Poop Happens

This past weekend I went to the best baby shower ever - everyone got neck massages and enjoyed a chocolate fountain while swapping parenting battle stories. The topic of discussion when I arrived was "your worst mommy moment" and I quickly discovered that these stories fell into one of four categories: 1) children falling off highchairs or down stairs 2)irrationally yelling at your child to be quiet/go to sleep 3) children eating things they shouldn't have been eating and 4) children pooping in places they shouldn't have been pooping.

My story fell into the last category and was gruesome enough to win me a door prize. I haven't shared it here because of its gag factor, but the multitude of poop stories that night inspired me to put it in writing. (If nothing else, my mom will print it and put it in my memory book so I can use it against my children later in life.)

Still, to be fair, if you are faint of heart or weak of stomach, do not press on.

My tale begins on an average day...Fionn was upstairs taking his daily micro nap and Emerson was downstairs eating a snack. I heard Fionn start to wake up and move around, so I went up to get him - leaving Emerson plaintively wailing for more food. By the time I got upstairs, Fionn was already happily playing on the floor, so I assessed the situation: baby-proof room, happy baby, crying toddler. I figured he would be fine for five more minutes while I finished up with Emerson. What could happen?

Famous last words of parents everywhere.

Literally five minutes later, I went upstairs to retrieve the baby. I got about half way up the stairs when the unmistakable stench of poop nearly knocked me over.

Dear lord...he pooped in his diaper and stuck his hands in it! I thought and made a terror-stricken dash for the bedroom.

Ha - if only it had been that bad.

The first thing I saw was a clean diaper laying in the middle of the floor. Insanely, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The next thing I saw was Fionn playing on the floor near the door. From my perspective, he didn't look dirty, so I breathed another sigh of relief. Then I bent down to pick him up and saw it - poop on his cheeks, in his hair, in his ears, up his nose. I didn't dare smell his breath.

I was like a crime scene investigator....everything was blocked out except the details right in front of me. Slowly, I retraced the evidence. There was a light streak of brown on the floor that got increasingly darker until, all the way across the room, was the jackpot. It was then that the story of what had unfolded became clear.

In the five minutes he was alone, he had taken off his diaper, then pooped, then fingerpainted in it, then proceeded to crawl across the entire room, touching every bucket of toys that lined the wall along the way. He even stopped and opened a few bins up, touching several toys inside. Somewhere halfway through this adventure he stopped to pee, then he finally came to a rest near the door where he spit up. And that's where I found him.

The situation was so awful I had no idea where to even begin. The smell was outrageous and of course we have rustic pine floors full of cracks...cracks now filled with poop.

When I finally regained my composure, I threw Fionn into the tub and gave him a solid scrubbing. Then I called Robbie at work.

"I need you to come home....now."

When I explained what had happened, I heard cackling on the other end of the line. I, however, was far from laughing. Robbie thankfully was able to come home and help watch the boys while I scraped, scrubbed and disinfected everything for nearly two hours. He thought it was hysterical - until he came into the room to check on me and nearly passed out from the sight and smell of it!

Needless to say, I learned a very important lesson that day. Fionn is NOT the kind of kid you can leave alone...not even for five minutes. He is the kind of child that grabs everything within arms length and throws it to the floor within 30 seconds of sitting down at a table. He wriggles out of seat belts and safety belts of all varieties. He eats everything he can fit into his mouth. Yesterday, I could not keep him in the grocery cart, so I had to carry him upside down through the rest of the shopping trip while he giggled maniacally and tried to grab everything off the shelves. In short, we are in serious trouble with this kid. Serious.

Speaking of which, I now hear him making his way back to the dog's water bowl. Wish me luck....

