This morning my mother has taken all five children. All five! I have 45 minutes of utter aloneness in the house before I need to go pick up three of them. So far I have used my precious, precious time to:

1) pee with the door open
2) eat four–no, five–Reese’s peanut butter cups

Woo hoo, party at my house!

I went to The Children’s Place store yesterday and bought a few more things to supplement last week’s online order. I found the pink patterned maryjane sneakers, which was happy: I’d only been able to get them in blue on the site. I also found the pink/orange hoodie in 4T for next year: there were none in 4T on the site so I’d bought it in 3T, but 3T is this year’s size and so probably I’ll return that one when it arrives (Elizabeth already has two spring-patterned hoodies in 3T). I also bought a pink crinkle skirt and a purple shirt with a huge ice cream cone on it. I’d wanted the huggable octopus shirt but they didn’t have any left in bigger sizes. I considered the striped crinkle skirt and maybe I will still go back for it, but yesterday the twins were falling apart and I didn’t have enough time to consider shirt options.

While I was out, I also bought the big bottle of Dove 2-in-1 moisturizing shampoo conditioner. I used it this morning but my hair is still wet so it’s too soon for a report.

So! On to non-retail news! My mother-in-law is in touch with my parents from time to time, and she emailed them yesterday to say that she is driving out to visit us this October. How many days do you think it will be before she tells us? Let’s start the count: today is Day 1.

So. October. And this is July. That means I have roughly three months to clean the house. It will not be enough time. I think I am going to have to bring back “Digging Ourselves Out” projects. I did one the day before yesterday but didn’t think to take a Before picture. We have a large endtable next to the couch, and it was piled so high with clutter, items were actually sliding down as if on skis. I’d intended to remove only the things Edward was actively getting into, but I inadvertently triggered a total-endtable clear-up. Now no one is allowed to put a single thing on that Lemon Pledge-shiny surface. EVER AGAIN.

One of my brother’s friends had a baby a few months before I had mine, and they gave out the web address of their blog so that friends and relatives could keep up with the news. One detail caught my eye: they wrote that they’d been told to allow for 200 diapers for the first month, but that “those people don’t know our baby–we used 500!”

I’ve never tracked my babies’ diaper usage, but 500 sounded high. It’s not the first time I’ve seen estimates that seemed high: because I had twins, I’m always reading about and hearing about twins, and I would keep hearing about twin newborns “going through an entire package of diapers per day.” Diapers for newborns are typically sold in packages containing 40-56 diapers. If the twins were sharing a 40-pack a day, that would be 600 diapers per twin in the first month; a 56-pack a day is 840 diapers per twin per month.

I’ve seen high cost estimates, too: in the cloth vs. disposable debate, figures are thrown around about how many hundred dollars per month it costs to keep a baby in disposables, and the number always seems higher than I feel like we spend–but who knows, maybe it just disappears into the rest of the shopping and I don’t notice it.

So now I had to know: how many diapers does MY baby use? and how much does it cost? I brought a notepad with me to the hospital, and as soon as the nurse put Henry’s very first diaper on him, I started tracking how many we used. Looking back on it, I realize it would have been way WAY easier to keep track of how many packages of diapers we bought, but never mind that, I didn’t think of it, let’s just go with what we have and not discuss how dumb I may or may not have been.

One month seems like a good time to check in. Does this mean he is one month old? NO HE IS NOT I REFUSE TO ACCEPT IT. Also, Henry is right now outgrowing newborn-size diapers, so the next package I buy will be size 1, which changes diaper count and cost: going from size newborn to size 1 is the only time you get more diapers for the same price; after that, you get fewer and fewer diapers for the same price.

So here is the report: In one month, Henry used 180 diapers. The newborn-size diapers I buy are sold in packages of 40 diapers, and it’s possible I missed recording a diaper change or two, so let’s round it up to 200 diapers, or 5 full packages.

I buy Target brand diapers, which cost $5.75 for a package. So Henry’s diapers for one month (5 packages) cost me $28.75. It’ll cost me less next month when I can get 56 diapers for the same price as I spend for 40 now.

