I’ve been talking to my girlfriends lately about how you know when you’re done having kids. To be honest, I can’t believe it’s over–the bearing them part. I’ll tell you right now, I’ve never been more happy or sure about any decision in my entire life.  I am officially closed for baby making.

I haven’t talked a lot about how I came to this decision, and consider it kind of personal (believe it or not I do keep a few things to myself). But I’ve been wanting to write about it for some time, so here you go. Please be careful with your comments here, I consider this a pearl.

When June was about six months old I felt pretty satisfied with my life. Two boys, got my girl, I really didn’t see the need to have any more kids. We all know three is plenty of work, especially for today’s demanding world (car seats, school work, 17 thousand team activities). I mentioned to my mom that I was feeling like we might be finished.

“Well,” she said, “that’s a pretty important decision. You should pray about that, see what you come up with.”

About a week later I was in the car all alone, and turned off the radio to talk to God. As we visited, her advice came back to me. I don’t think I got two words into the asking before I was completely overwhelmed with what can only be a Heavenly lecture–I’m guessing it came straight from Georgia.What I heard went a little something like this:

“It hurts my feelings when you talk about not having any more kids, please don’t say that kind of thing any more. I am going to be so much fun, and you are going to love me so much–you need to have another baby…”

It was so shocking and totally overwhelming (and sounded so suspiciously female) that I couldn’t utter another word on the matter but a simple, “Okay, I get it.” And that’s how I knew I needed to have one more kid.

I don’t believe we all have a given number. I think there are some women who can have a dozen kids without breaking a sweat, I’m just glad the Lord knew I wasn’t one of them.

When it came time to make the permanent decision regarding future children, it took me a few months and a really terrible pregnancy to realize that it was okay, no matter what might happen to our children (Heaven forbid), four was our magic number.

(Also, Jason was freaked out at the thought of more children and kept offering to go get himself fixed. He was also freaked out that the doctor might sneeze right at that crucial moment and cut the wrong thing.)

Whether you’re someone who’s in touch with God or not, having kids is definitely something to consult the Heaven’s about. After all, they are kind of in charge of the whole program.

I am so not ready for my girdle.

It’s a funny thing, this issue we call “body image”. I would like to tell you that I’m deep and confident and not at all concerned with how I look. I would also like to tell you that I’m currently wearing a size four and married to Michael Buble. Not happening.

Last week our babysitter was over (she’s 17 and I love her and want to adopt her forever), and Jason casually made the comment that I’m obsessed with my weight. He didn’t say it was a good or a bad thing, but I got totally defensive. I ranted and raved about how non-obsessive I am, how hip and stable and…oh screw it. He was right and I knew it (he also very kindly did not judge me for this).

So here I am, wishing I was uber-skinny and that I didn’t need to keep running over to Ross just so I’d have something other than stretch pants and tent shirts to wear, and I remembered today that I haven’t tried on my girdle for the past week. Since things are still shrinking, and since I had a brunch date out in public, I decided to strap the old girl on, just to see if she was game.

It might have been slightly painful, but once I was all stuffed in there the difference was astounding. Gone was the protruding post-baby bump (least attractive feature ever), and in it’s place stood a nipped in waist and thighs that were notably smaller (it’s a serious girdle, people). I felt so good about my girdle that I didn’t even waste time worrying about my four-day grease ball twisted up on top of my head.

However, by the time I got to the restaurant I thought I might die of suffocation. Just because you can get a girdle on doesn’t mean you should wear it. I spent an hour and a half trying to keep the top from rolling down like some kind of overactive window shade. (It did not, however, keep me from eating a quiche and two of Mimi’s bran muffins.)

Give me two more weeks and that girdle and I will be reestablishing our relationship all over the place.

My toddler was so horrible yesterday, and I was so overwhelmed, that it’s nothing short of miraculous that she’s still got two arms and two legs that are relatively bruise free. When you have to drag your 38 pound child to her room over and over, knowing full well that you’re not supposed to heft more than a dozen pounds, it takes a toll. My incision actually split open a little. Baaad.

So here are a few ideas on how to handle life with a terrible twoer for those of you who are in my shoes, know someone in my shoes, or will someday be in my shoes.

1. Sell child to the gypsies.

2. Pray for a lightening bolt to strike you dead.

3. Eat large quantities of chocolate, realize it gives the baby a tummy ache, then sit on the floor of the kitchen and cry.

