Backfield in Motion

Yesterday morning, we took Ryan to the gym for his first “Tumble Tots” class. His big sister Rosemary won the honor (or possibly drew the short straw) of being his buddy for the class. And by “buddy”, I mean “wrangler”. I wouldn’t say that it didn’t go well, but I will say that it didn’t go as intended.

The group of kids began by sitting in a circle with their parents and listening to the instructor. Except Ryan, who refused to sit but ran wildly around the gym with Rosemary hot on his heels.

Then they moved on to an obstacle course, once again listening patiently to the instructor explain what to do on each piece of apparatus, and politely waiting for the child ahead of them to finish before taking their turn. Ryan continued to run wildly around the gym, occasionally pausing to cut in line and slide down a slide, throw a hula hoop, swing on a bar, or roll down a ramp before once again running wildly around the gym.

After that, the class moved to the trampoline, all sitting carefully on the edge while each child took a turn bouncing with the instructor. Except Ryan, who struggled in Rosemary’s arms yelling “STUCK!!!” until it was his turn.

The final apparatus was the pit full of foam blocks, which Ryan at last chose to participate in. He jumped in with both feet, nearly squishing several other children in the process, and proceeded to throw the foam blocks in the air with great relish. I suspect the only reason he wasn’t running around wildly is because it’s physically impossible to run around in the pit.

And at the very end of class, as the children were lining up and sitting quietly waiting to get their coloring paper and a stamp on their hand, Ryan was…running wildly around the gym with Rosemary chasing close behind.

Lest you think I’m exaggerating for comic effect, here’s an excerpt from class:

The wonderful instructor was totally unfazed and assured us that six weeks from now he’d be sitting nicely with the rest of the class and we’d hardly remember how wild he was. I’m not sure I believe her, but what I am sure of is that we’ll be making him run around the building 15 or 20 times before his next class…

Brother Trucker

My son is fascinated with trucks. More accurately, my son is OBSESSED with trucks. He can’t say, “I love you” in any comprehensible way, but he can say the words, “backhoe”, “excavator”, “cement truck”, “bulldozer”, “dump truck”, “pickup truck”, “trash truck”, “police car” and “fire engine” perfectly clearly and can identify them all correctly. The first words out of his mouth this morning were “digger truck”. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as obsession.

Not that I didn’t see this coming. He’s a boy, to begin with. When he was only a few months old, my mother bought him a little wooden pickup truck because, as she very sensibly stated, “A boy needs a truck.” And as soon as he had enough control of his hands to grab that truck, he did. He spun its wheels endlessly. In fact, his fascination with wheels (and anything else that can spin, for that matter) was a blatant precursor to his fascination with trucks. I had to be careful whenever I brought him to a playground where there were other strollers parked, because he would march up to one of them, grab a wheel, and hoist the stroller (and occasionally its rather startled occupant) into the air so he could examine – and spin – the wheels. He loves grocery carts, industrial wheeled trashcans, and moving dollies. He’ll stop in the middle of a walk to admire the tires of any parked vehicles that we pass. So when he discovered the joy of trucks, it came as no surprise.

This love of trucks was cemented last week when there was a road construction crew working in front of our house. The city is putting in new water pipes, and after the crew had dug up the street and laid the new pipes, they brought in a backhoe, an excavator and a roller truck to repair the hole. I know that those are the exact trucks they used, because my son and I spent a good deal of time sitting at the side of the road watching, and he made friends with the overseer, who was very happy to point out what each truck was doing, and carefully said the name of each truck so my son could repeat it. The kid who says “yesh” instead of “yes” and “muck” instead of “milk” managed to get “backhoe” and “excavator” out properly on the first try. (Well, technically, he said “escavator”, but since so does every construction worker in Jersey, he gets a pass on that one.) He was absolutely in his glory watching the trucks dig and spread and smooth and tamp the dirt. Every time one of them clunked or groaned, he excitedly announced, “Noise!” Every time one of them backed up, he happily “beep beep beep”-ed right along with it. The day they moved on to the next block was very sad for him. I explained that they’d finished their work and were somewhere else, and he must have understood because he got up from his nap that day, pointed out the window and said sorrowfully, “No more digger truck. Truck all gone.”

Luckily for him, we live in eastern Massachusetts, the Land of Perpetual Construction, so pretty much any time we get in the car we see some big construction equipment, either working or parked on the side of the road. And when we’re at home, he has a whole collection of books with pictures of trucks (thank you, cousin Henry!). Plus, Daddy showed him a YouTube video of some construction vehicles at work and now every time he sees a computer screen he begs, “Big truck? Dump truck? Digger truck?”

At some point, I’m sure he’ll grow out of this obsession. I just hope it’s before he gets his driver’s license and grows back into it.

I Sing the Body Electric

I’ll admit it: I take my body for granted. I have for basically my entire adult life. It’s pretty middle of the road, looks-wise: slim but not especially spectacular. Not athletic, but not terribly out of shape. Not particularly healthy, but reliable. I’ve never been proud of it and I’ve never been ashamed of it. It’s just always been there.

When I developed rheumatoid arthritis at age 25, I resented my body a little. It ticked me off that it had let me down. But the flip side of a physical ailment is a recognition of how amazing the body is when it’s healthy. The intricacies and complexities of a system that thinks, moves, and heals itself is almost beyond comprehension. But what really made me recognize the amazing nature of my body was having a couple of babies.

There are two parts to that. First, going through the physical changes involved in carrying and giving birth to a child can’t help but make you aware of the miraculous nature of the human body. But second, watching that child explore his or her own body is a brand new revelation of how…well, cool the human body is.

At only 5 weeks old, Katie is already experimenting with and discovering what her body can do. Every waking moment, she is wiggling her feet, kicking them against anything close by, testing their strength and flexibility. She is constantly stretching out her arms, waving them in front of her face, grabbing at anything within reach. Her tongue is an endless source of curiosity. She pokes it out over and over, as if wondering, “What is this thing in my mouth and what am I supposed to do with it?” She turns her eyes toward bright lights, colors, and familiar voices. Her body is new to her and she is fascinated by it. As am I.

