelle made slippers for all the kids.

We found the time to sneak this onsie on Tova before the Big Day (er, the inauguration).

Gut bustin' offense #521 since Tova was born -- Lars gave Soren an atomic wedgie.

Little Liesel (a.k.a. Petra Leigh) turned into a teenager.

Our four big kids watched holiday specials on TV.

Mary (my MIL) and John (my S-FIL -- step-father-in-law) got to meet Tova for the first time.

Jack and Annike decorated holiday cookies.

A little bit of snow fell back home in Michigan.

Then it snowed a little bit more.

Then a whole lotta snow fell in Michigan.

Safe and warm, if not a bit wet, in California Annike took a nappy.

Good times were had.

Tova wore her new outfit from Kjirsten.

Our oldest children put on a show.

Grandma Mary accompanied Soren while he danced for us.

Maggie buried a bone in the backyard.

And, finally, Tova had a late night last night being Santa's Little Helper.
Happy Merry Times to all of you! If we're not with you right now, we miss you dearly and are thinking of you -- all our love to you.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Waco Wednesday (Not Whacko Wednesday)

What is Waco Wednesday? Waco Wednesday is when you have to move Taco Tuesday (your toddler's favorite day of the week -- BIG fan of taco dinners) to Wednesday nights and because you enjoy alliteration you have to call it Waco Wednesday.

So, here's what happened on Waco Wednesday:



Tova had her first bath! Don't worry, we've been cleaning her prior to today but we've been taking her in the shower with us. She loves the shower. As you can see, we plunked her in this emesis basin that I liberated from the hospital and she hung on to my scarf for dear life the entire time. I thought she'd be really into the bath considering it was just 2-1/2 weeks ago that she was floating around in her own little hot-tub 24/7. Turns out, Tova wasn't that into it.

After tacos we made sugar cookies in holiday and Michigan cut-outs.

Petra doesn't like getting ucky-blucky.

Tova had to take a break at the milk bar in between cookie cutting. This old cow didn't mind, though, too much standing involved in cookie making.

Annike added some of her own flair by squishing the raw cut-outs with her fingers.

What I don't have a picture of is my husband, the microbiologist by training and trade, who has set up a science lab in our kitchen and is brewing huge amounts of beer. Our home's thermostat is set at 72 degrees right now and there is an overwhelming odor of bread dough and burning molasses and something a little sharp and cheesy smelling, can't quite place it. Can you picture it?

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. 9-years of happily wedded bliss as well as a few, regrettable rabble rousing screaming matches in which I ingeniously thought up of at least 100 kid-friendly ways to call my partner an ass. One thing I've learned from this marriage is that I'm a real champ at making up words, I've also learned that the people who publish the Scrabble Dictionary are stubborn punks because just what is not to like about the word 'blondidity'? TYVM. Anyhow, the Larsmeister and I have a date at the hair salon together (Tova is going too, BFing every 90-minutes, you understand doncha?). Now how darn cute is that? Lars is going all business style on his head and I'm going back to blond -- my hair seemed to turn brown while I was in the hospital. I just can't figure it out. It's pretty tough on my poor little ego since I've always been fiercely protective over my natural blondidity. Can one go from being a natural blond to natural blah in a matter of 2-1/2 weeks? Does this mean I'm not really blond anymore? Agog! I am simply agog! In a time like this it's best to turn to the amazing and stupendous Dolly Parton, in all her boobied gloriness, to lift me out of my hair despair. Do you know what Dolly Parton once said during an interview when asked how she felt about being labeled as a dumb blond? She said, "I know I'm not dumb . . . I also know I'm not blond." Yepperdoo, so's I guess dats about alls I gots to say fer now.
Editorial note: after posting this blog, I realized that I misused the word "agog", really what I should have used was the word "aghast," but I'm not going to change it because: 1) now you all know what I meant, 2) agog is a great sounding word, like when I say it it sounds to me like a noise a fluffy, pasty white, 50-something, Martha's Vineyard tourist might make as she is horking up a piece of dry bread at a restaurant after learning about some astounding news, like OMG your fantasy luvva George Michaels is gay! . . . you follow?, 3) I really like corny musicals circa mid-20th century (which is from whence I first learned this fab word). So, we cool?
Umm, did I just misuse "from whence"? Don't tell me, I don't wanna know.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

"Thowd Position"

