Life as a Mom of Two

I have a lot of friends who are pregnant with their second babies, and the question they all have for me is, "What is it like having two kids?" Well, ladies, I'll be honest with you... It's hard. As you can see, being a mom (at least a NEW mom) of two ain't pretty. I've been so busy that I've actually let Benjamin pick out his own outfits a few times. Here's one gem:

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As hard as my new life is, though, I will say that going from one kid to two is a bajillion times easier than going from zero kids to one. When you go from being a non-parent to a parent, your entire lifestyle changes. Not so when the second kid comes along, because you've already been broken in. The analogy I gave one mom friend who's contemplating whether or not to have number two is that having a kid for the first time is like changing jobs. Having a second kid is like getting a little promotion with added responsibilities. But without the extra pay. So I guess it's less like getting a promotion and more like just having a really sh*tty job.
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Being a dad of two comes with its challenges, too. I try to remind myself that although his day job doesn't involve being vomited and crapped on, Vince still does have one with its own challenges and responsibilities. So when he's home and wants to take a break by playing computer games or surfing Facebook, I'm more than happy to let him -as long as he tries his best to multitask like I do when I'm the only one home with the kids. For the most part, he's able to figure out a solution that makes everyone happy.

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Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way.

Hao Gong's Little Buddy

For the two weeks Calliope was in the hospital, I was a ghost at home. I returned to shower and sleep, but I spent a good chunk of each day in the NICU. As a result, I barely saw Benjamin. This would have worried me, but he didn't miss me at all, because he'd found a new best friend: Hao Gong.
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My dad was able to stay with us for only two weeks, but in that period of time, he and Benjamin became best buds. It got to the point where Benjamin would wake up in the morning, and when Vince or I went in to get him from his crib, he'd rub his eyes, look around, then say plaintively, "Hao Gong?" He just really bonded with his granddad and wanted to spend every waking moment hanging out with him. And who could blame him? My dad took such great care of the Boo. They'd do fun things like go for a swing in the park...

...Hang out in the tot lot...

...and take long walks around the neighborhood while discussing nature and philosophy...
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I was really worried about how Benjamin would handle my father's return home to China. Would he grow sullen and withdrawn? Would he refuse to play with anyone else? Would he throw a tantrum. As it turns out, he figured out a way to always have his Hao Gong nearby.
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My parents and Benjamin had spent much time playing with new Lego farm set. The set included three Lego figurines: a grownup with grey hair, a second grownup with a red cap, and a smaller one with a green cap. Each figurine came to represent each one of them: Hao Gong, Hao Po, and Benjamin.
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Shortly after my father had returned to China, I came across Benjamin playing quietly with his Legos. As I watched, he picked up the grey-haired figurine and softly said to it, "Hao Gong." He then gently kissed it on the head. Awwwww!!! But just as I thought my heart was about to explode with the sweetness of it all, Benjamin took the play Hao Gong, walked over to his play toolbench, and proceeded to...
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...drill a play hole into him.

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Maybe he was play punishing Hao Gong for going back to China?

Benjamin and The New Arrival

Now that we're a family of four, we're often asked, "How is Benjamin reacting to his new sister?" Well, Calliope's been home for almost two weeks, and so far, we haven't had any problems. In fact, Benjamin actually seems to enjoy having her around.

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When her pacifier falls out of her mouth, he tries to shove it back in. When she's in her pack 'n' play, he likes to peek in and check on her. And when she starts crying and I don't respond immediately, he alerts me by yelling, "Mei-mei CRYYYYYYYYY!" Vince and I are pretty relieved by how it's been going. And who knows why he's responding so well? Perhaps it's because he's only two years old and doesn't know the meaning of jealousy yet. Perhaps it's something inherent in his nature. Perhaps it's because they look so much alike that Benjamin feels an odd sense of deja vu when he sees her.

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Maybe that last reason is a bit of a stretch. But you have to admit there is a striking resemblance!
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Unfortunately, there have been a few occasions where Benjamin's exhibited some uncharacteristically posessive behavior. The other day he tried to bogart Nolan's ice cream cone...

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And then there was an incident in which Benjamin forced his way into a two-seater wagon when it was already fully occupied...

. When I see behaviors like these, I can't help but be concerned. Is he starting to act out? Is he going to start rejecting the presence of his new sibling? But just when I really start to worry, I witness something like this:

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "kill them with kindness," eh?

The Wacky New Playground in Playa Vista

Last year, we got wind that a new playground would be opening in our neighborhood of Playa Vista. With the recent baby boom in the community and only one toddler park to go around, all of us were very excited to check the new place out.
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Last weekend, we headed out with our friends Marco, Sheila, and Kayla to see what there was to see. What we found was... interesting.
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Set among the partially-finished office buildings and parking structures was a rather avant-garde take on the humble playground. When I saw the play structures, the first thing that jumped to mind was body jewelry. There was a giant nose stud:

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A humongous spiral belly button ring:

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And a really big, um... Well, I'll let you decide what this looks like:

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I had a good titter over it. No pun intended.
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The first thing the kids gravitated to was a big concrete tunnel that ran through a rubbery hill. My description sounds bizarre, but there's really no other way to put it. Anyway, Benjamin started crawling through the tunnel, but halfway through got scared and refused to budge.
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We sent Kayla in on a rescue mission, but both of them got stuck.