And at 22 months old, Ryan continues to be fascinated with his body. It’s no longer new to him, but the skills he’s learning every day are new and exciting. Just the other day, he discovered that he can reach up and hang from the supports of the treadmill with his feet in the air. He can turn a somersault. He loves the feeling of being dangled upside down, and of spinning around till he’s dizzy. He’s taken to experimenting with playground slides, going down feet first on his backside, then feet first lying on his tummy, then head first on his tummy, then head first on his back (Mummy does not encourage this position), then running down standing up (Mummy definitely does not encourage this position). He revels in identifying each body part: ears, nose, eyes, hair, head, chin, mouth, tongue, teeth, elbows, hands, fingers, knees, feet, toes, belly. He wiggles his fingers and toes for the sheer pleasure of it. He bonks his head on the wall just to experience what it feels like. He makes nonsense sounds with his mouth, blows raspberries (very WET raspberries), and tries to whistle. He is determined to figure out all the cool things he can do with his body.

Watching the two kids revel in their bodies reminds me that I should do the same. Being over forty and having had two babies in the past two years, one of whom was born only a few weeks ago, it is all too easy for me to rue the state of my body. My belly is soft and mushy and still bears the telltale dark line of pregnancy, my skin is blotchy, my fingers are beginning to show the ravages of arthritis, my lips have a few wrinkles around them, my chest is showing the signs of inevitable droopage, my hair is more grey than brown and is starting to sprout in places where it doesn’t belong. But my flabby belly is still a wonderful place to lay a sleeping baby. My mottled skin still delights in rubbing against a baby’s soft, downy hair. My gnarled fingers can still tickle a small belly. My wrinkled lips can still kiss away a hurt. My chest can still make a cozy pillow for a tired toddler. My hair…well, my hair has enough brown left that there will still be some to turn grey when my kids hit adolescence.

Yup. I sing the body electric.

Who's Driving This Bus?

When I was pregnant with my son, my husband and I took a one-day “Childbirth Preparation” class. The instructor was an experienced labor and delivery nurse with children of her own, and her teaching combined her medical knowledge with good, old-fashioned common sense. One of the wisest things she told us was, “Go ahead and write up a ‘birth plan’. Put down on paper exactly how you’d like your birth experience to go. And then rip it up and throw it away, because you’re not the one who decides what happens. Your doctor isn’t even the one who decides what happens. Your baby is now calling the shots. Get used to it.”

And she was right. When you have a baby, the baby determines your schedule to a great extent: when you sleep, often when you eat, even when you talk. The baby’s sleeping? Keep your voice down. The baby’s hungry? Wake up and feed her. The baby’s fussing? Put down your fork and let your dinner get cold while you figure out what’s bothering her. Once the baby gets a bit older, you can ease her into some kind of an eating and sleeping schedule, but you still have no control over fussy times. And if your child needs a nap NOW, it’s going to happen whether it’s convenient for you or not. Once you’re a parent you are, quite simply, no longer driving the bus.

And that is why I am writing this blog at 6:30 in the morning, with one child eating his breakfast in the next room, having just put the other down to sleep upstairs a few minutes ago. I am sitting at my computer with the baby monitor on my left and a cup of coffee on my right, wondering if I can sneak in a shower before my son finishes his breakfast and yells to be freed from his high chair, and before my daughter decides this is a one-hour sleep break and not a four-hour sleep break and yells for my attention.

But I don’t mind that they’re driving the bus for now. With the two of them driving, who knows what fascinating avenues this bus might explore. So I’m just going to strap on my seat belt and enjoy the ride!

First Child vs. Second Child

When my son was born, I think I filled in the information in his baby book the day I came home from the hospital. I dutifully looked up all the data for the “On The Day I Was Born” page – I googled the most popular song that day, the top news stories, the current world leaders of various countries, the hit television shows and movies. I wrote up bios for myself and my husband. I filled out the genealogy page with names and dates. And I carefully read through the “milestones” page nearly every day, so I wouldn’t miss my chance to record his first smile, his first trip to the zoo/the mall/church/his grandparents’ house, his first tooth, his first step, his first everything.

My daughter is over a month old and her baby book doesn’t even have her name in it. In fact, the only reason she HAS a baby book is that we got two at her brother’s baby shower.

I am a bad mother.

Actually, I’m really not. I am simply the mother of two instead of the mother of one. I honestly thought I understood what a difference that would be. Ha ha ha ha ha. It’s hard to write in a baby book when you’re holding a nursing baby to your breast while chasing a laughing toddler around the room shouting, “Spit out that penny! Spit it out! Now!”

But there are also benefits to having been through an older child’s infancy. You understand the crucial difference between the “I’m hungry/tired/wet” cries and the “I’m bored” cry, and you know which need to be attended to within two minutes and which can wait for ten or fifteen. I hadn’t realized how much I’d absorbed that idea until I was at a neighborhood yard sale over the weekend with my daughter in her stroller. She began fussing, so without even looking at her, I started rocking the stroller back and forth with my foot while I continued browsing. The mom running the sale laughed and commented, “This must not be your first.”

Another benefit to having had a child already is that you have an arsenal of tricks to use on a cranky baby. It took a couple of months of thinking of various way to soothe my son during his cranky times, but with my daughter, I had two or three months’ worth of tricks up my sleeve the day she came home. I already knew that “just any lullaby” wouldn’t work. My son’s preference was “Old McDonald”, which I didn’t figure out until he was 6 or 7 weeks old; after going through my full repertoire, I knew within a day or two that my daughter could be soothed only by “Moonshine Lullaby”. And I figured out right away that she shared her brother’s need to be held standing up, not sitting in a chair. That tidbit took several weeks with her brother.

But the ultimate benefit to having an older child is that you can look at that older child and realize that even though you had no idea what you were doing, he grew up to be a healthy, happy, well-adjusted toddler with no physical or emotional scars to speak of. So chances are pretty good that your little one will survive your incompetence just as nicely.

A Perfect Day, or, One Hot Mama

Today is already a fantastic day, and it’s going to get even better. It actually began in the wee hours of the morning, at 1 am. Katie was wide awake until then, but at 1am, she fell sound asleep, and so did I. She slept until 4:15am, ate without any hysterical slurping or stopping to cry mid-nurse, burped quickly and completely, and promptly fell back to sleep so I was back in bed by 5am. She didn’t wake up again until 8:15am, at which time my wonderful husband (after offering to give her a bottle himself so I could sleep) brought her in to me so I could nurse her without getting out of bed. Once again, she ate, burped, and fell back to sleep immediately so she was done by 9am.

