Continuing to catch up with the new Cool Fam of Four, we have been
THANKFUL
(I was thinking of doing all “ex-” words to carry on with the long Christian tradition of alliteration, but I decided against taking two hours to write this post.)
It was a hard pregnancy for Cool Mum. Her first trimester was met with awful morning sickness. And then she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which turned her diet and life all upside down. And she had an energetic Cool Baby to care for during all of the nausea and then the hunger.
Through the difficulties though, we have a healthy Cool Newbie, and we are SO thankful to God for the new little guy. He already has been a blessing to us and neighborhood family. Cool Baby is crazy about his new baby brother and has been very gentle with him. Also, since CN is nursing, his poop doesn’t stink. Praise the Lord!
In addition to being exhausted and thankful, we have been
SQUISHED
We’ve mentioned it before, but we four (Cool Mum, Cool Baby, Cool Newbie, and myself) are sharing one 8′x8′ bedroom in the Cool Duplex. I was hoping that anti-gravity machines would be invented by now so that I could just float around the room to get what I need. Unfortunately, it’s already 2010 and no anti-grav machines are available for home use.
So, instead, when I go to bed (after everyone else), I tiptoe, climb, and contort my body to get by CM’s bed, CB’s bed, and CN’s bed, all without waking any of them. Silent, surgical precision, which might come in handy should I decide to become a Navy SEAL.
By God’s grace, CN’s crying hasn’t woken up CB much at all. That was our main concern: that CN’s crying would keep CB awake, thus resulting in two cranky, tired boys. But CB has been snoozing through the late-night crying sessions, and so have I. I usually wake up when I hear CN crying, but I don’t get cranky at work after a short night’s sleep (though it’s fun to throw a tantrum at the office and collapse when someone tries to escort me out).
This bedroom is a sight to behold, so we’ll have a video tour soon.
It’s crazy to think that we’re already five weeks into the Two Cool Babies experiment. What is life like now with a Cool Fam of Four? We’ll catch up with a little series this week.
But first: What is the new Cool Baby’s blog nickname?
It was the first suggestion and it feels like the most fitting one. The new Cool Baby will be from hereon known as Cool Newbie! Many thanks to Sarah at themommylogues for the name. After all, little Micah is quite the n00b at this ‘being a person’ stuff.
And now to kick off our catch-up series, life as a Cool Fam of Four has been
EXHAUSTING
It was to be expected, I guess, but CN came out with his days and nights all upside down. He dozed through the day and was wide-eyed and awake in the wee hours of the night. Since I again failed to achieve sympathy lactation, Cool Mum was the only one who could feed him, so she had to get up whenever he called for food. Cool Baby had the same schedule 3 years ago, but of course, he was the only kid CM had to watch.
To complicate matters, CN is quite the town crier. CB fell asleep after his feedings. For the first several weeks, CN wouldn’t sleep between night feedings, so CM would have to get up with him and stay up. It was actually convenient when one of our roommates had insomnia (not from a fussy CN, we hope) and the two of them could talk during those late hours.
As of this week, CN has been better at night. He and CM have been able to sleep 2-3 hours between feedings. This is very much needed because the days are pretty tiring in themselves. CM has a fun-loving, hard-rocking CB to care for as well as the generally fussy CN.
Since CM is fully immersed in childcare, that leaves errands like grocery shopping and laundry to me. Now that I’m the only one who can, they need to be done more often. I usually do groceries around 7:00 am before work, and my weekends consistently include a lively evening at the laundromat.
This is not a difficult life, and there are so many who live with much harder hardships. Still, it has been exhausting. Thankfully, it has been at the same time a blast, and we’ll talk about that next time.
This is from the free daily newspaper AM New York last week. This is totally me:
I don’t mean to be a baby-carting bully, but when people are standing in the middle of the sidewalk, they need some encouragement to do what normal, decent, law-biding citizens should do: get the heck out of the way.