William’s diapers cost us more, though, when he was a newborn. The Wa1mart diapers I was using at the time (we didn’t have a Target near us then) didn’t work on him; he kept leaking out of them somehow, with the diaper dry and his outfit soaked. Memory fails me, but I think I bought Luvs because they were the least expensive of the brands. Memory fails me again when I try to remember how much a package of Luvs cost, but I know it was more than the store brand ones, so that would make his diaper use more costly.

I just posted a little while ago, so don’t miss the cookie post below if you haven’t seen it yet. But pretty, pretty Mir alerted me to a good deal over at The Children’s Place, and we all like our kids to dress the same, right? …Right? Anyway, there’s a clearance sale AND a $10-off-$30 coupon AND a free shipping deal, so I got some stuff for Elizabeth for next summer. I tried to link to each thing I bought, but it didn’t work–but just go to the “outlet” section, and all the stuff I got was under “baby girls.”

I bought the cute false-advertising “Never Crabby” shirt that Shelly’s Peanut modeled the other day, and in fact I bought it in two sizes so Elizabeth can tell lies this summer and next summer. I bought the yoga skort in the same blue color (called “oxygen”), and then bought the white t-shirt with the blue “CUTIE” on it, and a dolphin shirt I think will go with the skort too, and the blue socks, and the blue patterned maryjane sneakers. Plus of course the hoodie in both colors it comes in, because I love both, and because I love the hoodies I got for Elizabeth in the spring clearance, and because Shannon’s Darsie has it (top photo) and I am so influenced by what other people’s kids look cute in.

Why did I buy nothing at all for the four boys? Er. I have no good explanation, other than that it is fun to buy girl clothes.

If you follow Mir’s link for free shipping, allow a little time for the coupon to arrive: I think mine came about an hour later. Do the dumb little game first (it wants personal information like your name and address, but you have to give them that anyway when you place an order), then shop, then see if the coupon came yet. And, as Mir says, you can use that shipping coupon along with the $10-off-$30 coupon, so as long as you order $30 worth of stuff, you get it for $20 and you get it shipped free. Awesome.

If you buy anything, tell me what you bought! I might have to place another order.

Today we will discuss markers of the postpartum time. I will tell you the things that, for me, announce its arrival, for the first baby or for the fifth, and maybe you can add others you’ve experienced or heard of.

Sometimes I feel like everything is going GREAT! I am incorporating this baby into the household SEAMLESSLY! It is NO BIG DEAL! It is like I am some kind of NATURAL! I could handle even TWO MORE babies! I have to tell the world that having a baby is not as scary as they think! EVERYONE should have babies! LOTS of babies! Babies are GREAT! I LOVE babies!

Other times I feel like this SUCKS. I can’t do this AT ALL. Furthermore, NO ONE could, because this is NOT POSSIBLE. I am twenty steps behind. Everyone is crying. Everyone needs something, and I’m the only one who can provide it. I will never catch up. I cut off one hydra head and three more grow back. I have to tell the world that having a baby is very, very hard and that they shouldn’t be alarmed if they feel like it is suckily impossible to cope with one.

Sometimes I feel soppily grateful to my husband. He is the only one who holds us together. He is the only one holding me together. I could never do this without him. He is so good. I am so lucky.

Other times I envy single mothers. I think about divorce. I wonder how I could have married someone so inconsiderate and insensitive and MEAN and YUCKY-SMELLING.

I feel waves of animal-like affection for the baby. I try to stuff him right up my nose, he smells so good. I snuffle his neck. I rub his hair on my cheek. I fiddle with his tiny toesies. I look at him and can’t believe how lucky I am to have him. So many reasons he wouldn’t be here! And yet he is! He’s my BABY! SNUFFLE SNUFFLE SNUFFLE!

I worry that I don’t love the baby yet. Other mothers describe feeling an instant connection to the baby as soon as the baby was born, but my babies always look like total strangers to me–and not very cute strangers, either. They could be ANYBODY’S baby. It feels weird to let a total stranger NURSE on me. I remember that I felt this way about each of my other babies, and that I always ended up loving them–but what if it doesn’t happen this time? What if I never love this baby? Sure, I feel like squeezing him too hard and that’s a good sign–but what if we never connect? What if I had too many children and he’s going to suffer for it?

