I choose favorites.

I've never been very good at small talk, but I've managed to figure out over the years that asking "what's your favorite ____?" is a common way to engage someone in conversation. During my attempts at socialization, I've learned that not all "favorite" questions are created equally...

Some of them lead to an inevitable dead end:

Me: "What's your favorite color?"
Other Human: "Pink."
Me: "Cool."
Other Human: "What's yours?"
Me: "Purple."
Other Human: "Neat. I wonder what those people over there are talking about."

Others lead to incredibly deep discussions and lifelong friendships:

Me: "What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?"
Other Human: "Mint chocolate chip."
Me: "Mine, too!"
Other Human: "OMG!! We are, like, TWINS!" [It's amazing how excited some people will get when they find out you have a favorite something in common.]
Me: "Crazy. What do you think about mint chocolate chip ice cream that isn't green?"
Other Human: "I like it as long as the mint tastes good. Some mint chocolate chip ice creams taste super fake... I've actually found that the bright green ones are usually the worst."
Me: "We ARE twins!! Let's be best friends forever!"

And then there are those which summon immediate rejection:

Me: "Which one of your kids is your favorite?"
Other Human: [walks away]
Me: I guess she didn't hear me.

I have a favorite offspring. If you've spent more than ten minutes seconds with me in the past eight months, you probably know which one it is.

But, before anyone judges me as a horrible mother, let me explain: I have a current favorite child. The title could be stripped away and rewarded to the other less emotionally exhausting girl at any given tantrum. Besides, Addison held the title of favorite child for a good two years and nine months before Montgomerie came along. It was about time she stepped down from the throne, right? ... Okay, I digress. My justifications are no good; go ahead and judge me.

What I really mean though, is that I have a favorite age/stage. Allow me to describe what my children are like from birth - 3.5 years (since that's all I've experienced so far) to help you can gain a better understanding of my favoritism. Please note that these ages/stages are not universal as some babies start walking right out of the womb (I'm looking at you, Pennie Bowlin).

THE AGES/STAGES OF ADDISON AND MONTGOMERIE BROWN*:

0-3 months: Not sleeping through the night. Enough said.
3-6 months: With the need for constant attention, but the attention span of a goldfish, trying to keep a baby entertained at this age becomes utterly exhausting after approximately four seconds. They also still take naps three times a day, but are no longer able to sleep well on the go, making it impossible to leave the house. Ever.
6-9 months: This is where the stars align, my friends! Montgomerie is ready to explore the world beyond Mommy, but she is too fat to do anything about it. She just sits there on the floor, contentedly examining the tastes and textures of her toys as they are handed to her by Big Sis. As long as her belly is full and diaper is dry, she is good to go (or stay, rather). She also still sleeps as much as a newborn, but condenses it down to the nighttime and two long, glorious naps. She will eat anything I give her and her little personality is really starting to show now.
9-12 months: With the onset of crawling, eyes must be glued on the baby at all times to make sure she doesn't try to eat a small rock that my husband, cat, or 3-year old left in the middle of the hallway. FOMO kicks in about this time and the baby starts rejecting that second nap, which means I have to give up mine as well.
12-15 months: The baby is walking now. Which is even faster than crawling.
15 months - 2: The sweet, innocent baby is no longer a baby at all. All signs point to toddler; most of them are warning signs.
2 years: She can't quite communicate her needs clearly, which leads to frustration and tantrums. Also, potty training.
3 years: The terrible twos have grown into the terrifying threes. Now, Addison can communicate clearly, but chooses not to, which leads to even more frustration and tantrums...mostly by me. Her little personality isn't so little anymore. She has suddenly become the pickiest eater on the face of the planet (the only food groups she will eat from are fat and sugar). FOMO is now in full force and she refuses to sleep. Ever.

*This chart is not exhaustive. I could probably think of at least one good thing that is unique to each age/stage if I tried really hard. Feel free to challenge me sometime :-)

Don't be fooled by her big smile. There is no happiness.

She will be three one day. I think she's doing an evil laugh.

 
    

My children have rolls, but they can't roll over.

Addison rolled over from her back to her front for the first time when she was three years old. That's right. It happened a couple of months ago when I suggested she show her baby sister how to do it. As I watched her awkwardly contort her body during what should have been a relatively smooth process, I finally figured out why she is the worst somersault-er out of every kid her age: she never learned how to roll over!

Memories of Addison sleeping on her belly at night flooded into my mind as I desperately tried to convince myself that my three year old had rolled over before. She always lies on her back at bedtime, and did so for the remainder of the night until she was well over one. Even then, I only ever saw her roll onto her side. If she was on her belly, her head was almost always at the opposite end of the bed, as though she had sat up in the middle of the night and just fallen forward. Now that she is in a toddler bed, she just climbs in on all fours and then plops to her belly. No rolling over necessary.

She even learned to crawl from a sitting position. She started out just scooting around the room on her butt. At first, it seemed like she was just wiggling and kicking her feet while remaining in place, but after several minutes I would realize that she was suddenly playing with a toy previously out of her reach. Eventually, she leaned forward and started moving on all fours.

Montgomerie (she's over seven months old now) also cannot roll over. She rolled over from her front to her back a couple of times a while back, but was frightened by the experience and refused to even be put on her stomach for several weeks after that. Now she is fine on her belly for awhile, usually as long as she has a toy. But move that toy just out of her reach and she goes into ab workout mode, stretching her arms out to the sides like a bird and kicking her feet like she's swimming...

you're not going anywhere, buddy!