Fionn Again

Fionn has no trouble commanding equal attention in our house, but I feel like I often ignore him on the blog. So here is a gratuitous video of him just being cute (you might want to turn the volume off because my "baby talk voice" in the background approaches "dog whistle" pitches):


(The stuff on his face are the remnants of breakfast - not a strange growth)

I wanted to post a video of Fionn's new version of crawling - sort of a scootch and army crawl hybrid - but my camera is broken. The dog knocked it off the table and now the shutter won't work. My first thought was "Yay! Nikon D40 here I come!" But my house renovation budget quickly disagreed with that. So now I'm in the land of Denial, hoping it will magically fix itself or that Robbie's plan to rip it apart will prove fruitful. Or that one of my friends will have a digital camera lying around that they've been dying to give away...eh? eh?

Sigh.

The Fionn-ster

It's finals week and my stupid roof is leaking, so pictures are the most I can muster for a few days. And yes, thanks to his rockin' Aunt Dani, that is Jon Stewart on his onesie...

In his own right

I know this is a cliche, but it's amazing how different two people who come from the same parents can be. Fionn is completely different from Emerson in every way (except of course the albinism). Whereas Emerson took forever to kick in the womb and sometimes went so long without moving that I had to drink a gallon of orange juice to get him going, Fionn kicked non-stop from about 14 weeks gestation until five minutes before being born (he actually kicked me all the way down the birth canal, and yes, it's as painful as it sounds). Whereas Emerson was happy to lay on a blanket and take in the world for the first three months, Fionn wants you to hold him and interact with him CONSTANTLY. The list goes on and on.

One of the biggest differences is in their ability to focus. Like most babies with albinism, Emerson's nystagmus and slower vision development meant he didn't focus on our faces until he was four months old. Those initial months were agonizing to say the least. As my mom reminded me recently, there were several times that I would break down on the phone and sob that he didn't even know I was his mother. But the moment he made eye contact (and I remember that moment vividly), our relationship completely changed.

I was prepared to go through this again with Fionn, but to our surprise, he seems to be able to focus on us already. He wants to make a lot of eye contact and is giving us drooly, muppet smiles. I'm telling you, eye contact and smiling are nature's brilliant way of ensuring a baby's survival!

It will be interesting to see what Fionn's personality develops into - especially considering Emerson is just about the goofiest child I've ever met. For now, we are banking on a bright future in politics based on his uncanny resemblance to Ted Kennedy:






In case you're interested, we will be updating the post about milestones for Fionn as well. Hopefully this will give us some insight on how much of their development is based on personality and how much might be attributed to albinism. Of course, albinism affects each person differently so this is far from scientific, but hopefully it will help other parents in the albinism community.

Coming up for air!

Taking a break from packing:


I'm going to unpack this box last :)


Jabba the Hut:


Sleepy smiles:



There is no reason I should be writing this when I have so much to do and my oldest is still asleep, but I feel obligated to explain to those of you that I've been ignoring what has been going on the past few weeks!

The good news is that Fionn is doing much better - still incredibly "high-need" (how's that for a euphemism?), but at least with enough work we can get him to stop crying and occasionally he even gives us big dimply smiles and giggles. When he's in those moods, I remember why I wanted another one. I can't get enough of his sweet-milk smell and nuzzling his enormous cheeks. I don't know why a fat baby is so satisfying, but fat he is.

The bad news is that fat babies or not, these past few weeks have been utter hell! We closed on the house a week after Fionn was born and had a little over a month to finish as many renovations as possible while taking care of two kids and packing the old house. Of course, renovations ran into constant problems, we all got sick with two rounds of a nasty cold (including a case of croup for Emerson that sent him to the emergency room), then Robbie ran into a really stressful time at work, the weekend we were moving Emerson got the stomach flu, followed by me, followed by Robbie - so the move was postponed and we didn't get nearly as much done as we needed. We had to spend every night last week until 2a.m. battling the blizzard conditions to finish packing and cleaning the old house. Now we're finally able to focus on the new house, which is good because I'm going insane trying to entertain a toddler and newborn in the midst of chaotic boxes piled everywhere and half-finished renovations! Don't even get me started on holiday preparations...