I've held on to my first pair of pointe shoes all these years, I suppose for sentimental reasons. Certainly, I haven't kept them for practical purposes since my feet have grown 2-whole shoe sizes since I last wore them and secondly, my feet are too lazy to tolerate that kind of abuse anymore. Anyway, I keep them in my sock drawer where I can look at them everyday and sigh. When I was a teenager, awkward and a bit ugly with very poor posture, I could put my pointe shoes on and feel myself transform into something beautiful. Some of the culture of being a ballerina is difficult on the psyche, but for me it empowered me and gave me a bit of a reprieve from the loneliness of having a tough adolescence. Petra loves ballet, she loves to take ballet and she loves to watch ballet. She skips around the house humming the Nutcracker and has taught Soren and Annike all sorts of dances from that ballet. She is not currently taking ballet because she had a very busy fall with soccer and gymnastics.
Yesterday, when Petra came home from school she went running into my room with great purpose and came out with my pointe shoes. "Mommy," she whispered while handling them like they were the most beautiful things she'd ever touched, "may I put them on?" No, no, no! Don't let her fall in love with this. In a flash, a thousand images of Petra raced through my mind - Petra with blistered feet, Petra with broken toes, blood stained pointe shoes, tender ankles, sore back, feeling fat, feeling heartbroken when she doesn't get the part, and so on. But also, my heart skipped a little beat with excitement. She still likes ballet! I then pictured her on-stage in NYC, perfect turn out, great leg extension, curtsying to the city's elite as they tossed bouquets of 3-dozen roses to her. Ahhhhhh . . .
I had to laugh later, as she was doing handstands on the wood floor in the family room with my pointe shoes still on her feet, because she said to me, "do you know why I like Johnson and Johnson shampoo so much? Because, I bet that's what Shawn Johnson uses. She's my favorite." Now I'm thinking, if she brings it up, we'll sign her up for ballet again otherwise we'll just hang out with the rest of the Olympic hopefuls at gymnastics.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Ask and ye shall __________ (hear about my children)

There have been a number of inquiries about how the non-Tova puddins are adjuting to Tova. Things are great, really, but read on for details if you're curious.

Petra - She is tolerating Soren and Annike's fervor for Baby T by the thinnest of margins. She generally has a very watchful eye, or ear, on them and is quick to point out their errors. She is very accepting of Tova and even seems to like her a little bit -- some of you may recall that this time last year Petra begged me to get an IUD (she saw the ads in Parents magazine and figured it out) because she felt we needed a "bweak." When Tova is brought around Petra's friends then Petra tends to lavish attention on her and gets pretty anxious and protective. Petra lays out Tova's clothes every night and she picks out Tova's jammies. Petra is all business about the amount of time that Tova spends breastfeeding, almost seems like she's got all the AAP data in her brain and can do the next public service announcement on the merits of breastfeeding. This week she fell a bit behind in schoolwork because Lars and I just couldn't pull it together enough to help her with her spelling or her language arts assignment. That kind of stuff really rankles her but I think she's forgiven us by now because we placated her by renting WALL.E last night and making the beginnings of a gingerbread house tonight.

Soren - Oh boy! Where to begin. Soren's adoration and passion for Tova is magnanimously kinetic, huge and energetic but nerve wracking to those around him. Soren's passion for Tova culminates in incessant and not-so-gentle pokes to her cheeks, eyes, forehead, fontanels, ears, nose, mouth, lips, belly button, bottom, and feet. He pokes her so often that as soon as she hears his voice, even at 40-feet away, she starts blinking her eyelids in a very twitchy fashion. No amount of gentle reminders or all out screaming at him seems to quell his poking sensibilities. It drives me nuts. When I see him walking towards her, usually with his pointer fingers on both hands extended, tension builds in me and growls emerge from my throat. Soren, in his poking zone, is nearly impossible to divert. This evening I tried the positive parenting approach and praised him for handling her carefully today while he was holding her and then suggested that tomorrow he may even find that he is able to poke her less (you know as opposed to saying "don't" or "no", instead the parent simply suggests less of something - - maybe he'll fall for that crap). There is no doubt that he loves her and appreciates her, his poking is just a physical expression of his complete adoration for her and curiosity about her. He loves to watch her breastfeed and he loves to push her in her baby swing (manual pushing of the baby swing is expressly contrary to the warning signs that are posted in 5-different languages right on the swing). He's been a champ about sharing a room with her, though, it is doubtful to me that she'll be sleeping in that room before she's 12-months old. He's enjoying a chapter book that he's been reading with Daddy. He has been doing very well with reading to Lars or me every night for at least 15-minutes. He's still usually the first one in bed every night and always is up at the crack of dawn where we usually find him yapping to us at our bedside about elves or weed whackers or "where is Tova? Can I hold her? I didn't get a long turn last night."

