All About DMER

When it comes to D-MER, there's a lot you can't see

During my second pregnancy, I had few to no worries about breastfeeding. I thought I'd been through it all with my twins. One perfect nurser, one vicious crocodile. I'd had clogged ducts and infections, I'd supplemented my preemies with both expressed milk and formula, I'd nursed exclusively for a few months, and they weaned themselves at almost ten months.

I might not have been the world's foremost breastfeeding expert, but I thought I had a handle on things.

Then came baby #3.

As the exhaustion of pregnancy wore off, and as I recovered from my second c-section, I simply couldn't get a handle on nursing. She was terrifying, she would root and latch poorly and then tear herself away, and in the first weeks I was a sobbing, hysterical wreck. But I reminded myself day after day, things would get better. They did with my little crocodile, after all.

Until, one night, it happened.

I was sitting on the armchair in the living room, watching my two and a half year old twins playing. The baby was in her swing. It was a perfect domestic scene.

And then it wasn't.

I felt hairs rise on the back of my arms, my shoulders hunched into my neck, my vision went flat and fuzzy. My heart pounded in my chest like I'd just run a marathon. I gasped for air, and the world seemed to funnel down into a tiny black spot before my eyes.

I screamed.

Then I felt the familiar clenching in my chest, my milk let down, and everything returned to normal.

My husband stared at me in shock. "What happened?"

"I think I just had a panic attack," I told him. I put my hand on my chest and felt my heart racing, and slowly returning to normal. "It's time to feed the baby."

The next day, it happened again. I was making breakfast for the twins, and a rushing sound filled my ears. I dropped my egg covered whisk onto the floor, and burst into tears.

For nearly a minute, the world spun. Then again, my milk let down, and the world came back into focus.

The third time it happened I thought I was ready for it. As the panic set in, I told myself, It's okay, this is only going to last a minute, in just a few seconds it'll be over... And it was. As quickly as the feeling came, it left. And I nursed the baby.

As the days passed, they came more and more frequently, until every single time my milk let down, it was preceded by a thirty to ninety second panic attack. I screamed, I sobbed, I collapsed on the floor. I couldn't control it. But I kept telling myself it was okay because they were so brief.

And each time, I began to fear that this time, this one, it would last forever.

I mentioned it to my doctor and he told me I must have PPD. I mentioned it to a lactation consultant, and she gaped at me blankly. I went to a La Leche League meeting, and while the women there sympathized, they had no idea what was happening to me. When I called a doula friend of mine, desperate for help after five months of near constant panic, she referred me to a website about something called "DMER."

Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex.

I read every word on the website, flooded with relief that I wasn't alone, that this was a real thing, a real problem, that I wasn't simply going crazy.

In general, women experience happy emotions when they're breastfeeding. The hormones that accompany the let down reflex cause feelings, connectivity and security and joy- euphoric sensations. But with DMER,  you get the opposite.

It was temporary. After the ejection, after the milk came in and the baby latched, the good feelings came too. I learned to connect with that feeling, to find it despite the exhaustion of ten to thirteen full fledged micro panic attacks each day.

It took the constant support of my friend the doula, my husband, and all my friends to keep me going. Each time I had a panic attack, my husband would bring me a glass of water and rub my shoulders and let me know it was okay.

I soldiered on through the DMER, and nursed my third child for just over ten months.

It was an incredibly difficult time, mostly because of how little awareness there is for the condition. It's terrifying and confusing to have such a wonderful thing, feeding your baby, cause your stomach to knot up in dread. Especially because once it's happening and the nursing is going well, everything is absolutely fine. It's just that tiny window, that one minute eternity.

Not all DMER is the same. Some women experience depression. For some women, it's a mild feeling of unease. But all of us deserve to know that what's happening is physical, that we are experiencing a real symptom of a real condition. You deserve the knowledge that there's nothing wrong with you, or with the bond between you and your new baby.

Make sure you family knows what's happening. They're support will keep you going. See your doctor, and ask them about your treatment options. The most important thing is education- just knowing what's going on with your body is half the battle to managing it.