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In the end, it was Marco the rescue!
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Next, all of the kids - both big and small - tried out the teeter-totter, which resembled a giant, misshapen binder clip.

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Finally, there was this odd metal... thingamabob. It's hard to describe it. If you were to take a metal fork, blow it up to the size of a house, take off the tines, and then embed them onto the side of a big green rubber hill, you'd get the picture. Regardless of what it was, we all had a great time climbing up and sliding down it.
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By this point it was getting chilly and we decided to head home. On the way to the cars, the dads and kids played an impromptu game of soccer on the pristine new field next to the playground.

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Maybe by the time the rest of Playa Vista is finished, our littlest one will be ready to play, too!
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Great Minds Poop Alike

It's been my goal this week to snap a picture of my two kids together. I have hundreds (probably thousands) of pictures of the Boo. I'm starting to amass quite a collection of pictures of the She-Boo as well. But what I really wanted was a picture of both of them. After all, there's room for only one photo on the homescreen of my Blackberry, as my desktop wallpaper, and as my Facebook profile pic. Lest I be accused of playing favorites, this means that I need a picture of both of my offspring together. Since Calliope's still a floppy little newborn who needs head support and her brother is a rowdy two-year-old who doesn't realize the power of his own toddler strength, this is the closest that I got:
. Yep, that's Benjamin pooping. And Calliope? I realized a moment after this picture was taken that she was pooping, too.

The She-Boo Cometh

A bit more than two weeks has passed since Calliope's birth, and I've finally had a chance to sit down, relax abitandcatchmybreat--- Ok, so not really. Life with two kids leaves with me far less time than than life with one. But I digress...
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As I mentioned in the previous post, Calliope came few days in advance of her scheduled c-section date. With all of the preterm labor I'd been having during the last trimester, I had a feeling that she'd come early, but I was still shocked that the date she chose was her brother's birthday! The night before she was born, I began having regular contractions, but they went away after three hours, and I called it a night. The next morning, my OB checked me out, determined that I was most likely in the early stages of labor, and sent me to the hospital. By the late afternoon, I was contracting like crazy, and by 7 pm...

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... we had a new baby girl!

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The next day was spent in the throes of new parenthood. Vince and I blearily got through the first night with Calliope. I struggled to remember what it was like to breastfeed a newborn and missed my firstborn something awful. Both sets of grandparents came by for a visit. I continued to look six months pregnant. It was wonderfully, blissfully uneventful.

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By the next day, however, Calliope was beginning to look a little yellow. Not quite Lisa Simpson yellow, but more than Asian baby yellow. Blood tests revealed that she had hyperbilirubinemia, AKA jaundice, which is fairly common with newborns. The blood tests also revealed that she had likely inherited spherocytosis, the same red blood cell disorder that Benjamin had inherited from his Dad.
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After a night spent under the bili-lights in the nursery didn't stop her bilirubin from climbing, she was moved to the Neonatal ICU. Benjamin had been a prior tenant of the NICU, but he checked out of the hospital only one day after I did. Calliope, on the other hand, would go on to stay a total of 12 days.

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During her time there, she continued to receive more light therapy as well as intravenous fluids. To combat her falling hematocrit, she also received two separate blood transfusions. They weren't able to find a vein to start the IV in, so they were forced to shave off some of her hair and transfuse her through a vein her forehead.

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It looks like a macabre sort of barrette, doesn't it? It's baby's first hair accessory! Hey, I have to look at the bright side of things.

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Since I wasn't allowed to drive so soon after my c-section, we developed a routine in which Vince would drop me off in the mornings around 7:30, I would stay to nurse her through several feedings, and then my mom would pick me up in the afternoon. In between feedings, I would pump, eat, or walk aimlessly around the nearby shopping mall. Luckily, I was still far (VERY far) from my prepartum weight, so I wasn't tempted to buy much.

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Another lucky thing was that the NICU visiting policy had recently changed. My parents were permitted to take turns coming in with me to Calliope's bedside. Though they weren't able to stay with me the entire time, it was very nice to have their company while they were there.

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To give her the maximum amount of exposure under the bili-lights, we were only allowed to take her out of her isolette for feedings for 20 minutes every three hours. This meant that we spent an awful lot of time just standing there staring at her. In the process of doing so, we determined that she looked like a female version of Benjamin, and this led Vince to give her her nickname: The She-Boo.
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After nearly two weeks of watching her levels - and our hopes - go up and down, the She-Boo was stable enough to bring home. As we drove away from the hospital, we talked excitedly about how Benjamin would react to his baby sister. Would he be jealous? Antagonistic? Indifferent? The reality was better than we could have hoped for:

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Did you see that smile on his face? That's a warm welcome if I ever saw one! In case you're wondering, the two things that you heard his saying over and over were mei mei ("little sister" in Chinese) and ching ching ("kiss kiss" in Chinese).
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It might've helped that she came bearing a gift! Gift or not, the Boo seemed to take to his sister immediately. And as I watched him react to her, it finally hit me - we're now a family of four.

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Welcome home, Calliope!