My husband planned to visit his parents in the morning and had offered to take both kids with him so I would have my morning free. Being in desperate need of a haircut, I took him up on that offer. I took a long, hot shower (I even shaved my legs for the first time in – well, I’d rather not admit how long), got dressed, and headed for the hairdresser. There was no line, so I got my new ‘do within a matter of minutes and headed off to breakfast.

Going out to breakfast is one of my very favorite treats. I love going with family or friends, but sometimes it’s a special treat to go alone, just me and my Kindle. I chatted with the waitress while I savored my steaming cup of coffee, thinking how nice it was that I didn’t have to drink it from a closeable travel mug and periodically rescue it from a curious two-year-old asking, “Hot?” and attempting to dump it out all over the couch. I dunked my fluffy pancakes in syrup without sticky fingers poking at my plate and a small voice piping up hopefully, “Bite?” I read my book on my Kindle without getting any “help” turning the pages or someone pushing my hand aside to reach the buttons. It was wonderful. (Let me just say here that I love and adore my son, but he can be a bit exhausting and I love him even more when I get a break from him now and then. And I’m sure he feels the same about me.)

After breakfast, I headed over to my beloved Dress Barn. Oh, Dress Barn, how I’ve missed you. I love Dress Barn clothes, but since they don’t carry a maternity line, I’ve been in withdrawal for nearly the past year. I’ve been away for so long that I got a discount for re-upping my store charge that I haven’t used in more than a year. And since I was getting a discount, it only made sense to pick up some jewelry to go with the dresses I bought, right? I found a beautiful, flattering dress for church and more casual wear, and then I hit the jackpot: the perfect post-maternity date dress.

This dress probably wasn’t intentionally designed for the post-partum figure, but it might as well have been. My years of watching Stacy and Clinton on “What Not To Wear” (sorry, sweetheart) have taught me many tricks of how to choose flattering clothes, and this dress hits all the right notes. Slimmest part of dress at slimmest part of my figure? Check. Hemline hitting right above the knee? Check. Silhouette skimming my body without being tight? Check. Little design pouf falling right over (and therefore camouflaging) my post-baby pooch? Check. Sufficient support for current generous endowment of the girls (Stacy’s term, not mine)? Check. Plus the added bonus of being a gorgeous, rich color that compliments my hair and brings out my eyes. Throw in a pair of great shoes and the perfect accessories and hubba hubba, I am one hot mama!

And the best part of the day will be going out for a romantic, child-free (see “loving my children” comment, above) dinner with my husband tonight - putting on my beautiful new dress and my beautiful new bling, topping it off by wearing makeup for the first time in a month, and maybe even a spritz of scent, and watching my husband beam with delight, not only because I look fantastic, but because he’ll be so pleased that I splurged on myself.

Wait a minute, that’ll be the second-best part of the day. The very best part of the day will be when I come home, kick off my fancy high heels, and slip into my children’s rooms to give their angelic sleeping faces a good-night kiss before giving my husband a good-night kiss and slipping into bed myself. THAT will be the very best part of the day.

Fuzzy Baby Heads

God knew what he was doing when He designed babies. Babies are very demanding. They require an awful lot of time and attention. They can be very loud. They extrude noxious substances from various orifices, often all at the same time. He needed to provide them with some endearing traits in order to make us, their parents, not want to abandon them at birth. So He gave them big eyes, and cute round faces, soft skin, and sweet rosebud lips. But perhaps best of all, He gave them Fuzzy Baby Heads.

My son Ryan had really good Fuzzy Baby Head as a newborn. In fact, Daddy would sometimes blow-dry his hair to give it its full, fuzzy-headed, Muppet glory:

Katie has even higher quality Fuzzy Baby Head, since she was also born with a good deal of hair, and at one month of age, it is already fairly long. But not only is Katie’s hair a bit finer than Ryan’s, she also has the advantage of having inherited the Riesen cowlicks, which means that even without blow-drying, she has several patches of hair that stick out and create a natural, endearing fuzziness:

And just in case that weren’t enough, she has very strong legs and likes to “swim” up the chest of whoever is holding her and nuzzle her Fuzzy Baby Head directly under the chin of her holder. And since when she’s fussy, she’s an even stronger swimmer, she has a built-in countermeasure for how upsetting it is to hold a fussy baby, because the best solution for the stress of holding a fussy baby is a good solid dose of Fuzzy Baby Head.

As the mother of an extremely high-energy almost-two-year-old and a one-month-old who still has her days and nights reversed, I am often sleep-deprived and somewhat stressed out. But I am saved from losing my mind, every single day, by a few doses of Fuzzy Baby Head. No matter how exhausted and stressed out I am, rubbing my face against that soft, sweet-smelling Fuzzy Baby Head relaxes me. It’s as if the fuzziness is a magnet for stress, so touching the fuzzy draws all the tension out of my system the way a magnet draws away iron filings.

I am convinced that if someone could figure out a way to package the magic of Fuzzy Baby Head, it could become a vessel for world peace. After all, who can resist Fuzzy Baby Head? I bet that even Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan snuggled a Fuzzy Baby Head or two in their lives. And probably if they had snuggled a few more, the course of world history would have been somewhat different.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear a Fuzzy Baby Head calling my name. That call, unfortunately, is currently in the form of an unhappy, screaming baby. But it’s okay, because as long as the screaming is coming out of a Fuzzy Baby Head, we’ll both be fine.




 

28 Days Later

Four weeks ago today, I got up in the morning certain that by the end of the day I would go from being a “mother of one” to being a “mother of two”.
Four weeks ago today, my husband and I got out of bed, packed a bag, dropped off our son at his grandparents’, and went to the hospital where I was scheduled to be induced. When we arrived, the doctor told us that everyone and his brother (or, more accurately, “everyone and her sister”) had gone into labor and there was no bed for me, so they did a quick “non-stress test” to confirm that our baby wasn’t in any kind of distress (and also that I was having strong and regular – although still unfelt – contractions), and then sent us home, telling us to call at 2pm, hoping they’d have room for me at around 3pm.
Four weeks ago today, we spent the day with Herb’s daughter and our son, checking out various playgrounds and enjoying our last few hours as a family of four. At 2pm, we called the hospital and were told to come back at around 5pm, so we spent a few more hours relaxing at Bammy and Pappy’s house before we headed off to try, once again, to convince this baby to make an appearance.
Four weeks ago today, my husband and I kissed the kids goodbye and headed back to the hospital. At 5:30, they turned on the Pitocin. At 8:45, with little additional progress, the medical team hooked me up to an epidural, broke my water, and cranked up the Pitocin. Finally, I could feel the contractions, although they were still painless. At 9:45, the contractions finally became painful – I was thankful for the pain, and also for the epidural.