For more information about D-MER, please visit d-mer.org.




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Public Breastfeeding Day

Public Breastfeeding- NBD.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend a public breastfeeding day of action.

I know, that sounds a little ridiculous. But here me out-

Women are shamed constantly for how they feed their babies. If they feed their babies formula, if they nurse, if they supplement, if they pump, if they use donated milk...

But, people as a whole love to eat. Really, nearly every single person in the world enjoys filling up their belly with delicious food. I don't think I've ever met anybody who didn't love a good meal.

If you put the two of those things together, you get a very skewed picture of womanhood and babyhood. It's a picture that says, first of all, that our society is only okay with SOME people eating (which is a line I'm sure everyone in congress abolishing food stamps can get behind), and that breast milk isn't food.

Many American adults look at a woman breastfeeding in public the way Jonathan Ke Quan looked at the dinner in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.



And yes, it looks just as ridiculous on them as it does on a melodramatic kid.

Breast milk is food. And it's not just food for an obscure culture, we're not talking about American's aversion to eating cats or dogs or nutria. With very few exceptions every baby, all over the world, eats breast milk. Given the opportunity, of course.

She would be mortified if you saw her ankle

(That said- there's nothing wrong with choosing to formula feed your baby either. Just so long as you're not doing it with cholera tainted water or anything.)

So, do we need a day of action for breastfeeding?

Yes, we do.

Because new mothers all over the United States have a big problem- and it's isolation. I've written a lot about the isolation of new motherhood, and this is a huge part of it. When you feed your baby breastmilk, with your breasts (stop clutching your pearls already), it can be daunting to leave the house. Wherever you go, will you be able to feed your hungry baby? It matters, it matters a lot, and normalizing breastfeeding in public is important.

We've only recently forgotten, as a culture, how normal breastfeeding is. Think back to one of the stuffiest times in human history, as far as ideals of propriety and social correctness are concerned. Let's say, Victorian England.

Did you know that breastfeeding photos were a huge fad back then? Really.

Breastfeeding was pretty huge throughout all of human history. Because without it, babies died, pure and simple.

But here we are, post-Puritans, post-sexual revolution, and we've got the worst of both when it comes to breastfeeding. A cultural repulsion to seeing skin, paired the inability to see it as anything other than sexual.

Nursing Madonna-16th Century
Really, I think that somebody would have
been burned at the stake for painting
this if breast milk was like urine.

People compare breast milk to urine, or even semen. They say it's "gross," or inappropriate. And new mothers, already overwhelmed by the stunning responsibility of caring for a new, entirely helpless person, face ostracism for fulfilling that tiny person's most fundamental need. It's a horrific Catch 22.

So The Bump is stepping up. They've begun an annual breastfeeding event, a public nurse in, if you will. It's not so much an act of protest as it is an act of outreach.

The Bump is pairing with local businesses across the country that support breastfeeding to offer women a safe public space. In Chicago, a fabulous shop called Urbababy hosted a breastfeeding event, and The Bump brought in sponsors- like Boppy- to give away nursing aids to the women who came.

One of the most important things we can do for women who want to nurse is provide them with
education, and The Bump is on it. Every few Tuesdays they have guest lactation consultants on their website to answer breastfeeding questions.

It's a wonderful resource.

The other most important thing we can do for new mothers is support their feeding choices- whatever they might be. And that means that when you see a lady with her boob in a baby's mouth (or even, gasp, a toddler's!), you don't scowl at her. You don't leer. You don't tell her to cover up, or ask her to stop, or tell her she's "bothering people."

You either look the other way, or go get yourself a sandwich.

Because a full belly generally means a better attitude.

It's something you and the baby can both agree on.

Things- They Happen

That is one big prehistoric fish.

As you may or may not be aware, I set myself a goal for when my manuscript would be "done." I don't mean DONE with all caps, I mean done enough. You know, enough for me to be confident moving forward.

That deadline? It's tomorrow.

And you know what? It ain't happening. I am SO CLOSE, close enough that I can say Monday with certainty. But end of the day tomorrow?

No way, Jose.

But why?