Occasionally, she will stop struggling for a moment and look over at the toy to see if she's progressed at all (she hasn't). Or if she realizes you are taking her picture, she might stop to flash you a smile...

Then when she finally realizes that she isn't moving, she just buries her face in the floor and cries.

And if you lie her on her back, the sweet girl is perfectly content to just suck on her toes. It appears there is not much hope for Montgomerie's future somersault abilities either. I guess I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that my children have rolls, but they can't roll over.

So just in case either child ever wishes to have a career in gymnastics, I have come up with a list of things (other than my poor parenting) for her to blame when she fails miserably:

1. The boppy pillow. My girls loved snuggling in their boppy pillow and I appreciated that it did not aid in the flattening of their sensitive heads, which would occur if they were lying on the hard floor instead. However, the sweet boppy always wrapped its loving arms around my girls and held them tightly in place, preventing them from ever learning how to roll over.

2. The jumper. Jumpers are good babysitters. Want to take a nap? Stick the baby in the jumper. Want to take a shower? Stick the baby in the jumper. Want your baby to learn how to roll over? Well, she's not going to learn if she's in a jumper all day!

3. Sleeping through the night. Most babies sleep longer/better on their bellies, which is not considered safe until said baby is able to roll over into that position on her own. But when you're spending unusual amounts of time talking to your doctor (or searching the internet) to see if your child is sleeping too much, the motivation to teach your child to roll over is found lacking.

But hopefully they will both be more interested in something that's cooler than gymnastics. Like swimming marching band!

Montgomerie's Birth Story (Part 3)

In case you missed them...
[Intro]
[Part 1]
[Part 2]

Even though I was already feeling pressure, the doctor checked me right after I got the epidural and said I was still only about 5cm dilated. I was clueless as to why this labor was so incredibly painful, but would soon find out...

Meanwhile, Gummie got a fun case of the hiccups. I could feel them even with the epidural and Mike and the nurse could hear them on the fetal monitor. It was uncomfortable, but pretty cute, and helped me to relax as I took it to mean that she was going about her business just fine, despite the awkward adventure down the birth canal.

About two hours after receiving the epidural (5:45pm), I was feeling constant pressure and decided to page the nurse. Ten minutes later, it was still just Mike and me in the room and I was feeling LOTS of pressure. We were both getting a teensy bit nervous. So I paged again.

At 6:00pm, the doctor showed up, checked my progress, and said, "time to have a baby!" She asked me if I could wait 10 minutes, which I said I could, and then she disappeared. 15 minutes later, we were still alone and I was dying to push. We were both getting a bit nervous again. Thankfully, the doctor and nurse returned then and we were able to get things started.

Well, I started pushing, and nothing really seemed to happen. After a couple of rounds of pushing, I got the vibe that something wasn't quite right. The doctor kept digging around inside of me (not fun, in case you were wondering) and finally let me know what was up: the baby's face.

I had recently had a talk with one of my good friends about this phenomenon, so I wasn't completely in the dark. The conversation replayed in my mind as I waited for the next contraction...

There in that hospital bed, I vowed to take any/all advice from my hippie friends seriously from that moment forward. If you've been wondering why my family suddenly only eats organic food or why we have decided to go no 'poo, there is your answer.

I can now vouch that labor is really painful when a baby goes through the birth canal face up. And I was finally beginning to understand why I was feeling so much pain/pressure so early on in this whole process.

Anyway, I continued to push during each contraction and my nurse continued to express more and more urgency in her voice and face each time we started a new round. She was definitely making me nervous. Despite paging an unusual number of people, my doctor stayed calm and smiley and encouraged me to keep pushing. I tried to focus on her demeanor, which was much more relaxing and positive than the nurse's.

Meanwhile, Mike was pulling a Casper on me. Apparently he had also picked up on the nurse's concern and the unusual amount of people now in our room. "I need to sit down," he says. One lady took a look at his colorless face and said, "you better lie down, because I am not taking care of you if you pass out!" Poor guy.

After a bit more pushing, I felt like some progress was actually being made. But, the intensity of the nurse and the random lady who yelled at Mike heightened, so I guessed the progress was putting even more stress on the baby. I was worried, but my doctor still seemed confident. She gave me an episiotomy (I won't explain this word... if you don't already know what it means, you don't want to know) and the baby was out of there after a couple more rounds of pushing, at 6:36pm. Whew!

I heard Montgomerie's sweet cry and breathed a sigh of relief as a couple of the people standing by (I'm assuming the others were in case I needed an emergency C-section) took her to the baby tanning bed to assess her. Aside from a bit of bruising on the forehead, she was healthy as could be! I was exhausted, but I was also elated. My first three thoughts were:

1. Holy hair!
2. Look at those chubby cheeks!!
3. I need a nap.

It took me awhile to actually hold her because I was feeling weak and kind of shaky, but I didn't want to let go once I did (metaphorically speaking, that is - I gave her right back to Mike for fear my arms would give out or I would fall asleep and drop her).

After all of the immediate postpartum stuff was taken care of (I don't think anybody wants to read about that, right?), we were transferred to our postpartum room, where I would recover for five freaking days. That's another story though.

All in all, I'd say our plan of having no plan went according to plan: we gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl! And here are her sweet hospital photos to prove it: