Melissa Anne Cohen

Everything with Julianna is bittersweet for me.  Because I know, on some level, that she’s my last little baby.  I love having babies, and if Marc and I were younger, I think I’d have seventeen of them.  I’m 36 and Marc is 40, and if we wait until Julianna is three (which is really the age difference that I like the best), then I’m looking at a pregnancy at 40.  Julie’s pregnancy was really tough, and I don’t know that I want to do it again.   I know that it’s early days still, and at this point with both Jessie and Sam, I wasn’t anywhere near ready to even consider when I’d want another.  The difference was that I always wanted three kids – that was my magic number, so more and more, I think that Julianna is probably my last little baby.  I’m not saying absolutely – and Marc would have more in a heartbeat – so maybe I’ll change my mind, but I don’t think so.

So everything with Julie is tinged with this little bit of wistfulness.  She was laying on the couch, I was changing her diaper.  Which is one of my favorite times with Julie – because she LOVES being naked.  She chews on her toes and rolls around and smiles and giggles at me.  I was leaning over her, holding her head and kissing her sweet perfect little face, over and over again.  And I commented to Marc that it all goes by so fast, and she’s the only one of my kids that I can just snuggle and kiss for as long as I want to now.  Because let’s face it, while Jess and Sam are totally affectionate and loving, they won’t let me just lean over them, holding their little faces and kissing the hell out of their cheeks.  Sam piped up that he would, so he came over and let me hold his face and kiss him.  I kept kissing his little forehead and cheeks until he finally protested… because he’s too big for that.  He just is.  It changes.  I snuggled Jess to sleep last night, with her trying to push her extra icy feet onto my legs and we giggled and laughed and played… so it’s not like it doesn’t move into something as fun, it’s not that I lose that affection and love and tenderness – but it’s different. 

So I wallow in this stage with Julie – I hold her thru every nap, and walk around my house cooking dinner, doing laundry and getting drinks for the kids with one hand because she’s on my hip 24/7.  Because I’ve learned that it doesn’t last forever – and the day is going to come all too soon when she wiggles away from my kisses.  And on that day – I’m going to be grateful for every single second that I spent kissing her for as long as I could 🙂

With Jessica’s new schedule – I’ve had to work hard at finding time with her.  Not just for she and I, but also to make a concerted effort to give her time alone with her daddy and with Julianna.  She gets a lot of time with Sam, just by virtue of the fact that he likes to be in her face all the time, but I know that she misses the time alone with her baby sister.  I’ve taken over driving her to school every morning and at least once a week, she and I head out to the library.  We wander for books, talk about things that went on that day, what my childhood was like, how it’s different and how it’s the same as her own life. 

I find it fascinating – so much of motherhood is just responding to various needs.  With a breastfeeding five month old and a four year old and a seven year old, much of my time is taken up in just caring for them.  I’ve always got dishes to do, I’ve always got laundry that needs to be washed and always got a load or two waiting to be folded.  And my kids are great, legitimately.  I genuinely enjoy hanging out with them – but Jess is morphing into not being just my baby girl, not just my little girl, but a person in her own right.  And I love it – she’s smart and gorgeous and kind and loving.  She’s just absolutely mind-blowingly exactly who I always wanted her to be – and I can’t possibly express how incredibly proud I am of her, and how incredibly grateful I am for her in my life.

Those babycenter e-mails telling you what milestones your child is supposed to be achieving are both fun and infuriating.  My e-mail told me two weeks ago that this girl should be chuckling away and I was perplexed and (just a tiny bit) worried.  Why, why wouldn’t she laugh?  I tried everything, and finally got her to giggle yesterday for the first time.  I pretended to eat her.  That’s what did it.  Then I accidentally burped at her, and she laughed at that as well :-). 

Julianna is really so much fun.  She’s just a joy – she’s so happy all the time.  She’s still a crappy napper during the day, really only sleeping when she’s nursing.  I’ve started feeding her, but noticed that she’s spitting up a LOT more, so now am thinking that perhaps I should hold back a bit on that. 

