Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Falling in line

A stroke of bad luck, and a stroke of good luck, occurred simultaneously yesterday and overnight. First, the bad luck--we had a power outage that lasted for about 11 hours. Everything just went the heck out around 4:30 and didn't come back until after 3 am. We know--we were up. That meant no TV, no internet, and no functioning telephone, either. We don't even get mobile phone reception here. My dad does, since he has a different carrier through work, but the rest of us have AT&T, which works in the house only because we have a MicroCell, which goes through internet, which...requires electricity.

The kids were tense. The older ones, anyway. Ender didn't necessarily notice. I was encouraged to go upstairs and rest, but I didn't want to be by myself in the relative darkness, despite the fact that the older boys were tense and driving us a little batty. My father, who usually has an abundance of patience, was done done done after The Boy refused to go upstairs for his bath. Granted, I think he was taking his cue from me; I yelled at The Boy when I had no business doing so. Yelling at the children pretty much only happens when I am unable to step in and actually do something to correct them, be it providing an alternative, directing them to go somewhere, or figure out what it is that they are doing that they don't want to leave, so that I can monitor and have them agree to get moving once they're done. I respect their "busy" as much as I can so that it's less of a problem when I have to interrupt them, and so that they (eventually) respect mine. But with the lack of electricity and the house getting gradually warmer without much of anything to combat that, and the tension building and building, I just wasn't that smart. Nor did I really have the energy to get up. Remember, I just pushed out a person a few days ago. I'm supposed to be resting.

Fortunately, bedtime was early for everyone. Including Ender. And that's where the good luck comes in. He nursed a lot in the evening, just over and over again, which is definitely a good thing, and I wrapped him up and put him in his little bed (a co-sleeper bassinet that isn't yet in cosleeper mode but is still right next to our bed) at 9:45. He slept until 2 am. Seriously. That's awesome for the first night home! Even if he doesn't do it again for months, I really needed it last night.

I had been bugged over the course of the night by The Boy, who was in our bed because he was petrified of sleeping in the dark in his room. Remember, no electricity? He sleeps with a light on in his room but has no problem sleeping with someone else in the dark. I think a study showed that kids sleeping with lights on is bad for their vision, but the genetic odds are stacked against him anyway, as I am horrendously nearsighted and Musical Daddy has a cataract on one eye and astigmatism in the other. Anyhow, once Ender was up and feeding, The Boy and Musical Daddy were up soon after. We actually had quite a bit of fun talking quietly. We heard the trucks. Musical Daddy went to check it out, and then he brought The Boy down to see, too. He gave The Boy a glow stick, which was fun for him. He saw a guy in a cherrypicker and saw big trucks. Made his night, I'm sure. Then the power came back on, and we all went back to sleep. Until almost 7 AM, when Meatball, who likes to stay out of this sort of thing, was up for the morning. Another stroke of luck--while Meatball sleeps all night 90% of the time, I certainly don't want to take it for granted.

Today was nice, too. And I'm glad to say that Ender seems amenable to naps in his bed as well as naps in laps and naps on shoulders. He's nursing quite well. Our cousin, who is our dentist and has been for years, stopped by to assess his tongue. He says it doesn't look like a problem, but since he usually sees tongue tie in the context of older kids who have issues and never got it fixed, instead of in the context of babies and feeding, he might not see what Ender has as an issue. Maybe it isn't--he's doing much better, and I'm being really careful with his position and alignment. And wearing shells...if you know what those are, you love them.

Ender is asleep in his little bed; Grandma has the other two downstairs. Thankfully, as they get older, it becomes easier to handle them. Most of the time. And Ender already shows signs of just being able to get in the groove with the rest of us here.

Musical Daddy said something about there being seven people living in this house. It's still so new to me that it sounded strange. But that's what we have here. And three of them are little boys.

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