So that's our tale of woe. Last Friday was a snow day for the schools and so I watched heavily bundled children tromp through the high snow in the orchard by our house. They had snowball fights and made snow angels and explored the deserted streets. It made me wish I was that age again when lots of snow was a good thing and there was a parent ready with hot soup and dry clothes when you burst through the door at the end of the day.

At least it was a good reminder that people are still out there leading normal lives and having fun. Hopefully someday soon we'll be one of them again! I just have to keep telling myself that underneath all the clutter and to-do lists is a house that will be beautiful and totally ours once we're done.

And as for the boys, each day we get through they are that much closer to self-sufficiency and to playing with each other. A couple of days ago I was sitting next to Emerson and had the baby in my arms. I started making funny faces to get the baby to smile, which made Emerson laugh hysterically too. He leaned in to see the baby's face and the two of them spent a minute or two just smiling at each other. It reminded me of a woman I met right before Fionn was born who had two boys about the same distance apart. I asked her what it was like and she told me, "Just this morning they were hugging each other and it was the sweetest thing I have ever seen....Take a picture of that kind of stuff because it's the only thing that will get you through the rest of the day!"

Boy was she right.

Bah Humbug

I probably won't be writing much for a while. I've been in a bit of a funk and I don't think it's charitable to share my melancholy during the holiday season. However, I do want to do my duty as a fellow parent and warn anyone out there planning on having two or more kids that having them closer than 3 years apart is a BIG mistake and anyone who says otherwise should be shot on the spot. Same goes for those people who say that the second kid is always easier, more laid back.

Little Fionn still has a very old soul demeanor about him so I don't regret his name, but the calm and easy part quickly went away. Here is a break down of our day:

Crying - 75% Eating - 15% Sleeping - 9.99%
Awake and Quiet - 0.01%

He hates the car, the sling, the pacifier, the swing, bathtime, eating, getting dressed, getting his diaper changed...basically anything you do to keep him alive and try to comfort him. He looks up at me with these huge weepy eyes with an expression that says "Why did you bring me to this earth? Why did you rip me out of the comfortable womb?" And in my exhaustion all I can say is "I don't know little man, I just don't know."

I truly thought he would be an easy baby because Emerson was hard in every way except colic. Instead I got a baby with colic. All the research swears that it goes away after 3 months, so if you want a happy post, you should check back in February. In the meantime Happy Holidays to all and to all some peace and quiet.

Home Sweet Home....at last

Well, we are officially masochists...I mean homeowners. On November 7, we dragged our one-week old baby into a shiny conference room and he watched as we signed away our lives. "Don't worry Fionn," I whispered. "They make you give up your first-born, so you're safe."

After four months of searching and negotiating and crying a lot of frustrated tears, the house-buying process is finally over and the house-owning process had begun. Back four months ago, getting a new house seemed like such a good idea. Nine months ago, having a second baby seemed like such a good idea. Now, as I sit here with both my parents in town to help and still feeling like I'm going to lose my mind, I wonder exactly what we were thinking!

Here's just a snapshot from our days lately: imagine a baby is screaming for food and then proceeds to fill his diaper with poop, meanwhile the toddler who's running around like a maniac fills his diaper with an even more fragrant concoction, then the toilet malfunctions and fills the bathroom with an inch of water, then the previously mentioned baby throws up half of what he recently ate.

Or the scene from this morning when I dared to take a bath and witnessed the following: my mother struggling to dress a newly-bathed and screaming baby who promptly spits up while my father chases the toddler around the house trying to pin him into his highchair to eat breakfast, meanwhile the dog that everyone forgot to feed breakfast gets attention by throwing up bile all over the living room carpet. Add to that flooring estimates and spackling debates and paint samples spread all over the kitchen table and you have an idea of what life is like these days.

I just keep trying to remember how nice it's going to be when all the work is done and I have a house done the way I want and a rhythm to my days with two boys (or at least a survival plan). It will be good, it will be good, it will be good......