Sam is doing well… the great unwashed is now what I’m calling him.  He needs a bath, and is flat out refusing.  I can (and have) forced this in the past, because after all, I’m a lot bigger than he is.  But he will literally scream until he vomits in the tub, and nobody really wins there.  So I’m trying to coax him into doing it, but if he doesn’t do it willingly this afternoon, then I’m going to have to force it tonight.  Sigh… he’s so mild mannered and chipper most of the time – but incredibly strong willed about certain things.  And personal cleanliness (or lack thereof) is one of them.

I’m a work in progress as a mom.  I was pretty good from the get go, I’ll admit it.  I’m the oldest of four (or six, depending on how you count step siblings) and I’ve got legions of cousins for whom I was the primo babysitter.  I’ve got ten nieces and nephews (nine of whom were born before I had Jessica).  I’m good with the basics.  I knew the mechanics.  But having one of my own, let alone three, is a whole different story. 

I worry that I spoil them too much, I also worry that I yell at them too much.  I worry that I give Jess too much responsibility, and then I worry that I baby her too much.  I worry that Sam gets away with murder and that Julianna will never settle into a normal nap routine.  I agonize over bribing Jess to do her homework while feeling secretly proud that I’ve figured out how to get it done without both of us dissolving into a sobbing mess. 

I think I’m good at this.  I think I’m a good mom.  I think I’m pretty good at trusting my instincts, balancing out what I know with what I feel, figuring out what they need versus what they want.  I struggle with paying attention to each one – making sure that each child feels loved and special and valued, while also teaching them that they aren’t the center of the universe and sometimes, lots of times, you have to consider others’ needs before your own. 

I’m feeling vaguely introspective tonight.  And tired – because Julianna has embraced teething with a vengence and has started waking up several times a night and fussing.  Adding in Jessie with a nightmare or two and I feel like I didn’t get any sleep at all last night. 

All in all, though, things are well with my little family.  We’re happy.  Dare I say, even peaceful.  Jess and Sam can still scream it out with a major battle, but in the end, they do like each other.  And they flat out worship Julie.  Nights for me are relaxing and calm.  And I’m never, never blind to the fact that it’s an incredible blessing.  My family is safe and warm, well fed, and healthy.  Tonight – I’m grateful for the opportunity to wonder if I’m doing it all right, because I know, deep down inside, that what Marc and I have created, this family, it’s so much better than I ever dreamed it could be. 

I’m not proud of it.  I know it’s not right.  I know I should do better.  I know I’m setting a crappy example for my children, and possibly giving my five month old a serious addiction as well.  But I flat out need the coffee, all the time, and accidentally didn’t finish my afternoon cup and can’t keep my eyes open now.  It’s not even nine o’clock and I’m exhausted. 

I start off the morning with a hot cup of coffee.  I don’t even really taste the first cup, but by the time I pour the second one, I’m awake enough to really, really enjoy it.  Not too smoking hot, but hot, light, with two sugars.  Sometimes, if it’s been a rough night or appears to be shaping up to a rough day, I’ll have three cups in the morning.  And then mid-afternoon, I brew another pot.  At least one cup, sometimes two.  My outer limit is three cups in the morning, two in the afternoon. 

All is delightful in my world today – Marc decided that he would devote himself to heavy housecleaning as opposed to reading economics blogs.  The problem, as he explained it to me, is that he needs to do something during the day, and is fine with interspercing housework with serious intellectual study.  As this means that I don’t have to do dishes, I’m all the way delighted.   We’re sort of in a holding pattern, waiting to get the unemployment straightened out, waiting to find out what courses he can take and get paid for, etc.  So for now, it’s just the Marc and Melissa show – and I really like it 🙂