Four weeks ago today, at 10:08pm, the doctor examined me and announced that I was fully dilated and effaced, and on the next contraction I could try pushing and we’d see how things went. As the next contraction approached, I braced myself and began to push, as the doctor and the nurse chanted in unison: “Push! PushpushpushstopSTOPSTOP!!!” I would have been scared by the urgency of their voices except that they were both laughing as they told me to stop. Apparently, the baby and I were more ready than they were. The nurse turned on the baby warmer as she headed for the door to call in the rest of the team, and the doctor retrieved the delivery cart from the corner of the room and removed its sterile drape. About a minute later, everything (and everyone) was in place and as the next contraction approached, I once again braced myself. I don’t remember hearing the instructions from the doctor or the nurse, I was simply aware of my husband by my side, and knowing it was time to take a deep breath, drop my head to my chest, and get this reluctant baby to join the world! I pushed through two contractions, and on the third, the doctor said, “OK, look down here!” I remember wondering what on earth I was supposed to see, and then I saw the doctor lifting this beautiful, long, perfect baby into the air and hearing voices announce, “It’s a girl!” and “10:12pm”. Hands placed her on my chest and as her first cries filled the air, everyone in the room laughed and told us how beautiful she was.

Four weeks ago today, I saw my beautiful baby girl for the first time. I touched her downy hair, I counted each perfect miniature finger, I marveled at the impossible tininess of her wee toenails. I gazed into her face and examined every feature. She looked very much like her brother, which is to say that she looked very much like her father. As I took in the nearly-invisible brows and lashes, the tiny purple veins in her eyelids, the pore-less perfection of her skin, she struggled to lift her head, then opened her eyes and looked toward me in that vaguely cross-eyed, unfocused newborn fashion. I whispered to her, “I’m your mum, and I will always take care of you.” For a moment, I thought of my own mum, and tears filled my eyes as I wished she were here to see her beautiful granddaughter. But then I felt my husband’s warm hand on my shoulder as he gently caressed our new daughter with his other hand and whispered to me how beautiful she was and how proud he was of me.

For a few moments, the three of us stayed still, simply taking each other in and appreciating the wonder that is the miracle of birth. All too soon the nurses took her back to weigh her and clean her up. But in just a few more moments they had brought her back, swaddled in a warm blanket and wearing that silly little pink-and-blue-striped hat that is the hallmark of all newborn babies. I guided her to my breast and she immediately clamped on, making me laugh with pleasure and relief. Apparently I wouldn’t be going through the same difficulties I had with feeding her brother.
Once again, I marveled at her tiny perfection. I reveled in the impossible softness of her pale chestnut hair, the pert upturn of her nose, her curly rosebud lips, the way her ears faded from pink at their tops to pure alabaster at her earlobes.
Can it really be true that all those things happened four weeks ago? It seems like just yesterday, and yet it also seems like she has been a part of our family forever. Our daily routine feels like it has always been this way. Haven’t I always eaten my meals with one hand while jiggling a persnickety baby with the other? Haven’t my nights always consisted of sleeping for two hours, then feeding and rocking a wide-awake baby for another two? Haven’t I always spent half of my time with either a baby or a breast pump attached to me? And haven’t I spent my whole life loving this child, loving this amazing, wonderful, perfect little family?
Maybe it’s only been this wonderful and perfect for the past four weeks, but I have no doubt that it will stay this wonderful and perfect for the next four, and the next four, and the next four. Even when it doesn’t quite feel perfect, it still is. After all, how could it possibly ever be better than our perfect full house?

By This Time Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning, I will be getting up bright and early, packing my bag into the car, dropping Ryan off at his grandparents’, and heading to the hospital with my husband to have a baby. What a strange thought that is!

How completely different this is from my son’s birth. Being a first baby, I assumed he’d be at least a few days late, if not more. So when I woke up at 2am a week and a half before he was due, having had no prior symptoms of labor, and realized that my water had just broken and I was having contractions, it came as a complete surprise. And I also assumed that, since it was my first baby and he was likely to be rather large, that my labor would go on for a good long time – instead, the whole shebang from first contraction to “here’s your baby” was a grand total of 10 hours. With this baby, I was convinced it would be early, I’ve been having contractions for weeks, and I’ve been pretty far dilated and effaced for a week, so I’ve definitely been expecting things to happen for quite a while now!

But at long last, tomorrow is the decreed day. I know that inductions can often take some time, but according to the nurse, “one whiff of Pitocin” and I should be right into full-fledged labor. The baby is ready, I’m ready, even my body is ready, but somehow the signals have gotten a bit stalled, so one quick jump-start and we should be cooking with gas!

It really is a completely different feeling this time. On one hand, I’m more confident because I’ve been through it before. I know I don’t need to worry about the epidural being painful. I know I don’t need to worry that it won’t work for me. I know that the nurses will coach me through everything I need to do and that Herb will be able to be by my side. But on the other hand, I know some unpleasant things, like the fact that I’m probably going to throw up during labor (a lot), and that I’ll also experience several other unpleasant physiological processes that I won’t share with the general public. But I also know that I can do this. I CAN DO THIS. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.

And after I do it, we’ll have a beautiful new member of the family. That thought alone will get me through the day with no problem at all. Bring it on!

My Body Is Mocking Me

Today marks the official two-weeks-to-go point of this pregnancy, and I couldn’t be readier. When I got close to the end of my pregnancy with my son, I really didn’t know what to expect, and I was assuming that I wouldn’t deliver until my due date or even later, so I wasn’t really watching for signs at this point. I was actually very surprised to wake up a week and a half before my due date because my water had broken and I was having contractions. But with this baby, I’ve been convinced all along that I’ll go early, so I’ve been eagerly looking forward to any and every sign of impending delivery.

