Sometimes you would swear Hayley doesn’t listen to a damn thing but in reality she hears everything we tell her and files it away for future reference. This morning she demonstrated the fact that she does in fact hear all our warnings about injury (which are discussed because of her desire to stand on things that are not meant for such a purpose, usually). She was trying to fix a decoration on top of the speaker in the living room and was reaching for it by standing on her dollhouse with one foot and her barn with the other, a precarious balancing act. So precarious that she knocked a decoration and candle holder to the floor because of her off-balance stance. I fixed it all up and got her out of that area.

Sherry: Don’t stand on your house or barn please – you could break them but even more important, you could fall and hurt yourself.
Hayley: Yes. And I will fall on the hard floor and smash my head and it will crack open and I’ll go to the hospital and sleep in the beds there and the doctor will have to sew me all up until I get better.
Sherry: Um, yeah. Something like that.

Glad she’s taking notes, I guess.

Today was an insane day. From 10 am onward, Breanna never slept for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time; she never had her big 2-3 hour nap that she really needs. Sometimes it was because Hayley woke her up and other times it was because I would settle her down and she’d do that jerking arm startle reflex and wake herself up (no matter how I swaddle her, she ALWAYS gets one or both arms out; I need a straight jacket for her!). On top of that, she’s smack dab in the middle of a growth spurt which means that there is not enough breast milk in the entire free world that will satisfy her for long.

Meanwhile, Hayley was in three-year-old glory, being defiant (if I hear NO one more time…) and throwing fits. There was a great deal of screaming (her) and hollering (me). It went on, no joke, all day long from her wake-up at 7 until she finally gave in to sleep at a little before 9 tonight.

On top of that, my stomach was still hurting me. And so this is the kind of conversation you end up having under those circumstances.

Sherry: Ow. Ow, ow, OW. Maybe I have ovarian cancer.
George: Don’t say that, that’s not true.
Sherry: Maybe I do and I’m going to die.
Breanna: Waaaah! Waaaah! (“Give me milk!”)
Hayley: Shriek shriek grumble scream yell.
George: ……. You’re going to leave me with these two kids?
Sherry: Hell, yes! I’m SO going first. I win!

There is a case of 12 beers sitting in our kitchen, which his dad brought over for unknown reasons. I threatened to have the whole thing wiped out by the end of the night. The only reason George didn’t take it with him for safekeeping when he left after supper was because he knows that I won’t drink this early in the breastfeeding relationship. But ahh, the temptation.

I typed about half of it one-handed while feeding the bumblebree but there’s a new entry up now.

Hayley has gotten into the princess thing lately, with a particularly big affection for Cinderella. She got dressed up in her dress and “glass slippers” today and told me she was Cinderella. I then said that since she has hair the same color as Cinderella and Breanna has dark hair, that her sister should be Princess Jasmine.

I said no one has red hair so no one can be Ariel but I have brown hair so I’d be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She agreed and then asked, “who is Daddy?”

“Daddy? Well I’m Belle. I guess Daddy has to be Beast.”

It took her awhile to stop giggling.

I’m wearing my first pair of pre-pregnancy jeans today. I have to wear a long shirt, mind you, but I’m just happy because I wore the same black maternity pants for two weeks straight because everything else was too big, too small, or pajamas. Even that one pair had become loose enough that I kept pulling them up yesterday.

To balance out that joy, I was dressed less than five minutes when I had to feed Breanna and I promptly leaked two gallons of breastmilk all over my shirt. Alas.

Breanna had her first check-up today. She was 8 lbs 5 oz at birth and dropped to 7 lbs 8 oz when we came home.

Miss Piggy is apparently a highly efficient nurser despite her tendency to doze off after only ten minutes – she weighed in at 9 lbs 8 oz today!

Everything is going really well, she shows no signs of a cold THANK GOD (George and Hayley are both sick with icky colds), and I was right in my opinion that her eyes are straight so no eye surgery like Hayley needed to have!

We go back in January for her and myself; it’s nice to no longer need to go in weekly.

Funniest picture I have taken of Bree thus far. Poor little girl was sound asleep at a birthday party so of course I slipped a big hat on her head for a photo op.

Hayley tried on the dress she’ll wear to see Santa. The hard part was getting it off and explaining it’s not a costume and so she can’t wear it all day (at least not until the pictures are done!).

Hayley’s “big sister” gift was a Cinderella princess costume with the dress, purse, ring, and “glass” slippers. She loves the glass slippers in a serious way. Our downstairs neighbors probably HATE the glass slippers.

I can’t believe how big she looks in this bouncy seat compared to Hayley at the same age. This seat rocks just because it allows me to pee in peace.

Anyone who has been a long-time reader has heard similar requests from me before and it’s that time again. George and our friend Perry are starting a production company and have a number of songs and snippets already done. They’ve put two of the full songs up online and would appreciate it if any of you could just take a quick listen to them and let us know what you think.

If you go to this site you’ll find two songs that you can stream. The song “If I Had” is sung by our friend Fil and “My Michelle” is sung by George.

Please take a few minutes to check them out. Also if anyone is interested in obtaining an actual copy of either song let me know as well. It would be most appreciated, thanks!

Just for the record, I haven’t actually dropped off the face of the planet. Granted, it’s certainly more difficult to find online time these days (I haven’t read a single one of my friends over on LJ in ages, for example), because I’m either taking care of Breanna, playing/doing crafts/entertaining Hayley, or trying to keep the apartment from looking like a post-apocalyptic site. It would be easier to throw a quick post up though, if my computer hadn’t decided to fry itself this week. I asked George to take a look at it but it’s so bad that it keeps freezing up, rebooting, or going to the Blue Screen of Death before he can get much repair work done. (I know, there’s a recent virus that causes rebooting but we checked that already and that’s not it – George knows what the problem is but just hasn’t been able to rectify it.)

Anyway, he’s going to set me up with something soon and in the meantime I’ve used his computer the past two nights once Hayley has gone to sleep and Breanna is having her first stretch of night time sleep. However, I’ve been so busy reading everyone’s weblogs in an effort to catch up that I haven’t written anything.

Everything is going well. Taking care of two kids is so much harder than taking care of one but we’re all slowly adjusting – we’ll see how I do tomorrow when George heads off to work. Oy. Hayley is getting used to being a big sister and even when she’s crabby about it, she sure loves that baby. Breanna has clearly been here before, and is a fairly quiet and easy baby to care for – partly because it’s her personality and probably partly because I’m just not as nervous this time around. Either way, she only cries when she’s super hungry and I’m not fast enough for her or when she’s hungry and I insist on *gasp* changing her diaper first.

Nothing exciting is new since I haven’t been out of the apartment since this time last week for our friends’ daughter’s third birthday party, though Hayley has gone out a couple of times with George. I’m starting to go a little stir crazy so I think it’s a good thing that we have Bree’s two-week check-up tomorrow morning just so I can go somewhere and see people. It’s also good since I can ask why my stitches are suddenly hurting more than they did the first week and I can find out if the horrible stomach ache I had last night (that was bad enough that I could barely walk and that has lingered somewhat into today) is unrelated to that pain. Post-partum healing is almost as insane as pregnancy itself.

And that’s that. Time for some lunch before Breanna wakes up from her normal 2- to 3-hour midday nap!