Annike - Our big little baby is also insatiable when it comes to Tova. She loves to hold her and asks for permission to take her several times an hour. When she's not holding her then she's gently stroking Tova's face, leaving a finger or two to linger in Tova's eyeball or up Tova's nose. Annike is also constantly slurping on Tova's face to the point that Tova's cheeks and forehead smell like dried up spit. If Annike has felt a sting of no longer being the littlest baby of the family then she certainly hasn't acted out or created any problems as a result. Having said that, she's voiced reluctance to attending preschool in the morning and has been having tough drop-offs. Her teachers have reported a couple of occasions during the past 2-weeks where Annike has been tearful during the day and has asked for me. Of course, this breaks my hearts and makes me feel terrible, especially difficult is that fact that her teachers didn't call us to tell us Annike was unhappy. I would have made Lars drive me to the school right away to go retrieve her, I suppose that is why they didn't call us. School is still a positive place for her, though. For example, out of the blue this evening she started telling us all about the planets. She said that there used to be 8 but now there are 9 (I think she got that one mixed up, but it's close enough). She told us that "Zhewputter ith the biggest because it hads a big dot on it and because it has-ded wots of mooooooons." Lars thought she was talking about Saturn, but she set him straight. Annike still feels like my little baby except that her head has seemed to grow to bobble head proportions. I told her that her brain must be growing, she's been telling anyone who will listen that she is "a big girl now because my bwain is sooo badly bigger now." Very proud of her big brain, very proud. Plus, the big brain thing got us over the disappointment of not getting a bra at the age of 3-years old.

Maggie - Our little Magdalena has been following me around the house like a little, ummm, dog ever since I got home. She looks up at me with mournful eyes, like she's trying to communicate with me about something I've forgotten. Since her initial greeting to Tova she has ignored her ever since. When she's not staring at me then she's trying to scrounge up food out of the cupboards or garbage, sleeping in her chair or with us in our bed. We've noticed she's been limping a bit due to stiffness after a long nap or night in bed. It's kind of sad to see our doggy baby struggle, though, generally she has the disposition of a very happy puppy.

Lars - My husband has been taking care of most of Tova's non-feeding needs. He's also been a saint about bringing me drinks and burp cloths and nursing pads and pain medication and other very nice gestures. He's enjoying his paternity leave very much and spends most of his time on the computer going between his Facebook account and his two email accounts. Lars has also been spending a lot of time working on Tova's birthday announcements and our festivus cards, which are originals made by him . . . something for many of you to look forward to next week when they arrive in the mail! He hasn't been spending much time cooking lately because our friends and neighbors are still bringing us dinner just about every night. They've been bringing over so much food that even on the nights when nobody has brought us anything there are many left-overs to be reheated and managed. There are dust bunnies all over the house and our kitchen counters are cluttered with oranges from our fruit trees and dirty dishes and mail. I try to ignore it since I'm not really up to that much activity yet. I try to help him out by going through paperwork and mail, cleaning the desk, sorting the laundry and putting it away, or giving Lars verbal instructions about how he should manage his time but after that I'm generally done for the day. He's been attending my follow-up OB visits with me, but I think that's mostly because my Mr Doctor OB addresses him as "Lars (insert last name here), the strongest man in the world." He always leaves that place smiling. He encourages me to take long naps during the day so that he can watch basketball games and do endless Facebook games with joyful abandon without hearing me admonish him from my rocking chair, "could you puhlease get off of that computer, for Crissake ya donkey!" We've been laughing a lot and scheming of ways to win the lottery so that we can dig our friends and family members out of any drama that is afflicting them. So, I guess if one day a bunch of money gets put in your child's college savings plan or you can suddenly retire then you'll have us to thank . . . it's gonna happen, I can feel it in my bones.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Two Weeks!