With my son, I wasn’t aware of when he turned head-down, it wasn’t obvious when he dropped, I had almost no Braxton-Hicks contractions, my cervix wasn’t dilated at my last doctor’s appointment, and my water broke right when my contractions started. I really didn’t have much advance warning at all. It was just BOOM! Heeeeeere’s labor! But with this pregnancy, I could tell you exactly the day that the baby turned and dropped. I’ve been having Braxton-Hicks for a number of weeks and today I’ve been having them all day long, about half an hour apart. (I know they're Braxton-Hicks because they're painless - whoever thought I'd be WISHING for pain??) And I was just over 1cm dilated at last Monday’s appointment. I think my body is mocking me for all my expectations.

My husband has been warning me all along not to get my hopes up for an early delivery. He’s kept reminding me that if I expect to go into labor two weeks early and I don’t, I’ll be horribly disappointed. Whenever I tell someone, “I have two weeks to go, but I think it will be less than a week,” he says, “It’ll probably be in three weeks.” And he’s probably right. Even if he isn’t right, he’s wise. Because that extra week will seem like an eternity. An eternity of acid reflux, full bladders, and waddling.

So I guess I’d better just suck it up and plan on being in one piece for three more weeks. You hear that, body? Three more weeks! I admit it! This baby isn’t coming early, it’s coming late! So I’ll just have to wait for it.

I just hope my body isn’t wise to reverse psychology.

Hero Worship

One of the delightful things about childhood is hero worship. It starts with toddlers and goes all the way through the teen years. For teens and tweens, it’s likely to be a star athlete, or a famous movie actor, or a popular musician. The hero worship takes the form of posters on the bedroom wall, collecting stats or albums or DVDs, and reading articles online and in teen fanzines. It might even include imitating the hero’s haircut or style of dress. The kid would love to grow up to be as famous, rich, and talented as his or her hero, but they know that’s not likely.

Younger kids, ages 5 to 10 or so, are more likely to pick a hero they actually know. At this age, the hero worship is in the form of a crush, and can be on someone either the same gender as or a different gender from the child. My teenage niece, Kayla, works at a sports camp for kids, and has become the focus of hero worship of a 7-year-old boy in her class. He chooses which game to play each day based on which group she’s leading, and generally idolizes her. When I was in high school, I was a library page, and the 5-year-old daughter of one of the librarians chose me as her hero. She followed me around, trying to do what I did, flip her hair like I did, walk like I did. She told her mother how byooooo-tiful I looked every day, with my pretty hair, and my pretty clothes. In both cases, the kids mooned over us heroes, and wanted to be with us and be like us. They yearned to grow up just like us and to have all the wonderful confidence and independence that we had (in their eyes, anyway).

But the most fun hero worship to watch is that of toddlers. Their hero worship tends to be centered on a family member, and my son Ryan is no exception. He has two big heroes: his Daddy, and his cousin Troy. His hero worship is mainly manifested in unrestrained glee any time he’s with either of them. His face lights up like a Christmas tree when Daddy gets him out of bed in the morning, or when he hears Daddy coming down the stairs after work, or when Daddy comes out of the study after having been home but frustratingly unavailable for a few hours. Ryan gets so excited that he can’t even run to give Daddy a hug – he simply squeals and throws himself on the floor, then peeks up at Daddy and squeals some more. Eventually he manages to hurl himself at Daddy’s legs and cling on like a little octopus. When Daddy leaves for work, he often stands at the foot of the stairs with a quivering lip, pointing at Daddy’s retreating figure and pathetically calling, “Dada? Dada?”

And he behaves similarly with cousin Troy. When Ryan was born, Troy was ecstatic to finally have a fellow boy cousin amid the sea of girls in the family. The two of them bonded from day 1. In fact, as soon as Ryan started to learn proper names, he gave Troy a secret name which seems to have meaning only to him: Mun. No-one is quite sure where it came from, but Ryan is quite adamant that Troy’s name is Mun. When we practice saying everyone’s name in the family, the exchange usually goes something like this:
“Ryan, say ‘Bammy’.” “Bammeee.”

“Say ‘Pappy’.” “Pa-pa-pappy.”

“Say ‘Rosemary’.” “May-may.”

“Say ‘Holly’,” “Haw-lalala.”

“Say ‘Jim’.” “Jeeeem.”

“Say ‘Kayla’.” “Tayla.”

“Say ‘Troy’.” “MUN!!!” (Said with a big grin.)

When we pull up to their house and we ask who we’re visiting, does he say “Jeeem” or “Haw-lalala” or “Tayla”? Nope. We’re visiting Mun. Anyone else who happens to live there is just a little extra bonus. Mun is the point. Mun is the one Ryan runs to hug first, and the one he wants to play with. He loves everyone in the family, but Mun is special. Mun is his hero.

This weekend Troy has been staying overnight with us while he’s rehearsing for a show near our house. Ryan is thrilled by this development, and has taken advantage of the chance to pounce on him first thing in the morning, swim with him in the evening, and play with him every chance he gets. His favorite game is the Mun train: He runs up behind him, wraps his arms around Troy’s legs, pushes him to march, and goes “Woo woo!!!” like a train whistle, with Troy as the engine and Ryan as the caboose.

It’s hard to say who gets the biggest kick out of that game, Ryan, Mun, or Mum and Dad. There are definitely big grins all around.

I’m sure that someday Ryan’s hero worship will move on to a different figure, and that will be a very sad day for Mun. But I suspect it will be an even sadder day for Mum.

What Kind of Mother Am I, Anyway?

Yesterday, I offered my child up for sale on Facebook. Yes, I was only kidding, but I’ll admit that if I’d gotten a better offer than a peeing cat I might have given it a split-second’s consideration. Seriously, I love my child more than life itself. I’d throw myself into the path of a moving train for him. But yesterday was one of those days when I was hoping for that train to come by and put me out of my misery.

I should have known it would be a rough day when he woke up at 7am instead of his usual 8 or 8:30. But I figured that with that early rising he’d be eager for an early (and hopefully long!) nap. And in fact, when I put him in his highchair for a snack at 11:00, he was moving in slo-mo and his eyes were beginning to glaze over. By 11:30 I was certain he’d be out cold in a few minutes, so I didn’t even tempt fate by asking him to climb the stairs to his bedroom. I picked him up to carry him upstairs and he laid his head on my shoulder and “koala snuggled” his arms around my neck. I turned on the air conditioner and a lullaby CD and tucked him in his bed with a few soft toys and a book, convinced that he’d fall asleep within moments, then slipped down the hall to lay on my bed until I was sure he was asleep.