I feel rage at everyone. The cats: they are pick-pick-PICKING at the door at 4:00 in the morning, and it is possible I could accidentally kick them so hard I injure or kill them. I have to make a conscious effort not to. I do still “help them along” with one foot, but stop abruptly because it seems like it would feel so good to actually hurt them. Rage at the kids, and at Paul: I feel like saying ugly things to them, and I do say some. As with the cats, I have to make a conscious effort to stop. It doesn’t always work. I hear myself saying the ugly things, most of them involving how much I have to do around here, and how little anyone else does, and how everyone else is driving me CRAZY. When the ragey feeling passes, I feel horrible. The ugly things I said are my fresh nighttime fret fodder. I suspect I’m damaging the children. I shouldn’t have even had children. I’m a terrible mother. Rage at the baby: how can he be crying again? I do everything for him, EVERYTHING! And he has everything he needs, EVERYTHING! I’ve fed him! changed him! snuggled him! burped him! Now why can’t he be quiet and needless for FIVE MINUTES?

I feel desperate and panicky for sleep, especially in the middle of the night. I feel as if I’m going crazy. I feel like I will throw up from lack of sleep. I feel like if I have to wake up one more time I am going to go out to the car and sleep there. I feel like killing Paul because he’s sleeping and I’m not. I think about how the nice thing about dying is you wouldn’t have this feeling of not getting enough sleep. I feel like hurting the nurse when she says sternly, “You’re getting enough sleep, right?”–as if I might be ABLE to get more sleep but am just CHOOSING not to.

I make plans to escape. I could go to a hotel, not tell anyone where I am. I could make up a dying friend I must go visit.

If I see a sad news story, especially if it has to do with children or pregnant women, I feel a weight descend on me. The world is a terrible place; we can’t live here. Bad things happen all the time; bad things will happen to us; bad things will happen to my children. Slide-show of all the bad things that could happen to my children.

If I handle a knife, I imagine it somehow flying out of my hand and hurting the baby, even if I’m nowhere near the baby. If I walk past the railing, I imagine myself somehow dropping the baby down to the first floor. If I bathe the baby, I imagine somehow accidentally letting the baby drown. If I put the baby in the car, I imagine somehow accidentally leaving him in there. It happens every time: every knife, every railing, every bath, every car trip. Every time, it makes me feel like throwing up.

I feel like I can’t stand to hear even one more stressful thing. Not ONE. If Paul tells me that he lost a contact lens, or that one of his teeth feels kind of ouchie, or that one of the kids has a funny-looking patch on his skin, I feel like I CAN’T COPE. I feel heavy and weighed-down, like I can’t move or breathe. It is too much. I can’t deal with it. I can’t turn my mind to it. He might as well not tell me, because I am already at maximum capacity for these things; I can’t think about anything more.

It feels especially awful as it gets closer to the time Paul gets home from work. All day long I might feel as if things are going well, but as it gets later I start picturing what the house would look like to someone coming home to it after a day at work. Clutter on every single horizontal surface, and creeping on up the vertical ones. Children everywhere, hyper or crabby or crying but all LOUD, with their hair uncombed and stains on their shirts and crust around their noses. Wife with matted-looking hair and shiny forehead and milk-circle-stained shirt, slumped despondently in a chair. Piles of laundry starting to smell like sour milk. Sheets unchanged since who knows when. Mess and noise and neediness EVERYWHERE, how can he STAND it? And picturing how bad it looks to him makes it look even more hopeless to me: everything needs fixing, and I can’t fix it, and maybe he doesn’t understand that this is a short-term thing, and maybe it WON’T be a short-term thing, maybe I’ll NEVER get it together.

If I felt like the crazy/sad/angry parts all the time, I’d go to my doctor and get a prescription. But mostly I feel okay, and the more food/sleep I get, the better I feel. Thus the 144 muffins. Thus the sleeping in the recliner with the baby to make the baby sleep more/longer.

I think it helps to know it’s a stage, and that it passes. It doesn’t help much during an individual bad time: if I’m feeling weighed-down and crazy, it’s not going to help to think, “Hey, this is just postpartum! I probably just feel like this because of my hormones!” But it’s there in the back of my mind, this memory of Being This Way and then, later, Not Being This Way, and I think it improves things overall. It also helps when I hear or read about other mothers experiencing similar states of mind.