4. Eat chocolate anyway and give the baby gas drops.

5. Plan to spend some one on one quality time with your toddler, but put her down for an early nap instead.

6. Turn on cartoons, hide in your room with a 44 oz Diet Coke, and call your mommy. Very therapeutic.

Honestly, I really intended to come up with some fantastic ideas but couldn’t think of any. I will say, Patty Ann left a comment yesterday that kind of saved us last night. She suggested I keep books around to read them while I nurse, and that I not hesitate to call a neighboring young woman for help. So I did, and we even managed to pump out a Family Home Evening (which I made up as I went along, and did not involve any treats whatsoever) before locking them down for the night.

Sometimes as mommies we snap, and it’s not pretty. The kids had me wound tighter than an ill-fitting girdle by eleven am, and I’m going to honestly tell you that I lost it a few times. But like my dear sister Laura reminded me the other day, nothing lasts forever. I’ve been repeating this to myself over and over all day and it really does help.

We’ve all got a two-year-old to deal with somewhere, even if it comes in the form of a rotten boss or a serious life challenge. The important thing to remember is that no matter how terrible it is, things change. One of you will eventually die off.

My husband has been amazing the past three weeks. Unfortunately, the powers that be have decided that since he’s back to work, he might as well be back all the way. So obviously they saw no problem with sending Jason to Ohio for the week with me barely three weeks postpartum, post surgery, and post sanity. So here I am, braving the storm all by my lonesome with no big strong man to put the kids in time out, or at least put them to bed.

In order to ensure that I neither abuse nor ignore their ever present needs, I’ve concocted a plan. Actually, the Lord came up with it and whispered it to me in a moment of clarity yesterday. I can’t get it out of my head, and I think it just might save us all.

Yesterday I identified two things that are going to make or break this week. First, Sister Beck, the Big Cheese of Mormon women (also called the Relief Society General President), gave some fantastic mom advice this year at a conference. She said that as mothers, it is critical that we pace ourselves, and the most important shift of the day is the swing shift–between about three pm and midnight. If you burn yourself out with less important tasks during the early morning hours, you’ll have nothing for the afternoon and evening when it really counts. I’m planning to do nothing but drive car pool and nurse the baby between nine and three.

Georgia is also in that phase all my babies go through where they want to nurse from about eight pm to ten or ten-thirty. Then they sleep for a good four or five hours straight. It’s great because I’m getting some real sleep again, but it’s horrible because come eight o’clock, I’m in lock down dairy mode. This week, it is imperative that we have lights out by eight pm, no questions asked.

These were the two big ideas that floated down to me from above, to which I’ve added an afternoon nap. I’m a  non-napper, so this is going to be a bit of a challenge. I’m also planning to do laundry from ten to eleven each night. Should be awesome.

As women, there’s nothing like a plan to help us over hurdles, right? And yes, this plan will probably collapse on me more than once this week, but at least I’ve got something to work toward. Also Junie will be in pull-ups all week long. I’m not even letting her near that toilet until my life has settled down a bit.

Okay, the cattle are calling. Gigi has been crying for the last six minutes and I’m now about to flood the upstairs with Grade A whole milk. Out.

I am a postpartum basketcase.

I just wrote up an entire post about my life and chocolate and potty training and irrational floods of really lame tears, went to post it, and realized that I have a deadline tomorrow for the paper. Since I only manage to get to the computer every few days, the possibility of me coming up with something else before tomorrow is kind of not going to happen. This fact might have made me cry.

And so, let me tell you that four kids means four times the post-pregnancy hormones. I am irrational, weepy, deliriously happy, sleepy, anxious, and one puddle of pee away from a panic attack at just about any given moment. (We’re potty training June this week because I am an idiot.)

To top it all off, I ate half a chocolate cake last night just to calm my nerves. It totally worked, except for the fact that half of my anxiety comes from running around in a bathrobe because NOTHING FITS ME. The cure might be harmful, but I had no tearful outbursts after nine pm so it was totally worth it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take the last few moments of Georgia’s short nap to shower. And possibly cry, just because I can. The echo is so refreshing in there.

Okay, so I’m officially 16 days out from delivery, my water table has finally dropped back to normal, I can see the bones in my feet again, and…nothing in my closet fits. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I gained a whopping 50 (count ’em) pounds with this pregnancy. At first I blamed myself, but by the time Georgia reared her sweet little head I had realized that my newly acquired back fat was all her fault.

Why? Because when you’re on bed rest for two months, you burn nothing. Nada. Zip. It doesn’t matter how much water you drink, or how strategically you place those five pound weights you’re never going to touch, bed rest makes you fat. Gloriously, greasy food fat.