For a few minutes, all was quiet, then I started to hear him chatting quietly to himself. Then I heard the quiet thud of a little body slipping from the bed to the floor. Then I heard the jingle of the jinglebells hanging on the outside doorknob of his door and I immediately ran down the hallway. When I came in the room, he was happily jingling his bells (which he had stolen from the knob and then re-closed the door) and was headed for a stack of toys, having already turned off the A/C and the CD and turned on the overhead light. I took the bells away and told him to get back into bed, which he did without question. I turned the A/C and the CD back on, gave him a kiss, reminded him one more time to stay in bed, and turned the light off on my way out.

Only a few minutes had passed before I heard the distinctive sound of venetian blinds being rattled and raced back in to scold him. Much to his father’s chagrin, he had already bent them badly out of shape and I was afraid of him making them any worse. He looked at me with big innocent eyes as I ordered him back into bed yet again. I decided to sit in the rocking chair and watch him for a few minutes, but when I realized he was much more interested in marching up and down the bed than in laying down and sleeping, I knew that wouldn’t work. So I heaved myself into his bed (and if you’ve never seen an 8-months-pregnant woman maneuver herself over a bedrail, you’ve missed out on an impressive sight), patted the pillow next to me, and convinced him to “come and snuggle with Mama”.

He immediately threw himself down next to me and commenced fake snoring. Ever hopeful, I threw my arm over him and waited for him to fall asleep for real. Ha! Silly Mama. That lasted for about 8 seconds before he jumped up and began throwing each of his toys and stuffed animals out of the bed, one at a time. I warned him, “all gone” with each item, and he solemnly repeated my words each time. Block? All gone. Bear? All gone. Book? All gone. He even pulled the pillow from under my head and jettisoned it. And then he leaned over me and peered at the detritus on the floor, pointing and looking at me hopefully. “Nope, all gone,” I told him. Unfazed, he then turned and crashed into the wall. Discovering what a delightfully loud noise that made, he began pounding on the wall with both fists until I couldn’t take it any more and told him “Enough!” Surprisingly, he stopped, and then announced to me, “Poop!” while patting his bottom. He then threw himself on my head, leaving no doubt in my mind that it was time for a diaper change.

At that point, I gave up on any hope for a nap for either one of us. I changed his diaper and brought him back downstairs to the playroom, where he commenced racing laps around the room while I collapsed on the couch and watched him. Every once in a while there would be a pause before he came around the corner and I found myself carefully listening to hear what trouble he was getting into in the back hallway. I’ve never been able to decide which is more disconcerting when he’s out of sight: absolute silence or unidentifiable crunching noises. Either way, it must be investigated ASAP. In this particular room, silence is usually the more serious problem, since it usually means he’s gone into the study with all the tempting electronic equipment with its exciting buttons and lights. I found him holding the baby monitor up to his ear and asking, “Hello? Hello?” while my wireless mouse lay on the floor without its battery cover. I returned the monitor to its cradle, found and replaced the battery cover on my mouse, and escorted him back to the playroom, regretfully closing the study door with its wonderful air-conditioned air inside.

Without the study to explore, he managed to find trouble all over the rest of the room. He ran through the vertical blinds. He threw all his toys into the big aluminum tub. He moved them from the tub onto the top of the toybox then flailed his arms to knock them all over the room. He opened all the cabinet doors that he’s not allowed to open. He tried to throw things at the glass doors, the television, and Mama. He finally broke the camel’s back when he ran up to me and very deliberately gave my leg a hard smack. I grabbed his hand, gave it a good slap, looked right in his eyes, and fully aware of my own hypocrisy, shouted in my sternest “angry Mom” voice, “No! No hitting!” I guess I finally got it right that time, because instead of his usual giggle when I scold him, he puddled up and started to cry. I started to cry a bit myself, and scooped him into my arms and told him I love him even when he makes me crazy.

He calmed down after a quick snuggle and we laid down on the couch together and played, until suddenly something struck him as hilariously funny and he executed what I’ve dubbed the “happy puppy wriggle”. You know how puppies, especially really big breeds of puppies, get so excited that their whole bodies nearly convulse with excitement? That’s what he does. Unfortunately, as he kicked out with both feet with his full strength, he managed to kick me full-on in the pelvis with one heel. I literally saw stars, and doubled over in pain (or as close to double as I can get these days) while I waited to get my breath back. I couldn’t scold him because it was completely unintentional, but it just felt like adding insult to injury (or injury to insult, to be more accurate). I started to get up from the couch and was rewarded with a fresh stab of pain. So much for the grocery shopping trip I’d planned.

By the time my husband called to say he was on his way home from work, I was definitely ready to sell this kid to the gypsies. So what kind of mom does that make me?

I’m pretty sure it just makes me human.

The Pros and Cons of the Big Boy Bed

With the new baby due to arrive in a little more than a month, my husband’s nesting instincts have kicked in, big-time, and one of his recent projects was setting up my son’s “big boy bed”. We had a set of bunk beds in the attic, complete with a bed rail, so we opted to bypass getting a toddler bed and move Ryan directly from the crib into a twin bed. I was a bit nervous as to what he would think of it – and more importantly, whether he’d be willing to STAY in it – but my fears were apparently groundless.

The moment we brought Ryan into his bedroom with the new bed in it, his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he scrambled right into it with no prompting from us. He immediately began jumping up and down, throwing himself on the pillow and snuggling into the fleece blanket, and rearranging the finials on the bedposts, all the while grinning and happily repeating, “Bed! Bed!” In fact, the first night he slept in his new bed, the first thing he said when he woke up in the morning was, “Bed!!”

My biggest fear about having him in a bed was that he’d get out of bed in the middle of the night, still half-asleep, wander out of his room and fall down the stairs. The way our stairway is designed, a standard baby gate won’t attach at the top of the stairs. The solution I came up with was to “bell the cat” by hanging a strap with several loud jingle bells on it over his doorknob, so if he opened his door I’d hear it and wake up. Fortunately, I needn’t have worried, since he loves his bed so much that he hasn’t even made an attempt to climb out, either after a nap or in the morning. The closest he’s come to wanting out is to call, “Mama, mama, open!” or “Mama, up up up!” in the morning – and even that is only after he’s been wide awake and playing in the bed for half an hour or so.