I notice there are a surprising number of people who say “no one ever told me” that the postpartum time could be rough waters, so let’s make a big list, shall we? People want to be told; we will tell them. Fill up the comments section if you want, or make your own blog post about it and link to it in the comments section.

First, yay!, because Sarah’s pregnant! Go tell her eveything’s going to be fine!

Now, do you remember when I asked for recommendations for 2-in-1 shampoo conditioners? Lots of you gave suggestions, and then I bought five to try. Three were from the suggestions and two were just There and so I bought them. One I wanted to buy but didn’t was the Dove 2-in-1, because I could only find it in a huge bottle and I didn’t want a huge bottle when I was only using 2-in-1s for the last weeks of pregnancy.

I may change my mind on that huge bottle, because I’m continuing to find 2-in-1 products helpful even now that I’m not pregnant. I usually shower at night (I prefer mornings, but geez), and I don’t like to go to bed with wet hair. Recently, I’ve been washing my hair in the morning, leaning over the bathtub. If I use a 2-in-1, this is pretty quick and easy, and makes me feel all fresh and shampooey-clean in the morning, which is a pleasant change from the stale, matted feeling of hair that was slept on while wet.

Of the five I tried, there were 2 winners, 2 losers, and 1 fine. The losers were a Suave 2-in-1 and a Target brand 2-in-1, both of them Pantene copycats (words on label such as “pro-vitamin formula”). They made my hair seem darker and duller and yuckier and frizzier. When I used those two, I liked my hair less. The Suave one was the best of all five for making my hair easier to comb, but that was its only good point.

The fine one was Garnier Fructis Fortifying 2-in-1 Shampoo + Conditioner for Normal Hair. I liked it pretty well, but there were a couple of days when my hair looked like it needed to be washed even though I’d just washed it. Also, my hair was harder than usual to comb. The smell was pleasantly fruity, but I don’t usually like fruity scents.

The two winners were Pert Plus 2 in 1 Shampoo Plus Medium Conditioner for Normal Hair, and Herbal Essences Hello Hydration 2 in 1 Moisturizing Shampoo + Conditioner. The Herbal Essences gets an edge because of its cool bottle, pretty color, and yum coconut-y smell. The Pert Plus gets an edge for nostalgia (I used it in high school), and because I think it made my hair the softest and prettiest of all the kinds I tried. They both left my hair relatively easy to comb, and I didn’t think they made my hair look much worse than usual.

I am back! And–oh my god!–I am so tired. Last night I would lie down and immediately be asleep, and when I woke up for the next feeding I felt like I hadn’t even started to chip away at my sleep deficit. I mean, tired. I’m tired. I’ve been having thoughts such as, “I have to get more sleep than this. If I can’t get more sleep than this….well, I have to get more, that’s all.” The sleep deprivation is cumulative and is getting more difficult to cope with.

The trip went well, but there were some parts that were less than smooth. Edward was indeed restless at the wedding. The baby did cry some in the car. And whenever we stopped, I had to nurse the baby, so everyone else was stretching and saying how great it felt to get out of the car, and by the time I was done nursing they were impatient to get back on the road, and my butt got really really sore from sitting constantly.

Anyway. There were some stressful times, but mostly it was a great trip and I’m glad I went. I loved staying in a hotel room, using tons of air conditioning and hot water, playing with the wee little coffee pot, exploring all the free bottles of stuff, having a continental breakfast in the morning (hot cinnamon rolls! little teeny containers of honey! half-cups of yogurt in three flavors!). I love weddings, especially the part where the bride appears and everyone stands up in one swoosh and I burst into tears, but also the part where we eat cake. I love car trips and I love the stopping for a break and I love the getting back on the road. And it was fun spending time with just two of the kids, and seeing my extended family.

Here are some things I wish I’d brought more of:

• Baggies in assorted sizes. I used them for so many things: keeping Edward’s sippee cups from leaking all over the diaper bag, stashing diapers after having to change children in the pastor’s office and not wanting to leave him any little gifts in his trash can, taking along extra food from restaurants, packing up things still wet from being rinsed out, etc. I could have used a whole BOX of baggies.
• Nursing pads. I don’t know if it was the stress or what, but I kept leaking through my shirts. For the wedding, I put three pads in each side and still was in danger of an embarrassing situation. I had to stuff a cloth napkin in there at the reception.

