The week we've had.

Two days after we come home with the newest baby, Peanut comes down with a cold. This means she needs cuddling with mom at a time when mom's arms are full of nursing baby. A nursing baby we'd prefer did not come down with the cold. The cold that's transmitted by the goobers that seem to magically appear wherever the Peanut's been.

The newest baby gets the cold. Surprise. It starts out as a wet sniffle. Turns out it stays that way,but since we can't see the future we worry about her for a day or two.

Peanut hears "No!" more in 24 hours than she has in her whole life. We simply can't get to her quick enough to perform the negotiations and manuevers that smoothed her life before now. As a result, she throws more tantrums in 24 hours than she has in her whole life.

Boy, who is at his Grandmother's in North Carolina, hits his head. He gets a headache. Then he gets queasy. We sheepishly ask Grandma to take an evening out of her vacation and take him to the ER. She gets to play nurse- takes him to the ER, gets him scanned, wakes him up every three hours all night. Boy begins vomiting during the night. She has to take care of that too, of course, and then gets to take him back to the ER. He is concussed. Nothing horrible, no bleeding in the brain, but Simon and I are beside ourselves because Boy is hurting and WE CAN'T BE THERE! I can't stress how much that hurt us. I imagine it wasn't great for Boy either.

My n1pples fall off. OK, maybe not really, but it sure feels that way. I begin pumping on the side that's the worst off, and make so much milk that we end up feeding it to Peanut to help her get over her cold. I wonder what it means that I make enough milk for two children.

The new baby begins fussing whenever she should latch. Most likely this is because I'm now using n1pple shields. She just has to lump it, because the alternative at this point is formula. Seriously. The whole breast feeding thing deserves a post of its own, so I'll stop there.

On the good side, I manage to get both girls fed, diapered and napped all by myself today. It feels like I've won the Nobel prize. I'm very proud. I imagine it gets easier as you go...

Going to take a hard earned nap,
ephelba