I have discovered one small drawback, though: the bed is just enough longer than the crib that the video monitor doesn’t quite show the foot of the bed. So if he crawls down to that end, I can’t be certain that he’s still in bed, and I can’t see if he’s getting himself into trouble. This afternoon, after I put him down for his nap and was watching him on the monitor, I saw him crawl to the foot of the bed and vanish, and then I started hearing an odd series of noises that went something like: [click] [hum] [click] [silence] [click] [hum] [click] [silence]. I listened to it for several minutes before I realized that the little monkey had discovered the on/off switch for the window air conditioner and was happily flicking it on and off and on and off!! He’s definitely going to grow up to be either an engineer or a juvenile delinquent (or possibly both). But he’s my big boy now, and I couldn’t be prouder of him. Even when he’s being a monkey!

Ducks, Docks, Donuts, and Dirt

One of the highlights of every summer since I’ve been married is time spent at my in-laws’ house on Cape Cod. It’s a good-sized house, so our visits are often shared with grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and often other family or even unrelated friends who’ve become family. So this past Thursday afternoon, we threw a bunch of stuff into the minivan and headed down the Cape.

To elaborate on that last sentence, I really do mean “threw a bunch of stuff” very literally. In the past, we’ve had to minimize and calculate to make sure we can fit everything we actually need into the trunk of a sedan. There were always tradeoffs: Do we really need to bring the full-sized stroller? Can we manage with the small umbrella stroller? Do we need the highchair or can we take turns feeding the baby on our laps? How many diapers do we need to bring for three days? Can I manage three days in the same pair of shorts without grossing everyone out? And of course, these questions were often asked as we stared into the full trunk in frustration, with 20 “needed” items still sitting forlornly in the driveway. But with a minivan, we literally tossed anything inside that we could possibly want, never mind need. It was great! Unfortunately, the drawback to this laissez-faire method of packing was a lack of organization that resulted in our leaving behind my husband’s backpack, which included all his toiletries and clothes (fortunately I had packed his swimsuit in a separate bag, so all was not lost). But it was the Cape, and it was vacation, so we rolled with it.

My son Ryan had first experienced the Cape House last summer as a 7-month-old. His enjoyment of it back then was pretty limited to sitting inside a giant inner tube on the lawn and being crowed over by dozens of adoring relatives at the annual family summer party. He was non-mobile enough at the time that it was easy to plop him somewhere with something interesting to watch and just sit back and relax myself. Ha! Not so this year. As soon as we brought him inside, my now VERY mobile 20-month-old was off and running around the house exploring every nook and cranny. He carefully pointed out each clock, turned every lamp on and off, and strained to reach every wall switch. He threw all the throw pillows on the floor, peeked in every cabinet, and attempted to fall off the porch into the bushes.

And then, he found the beach. (One of my favorite features of the house is that it’s right on a good-sized pond so the porch affords a lovely view of passing kayaks, sailboats, and various wildlife, not to mention a small private beach.) But even better than simply the beach, he found the ducks. A mother duck with 8 adorable, fluffy babies swam by to beg for handouts. Cousin Troy grabbed the sleeve of stale crackers which was waiting for their arrival and rushed down to the beach with Ryan eagerly following. Enthusiastic but not completely clear on the concept, Ryan imitated Troy throwing bits of cracker to the ducks by throwing handfuls of sand to them. Fortunately, the ducklings weren’t overly clear on the concept either and just as enthusiastically swam over to explore the splashes where the sand had landed in the water. Ryan turned to me several times and pointed at them, excitedly announcing, “Ducks!!” I was just thrilled that he made the connection between actual ducks and the animated and cartoon versions he’s seen on Curious George and in books.

When the ducks had had their fill and gone on their merry way, Ryan took advantage of being near the water and splashed a few inches into the pond (he would happily have plunged right in if it weren’t for his stick-in-the-mud mother who insisted he put on a swimsuit before that particular exploration). He was curious about the feeling of wet sand between his toes, and found a big flat stick to dig in the wet sand with. After a few barely-thwarted attempts to squat in the water to play, I hauled him back to the house to get him into his swimsuit.

Daddy gladly took over at that point (Ryan was not the only one eager to go play in the pond), and soon they were both suited up and ready to dig in the dirt and swim. One of the many items tossed haphazardly into the minivan had been a set of sand toys, and Ryan happily explored the bag of goodies. Buckets and shovels and molds, oh my!

He also enjoyed floating in the pond with some assistance from Troy.

And of course, a few swim lessons from Daddy:

The next morning we took a drive to pick up the morning paper, and on the way stopped by the docks to admire the boats. Ryan was as impressed by the real boats as he is by his toy boats, and happily waved to the various captains and passengers with an enthusiastic (and loud) “Hi!!!” to them followed by the announcement, “Boat!!” to everyone on shore who might not have noticed.

On our way back to the house, we stopped one more time for coffee and donuts – a special treat that Ryan rarely gets. He deigned to share a chunk of glazed donut and a bite or two of chocolate glazed while he watched Mary Poppins in the DVD player, his eyes glazing over as it approached nap time. I figured that he would settle right down in his crib for a nap when we got back, but I don’t know WHAT I was thinking. There’s no napping on vacation! As soon as we were back at the house, he insisted on running around again, stealing beanbags from Uncle Jim’s game, being chased by ever-patient cousin Kayla, climbing on the picnic table to see what Pappy was doing, and giggling while racing past Aunt Holly’s and Bammy’s legs. He didn’t want to miss out on a moment of fun at the Cape house!

But one of the highlights of our visit, to me, was our outing to a Falmouth Town Band concert. The town has a lovely bandstand with a great stretch of lawn that plays host to band concerts every Thursday night. Families set up lawn chairs and spread out blankets, others sit in their cars and honk appreciatively after favorite numbers. Herb and Ryan and I merely plopped on the grass and sat back to enjoy the fun. Ryan was tired enough that he was content to sit in my lap and sway along with the marches, his eyes wide as he took in the rows of shiny brasses and watched the cymbals and timpani clashing and crashing. At one point he did get up to chase another small boy next to us who was running in circles, as small boys do. It reminded me of the many other summer concerts I’ve been to throughout my life, both as a performer and as an audience member. I suspect that you could go back in time a hundred years and, other than the clothes and cars, see exactly the same scene. Families relaxing, children running about chasing fireflies or each other, people clapping in time to familiar marches, happily ignoring the occasional missed note or muffed entrance.