I'll tell you- some super exciting developments have come up. I dedicated a whole day to a pretty intense interview for a literary site.

Let's do the "Columbus"

I spent most of today at The Bump's Public Display of Breastfeeding Day (yes, there is a whole post coming on that tomorrow).

Everybody lactate!

I took my kids to the Field Museum. Tomorrow I'm taking them on a boat tour. And then I'm taking my loaner teenager to the airport and bidding her farewell.

And yet, somehow, the book is closer and closer to done.

So never you fret, friends and loved ones. Things are looking good.

Riding the great majestic Daddysaurous

I therefore leave you for the moment with this wonderful image- DD has decided that for Halloween she wants to be half Batman, half Robin.

Should be fun.

For Mother's Day I Got Deep Tissue Bruising and Crushing Guilt

RH investigating the properties of grass

I woke up yesterday morning with dread in a lump in my chest. RH had woken up four hours earlier, had refused to nurse for the third morning running, and gone back to sleep.

It's always a bittersweet thing when your baby stops nursing. And she was holding true to form- her sudden decision to give up the breast cold turkey is precisely what her sisters did as well. But her timing couldn't have been worse. Because on this day that she woke up four hours before her routine dictates, she wasn't allowed to have any other foods. She was going to the hospital to get an MRI. More than that, she was going to be put under general anesthesia, have a half dozen blood draws, and spend an hour and a half lying unconscious in the cold, surrounded by strange noises and people.

To say I was anxious would be putting it mildly.

My happy girl

As I was getting ready to leave the house, the phone rang. It was the imaging center at the children's hospital, and they were running early. If I hurried, I could get RH's MRI over with more quickly, so hurry I did.

As I was snapping her into her car seat, I was hit by a car.

No, this is not a joke. (And no, this wasn't a repeat offender.)

Our block is home to a whopping three churches, and frequently we find ourselves coping with the incredibly thoughtless drivers coming for services0.. I can't tell you the number of times I've actually rolled down my window and asked the single adults parked in front of my house if they wouldn't mind moving so that I could carry my twin infants and two bags of groceries into the house, to be completely ignored. But the worst cases are situations like yesterday.

I'm pretty sure there was a funeral, and whoever it was trying to park in front of my house had discovered a long-lost friend or relative in another car parking across the street from my house. She was idling her SUV inches away from the passenger side of my car- making it impossible for me to get inside. I managed to gesture her away, but as I was buckling RH into her seat, suddenly I was pummeled under the arm by what I assumed must have been a two by four. A quick glimpse around after picking myself up showed clearly that the lady driving had taken her foot off the brake while she gabbed out her window with the woman across the street.

I had a moment's hesitation. Do I give this lady a HUGE piece of my mind for just hitting me with her car? Or do I suck it up and hurry to the hospital to get the MRI over with. I gritted my teeth, promised myself I'd leave a very strongly worded note if she was still there when I got back, and off we went.

RH, despite not having eaten in over 24 hours, was a delight. She smiled and cooed and babbled for the nurses, and the anesthesiologists, and strangers in the hospital elevator. And after weighing her and measuring her and squeezing her more more tightly than she probably enjoyed, I handed her to the nurses, and allowed myself to be led to the waiting room.

Sink bath!

It's amazing. Every MRI waiting room is essentially the same. They have the same fundamental feel to them- it's just a matter of what color the chairs are, or whether or not there's a cup of tea handy. As I've done dozens of times, I picked a seat, and I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited.

I watched other parents come and go. I watched brothers and sisters come and go. I watched the same two nurses come... and go. Over and over again.  And I read a book, and I watched the clock, and I waited some more.

And finally, the nurse called my cell phone. She didn't want to come and get me because RH was crying so hard, and she felt bad passing her off again.

By the time I reached her, I could hardly contain myself.

It's incredible- no matter how much you know, fundamentally, that your child is fine... that there is nothing wrong that a few minutes of calm won't fix, the gut-wrenching pain of seeing your child so hurt and confused and upset and being utterly helpless to stop it is one of the absolute worst feelings in the world.

