Life with Three Kids

Tuesday was my birthday (I turned 27...plus a couple years). A nice gal showed up in the morning to nanny. She was a junior high math teacher on break. She seemed to do well with Baby A. I took Henry and Miss R to school and then took my mom to the doctors to get a portocath placement.

While in the waiting room, we ran into the attorney from the AG's office who represents the state and DES. She looked familiar, and I think that she thought we looked a little familiar too. My mom struck up a conversation with her and outright asked if she was an attorney. While my mom had her surgery, I talked to the attorney for awhile. She was waiting for a friend. We didn't really talk about Miss R's case, but upon saying Miss R's name, she knew exactly who I was. I asked her a lot of questions about her job and how she came to be in her profession. What an incredibly inspiring person she is. She didn't set out to work for the state when she went to law school. She worked for a couple years representing parents and kids but was in need of a change. So she started working for the AG's office. She currently has 117 cases on her case load. She spends almost all of her time at the court house. About a quarter of the cases on her load end up going to trial. I asked her if she could tell in advance which parents would make a turn around and which ones would not follow their case plans. She said that she was pretty good at predicting, that working as a lawyer for the families had helped her in that regard. But she said that there are always some surprises. Sometimes a person who you don't think has it in them will manage to "get it" and make significant lifestyle changes to get their kids back.

In the afternoon, Jeff went to Baby A's TDM (team decision meeting). He got some insight into the case. Can't share it here, but I can say that it is a messy situation. Then, I took Baby A to her pediatrician's visit. At 5 days old, she was up 4 ozs on her birth weight, which surprised us. Most babies lose weight the first week. When Dr. Bianchi walked into the room, he was surprised to see me there with another child. As it turns out, his wife is a social worker at UMC. That was nice to hear. His office has been so darn good about getting us into see our new kids at a moment's notice. Overall, Baby A is doing well. We have another weight check scheduled for next week.

Upon arriving home, Henry walked into my office and announced that he wanted "my pi-cuter" (meaning my computer). He's decided that my old reddish laptop is really his. I let him and Miss R watch a DVD on it at their picnic table.

We've been on a low sugar diet/life style change. But for my birthday, Jeff bought "natural" cheetos (which is a bit of an oxymoron). The Twins and I enjoyed eating them. Henry's super cute comment of the evening was putting on my shoes and proclaiming that he was wearing "a glass slipper" (Cinderella reference). He also pretended to be Alison, our family specialist. He grabbed Jeff's notebook and announced, "I'm Alison. I'm going to check the house." And off he went.

Jeff managed to get Baby A to sleep in the crib for awhile. That was great. And, I got a luxurious four hours of straight sleep. It would have been more if I hadn't needed to prep my class for the following day.

On Wednesday, it was Jeff's and my wedding anniversary. It started off with Miss R throwing massive tantrums in the morning that were on par with our former nanny's child. She was upset at having to brush her teeth. She screamed in the car, but quieted down when we neared school.

Then, the nanny who had come in the morning had a childcare emergency in the afternoon, leaving Jeff to have to take care of Baby A unexpectedly. My parents picked up The Twins and dropped them off at our place. Miss R's attorney showed up at 5PM, but had left before I got home at 5:35PM. Basically, the judge ordered him to visit Miss R to make sure everything was fine. So he fulfilled his obligation there. That was OK.

While in his playhouse, Henry asked me if I wanted a taco. Apparently, his imaginary culinary talents have expanded past getting me coffee and a burger.

The Twins protested going to bed. I read them two books but they wanted more. Jeff and I weren't in much of a coddling mood. Henry proceeded to talk to himself for about an hour after going to bed.

I took care of Baby A most of the night. I switched off with Jeff at 5AM. It isn't as bad as it sounds though. I was able to catnap several times as Baby A does take decently long naps in-between bottles and diaper changes. Energy-wise, I'm doing A-OK.

On Thursday morning, Baby A was picked up for her parent visitation. The visit supervisor was supposed to come between 8:15-8:30AM. She showed up at 7:45AM. So of course we weren't yet ready. In addition, she didn't have a car seat, so Jeff had to undo ours and let her borrow it. She had called yesterday afternoon announcing that there would be a visit. She said she was really busy and wanted us to bring the baby to the visit. Mind you, by scheduling a visit in the morning that blew our plans for nanny service out of the water and ensured that I would get little work done. I told Jeff no. Mind you, Alison (our family specialist) also made it clear to CPS at the TDM that based on information provided, it is necessary for our safety that we are not the ones to do the visitation drop offs and pick ups. Period.