Here are some pictures of our new home and our new addition. (Oh, and a big brother update - Emerson will now gently pat his brother's head, "beep" his nose and push him in his baby swing. We're making progress!)


It's a 1948 house on a quiet street about 2 minutes from our current rental:


Our new street:


This is a little late, but I couldn't resist:


Little Fionn...has the weight of the world on his shoulders at 2 weeks old:

Welcome to the world little one....

Here is the birth story for those who like nitty gritty details (if you've ever been an expecting mom, you can appreciate how important the details are in birth stories!)

As most of our friends and family know, I've been complaining about this pregnancy for some weeks now and was getting hysterical that he might be as overdue as his brother. Yes, I was officially what my friend Kelly calls "a mommy martyr." I thought first pregnancies were supposed to be the hardest, but this baby created pain in places I didn't even know existed, not to mention adding his fair share of new stretch marks and other pregnancy unpleasantries.

For the past couple of weeks, I'd have increasing contractions throughout the day and go to bed convinced that I'd be woken up by full labor. But, like my own personal Groundhog Day, I'd wake up the next morning back at step one.

On Wednesday morning, I was woken up around 8am by a really strong contraction. I was so excited I jumped out of bed and began walking in circles around the living room to keep the contractions coming. After three of four they stopped and I returned to bed more depressed than ever. I felt a few more here and there and generally felt worse than ever before, but I wasn't about to get my hopes up.

By 4pm, I called a local homeopathic store and asked about clary sage oil to help regulate and strengthen contractions. The owner, sensing my desperation, offered to whip up some concoction of oils that help induce labor, including clary sage. Robbie went to pick it up after work, so she showed him the pressure points to use on my ankles and asked him to give feedback on how quickly it worked.

He came home and immediately gave it a try, warning me "to be prepared." He acted as if he was about to launch a rocket, so I asked what the success rate of this stuff supposedly was. He replied, "10 out of 15 women went into labor within 72 hours." I moaned - THREE days?! That was not the reassuring answer I wanted to hear!

Without any other recourse at this point, I told him to give it a try and vowed to move up to something stronger like cohosh the next day. The oil massage did give me a couple strong contractions, but then nadda. Defeated, we went about our night, which included a mini gathering of friends to watch the Obama infomercial. You know you're pregnant when a well-produced political infomercial can make you all misty-eyed! I think Emerson must be a major Obama fan too because the only things he watches on tv are the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, some PBS documentary about Obama and this recent infomercial. He was mesmerized!

But I digress....

After everyone left, we tried the oil again and then got Emerson ready for bed. The contractions started coming....and coming. At close to 10pm, I broke down and started timing them, but they were anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes apart. I would've given up completely except that I started needing Robbie's help with back compressions to get through them (yes, yet another back labor experience for me).

Emerson had taken a ridiculously long and late nap, so it wasn't until close to midnight that Robbie finally got him asleep. While he was in the other room, I turned to the labor necklace that my friends made me for help through the contractions. Women I know from all across the country sent me symbolic beads, so as I kneeled on my hands and knees on the floor trying to rock away the pain, I reached up and gripped the beads to help me focus.



Around 1am, I was still not convinced that I was in true labor, but I decided to give my parents a heads up just in case. My mom answered the phone and I knew that she knew what I was about to say. She couldn't contain her excitement, but I tried to warn her that it could still be hours...maybe even days...of labor, so she'd better go to bed. I knew she wouldn't.

After cutting our conversation short due to another contraction, I began to panic about how long Robbie was taking. On cue, he emerged from the bedroom and came to help me. I turned on some music I had ready for early labor and we rocked in rhythm to help ease the pain and lighten the mood. When a contraction came on and I dropped to the floor, Robbie kept dancing as he gave me back compressions, so I realized he didn't think this was the real deal. "This is getting serious, Robbie," I muttered through gritted teeth. He still didn't believe me.