I wept. I tried to nurse her, to comfort her in that way. She attempted for about two minutes and then only screamed louder. I dug through the diaper bag and realized that in my haste I had left her favorite lovey sitting on my bed. I sang to her, she only cried more.

Such a tolerant little thing.

Every few moments I would find another little bruise or cut. She'd had blood drawn from both elbows, from one hand, her IV was still in place on her foot, which was taped to a board to keep it still. He chest was covered with adhesive. Her face was red and irritated from the bandages they'd taped onto her eyes from drying out in the MRI. She had bruising on one cheek, I still don't exactly know from what. She had a rasping cough from the ventilator. She was wrapped in pre-warmed blankets, but she was cold, and essentially naked.

Each time they removed another bandage, another bout of screaming would begin.

She cried like she's never cried before. I cried like I haven't cried in months.

And eventually, she came around.  Eventually, she let me get her dressed and take her home. I was relieved to see that the lady who hit me was gone, and I could just forget it ever happened. Suddenly I realized how long it had been since I'd eaten, that it had been five hours since I left the house. I crawled into bed, feeling hungry and exhausted and miserable. And inexpressibly guilty.

I know it was the right thing to do. Her particular combination of delays and her family history are cause enough for concern, and I would rather know and be able to do something than find out when it's too late.

But I still feel like a terrible human being to put such a sweet little baby through such an ordeal.

Such a happy baby

I know she'll have forgotten all about it in a week. I know she won't harbor any long term resentment towards me for this.

I know she won't because I remember being very, very, very small, and my mother handing me off for a medical test I found terrifying.

I don't blame her.

But right now, I don't know how easy it's going to be to live with myself.

A Happy Mother's Day to all of you- may it be free of guilt and car-related injuries.

Have a great weekend!

Review: Prenatal Oxylent

As you probably remember, I suffered some really horrific PPD after RH came into the world.

I have all sorts of theories of how it got started. It could have been the full blown panic attack I had during the c-section. It could have been the insane difficulty of establishing nursing. It could have been that my recovery from that c-section was HORRIBLE in no uncertain terms. It could have been that I felt fat and awful about myself for so long after the delivery that I forgot how to not feel awful about myself. It could have been that M and I were fighting.

It could have been plain ol' hormones messing up my life.

Whatever it was, I got out of it. Thank God. But how?

Some months ago (I'm a terrible, terrible choice of spokesperson), I agreed to review a prenatal vitamin supplement. Oxylent.

And as I was doing the bare minimum to take care of myself, I didn't try it. And I didn't try it. And I didn't try it.

And then, Ani Difranco reminded me that I chose my life, and I should be happy with it, and try to just do myself a favor and chin up. (I'm paraphrasing, of course.)

So I started taking my vitamins.

And you know what? I started feeling a million times better.

Not only did I feel SO MUCH HEALTHIER with the energy that comes with healthy B vitamin absorption, not only did I feel SO MUCH HAPPIER without the constant minor health symptoms that come when you don't ingest any vitamin C or zinc, suddenly, I was a hell of a lot more hydrated.

You see, unlike most gross vitamin pills that I would never in a million years use regularly, Oxylent is is a powder that you mix into a glass of water.

You know, like Airborne or EmergenC. Only it's actually a multivitamin. A prenatal mutlivitamin, no less.

I had a hell of a time finding a prenatal multivitamin. In fact, I never did. I only used quadruple doses of gummy vitamins, because the fish oil made me so sick. But Oxylent doesn't have fish oil! And prenatal vitamins are still ideal to use when you're nursing.

And so, suddenly I was having a much better time. I was drinking at least two glasses of water a day, I was ingesting all these good vitamins, and I felt like a million bucks. Well, at least like a crisp new $20 bill.

Really, it helped me get my life back on track. I felt like a lump of a human being. A useless, hopeless, miserable lump. And with regular hydration and vitamins, I felt like a lumpy person, and then just pretty much like a person.

I'm not saying that vitamins can cure depression. But I am saying that physical health and mental health are related. If you're going to take care of your physical needs, your emotional needs will become less onerous. At least you're a healthy body containing them, right?