Having a five month old really just is a blast.  Julianna is just such a joy – she’s sunshiney delighted most of the time, super easy to soothe if and when she does cry.  I’ve had no problems nursing for the past three months, we’re just starting solids – and so far, that’s just all the way fun as well.  I gave her rice cereal today for the first time, and she was literally cooing with joy in between spoonfuls.  She’s still a nursing queen, and I’m not looking to wean, but she really does like solid food, so I’m trying to give it to her consistently.  She loves, loves, loves just about everyone, with special attention for her parents and brother and sisters.  At five months, she’s mostly sleeping thru the night, sometimes waking once, sometimes twice to nurse and go right back out.  Napping is a bit more of a challenge, but that’s my fault.  Sam was (and is) such an incredibly easy kid to get to sleep – and I was able to just nurse him to sleep as an infant, and slip out of the chair and he’d nap for hours in the middle of the living room.  Julianna seems to require quiet and calm, so I have to nurse her down, and wait until she’s hard core asleep, and then gently lay her down in the bed and ease away quietly.  And even then, it’s got to be mostly quiet in the house to keep her asleep.  With a husband at home (an extremely loud husband – his normal speaking voice is just loud) and a rambunctious four year old, keeping the house quiet for naps is next to impossible…. She’s still pretty miserable in the car, but other than that – her life is pretty blissful. 

Jess is still doing great at school.  Second grade is a LOT harder than first, she’s got more homework, and is graded much more harshly.  But so far, she still seems to be happy and content.   We’re working on getting into a good schedule re: homework, and I’m not ashamed to say that I totally bribe her.  If she does her homework every night, without a fight, then on Saturday, I promised her a special trip, just she and I, down to the coffee shop down the street for hot cocoa. 

Still feel mostly okay about pulling Sam out of preschool.  He still gets to see Jordyn and Harrison a lot, and has started taking preschool Hebrew classes as well, on Saturdays, so he’s in a vaguely classroom setting as well.  Mostly, he’s just loving having his Daddy here.

Marc and I are still adjusting to him being home.  Long term, the plan is for him to go back to school starting in January, but for now, he’s just hanging at home with me.  And it’s, at times, a little tougher than I anticipated it would be.  Marc and I – we have such a strong marriage, legitimately, he’s my best friend and I love spending all this time with him – but the man has a hard core computer addiction and can lose himself for hours in front of it, reading economics blogs and playing some odd warcraft game while the laundry and dishes pile up around him.   It’s not that he thinks I should be doing the housework instead of him – I honestly believe that he just doesn’t see it.  Somehow.  But I get bitchy and cranky when I’m cleaning and nursing and refereeing and he’s lost in Paul Krugman’s latest post.  When he was working fifty hours a week, I did 95% of the housework and probably 75-80% of the day to day child rearing.  But now he’s home… and I’ll be honest – I freaking hate doing dishes.  So I have to work on communicating without nagging and he has to work on paying more attention to the world around him.  He’s happy to help out, he just doesn’t think to unless I remind him.  Constantly.   We’ll get it – and without question – I’d rather have him here than not, but it’s at times a bit challenging.  Plus – I miss my unlimited computer access, I used to just pop on to check facebook or send a quick e-mail or update the blog, and it’s rare now that I have the opportunity.  So if several days go by with no blog post… I’m still here, and will update as soon as I pry the computer away from him 🙂

I’ve got a lot to be profoundly grateful for in my life.  Three healthy, happy children, a husband who’s as attracted to me now as he was when we first met.  But sometimes… all this love is a little more than I can handle.  Does that make sense?  I know it’s just a side effect of nursing an infant and having a sick boy (sinus infection – he starts the antibiotics today), and having a daughter who’s adjusting to a LOT of time out in the world without Mommy (between school, Hebrew school and dance classes, Jess is gone the vast majority of her waking hours).   But sometimes… like last night, for example,  I feel just so overwhelmed sometimes – like everyone WANTS me desperately and I just want ten minutes alone. Alone, alone, alone.  With nobody touching me, nobody reaching up to be held, crying when I put her down, or begging for a drink,a snuggle, some attention. 

God, that sounds awful.  I know that. 

I have what I always dreamed of.  I had my kids late, by my standards.  Most people in my family had children very early, and I had just turned 29 when Jessica was born.  I wanted to be a mommy desperately – and feel incredibly ungrateful complaining about being loved too much now. 