Only a few minutes later, I told him it was time to get the labor tub ready. I could tell he thought this was ridiculously premature and I knew he was probably right, but something in my gut told me it was time. It's a good thing I listened to that feeling because by the time it was barely at the minimum level, I was ready to get in. I had told him at some point that getting into the tub too early can slow labor, so he was very skeptical about this move. He started timing contractions again to make sure. Despite my inclination to rip the stupid timer out of his hands, I thought "he is being the rational one."

Right before I got into the tub, I told Robbie to call our midwife and give her a heads up. She asked if I was zoned out even between contractions and Robbie said no. She said she would get things ready and wait for a call to come at the point when I was totally zoned out. I knew exactly what point she meant, but I couldn't completely zone out during this labor like I did with Emerson. One of the good things about homebirth is that no one is around to tell you what to do, but the downside is that you have to figure out what to do! The contractions were getting incredibly intense, but as soon as they were over, I started spouting instructions for Robbie to get me soup or a drink or adjust the pool or whatever. At about 2:55, I realized this was too much for us to do alone and I told Robbie to call the midwife - now.




When I was giving birth to Emerson, I didn't want to know how much time was passing or how far I had progressed because I knew I would get discouraged at how slowly things were moving. This time I kept asking for the time so I could reassure myself that enough time had passed and it could be possible I was getting toward the end. I feared that the midwife and apprentice would show up on my command, only to spend 10 more hours waiting for the baby to actually come. I shouldn't have worried.

The apprentice showed up 10 minutes after the phone call and helped Robbie with a sagging part of the pool. I felt ridiculous for calling her, but the contractions were getting faster and more intense. I'd say, "Robbie help!" and drop to my knees in the tub as he ran over for a back compression. I felt as if each one was ripping my back bones in two - like a giant wishbone being pulled apart on Thanksgiving. Robbie is not much of a talker and I couldn't tell him what I needed, so I silently coached myself. "I can't keep doing this for hours more....don't worry, this is the worst it's going to get...I can't handle this pain...you're doing it for the baby, the baby needs you..." At some point I looked up at Robbie in between contractions and said, "What if I have to do this for 10 more hours?" He shook his head and stroked my arms to help me relax. "When you were like this last time, Emerson was born only a couple hours later."

"Are you sure? I wasn't like this the first night I went into labor?"

He laughed. "No way, not even close. It won't be much longer."

I was relieved to hear this.

Ten minutes after the apprentice arrived, the midwife showed up as I was having a contraction and I suddenly felt a convulsion go through my body. I told her I just felt the unmistakable urge to push and she said, "That's fantastic!" I shook my head - clearly she wasn't understanding that this urge was coming way too fast to be real. When I made Robbie call her the first time, I started shaking uncontrollably and felt like I was going to throw up with every contraction - signs of the stage of late labor called "transition." I had ignored these signs because I couldn't possibly move this fast, but the urge to push had me in a panic. I was afraid if I pushed too soon I would inflame my cervix and slow labor, so I begged her to check my dilation ASAP. She said I was a conservative 8cm, but to go ahead and push if I felt like it.

I was relieved to hear I was indeed in transition, but I held back on pushing through the next contraction. She and the apprentice began to prep the oxygen tank just in case and were talking calmly when the next contraction hit. I had to push and there was no longer a line between contractions - it was just pushing. Suddenly I felt his head drop rapidly and I screamed out "He's coming too fast!!"

Everyone rushed to my side as I continued to scream out a play-by-play. "Something popped - I think my water broke...RING OF FIRE, RING OF FIRE!!!" This is phrase some women use for the head crowning and let me tell you - it does not do justice to the true feeling. I remember this as being the only truly hard part of my labor with Emerson, but unfortunately this time it seemed to last forever. I was still panicking, so the midwife told me to stop pushing or do little pushes if I needed to. I tried a couple small pushes, but then thought, "The hell with it - get this kid out of there NOW!" It seemed like an eternity of pain before his head emerged, but in truth I pushed for less than 5 minutes! I rested a minute and then pushed the rest of his body out as Robbie caught him underwater. The midwife called out the time - 3:30am on October 30.