Here are some things I was very, very glad I brought along:

• A changing pad. I used it in every gross rest stop bathroom, and also on the bed or desk in the hotel room, and also on my lap when I had to change Henry in the car twice (parked car, not moving car).
• Infant saline nose drops. I grabbed them on impulse the morning we left, and Henry got a cold on the third day and needed the drops in order to nurse.
• Infant gas drops. I think being in his car seat all day gave Henry more trouble digesting than usual.
• Quarters. I brought them along for vending machines, and didn’t need them for that–but we hadn’t thought of needing coins for city parking, and we needed a whole lot of them for that.
• A whole box of diaper wipes. I used them for diaper changes, hand washes, table wipings, after-meal face washings, crusty nose cleansings. For a longer trip, I’d bring a refill pack of wipes in my suitcase, but a box for 4 days was about right.
• Sippee cups. I brought two, and that was perfect: one to fill with milk at the continental breakfast or at other meals where milk was available, the other to keep filled with water in the diaper bag.
• Ibuprofen. Dramamine. Benadryl.
• Every single toy and DVD I bought for Edward. The six-hour drive took us more than twelve hours on the way there because of construction, traffic, and nursing stops. I don’t regret a single purchase, and in fact this one almost went in the category of things I could have brought more of.
• Extra receiving blankies. Henry spit up all over two of them.

Here’s a photo of Edward and Henry in our hotel room:

Tomorrow we leave on our trip! A day of driving to get there, two days there, a day of driving home. Perhaps it will be a lovely and relaxing time of family and love, weddings and babies, all the happy things in life including hotel rooms and restaurants! Or perhaps Henry will scream for hours on end and spit up all over his car seat, and his diaper will leak all over one outfit after another, and Edward will kick the back of the seat and not want to play with any toys and make whiny word-sounds no one can figure out, and be a holy terror at the wedding and pull the entire wedding cake down on to the floor! Either way, I have three boxes of Sugar Babies, the new Elizabeth Berg book, and several precious precious tablets of Demer0l.

I’ll be back late Sunday and will probably spend most of Monday lying in my recliner holding my head and signing documents promising myself I’ll never shut myself in a car with a toddler and a newborn again. So let’s meet back here Tuesday? Or maybe it will be Monday after all, it depends how much Misery wants your company.

Probably it’s an issue of insufficient sleep, but I can’t figure out this preschooler worksheet. If the pictured item starts with a Q, you’re supposed to draw a line to the queen; if it starts with a Z, you’re supposed to draw a line to the zebra. We got zipper, quilt, and question mark, but what is that fourth thing?

One thing that’s way, way easier for me with this fifth child is breastfeeding. For example, right now I am nursing him AND two-hand typing. Serious! I was reading a post by a first-time mom, and she said that one thing she hated about nursing was that she was totally stuck, totally bored: she couldn’t read or write or do anything because she had no free hands. This situation can improve with experience, unless of course your baby is of the sort who unlatches and screams at the sound of a page being turned, and babies of that sort do unfortunately exist, and in that case you are well and truly stuck and may want to take up meditation, or using the power of your mind to bring bad to your enemies and good to your friends, or some other activity you can do utterly silently and motionlessly. But so far I have had good luck with babies in this regard, and baby Henry is nursing obliviously even though my arm is jittering under his downy head as I type. I can also walk around, unload the dish rack, add an item to the shopping list, pack a small carry-on, etc. I PREFER to sit in a chair with my feet up, reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, but I can move around and do other things if I WANT to.

Actually, EVERYTHING is easier with this fifth child. My first baby was difficult. My second baby was more difficult in some ways, though easier in others, and also more enjoyable because I knew SOME things and had already made many of the Big Decisions (co-sleep or crib or bassinet or bureau drawer; cloth or disposable; etc.). The twins were kind of challenging because there were two, and I am sure glad I didn’t have them FIRST, but they weren’t as difficult as I’d been expecting. And this baby is–so far–easy.