So I totally recommend Oxylent. It's surprisingly delicious, sugar free, and makes water easier to chug when you're chasing two preschoolers with an arm full of baby.

Prenatal Oxylent: it has the Becoming SuperMommy seal of approval.

Don't Cry

RH

The thing about depression is that it's only invisible when you're outside of it.  When you're inside the depression bubble, it's more than visible- it's tangible.  It's a cloying, noxious cloud of mud.

Everything that you see, you're seeing through that depression.

I know, because I have a lot of experience with it.  I was seriously depressed from the time I was eight until I was in my twenties.  I also didn't sleep.  I began contemplating suicide at eight and a half.  I tried once, at fourteen.  Nearly succeeded, too.

Depression?  It comes in a million different flavors, and they are not mutually exclusive.

So when I realized that I had been feeling depressed- truly, genuinely, severely depressed- I did my best to explain it away.  To come up with reasons that I wasn't depressed, I was just... something-else-not-nearly-so-bad.

And I had lots of convenient scapegoats.  The best of which was a little something called D-MER.

D-MER is, for me anyway, a pretty severe problem I'm experiencing but had never heard of until recently.  That acronym stands for "Disphoric Milk Ejection Reflex."

Basically, every time I'm about to have a let-down, I have a panic attack.  A crying, panting, sweating, freaking-out panic attack.

Every. single. time.

And, as other nursing mothers of three months old know, that means that I'm having all-out panic attacks as often as ten or twelve times a day.

They're blessedly brief, all things considered, but it's made life more than a bit hellish.  Every few hours, a panic attack.  And then the adrenaline rush wears off, and I'm exhausted.  Or antsy.  Or both.

I coped with it pretty well for about six weeks.  And then, the depression kicked in.

I have a confession to make.  It was so bad, one of those dancing videos I put up?  I edited out a bit where I stopped dancing with my daughters to just sit down and weep.

It was awful.  Their concern, their fear, their sadness, that all made it worse.  But when they would ignore my crying and go about their business, that just made it worse too.

I felt constantly judged but other mothers.  By comments about how being a mom is the greatest job in the world, about how lucky we mothers are, about how we chose to have children, about how some women would give anything to be in our shoes.  I was overwhelmed by guilt at feeling so completely trapped, and I did feel trapped.

I found myself thinking awful things, I realized how close I was to actually considering (not causing, but considering) some sort of self inflicted harm.

And I know that this is probably going to sound totally implausible, but I'm doing much better now.  You know, one week later.

I can tell you what shook me out of it, too.  It was Ani Difranco.  At her show, she sang "Joyful Girl," and it was like I heard the lyrics for the very first time.  Or like she was actually talking directly to me.  In the song, she's talking to her reflection in the mirror, and says, "Would you prefer the easy way? No, well okay then, don't cry."

How can I have been listening to that song for more than fifteen years without really hearing that one line?  Those last two words?  I swear, I had never heard Ani sing those last two words to me before.  And for some reason, it worked.

The fact of the matter is, life is hard.  And parenthood is hard.

And you know what?  Parenthood isn't what you expect it to be.  And life isn't what you expect it to be.

I always knew I wanted to be a mom.  I always knew I wanted to have children.  But in my head, they were always... older.  Between three and eight.  Those magic years when they're still so young that much of the world is an amazing place, but old enough that you can talk to them about it.

And children don't emerge from the womb ready to play make-believe and visit the zoo.

When I was pregnant with the twins, I prepared myself for what I thought would be six months of purgatory. Six months of wee little babies.  And I wasn't particularly fond of babies.  But I was pleasantly surprised- I actually enjoyed them as babies.  I actually enjoyed cleaning all the poo and nursing and rocking them to sleep.

And now they've reached that stage, that dream age I always wanted my children to be, and they are every bit as wonderful as I could have hoped.  But I wasn't happy.

And here I was, with another baby.  An amazing baby.  Big, healthy, and easy.  Good lord is that kid easy.  She'll just lay swaddled under her mobile, smiling at the little owls, and put herself to sleep.

