2 ghosts & an adorable baby bat

Ghost costumes made by their dad, who obviously belongs on Project Runway with his mad skillz. Halloween was awesome, especially for the Creature---old enough now to really enjoy it.

It took me 2 babies to do it, but I finally figured out my didymos sling!!

I`m so proud of myself!

Finally, back to wineries!

We had a great day yesterday where everybody was well rested, husband wasn`t working nights, I felt good, baby wasn`t too little and we went back out to the country and explored 2 new wineries. The second one had a 200 year old manor house and it just opened last month. They celebrated Halloween by dressing up all the employees. One was the Grim Reaper, to the delight of my 2 morbid sons. As you can see somebody was thrilled to get his Grim Reaper photo op. Some kids like to have a pic taken with Mickey Mouse, my 6 year old likes darker characters, ha ha.

OK. Blogger is being a butt right now & won`t let me post pictures. I`ll try again tomorrow...

We survived the wedding!

The couple was beautiful, gracious and overjoyed to be marrying each other. It was an impeccable October afternoon, really flawless. My darling husband was a groomsman, so I sat alone in the outdoor ceremony with my 3 boys.

One nursed, spilling milk all over me, one ran away in the direction of the Potomac, the other one followed. It was an advertisement for not bringing kidz to weddings. As soon as I got inside and had my whiskey & ginger ale, things were looking up. It turned out to be a great party, for everybody. They even had goody bags for the children. The dancing was great, all the folks there were friendly.
Here`s a glimpse of the perfect day from where we were sitting in the ceremony






how else would I spend most of my time that evening?





father & son



Little dumpling had a new mommy most of the night. The groom`s sister was loving him.

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What I`ve been up to this week; showing a good friend how to wear her baby (I never wanted to put her down!) and walking in the woods as much as possible before October gets away.

Mini muffin

Grateful for even the down & up days

My nightgown was covered in baby poop down the front, upchucked milk soaked the back & I wasn`t even out of bed yet this morning. Then I see myself in the mirror, I have blood red eyes from a raging sinus infection. When I finally get it together to go to the doctor, the van`s battery was dead. After a jump start I get there and wait forever, I lay fully down and shut my eyes on the exam table with the baby strapped on and my 3 year old sitting sweetly beside me ( for once!!)I get my prescription, lunch, deal with a massive tantrum and then at 3 pm I am again graced with baby poop on one side, vomit on the other.
But ...I got my first authentic smiles from my littlest boy!

More Pumpkin Patchness

October

A beautiful Sunday afternoon with the Creature`s godfather in a low-key, cheaper pumpkin patch. It was very basic but absolutely perfect for the kids. Not crowded and very friendly, with animals, treehouse, swings and slides. The only thing I`d add would be wine!

See this look? This is the Creature in top form. Refusing to stay clothed, wrapping himself in cloth & telling everyone he`s a ghost. Then he gets his eyebrows to stay like this and he doesn`t listen to anyone until his eyebrows straighten out again. He is a challenge! I started this blog to remind myself of all the fun I could have as a stay at home mama and I try to keep it positive, but its Wild America right now with messy floors and constantly nursing little Teeny. Add to that my dear husband working nights & sleeping all day, its just me alone in boyland. My favorite month of October is not going to be quite as rockin' this year.

If you don`t love the gruesome details of surgery as much as I do, then don`t read this...

This is the best picture I could take of my haircut and I felt like a loser as I tried to get a good one. I really should be doing laundry right now!

Anyway, I loved the article in the New Yorker about "How Childbirth Went Industrial". Dr. Gawande is a great writer and the kind of surgeon who really thinks about all aspects of medicine. Its a fascinating and scary history of modern birth. As a former homebirther turned surgical birther I can truly see all sides of the issue. Here`s a link that you have to paste yourself since I can`t get blogger to get it to work:
www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061009fa_fact

I`m pasting the description of the C/s birth because as much as it is not the best situation to have a surgical birth, it is still a birth & still very amazing.

"The Cesarean section is among the strangest operations I have seen. It is also one of the most straightforward. You press a No. 10 blade down through the flesh, along a side-to-side line low on the bulging abdomen. You divide the skin and golden fat with clean, broad strokes. Using a white gauze pad, you stanch the bleeding points, which appear like red blossoms. You slice through the fascia covering the abdominal muscle, a husk-like fibrous sheath, and lift it to reveal the beefy red muscle underneath. The rectus abdominis muscle lies in two vertical belts that you part in the middle like a curtain, metal retractors pulling left and right. You cut through the peritoneum, a thin, almost translucent membrane. Now the uterus—plum-colored, thick, and muscular—gapes into view. You make a small initial opening in the uterus with the scalpel, and then you switch to bandage scissors to open it more swiftly and easily. It’s as if you were cutting open a tough, leathery fruit.

Then comes what still seems surreal to me. You reach in, and, instead of finding a tumor or some other abnormality, as surgeons usually do when we go into someone’s belly, you find five tiny wiggling toes, a knee, a whole leg. And suddenly you realize that you have a new human being struggling in your hands. You almost forget the mother on the table. The infant can sometimes be hard to get out. If the head is deep in the birth canal, you have to grasp the baby’s waist, stand up straight, and pull. Sometimes you have to have someone push on the baby’s head from below. Then the umbilical cord is cut. The baby is swaddled. The nurse records the Apgar score.

After the next uterine contraction, you deliver the placenta through the wound. With a fresh gauze pad, you wipe the inside of the mother’s uterus clean of clots and debris. You sew it closed with two baseball-stitched layers of stout absorbable suture. You sew the muscle fascia back together with another suture, then sew the skin. And you are done."

Ahhh, a few minutes to myself as the 3 boyz sleep. I cut the heck out of my hair yesterday and I`m not sure about it. Here I am with my same old long stringy style I`ve had since high school. Tomorrow I`ll post a photo of my fierce new shorter do, except it looks nerdy to me. I don`t feel good unless my hair is long, and then it always looks too long & messy.

So,I`m using my time wisely, first I cleaned the kitchen & got the schoolboy`s gear in order. Then I sat down at the computer with a glass of wine and ordered cloth diaper stuff. Then I read almost the entire blog of a woman who lost a baby to a cord accident. The baby was a beautiful girl and I feel so much for her mother right now.
I can read that utterly painful blog and see where I`ve been, in the darkest part of grief, and then I see where I am now, in a wholly different place. Its very weird to think I could ever feel almost normal again. The loss is still permanent and I still sometimes think Alistair is here and then I remember he`s not. Although I`m changed, I can have fun and stay in the moment. Alistair really taught me a lot about staying in the present moment. What`s really weird is that Joaquin looks exactly like Alistair when he`s asleep. They have almost the same face, but I`m glad about it.