Here's our little Tova at 12-days old.
Tova is 2-weeks old today. We both had doctor appointments today, Annike and Lars escorted us to them.
Here's Tova's update:
She has stretched to 20-1/2 inches (from 19" at birth and 18-1/2" 6-days after birth)
She is a little piggy weighing 7lbs and 10 ozs already! That's up from a birth weight of 6lbs13ozs and a hospital low of 6lbs5ozs. She pretty much eats all the time so it wasn't surprising, but very reassuring all the same. Her head circumference was 35 cms, which is way bigger than Soren's was but about the same as Petra and Annike.
We saw Dr Pale Californian today, she told us a bunch of stupid stuff about how we shouldn't take her out, how we should get her the flu vaccine (ummm, she's 2-weeks old . . . as if!), and how we need to keep Tova away from toddlers (er, like Annike?), preschoolers (Soren?) and school aged children (hmmm, Petra?) because they're so germy. Okay, then the final goofy thing she said was that we need to give Tova Vitamin D supplements because of the lack of sun this time of year. Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! We told her we're Michigan folks and our first 3-children didn't never see sun, not ever and they don't have rickets. By the way, it is about 68 degrees and super sunny right now, maybe two clouds in the sky. Once every morning I take Tova outside to breastfeed her so that she can get at least 15-minutes of sunlight onto her forearm (the minimum recommendation for white and Asian women living in colder, less sunny climates). Lastly, Tova has thrush on her tongue and on her little bunnies in the form of a retched diaper rash so now she'll be doing the nystatin routine that the previous 3-babies of ours also did (though only Soren ever got both oral and tushy thrush).
As for me . . .
I've been able to wear my regular jeans and clothing (though my shirts are "bustin" at the seams if you catch my drift . . . AA to a D, who needs cosmetic surgery?!) since Tova was 1-week old. Today we went to see Mr Doctor OB, I've lost 24-lbs and only have 2 or 3 more pounds to go to get back to my pre-baby weight. That's kind of cool. My vital signs are great. I've been having lots of hot-flashes, it's the estrogen withdrawal. I got them following the others but I don't remember them lasting this long, Mr Doctor OB told me they may last longer this time because I'm older now. Sniff, sniff, my OB called me an old lady. My incision is good except for a little hole that is on the left side, little tiny hole. Still it totally barfs me out so I've been covering it with Petra's High School Musical band aids. He asked me a lot of probing questions in the presence of my husband (a man) and in the presence of, ummmm, himself (also a man). Very embarrassing. Lars states that he is disappointed in me because he is a professional and I'm nobody special but still, yo, cut a sistah some slack. I don't know how I ended up being his patient when the rest of the OB's in the practice are all women but that is how the cookie crumbled this time so now instead of pouring my heart out to a fellow midwife/woman, I have to talk to a young, single man about nipple pain, bleeding and bowel patterns. I declined to answer his questions on all fronts, Lars hung his head in shame, but we had a good laugh about it and I still walked out of that office with all the prescriptions I needed. Must have been some subliminal communications, dunno, but I got what I need. Anyway, I'm going to start taking Diflucan now so that it's a 3rd offensive front on Tova's thrush. Hopefully between her two meds and my month long dealio on Diflucan we'll nip this thrush in the bud . . . ya know, literally.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Impulse Buy

Lars and the kids came home from Target the other day with this ginormous Santa. Lars said "it was only $30." This is coming from a man who thinks that $30 should clothe and shoe our entire family. To hear him say "$30" and "only" in the same sentence was pretty remarkable, especially in reference to this blow-up Santa.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Home Goods

On Friday, Kjirsten brought us dinner. Kjirsten lives in Ann Arbor, she was in Ann Arbor when she brought us dinner. I guess it would be more accurate to say that Kjirsten shipped us dinner, it came from our favorite deli . . . Zingerman's. Dinner consisted of a baguette, cheese, and brownies. The kids were thrilled. Lars steamed some broccoli, too, but that came from California.
Kjirsten also sent some beautiful gifts for Tova. Makes me weepy.

She knit this dress with Norwegian yarn and a Norwegian pattern. It's breathtaking, the pictures don't really do it justice.

Here's an up-close of the little cardigan that goes with it.


This is actually one of my favorite gifts from Kjir. It's awfully spunky, just how I imagine Tova will be. Kjir assembled this, as well, so it's totally original.


Beatrix Potter burp cloths that Kjirsten made. Amazing, no?

Here is everything all pictured together.

Finally, the darling FOB (father of the baby) with these awesome burp cloths that Kjirsten made. Makes us laugh. We wash them daily so that we can use them everyday. Ahh, smiles.
Thanks Kjirsten!