If there were cars stopped in the middle of the highway for no good reason, what would you do? Lay on the horn. Well, the Cool Stroller doesn’t have a horn, but it has a fat front wheel that rides perfectly on the backs of peoples’ ankles (not that I’ve ever done that, though I’m curious how a busted-up Birkenstock got in our spokes).
And what if you were driving an ambulance coming upon said pointless roadblock? Well, you’d do much more than honk your horn. You’d push through the traffic if that meant saving the life of your patient. And if you’re thinking, “Well, CD, you’re not exactly in a life-and-death emergency here,” then you probably haven’t had a toddler screaming, “I NEED TO GO POO-POO” in your expensive, new double jogging stroller.
So, if you’re on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and stop in the middle of the sidewalk to ask yourself whether you just passed a Real Housewife of New York, and you happen to notice a speeding red blur behind you, roll. Cool Baby’s poo-poos wait for no one.
On Saturday morning, I wrote the baby name blog post. Writing on a Saturday morning sounds like a peaceful exercise, but I felt like I’d just finished the NYC Triathlon. Or more accurately, a UFC title fight.
I actually wrote most of the post on the subway. On Saturday, I put it on the blog and tweaked it. The irony is that I breezed through the writing of it on the packed train, even with a homeless guy harassing a girl next to me (he called her a “wench” on his way out), but I struggled to tweak the post at home because it’s hard to tweak and type with a 38-lb Cool Baby hanging from your arms.
He had just finished breakfast and asked me to play with him. I asked him to give me five minutes to finish my work, to which he replied, “No! You can’t finish your work!” Cool Mum and the baby were sleeping in the bedroom, so I tried to keep CB quiet. The five-minute tweak job turned into more than an hour of
- CB asking me to fix his broken fishing pole
- Me explaining helium and why I can’t blow up a sinking Mylar balloon
- Me explaining boat buoyancy
- Me trying to keep him quiet without the use of duct tape
- Us playing and crashing Lego towers at alarming volumes
I am grateful to God that we are close enough buddies that he wants to have fun with me. We play all the time, and I love it (though I wish he would have just obeyed and given me my five minutes). I had my mind set on getting the blog post out early because I knew if I waited, it would never happen. I then marveled to myself:
How do you mom bloggers do it?
How do you write with one or more kids needing care and vying for your attention? Do you just write at night or do you have an activity or magic spell that you incorporate to keep the little ones occupied?
Due to a specific and neurotic list of criteria, we had a heckuva time choosing the name of the newest Cool Baby. Master procrastinators, we waited until we were in the OR to settle upon the little man’s moniker. The name got an OK from the anesthetist, and that was good enough for us.
The winning name for our new little winner is
Micah Sol Corpus
Micah had been kicked around (the name, not a person) for several months. At this point, I can’t remember if it came from a friend or Cool Mum. And it appears to match all of our criteria. By the way, thanks to all of you helped us find a name!
My only reservation is that his name may be an unlikely running joke among countertop retailers, countertop installers, and general countertop enthusiasts when a discussion comes up like:
COUNTERTOP RETAILER: “Hey, who’s calling?”
GENERAL COUNTERTOP ENTHUSIAST: “It’s for Micah.”
COUNTER TOP INSTALLER: “It’s formica? Well, remind him that heat-resistant, wipe-clean plastic laminates can’t use a phone!”
ALL: “HAR HAR HAR!”
Well, I said it was unlikely.
Sol is Latin for “sun,” which is a nice double play because it’s a homophone (have you seen that word since grade school?) for “son” and that he will be a shining star in our lives that may or may not swell into a red giant phase in 5 billion years. The inspiration came from CM’s friend, who mentioned that his scheduled C-section fell on the summer solstice.
We pronounce the name like “soul,” which sounds like the middle name that Bono would’ve given our baby if he would’ve been our friend and not avoided us in the park. It’s slightly disconcerting every time I spell the middle name for people, but if you are untainted enough to not see the problem, then just take my word on it and do not investigate further.
So, we’re pleased with the name. And in case you wanted to see a slightly cheesy picture of the Cool ‘Rents and Baby Micah, here you go!