I'd watch my incredibly wonderful children playing together, and I'd feel an intense sadness.  A hurt so strong, and so deep, it was a physical pain.

I was depressed.  And, for now, I've sort of snapped out of it.

I'm still not back at 100%, but I'm finding joy in my day to day again.  I'm not just dragging myself from chore to chore, I'm making priorities and actually enjoying myself.  Pretty much every day.

Just like that, one day I woke up ready to crawl into a hole and never again.

And last week I woke up, ready to try to be me again.

Depression is awful.  Depression hurts, even physically.  It's something nearly impossible to explain.

But it does get better.  Knowing that I survived depression, once upon a time, helped me get through this bout.  Knowing that I've been through this, or something like it, before... it's not so much a comfort as it is a promise.

I know it's going to come back.  It always comes back.  I know I'll find myself weeping openly into unmatched socks, just wishing I wasn't so dreadfully alone.

But I did something really important, something new.  I saw that I was depressed, and I acknowledged it.  I let it be visible- I let my friends and my husband and my children know.  I didn't hide it.

Depression is like an abusive boyfriend, keeping you from your friends, and telling you that you need it.  And once it gets its claws in you like that...

I didn't let my depression become my secret addiction.  Not this time.

This time, I listened to Ani.

My loves

I didn't want my life to be easy, but what I wanted wasn't real.  What I wanted was a fantasy that only existed in my mind.  A fantasy where I played with my littles, and where I lived in the woods, and my life was totally impossible.

And the thing is, I knew that.  Of course I knew that.  But the desire to start a family is about more than wanting your genes to carry on, or wanting family pictures on the wall.

It's about moments.  Moments where your life is utterly full to the brim of meaning.  Where every little action seems to matter, but not to be full of dire consequence.

Moments like today, when I snuggled up with my three daughters on the bed and read No Roses for Harry.

I'm not better yet.  But I'm getting there.

Today was a good day.  Yesterday was a good day.

I'm pretty optimistic about tomorrow.

A Day in the Life of Yours Truly

You're about to witness this... and more!

I realized that I haven't done a Day in the Life post in... years!  Can you believe I've been a parent long enough that "years" can actual describe a span of time within my parenthood experience?

Anyway... here you go- from dawn until well after dusk, yesterday.  So now you will know all about the insanity in which I live.

I slept late.  Perhaps this was because I hate mornings, or perhaps this was because the previous day's fast had given me a raging migraine, which I had treated with ample quantities of codeine before bed.  In either case, the moment M left for work, all three children woke up simultaneously.  It was like magic.  I crammed a marzipan banana into my face (if it's candy that LOOKS like fruit, it's pretty much fruit, right?) and went off to collect my children from their beds.

As RH seemed content to look at her mobile (based on her happy coos over the monitor), I started with the big girls.

RH was happy all right.  She watched her big sisters trash her room while I made their breakfast- green eggs.

While the girls *allegedly* ate their eggs, I made their lunches for school.  RH let me know that she was done cooperating, and it was time for her to eat too.

I took her into the living room to feed her, while the girls *allegedly* ate their eggs.  DD came into the room, and announced that she had finished.  When I told her to bring me her empty plate, she returned to her chair to finish her meal.  SI then came running, insisting that she had finished her meal.  Smelling the freshest bullshit, I sent her back to finish her eggs, warning her that little girls who don't eat breakfast don't get to go to school.  I finished feeding RH.

Surprise, surprise, SI had NOT eaten her eggs.  Thereafter followed a bout of shouting and threats not to take her to school, while DD got cleaned up (having finished her delicious eggs like a rock star) and picked out her clothes.  SI got dressed in a hectic rush, and as per usual, we didn't get out of the houes until the children were already supposed to be at school.  Which SI got to go to anyway.  Because I'm a softie.

The girls' school is near the synagogue, so I took the opportunity to stop in and learn about the Sukkot happenings this year.  My children, as usual, went running into their preschool classroom and didn't look back at me once.  I enjoy this every bit as much as I thought I would.

In her typical fashion, RH spent the time in the car spitting up stuff that looked like curdled cheese.  First order of business when we got home, a change of clothes for her.