Miss R had another fit over teeth brushing (as if this isn't something we do twice a day!). And then she had a fit over me combing her hair. I decided to try to rationalize with her. Yes, rationalize with a two year old. Although I realize the superficial nature of my appeal, it seemed to work. I told her that every night, people get tangles in their hair. When you toss and turn, your hair gets messed up. And tangles look silly. Did we want to go into public looking silly? No. Did we want other people to think we looked silly? No. [That's the part that's superficial b/c at some level, I don't want her to give a darn what other people think.] Anyway, so everyone has to brush their hair every morning to get those tangles out. She calmed down as I explained it to her and suddenly seemed to get that I wasn't trying to torture her with a comb. I asked her if she wanted to go to the mirror to see exactly what I was doing. She was interested. So we went to my full length mirror. Put down a small stood. Had her sit down. And I combed out the tangles. She seemed happy with the result.

The kids were fine in the car. I asked them if they wanted to listen to Myamo. At first they said yes. But then Henry was adamant about listening to the Belly Button CD. He informed me that "We don't like Myamo." After listening to the Belly Button song, they told me that they wanted the 80s CD. Very picky kids.

In the afternoon, I got The Twins at 2:30PM and took them to Dr. Bianchi's office for a weight check. When we arrived in the parking lot, Henry was irked because he really wanted to go to Dr. Bunch's office instead. Henry weighed 29 lbs 4 ozs and was 37.25 inches tall. Miss R weighed 23 lbs 12 ozs and was 33.5 inches tall. Dr. Bianchi isn't too concerned about their weights as Henry has gained well. He doesn't think that Miss R is too far off on her trajectory, which is a short one, but he nevertheless gave me a prescription for an appetite stimulant. And, he sent us to SonoraQuest to get some blood work done on her. During the visit, the following conversation occurred:

HENRY: Dr. Bianchi! Dr. Bianchi!
DR. BIANCHI: Yes.
HENRY: I'm reading a magazine.

Henry announced that he wanted to go to the park in the magazine. As it was a cartoon park, I'm afraid that's going to be difficult. As I talked to Dr. Bianchi, Henry got very loud as he tried to convince Miss R that they were being chased by a bear.

Afterward, we went to SonoraQuest. Two toddlers, one mom, in a waiting room. Henry was fairly obnoxious. He was thrilled at the woman with the baby on her lap. A very pretty baby. Henry introduced himself to the baby, "Hi Baby, I'm Henry." And he told anyone who would listen that "R is here for a blood withdrawal." He climbed on furniture. He tried to bang on the blinds, but I wouldn't let him. I had to contain him for a 1/2 hour. At one point he told me that he working on his "Imagination!" (complete with SpongeBob hand signals from the Imagination episode). Miss R, however, was an angel. She sat in her chair and leafed through magazines. At one point, I had to pull him aside, sit him on my lap, and say "Henry, would you look around? Do you notice how everyone in this room is calm? Notice how they are sitting in their seat and not jumping up and down." He kind of paid attention to me. Then we were called for the withdrawal. I had to hold Miss R as they drew the blood and hope that Henry wouldn't get into too much trouble (e.g., the outlets without covers were a concern).

We went home. Jeff left me with the three kids to go car shopping. Two toddlers and a newborn by myself. It could have been worse. Miss R requested food, claiming she was hungry, which must have been a first. I made them pizza and got them olives and banana. They did well on everything but the olives. Baby A was kind of fussy in comparison to her usual state. One cute moment occurred when the kids arranged the couch pillows on the floor and pretended that they were a cot. Miss R tucked Henry into "bed." Then she wanted him to tuck her into the bed. But Henry had run off with the blanket claiming that he wanted to do the laundry. He finally tucked her into the "bed" and sat down next to her, patting her on the back, and tell her that he was a teacher.

Somehow, I managed to get the kids into bed around 8:45PM with just a little protest. Or maybe it was a lot but I didn't pay attention to it as Baby A needed me to hold her.

Jeff hasn't found our dream car yet. Hopefully, we'll get a new car soon.

Signing off and going to bed...