Lucky for me, within about 48 hours of my babyectomy I was already in major strategic Get Skinny Fast mode. Within a week of being home, I realized that if I don’t lose this weight and get into my old wardrobe by November, I’ll have to go out and buy a completely new wardrobe. With school shoes for the boys and preschool fees and karate (hopefully) and piano lessons, there is no money for mama to be fat. Pounds must be shed.

And so, I’ve resorted to my standard, no-fail diet:  Salami (actually, it’s summer sausage). That’s right, I survive the day with a whole grain bowl of something cardboard like for breakfast, and chase it with slices of fatty red meat (really good for my iron deficiency) and liverwurst. Also I eat grapes and cheeses and peaches and almonds and salad, although the lettuce seems to hurt Gigi’s tummy so I have to go easy there.

(I will admit that the other night I had a sugar fit and downed a handful of sugar-free chocolates. Not smart. It kept my poor little pumpkin up all night long, between the two of us there was enough gas to run the Good Year Blimp. We still haven’t recovered from the sleep loss, and yes, I totally had it coming.)

The results? I am pleased to report that I’m currently down 27 pounds from my delivery weight, and I can almost squeeze into my roomiest girdle. Good times. Yes, I’ll probably have to go to the thrift store for a pair of cheap ugly jeans to get me through the interim, but I don’t mind a bit. I firmly believe that a woman’s body will give her about four months post-baby to get the majority of her poundage off. If you try, even a little, most maternal metabolisms will support your efforts. Not true in all cases, but certainly in most.

(I must also mention that at least half the women in my family can’t shed that last five pounds until they wean. Being the dairy herd we are, I’m suspicious that we all carry about five pounds of milk around with us at any given moment anyway, so that makes sense. Also, the extra layer of warmth is a good fail safe in case of famine.)

Today I looked at my little baby and wondered why she chose such a great and terrible time to come to Earth.

Harrison came home from school last Thursday bouncing and happy.

“How was your day?” I asked as he piled in the car with the rest of us to run errands.

“Great! Recess was so fun–oh. There is one bad thing,” he says. As a mom, I’m dreading his next sentence. So early in the year for discipline problems. I played it cool. “Really? What’s up?”

“Well,” he says, “A girl in my class died last night.” He was so matter of fact about this statement that it took a good three seconds for it to sink in.

“Wait, what?!” I ask.

“Yeah, her name was Jean and she was really smart. She was in my kindergarten class too.”

“Holy crap,” Jason says quietly, “that double homicide I saw on the news. I think it was the mom…” I know, probably not the appropriate thing to say in front of the kids, but Jason and I were in total shock.

As the details of the story came at me from too many angles, I felt like screaming and puking at the same time. A mom on the brink did the unthinkable: she murdered her two children. I know for a fact that Jean was a nice, smart girl. On Monday when the list of 100%ers came home for last week’s spelling test, I noticed Jean’s name on the list and wondered (like always) why I so few people use that name these days. It made it personal.

I’m a mom, and sometimes I feel like a mom on the brink. The news of this unthinkable horror has rocked my world this week, and I find myself wishing terrible things on this woman. But in all reality, I don’t think a mother could do something so heinous  without being in serious emotional and mental peril. I want to hate her, but part of me knows that she’ll suffer for her betrayal every single day for the rest of her count on Earth. I’m glad. I’m also sad.

As mothers, sometimes we have to write about the ugly part of our job, just to get it out of our system so we don’t spontaneously combust and damage someone important along the way. I wonder, what about the women who have no one to talk to, to write to, to freak out at and with? What would I do without my mother and sisters and a handful of really hilarious girlfriends–not to mention this very blog, that gets the brunt of my ever changing emotions on a sometimes daily basis.

Whether your crazy is little or big, bottling it up and not getting help on some level, no matter how basic, can’t be good for any of us.

I feel tragic and heartsick. I guess I just needed to tell someone about it.

Apparently, angels do not sleep at night.

This is a good thing, until that angel comes down to earth in the form of a sweet little sometimes stinky bundle who wants to be with you. All. Night. Long. It’s the one time of day I can’t seem to put her down. She’ll sit in the swing for hours, have lovely little awake spells where she looks out the window and sighs contentedly, but once the sun goes down, she starts howling like it’s a full moon.

She wants to eat. And eat. And eat. And eat.

Unfortunately for me, I’m a blue ribbon dairy cow. This means that as long as a baby wants to eat, my body will magically supply the milk. So waking up the past two mornings, I find myself so totally engorged because my body is working frantically to up our milk supply because obviously, I’m feeding a litter of kittens.