Suddenly I was sitting and Robbie was handing me this cone-headed squirmy thing. Before he was even close enough to see well, I knew.

"He has white hair, doesn't he?"

Someone confirmed this as he came into view. I sat there holding him, stunned that he was there already and that I now had not only two children, but two children with albinism. Part of the reason I wanted a homebirth was so that I could have privacy during this moment of revelation. Everyone was so sure that he would come out with dark hair and the odds certainly favored that, but somehow I knew in my gut that he would have white hair. I didn't know what my reaction to this would be, but I wanted to experience it in private and not have hospital staff bustling around making comments. Now the moment was here and I felt...shock. I knew I was in for a long, hard road, but definitely easier than with Emerson. And I knew that this was the best for Emerson since they would always have each other - someone to understand what they were going through in ways even we as their parents could never understand. A feeling of calm came over me and I started to really take him in.

He peered up at me silently with these giant eyes and his body submerged in the pool. The midwife and apprentice stood back and greeted him and Robbie sat behind me, stroking his head lovingly. I suddenly became aware of how quiet it was compared to the hospital birth with Emerson. "Should we do something?" I asked. "Suction him out, get a blanket, deliver the placenta?"

The midwife shook her head no. "He's perfect just the way he is. Stay there as long as you want." I think by then the water had gotten a little cool and I was feeling unsure of what to do, so the baby began to fuss and cry and I gave the midwife a look that told her it was time to move.

While I gave him his first meal, the women prepped the couch with blankets and towels so we could get out. Then Robbie cut the cord and we made a dash to drier, warmer land. After some standard exams that revealed the baby was 20.5 inches and 8lbs, the women left us alone for our "babymooning."




Amazingly, despite my screaming toward the end and the clanging as the midwife cleaned the house and prepped an herbal bath, Emerson slept through it all in the next room. He stirred a little after they left, but Robbie only had to hand him his bottle and he fell asleep again until 11am!

When Emerson finally padded out of his room in footie pajamas with his white hair sticking up all over his head, it fully hit me that I was now the mother of two! Robbie rushed him over to see the baby and explain that he now has a brother, but Emerson completely ignored the situation and has been doing so ever since. The only time he acknowledges the baby is when he sneezes, which sends Emerson into fits of laughter! Robbie keeps telling him to "kiss the baby" but Emerson replies with "all done" and walks away. I guess no reaction is better than a bad reaction!




I learned the hard way that post-labor pains are worse with each new child, but for the most part recovery has been great. He nursed throughout the night last night but I was able to sleep through most of it, so exhaustion hasn't set in...yet.

We held off on naming the baby to see what name would fit his looks and personality. I think if it were up to Robbie to decide we would've called him "baby" forever, but his first dr.'s appointment today forced us to make up our minds (they don't appreciate filing charts under "baby x"). Despite some creative suggestions from friends and family, we settled on:

Kepler Fionn

(I know, I know….but we live in Ann Arbor where you don’t fit in unless you have a weird name!) We will be calling him Fionn - pronounced “fin.” We would have put that name first, but it just didn't roll off the tongue right. Kepler is after the astronomer Johanne Kepler and Fionn is an Irish name that means "fair-haired" or "bright." It's also the name of the Irish mythological hero Fionn Macool, who gained his name when his hair turned prematurely white.

We chose Fionn over Kepler because so far, this baby seems to have an ancient soul worthy of such a name. Maybe it's just because we've done this before, but he seems so calm and easy compared to Emerson and Emerson was a relatively easy newborn! It's strange, especially considering what a little acrobat he was in the womb. I suppose only time will tell...





Speaking of which, all my "boys" are now awake from their naps, including a still exhausted Robbie, so I'd better go. Happy Halloween to all!

(For fun, here are some comparison pics - Emerson first then Fionn)