Time to talk about

People other than me & my baby (though quickly--she is fine. Healthy as a horse. We went in for an ultrasound, and she is 3 lbs, 3 oz--which is actually ahead of schedule, bratty suck-up-all-my-calories child--and her heartbeat is strong). There are two other children in this house, and they haven't gotten a mention in a while, not that they haven't been making their presence profoundly known.

RockNoodle seems to be having kind of a tough time lately. She's taken to throwing a tantrum whenever anything doesn't go her way (and I mean anything. "Please don't scream at the top of your lungs" gets a how dare you talk to me that way crying fit). She's also not sleeping. She wakes up at least once every night, and comes in to get Dave. She's lonely, she can't sleep--there are numerous reasons, and it's really hard on her. The loneliness is a difficult thing to get around--I was a terrible sleeper as a child, and am well aware of the boredom and sadness of being awake when no one else is. I'm sure the one thing (tantrums) feeds into the other (insomnia) in a nice lovely little circle.

There is, of course, a very obvious theory about why this may be happening--RockNoodle is and always has been the baby of the family, and takes a great deal of joy in that. She loves being cuddled and snuggled and while of course this would in no way stop once there's a younger person to cuddle and snuggle too, I hear tell this is a pretty common fear. Which isn't to say that she isn't still thrilled beyond belief about Roo's coming. It's almost like the two aren't even connected in her mind. She has nothing but positive things to say about Roo, and is always speculating about her and writing her lullabies (seriously. It's the sweetest thing) and rubbing my belly. So we just tell her we love her as often as we can get the words out and do as much cuddling and snuggling as we can and try really really hard to get her back to sleep every night. If nothing else, it's good practice for a few months from now.

This does leave a little less time than would be desired for Toaster, though. Not that he seems to mind too much--the boy is addicted to screens, and now that he has a cellphone, iPod Touch, computer access, and television access, there are a lot of screens to choose from. And hey, sometimes I wonder if our screen-fear is a little overblown. There are a lot of screens in the world. They are not necessarily bad things. And isn't it odd that at least some of that fear comes from movies I've seen, you know, on screens? (Johnny Mnemonic, The Matrix, even Truman Show).

Toaster did just finish reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, to my utter delight (although RockNoodle has picked up The Golden Compass, and I'm not so sure how I feel about that. A little old for her, I think, but I figure she'll get bored and confused by it in about another twenty pages or so) so I know he does other things. We didn't get to talk about the books as much as I'd like to--there's some serious moral and religious discussion we could have there, and I love that kind of thing--because, again, it's just hard to find the time between tantrums and vomiting, not to mention Toaster's desire to get back on the computer, please. And I can't tell if that's actually wanting to get back on the computer (probably. He is twelve), or wanting us to stop him from getting on the computer so we can spend more time with him, but needing to pitch a fit if we do because that's just what the hormones are making him do (again, twelve).

They're such good, sweet, smart kids, who sometimes seem to require more than I am able to give--or resist it when I am able. So we just try our best. And collapse with exhaustion when they're over at their mom's house, and try all over again when they come back home.