The good news is that I’ve kept myself one milk sweat shy of a breast infection, and thanks to half a dozen nipple shields, I can feed her with no pain.

Also in the plus category, June Bug has been having these moments of insane maturity. Coming from a two-year-old that’s pretty impressive. The baby was on the couch crying today and there was nothing I could do about it (well, I did sweat milk, but you know). Suddenly everything got quiet. Fearing the worst, I poked my head around the corner, and there was June with Georgia snuggled on her lap happy as a clam. She looks at me and says, “I’ve got it, Mom,” like she’s some kind of fifteen-year-old wonder child. Held her for ten minutes until I was able to relieve her. Awesome.

So aside from my panic attacks and the seven times I burst into tears today, we’re doing fantastic.

So you know how that last post made it sound like my life is one big bowl of warm milk and cookies?

I AM A LIAR.

Holy crap, could one more thing go wrong with this old body of mine? I am here to tell you that an almost 32-year-old body has nothing on a 24-year-old body. This version of me spends too much time in the mechanic shop letting people tool around trying to plug up the leaks.

I have been to the ER twice this week because I’ve been sporting the most miserable, painful, resistant to pain meds headache you’ve ever heard of. It’s the kind where you lay in your chair and leak tears and talk in a slurred voice because maybe that will make the pounding stop.

NOTHING MAKES THE POUNDING STOP. (Especially not a two-year-old who’s learned she gets a lot of naughty attention for jumping on mommy’s wounded lap. Kill me now.)

So the other night I went into the emergency room. We were suspicious that my throbbing bee’s nest was due to a leaky spinal block, the kind that doesn’t heal up and trickles spinal fluid all day long. The doc on call dismissed it and was certain I had blood clots in my brain and I was going to die. We needed an MRI, ASAP.

Okay, I know I’m all about dramatics and theatrics, but this sounded a little far fetched even to me. Isn’t the other way more likely? But he was insistent that I would be leaving this earth way early if we didn’t load me into the tube and scan my already foggy brain.

In order to take the pain away, they came up with this brilliant headache cocktail.

“Now,” the nurse said, “the medication we’re going to give will take the pain away, bit it makes you feel really jumpy and horrible.” Nice. “So, we’re going to give you a heavy dose of benadryl first to relax your body and counteract the effect.”

Here’s where you’re supposed to listen when the Spirit says, “Don’t Do It!” I was skeptical, but she talked me into it. Let’s just say I felt like a slug with ants running all over my body and no arms to brush them off. Once the drug started to wear off, I insisted they let me go home and stop poking me. I also refused the MRI and told the doc on call that I’d take my chances with death.

So three days later the headaches were so bad that we had to go in again. This time, the doctor agreed that it was a leaky block and suggested we patch it up real quick like. They  made it sound so simple: we’ll draw a little blood from your arm and put it in your back to patch up the hole.

I will spare you the intricate details of the procedure, but it was rather miserable and involved getting an epidural while someone  else simultaneously drew five gallons of blood from my arm. Talk about a needle party. They then pumped that blood into my back to stop up the drip, which felt nothing short of icky and painful.

But my headache was gone in ten minutes.

Just thought you might want to know what I’ve been up to. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m getting a breast infection so I’m going to wake up the baby.

My boobs are killing me, my incision is on fire (at the moment), I’m down about two quarts of blood, and I don’t know that I’ve ever been happier.

How is it that something so painful and difficult as having a new little baby can be so rewarding? I’m not kidding, she doesn’t even have to do anything but open her eyes a few times a day, smell like Johnson and Johnson’s, make enough diapers to chase the jaundice away, and I’m nothing but putty in her teensy little hands.

And you think I’ve got it bad, you should see her father. I actually heard him arguing with the June Bug this morning over who got to hold the baby.

Speaking of her sister, Junie has almost mastered the fine art of changing a newborn’s diaper. Like my sister-in-law said, too bad she can’t apply those skills to herself. It’s taking every ounce of patience I can muster right now fork over cash for a child the size of Arkansas. We’ll be buying her Depends in no time.

As far as my health goes, I kind of lost a lot of blood there that first day out (my hemoglobin is still not quite at a 7), and my doctor thinks it would be wiser for me to spend the next month drinking fluids, relaxing and rebuilding than to just give me a pint already. Cause we all know how much I like not being able to climb stairs without seeing stars. Plus, getting blood and getting better would mean that I’d miss so much TLC, and once you’re behind, there’s no catching back up.

Oh well, my man has three weeks off, so we’re in good shape. Now if I can just get my hands on an oxygen tank…