He’s still a BABY, of course. He still wakes me just after I’ve fallen asleep. He still cries right after we sit down to watch a movie or eat dinner. He still has a huge blow-out diaper right after I’ve changed him, or right after I’ve buckled him into the car seat. But I sling him around like a new purse; I tuck him right into our household, barely rearranging the furniture to make room.

When I’m driving somewhere I’ve never been before, the drive seems really LONG. Then on the way home, when I know where I’m going or don’t have to worry about being anywhere on time, the drive seems so short. It has been the same for me with the babies. Well, except that I would have had to make the outward journey twice without coming home in between. And then now I guess I’d be saying I was on the way home with this baby–but then what were the twins? And really even the second outward journey was easier than the first…except when it was harder…so I guess that would be like driving to a familiar place but having engine trouble on the way. Also, it’s not like I don’t still go nuts all the time, so I’m not sure I want to use a “peaceful easy drive” comparison after all. And it’s coming up on 3 weeks now and I still haven’t been able to get my act together and bring the bouncy seat up from the basement, a task that would take all of five minutes, and the house is a total pit with heaps of clutter on every surface, and how does THAT enter into the driving thing? And what about when I’m standing over a sleeping baby at my bedtime, thinking, “Do I wake him and nurse him, or take a chance that he’ll wake me 5 minutes after I drift off?” Well, Henry is crying now (WHY IS HE???), and that makes it really hard to think. Someday I would like to make just ONE good Life Analogy, but it will not be today.

I am very grateful to those of you who pushed me to call the OB. I am a terrible, terrible wimp about calling the on-call doctor. I’ve done so only one time in my whole life, and it was when I thought I was in early labor with the twins—and even then, I waited until the sun came up to call. I tell you this with cringing shame. But anyway, I did call the OB on Saturday, because you guys are so bossy, and I got a very bossy antibiotic that won’t let me eat for 2 hours before or 1 hour after taking it and makes me set an alarm to take it in the middle of the night, and I am so so SO glad I got it two days earlier than I would have if I’d followed my usual wimpy ways.

Elizabeth is going to cause me to lose whatever mind I have left. After several nights of going down fine for bedtime and naps, she’s back to the crying. Last night she cried for an hour and a half after her bedtime. I finally went in and snuggled her and patted her and comforted her—and then when I put her in her crib she cried. So then I rocked her to sleep, feeling both Right and Wrong about it, and she didn’t wake up when I put her in her crib, but she DID wake up at 3:30 a.m. and didn’t go back to sleep. So! You can imagine what a happy, happy household we are this morning, with a crabby, nodding-off mother and a crabby, tired toddler. She keeps emitting these SCREAMS at NOTHING, and I am about ready to join her.

Today I really must start packing for the trip to my cousin’s wedding. We leave Thursday morning, which means I have three days for packing. I must do it! I must! I must stop blogging and go start on the packing!

I have been waiting so long to dye my hair again. I’d dyed it back to my own color shortly before getting unexpectedly pregnant, and my OB has a stroke if his patients color their hair, so even though I keep reading it’s probably safe, I don’t like to tease him and I’ve been suffering my natural color for about ten months now. That’s too long. Last night I colored it—and the color didn’t take. Did you know that hair color can expire? I did not—and if I HAD known, I would have assumed it was like those things that tell you to throw out ALL your make-up every 2/3/6 months. Not because they want more of your money, oh no! It’s purely because they are concerned about your health!

I’ve acquired many boxes of hair color on one clearance or another, and I’ve been sitting here all smug on my pile of riches—but now I find out that I am sitting on a pile of useless boxes. The active ingredients change with time, so you can get a different color than you expect, or patchy results, or no effect at all. I guess I should be grateful that I got the last option, but I was still disappointed: I was expecting to see my light-absorbing brown-blonde change to a more appealing, light-reflecting, blondier color. But no! I removed the towel for the big reveal—and there was my very own brown-blonde as usual, sucking the light and color from the room. Well, now I have to toss out a bunch of hair color, and then go buy another box.

At least my hair is all yum soft from the conditioner that comes with the hair color, so if you met me in the dark you would think I had great hair. Man, why don’t they sell that conditioner separately? It is so much better than any conditioner I’ve ever used.