So after a crying jag last night with my ever patient husband, we concluded that we had to institute a little “No Touch” time for me.  I literally never go out alone.  I always take someone with me, and mostly, I’m home with the kids and not going out anywhere.  But I’m going to make an effort, at least once a week, to leave the kids home with Marc and go out for coffee.  Alone.  Just to remember what’s it’s like to be Melissa. 

I made the decision this morning to pull him out entirely. Actually, I made the decision last week – but it took a while to get up the courage to actually declare it officially. I had to discuss it in exhaustive detail with Marc (more exhaustive on my part, because Marc takes the perfectly logical stance that if he’s miserable there, we pull him, but it would be good for him to try it for a few full weeks to see if it gets better first), and agonize and debate it with myself. Am I crippling him socially if I don’t send him? Am I condemning him to a lifetime of hiding behind my legs and refusing to talk to anyone? If I was a better mother, wouldn’t I have managed to raise a child like everyone else’s, one that waves goodbye bravely and heads off to preschool without a backwards glance?

But in the end – it just felt WRONG to make him go somewhere he didn’t want to be. He’s just four. That’s SO little – and it goes by so fast. Why rush this? On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I drop Jess off at school at eight and don’t see her until six thirty. And it’s KILLING me to not see her. I miss her so much – and there’s no need to push Sam out the door before he’s ready. Give him another year at home – why not? It’s not going to hurt him, not really. He has socialization opportunities, he’s got four sisters. I’ve still got Harrison here two days a week, and Miss Jordyn comes to play all the time.

I think what it comes down to, for me, is that I trust Sam. I’ve learned that when he’s ready to move from one stage to another, if I step back and let him do it on his time table, he does it with no problems. If I push it (like potty training, or weaning), it’s an absolute disaster. So I’m going to hope that keeping him home this year, giving him a little more maturation time, will make kindergarten easier. I can teach him to write the alphabet and spell his name. He’s polite, knows his manners, is very articulate and well spoken. He’ll do fine in school, when he’s ready to go. He’s not ready right now.

Not that I’m actually saying that – because I’m pretty happy these days, but it’s Jessie’s new favorite phrase. Totally copying what I yell at Marc when I’m complaining about how messy the living room gets after Sam has been BUSY for a few hours.

My computer was riddled with viruses and I had no internet connection for a while. Which was sad and hard, and a little bit liberating too. But it’s back, and I missed blogging the most. There were so many moments when I thought about how I wanted to write about a particular situation and then had to remember that I couldn’t get on-line.

Much, much has been happening. Biggest news is that Marc is officially laid off, and I’m all sorts of stressed out about it. We’ve got the budget from hell for the next couple of weeks, until we start getting his unemployment checks, and even though I know six months from now, I’ll barely remember this little blip, right now, I’m worrying about money big time. We’ve painstakingly clawed our way up to borderline financial security, and having that threatened scares me. But it’s a temporary problem, and I know that. I also know that worrying about money never actually garners you more money – you are just as broke at the end of the worrying as you were when you started, and in my case, I usually end up with a killer stress migraine as well. So I’m trying hard to not lose control with the stress and the worrying – to remember that we’re all healthy, happy, and have food to eat and a roof over our head. Also a lot of potential – because Marc is brilliant and smart, and this was a deliberate choice – Marc’s company tried hard to keep him, offering him a different position, but he’d like to change careers (going into IT), and if we didn’t take the risk now, when we’d have the cushion of unemployment for a while, we’d probably never do it.

Jess is doing really well with everything, school, Hebrew School and dance. The only hitch is that suddenly she’s BUSY all the time. Monday thru Friday in school from eight until two thirty, Mondays and Wednesdays, she’s got Hebrew School from four to six, and dance class on Thursdays from four to six as well. Adding in this being the first year that she’s got actual homework each night – and it’s a recipe for disaster with my girl. Major crying jags both Wednesday and Thursday nights, and as she said tearfully to Marc “this is just no way to live, Daddy.” I’m adjusting her bedtime and trying hard to facilitate thing for her, but in the end, she’s just going to have to adjust. I don’t want to pull her from either activity – she really enjoys both, and she’s got to get homework done as well.

