Darker sides

I was reading through the amazon 'search inside this book' page for the book 'Inconsolable: how I threw my mental health out with the diapers' earlier today, because it was recommended on a blog I follow. She had, and documented, postpartum depression. I don't have it. In fact, I've had more than my share of those glowing, wonderful, new baby moments - the ones I didn't have last time, where I'm gazing into my baby's eyes and I'm filled with this joyful feeling. (This current moment is not one of them: Annika's in her little chair in front of me, screaming her little face off, exerting her force of will. She wants to sleep ON MUMMY. NOT on her little chair. NOT on her pillow. And most certainly NOT IN HER BED).
  But despite not suffering from depression at the moment, and despite having a relatively "easy" newborn, I was intrigued by the book's excerpts, especially the comments about the dark side of motherhood; about how she hadn't been "crying behind her smile", she'd been putting her baby down (safely) and then bashing her hands into walls and screaming (or something like that). Well ... so part of my dark side is that I've been losing my temper with Nina and I'm not proud of it. I just can't stand the endless whining. Is she doing it more now? Or do I, in my relatively sleep-deprived state, just tolerate it less? Or both? Is it that she's regressing - for example, using these bedtime-delaying tactics that she'd seemed to have abandoned? Today after a number of prompts to try to get her to come to brush her teeth, I simply picked her up, carried her to the sink and brushed her teeth - end of negotiation, though she was crying while I brushed. Then I carried her to her bed. Then I told her she could say she was sorry and I'd read her a story, and she did, and I did - but by then Annika was fussing and crying so she had to intermittently breastfeed, which is uncomfortable as I crouch beside Nina's bed to read. It all doesn't sound too bad, but I was a bit rough with Nina and she could tell. Same deal with getting her out of the bath - she said she was ready to get out (screamed it at me, in fact) and then of course she refused to get out, so I picked her right up and hauled her out and told her not to whine about it.
  I guess I'm just getting so sick of the endless negotiating, her endless need to control every single detail of daily minutiae: which damned cup her water's in, whether she opens the door or I do, which sweater she'll wear, when she gets out of the bath, whether she comes to brush her teeth or I carry her, and on and on and on and on and on ... And when it doesn't go her way, the endless whining, oh my god the WHINING. I am hoping that consistent, calm insistence that she use normal words and that we don't respond to whining will eventually bear fruit, but so far progress is somewhat limited. She's responding, and she can do it - but she usually tries whining first. I'm not proud of myself for losing my temper. But I'm definitely not unprovoked.
  And Annika? She's showing some signs of losing her ability to get to sleep on her own. She won't sleep in her little crib, of course, though she does a good job in her carrycot and in her carseat. Today I bathed her in Nina's bath. It was cute - I put her in the water, on a terry towel on Nina's lap. Nina helped hold her head up. Annika got in the water and just lay there, smiling happily. It was adorable. Then I washed her, and dried her -- only to realize I'd rubbed most of the soft newborn hair off the front half of her head. I feel kinda bad about it. This was not a day of parenting triumphs. Now she's refusing to feed, but she's not happy not feeding either - so it's time to stop typing. And she's scratching me! Little suckler.   
  

4 weeks

Annika: 9 days old

 Annika is 4 weeks old today. She's still tiny, of course. She'll be weighed tomorrow. She's breastfeeding and ... it's going fine. I'm a bit surprised. At this point with Nina, I was pretty desperate. There was one day that she fed for 10 hours, with only short breaks; Ted was here and we sat around, and talked .. and talked ... and talked. Part of it with Nina was that she slept on the breast, feeding slowly. Part of it was that she was pretty skinny and really hungry. And part of it was that we didn't put her down - that was partly us, and partly because she was so hungry. We ended up topping her up with a bit of formula, and we were all much happier.
    But Annika's different - she goes to sleep in the carrycot thing, or in her little rocking chair. She doesn't constantly need to eat and takes some 2 and 3 hour gaps. Last night she slept for 4+ hours (AWESOME). Sometimes she gets burps stuck, or gas, and cries and needs to be rocked, but otherwise she's mellow, she feeds, she naps, she looks alertly around. She opens her little eyes really wide and they look gorgeous on her tiny tiny face. She raises her tiny eyebrows, wrinkling her tiny pensive forehead. She kicks off her little tiny pants, exposing her long and very narrow little feet. She poos. She smiles. She won't be a newborn for long. 
  And that's the paradox, I think. At the same time, you want them to do the next thing soon: to really smile, to sleep for 5+ hours, then 6+, 7, 8 hours, to hold their cute little head up. But then, I want this time to last, to really last, in a way that I know it never can. I want never to forget the feel of her tiny nose on my cheek, the way her little shoulder feels between my fingers as I massage her to help her not fall asleep at the breast, the way her long little fingers stretch out and grasp mine, her gorgeous unthinking smile, and the way it feels to hold her body upright, against me, in the bed -- and how funny it is when someone so dainty then does an enormous burp. I want to have her perfect tiny face this fresh in my mind forever. But I want her to grow up, too. 

Nina loves her new sister.

Ok, it's upside down. Blogspot doesn't let you
rotate a photo .. Check out the eyelashes.

Baby

  The baby finally came out, 9 very inconvenient days late. During those 9 days, we had J. visiting to help with the baby, ha ha, and especially with Nina while I went to the hospital and so on. This worked actually, since Nina got the chicken pox and was greatly entertained by J's ipad. The baby finally emerged pretty much as soon as J was on the plane, drat it. Much angsting was done about whether the baby would come soon enough, what could be done about it, much bouncing on a huge red ball was done, and many pineapples were eaten, all to no avail.
  In the end, Nina stayed with a family down the street. They have twins her age (imagine. the chaos.) and three older children... maybe another toddler hardly disrupted their routine at all. Apparently Nina was very good; she saved her difficulties for us, I guess.
  Anyway. Labour finally happened, and in just 3 rather intense hours we had our new baby girl. We've named her Annika. I have to write more later - she's just fallen asleep and I need a nap. But: 

Annika, 2 days old.