My first form of sustenance after my marzipan banana.  And, I believe, a full third of all the liquid I imbibed during this day.  I'm terrible at adulthood.  While I drank my juice, I pounded out a few hundred words about Mitt Romney.

After my daily blogging-for-pay, I fed the baby again.  I've been in the process of putting the nursery together for the last month, and it's finally getting close to done.  Only two things left, and then you'll even get a blog post about them!  At any rate, this is probably my new favorite spot in the house.

RH nursed herself to sleep, and I put her in her crib to enjoy the rarest of mommy pleasures...

That's right, bitches.  I got to take a SHOWER.  What you may not know about mothering preschoolers is, if you wish to take a shower while they are home and awake, you are actually going to perform "The Shower Show."  I do not like performing The Shower Show.  Too many questions asked of the performer.  After my shower, I changed shirts (accidentally dropped the old one in what appeared to be a small puddle of toddler urine- oops) and then did laundry.  For a whole hour.

My first *real* food of the day.  Breakfast links and raisin bread.  I'm counting it as a meal.

While eating, I read some blog posts.

After reading about all sorts of sad and happy things and scarfing down my "meal," I woke up RH, put her back in her car seat, and went to collect her sisters.

They spent the entire drive home telling me about a boy in their class.  That happened fast.  After getting home, I put away clean diapers, and SI pooped in the potty!  She got a neminem!

It being snack time, DD had an epic meltdown, caused by my insistence that she put RH's weeble-wobbles back in their drawer.  She hid in the corner behind the glider clutching them to her chest and weeping long enough for me to collect the camera from the bathroom, laugh at her uproariously, and snap this picture.  For our snack, we had Cheerios on the couch, while watching cartoons.

Well, SI and DD had Cheerios, anyway.

During the cartoons, I took care of a pointy little problem.

RH fell asleep, so I put on something else, set her in her swing...

And reaped my reward.

...and then I did more laundry.

The girls played dressups with my shoes, and colored on some paper while I folded and whatnot...

...and then RH woke up.  So we cleaned the room for a dance party!

DANCE PARTY!

Then I took some phone calls...

...lots of phone calls.  SI's speech therapist, LifeSouce, the receptionist at my doctor's office, the girls' pediatrician confirming an appointment, several junk calls, a pollster, and a neighbor.

After that, it was tummy time.  RH almost rolled over!  She was SO CLOSE!

Then we Skyped with Grandma.  And RH ate some more.  And DD and SI wreaked havoc in the living room

But then DD peed on the floor, so... you know... not her best moment.

I did dishes and made dinner for the girls while they played in RH's room.  That is to say, while they completely and utterly trashed RH's room with a combination of "Baseball" and "Five Little Monkeys," which they learned in school.

Dinner!

After dinner, the girls trashed the living room.

...while RH ate again.

A Cease Fire rally went by right down our street, which was a source of much fascination.

And then it was bedtime!  I didn't take a lot of pictures of this, as I didn't want to add any more excitement to the routine than was necessary.  But we read "The Three Kings" and "The Little Fur Family."  And then my littles crawled into their beds, and passed the eff out.

Then I ate some fudge.  I felt I'd earned it.

...and then I made a hotdish for dinner.  Because all I'd eaten had been breakfast links and raisin bread and a s'more and a marzipan banana, and I was too tired to bother cooking something complicated.  Plus, no clue when M would come home.  He was working up to a deadline, and has been putting in tons of overtime.

While dinner cooked, I put RH in her pajamas...

...and then both of us ate.

...and I caught up on some Words With Friends.

...and had some more fudge.

Joy of joys, my husband returned!  Just as he managed to leave the house the moment the children gained consciousness for the day, he managed to arrive mere moments after I had assured myself that they were all asleep.  How does he do that?

We watched some Daily Show...

I sorted out gifts arriving for the impending THIRD BIRTHDAY...

We learned some sad news that M had been following religiously...

And then we got ready to go to bed.

My exhausted husband...

We exhausted parents...

Let's do it again tomorrow.