Sam is NOT adjusting anywhere near as well to preschool. In fact, I’ve had him home all this week. Bottom line – he flat out doesn’t like going. He’s got a bad cold, and was legitimately sick on Tuesday and Wednesday. But Monday had been a disaster when I dropped him off, he was sobbing hysterically and desperate to leave with me. He’s fine after I leave (I snuck back and peeked in the doorway after I left to make sure), but the process is hell on both of us. After talking to one of the teachers, I decided to keep him home for the rest of this week, and start going just three days a week. Hopefully it’ll get better. In the end, though, I can’t get behind dropping him off somewhere when he’s screaming and begging me to not leave him there. He’s four. He doesn’t NEED preschool. Sure, it’d be nice, but if he’s not ready, he’s not ready. I’ll force kindergarten on him, I’m not going to do it with preschool.

Julianna Ruth is just a joy. Seriously. She’s a hard-core HAPPY baby. Loves to be held, loves to rock, loves to hang with her big brother and big sisters. Smiles everytime she catches my eyes, adores her daddy. She’s just a blissful, happy, beautiful girl. I’m working on establishing a schedule for her, but haven’t gotten very far. She’s not great at napping during the day – or rather, she’s awesome about napping as long as I’m willing to sit and hold her thru it. Other than that, just sunshine and happiness all the time. We’re cautiously flirting with solids – she’s had some bananas a couple of times, but I’m not doing anything serious about it. She’s still little – and we’ve got all the time in the world to try solids.

Very busy, very stressed out… it’s Rosh Hashana yesterday and today, so I’ve been doing a lot of family stuff. Still dealing with the aftermath from losing my grandfather, and the family dramas that go along with that…

Status updates…

– Sam is doing okay at preschool. The second day was much better than the first, but he still seems to be noticably unenthusiastic about going. I’m still conflicted about it, part of me thinks that I should keep sending him, part of me wants to pull him and keep him home safe with me. Obviously, everyone I know keeps reassuring me that it’s wonderful he’s going, so I’d face serious family/friend disapproval if I pulled him – but as anyone who’s read this blog knows – I don’t like sending my kids to school period, and would homeschool in a heartbeat were it not for the nagging suspicion that it’s good for my kids to be out in the world, making friends, dealing with conflicts, and learning how to exist without me. I know for certain that I can teach him all that he needs to know academically at this point at home, but there’s value to him just learning to trust himself and other adults, to know that his whole world is more than my lap. You know what I mean?? So we’re going to keep trying and hope for the best, I guess.

– Jess is thriving in second grade. Seems to be totally happy there. She hates her gym teacher, really hates her music teacher, but loves her homeroom teacher and that’s what matters.

– Jewish holidays – so the kids haven’t been at school very much at all before this break. Sam only went two days, and while this is the second week for Jess, school started on a Wednesday for her, she went all three days, then hit Labor Day and then missed Thursday and Friday. Attending services with a four month old is kind of silly – even if you’ve got the best behaved baby in the entire world (which I do). So we stayed home today, Marc took Jess into the family service, but they should be home soon.

– Julie is AMAZING. Jess was a clingy baby, she didn’t go easily to others but there was a select few that she’s go to without a problem, and Sam was ultra-clingy, in that he didn’t even like to be in the same room as a stranger, let alone let someone other than his mother hold him. So I’m perplexed by Julianna’s willingness to coo and smile at everyone. She lets aunts hold her, grandparents, even the friend of a cousin, I looked around yesterday and some total stranger was holding her at Marc’s aunts family party. She’s relaxed, easy going, and happy. She absolutely knows that who her parents and siblings are, but appears to be delighted to hang with anyone. After Sam, to say I’m not used to this is a massive understatement. Is this what babies are supposed to do? She was super clingy with me last night, wouldn’t let me put her down, and I felt reassured. She’s napping a lot today, because she was up socializing all day yesterday.

– Very busy cleaning and trying to straighten everything out after hosting dinner here on Wednesday night. I was stressed out that day too – and just hummed stuff into my bedroom and shut the door, so now I’ve got to painstakingly sort thru everything, fold oceans of clean laundry and I just finally finished all the dishes.

– Apple picking on Sunday 🙂