Families relaxing and having fun together: that’s what summer vacations are all about. That, and ducks, docks, donuts and dirt.

My 30-Minute Pregnancy Oasis

Generally, when Ryan takes his late morning nap, I take one right along with him. But with yesterday’s heat and our pool being open, I decided to eschew a nap and go for a swim. I boldly donned my bikini (warning my neighbors to avert their eyes) and went in the pool.

If I could, I would magically give every pregnant woman in the world access to a warm swimming pool. There is nothing more perfect for erasing almost all the woes of pregnancy. The buoyancy of the water gets rid of that “can’t get comfortable” feeling, the perfect temperature erases the too-hot-too-cold-hormonal-temperature thing, the warmth soothes puffy fingers and ankles and achy muscles, the quiet lapping of the water against the side of the pool calms the crazy mood swings, and the water itself hides the resemblance to a beached whale.

I will admit that I don’t particularly suffer from the latter symptom. Of all my pregnancy woes (and they are legion – ask my poor husband), one that has never been an issue for me is body image. My non-pregnancy figure is naturally relatively slender; in fact, my figure has generously been called “boyish”. In other words, I’m kind of flat-chested, with hips that don’t look curvy relative to my thick waist. So pregnancy gives me the great boobs I’ve always wanted, and a big baby belly (combined with that late-pregnancy sway) gives my hips the illusion of being curvy and voluptuous. Plus one fringe benefit of being so sick at the beginning of this pregnancy is that I lost ten pounds in the first two months, mostly from my thighs (woot woot!), so my biggest problem area is more slender than usual. I have never felt as sexy and beautiful as I do when I’m pregnant.

But I will also admit that a pregnant woman in a bikini, although not exactly unattractive in some ways, just looks goofy. Pregnancy, in my mind, is the anatomical equivalent of a mullet: in theory, very practical; in practice, kind of silly-looking. But pop that bikini under the surface of a swimming pool and no-one else needs to know about the silliness.

So for thirty whole minutes yesterday afternoon, I escaped from my pregnancy woes in my private aquatic nirvana. Even the birds cooperated: the chickadees sang me their love calls, the blue jays chattered socially instead of scolding, the cardinal came for a visit and wolf-whistled at me, and the mourning doves stopped by to coo their approval. I think I might just need to spend every nap time in my backyard haven. Just don’t peek over the fence before I get into the water!

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, or, The Joys of Pregnancy Hormones

Today being the unofficial beginning of Memorial Day weekend, this morning my husband and I were both looking for links and music to post on Facebook in honor of our military heroes. You know, emotional music and pregnancy hormones are a very volatile mix. My husband found a beautiful rendition of “Here’s to the Heroes” sung by a boy soprano and while I was listening to it, he posted one of the most poignant (and one of my favorite) sections of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and between the two, I of course dissolved into a puddle of tears.

Now, it seems to me that I should get a pass on this one, because the poignancy of those words combined with that glorious music is enough to make the hardest heart a bit softer and to bring tears to the ears of the most unemotional among us. But I will readily admit that these days I am moved to tears by much less than this. In fact, I can be moved to tears by an insurance commercial, or a toilet paper commercial, or even the occasional car commercial. Of course, I can also be moved to tears by the cap of a new gallon of milk that won’t tear off, or by an unsuccessful attempt to tie my own shoelaces, or by a blob of gunky toothpaste in the sink.

Occasionally, the tears have no known cause at all, like a few days ago when we were in the car and my husband suddenly noticed that I had tears pouring down my cheeks and asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” was the sobbed reply. “Are you sad?” “Yes.” “About what?” “Nothing!!!” followed by more sobs. And it was perfectly true. I just suddenly felt absolutely miserable – about nothing at all. All the emotion was there but none of the backing reason.

Fortunately, the tears are often followed by laughter as I know how ridiculous these outbursts are. Logically, even when my hormones tell me I’m miserable, I know that I have no reason to be sad. Knowing that you’re not miserable and yet feeling miserable is a very disconcerting sensation. It’s a strange feeling that I suspect cannot be fathomed by anyone who hasn’t been through it. And it brings a kind of giddiness in its wake that is equally unfathomable.

I am grateful that I have a husband who is able to roll with the punches and not take my emotional outbursts overly seriously – and yet, he takes ME seriously. He never minimizes my feelings or dismisses them; he accepts that they are real, even when they are baseless. I appreciate that he doesn’t need to completely understand how I feel in order to allow and even support me feeling that way. He just hops right along for the ride. And that’s why I love him.

I Am a Mom

I’m guessing that it’s not news to anyone who’s ever read my blog before that I am, in fact, a mom. But I feel the need to announce it, because I just got my official Mom Street Cred: I bought a minivan.

When my husband first brought up the idea of trading in my beloved Honda Civic sedan for an SUV or minivan that would actually hold a double stroller in the trunk and accomodate two car seats plus adult passengers, I was terrified. Despite the fact that I learned to drive on a huge Plymouth Gran Fury station wagon that seated about 12 people, since then I’ve only driven tiny compact cars. My first two cars were Honda Civic hatchbacks and even my current sedan was smaller than most. The thought of driving something as big and heavy as an SUV or a minivan filled my heart with fear and trembling. But I agreed with him that upsizing was a necessary evil, so we both started doing our research.

The thought of driving a van for the first time on unfamiliar roads with a car salesman yammering at me from the back seat brought me to tears. So wisely, my husband suggested that we rent a minivan for an upcoming weekend trip, to let me get a feel for driving a bigger vehicle without a stranger watching me. By that point, we had eliminated SUVs as having too few seats and being too high off the ground, and were seriously considering the Honda Odyssey minivan, both because it got excellent ratings in all the reviews we could find and because the familiarity of a Honda cockpit was very comforting to me. So my personal research department (AKA my wonderfully patient husband) searched all over town to find someplace that would rent us an Odyssey for the weekend. No luck, but he managed to come up with a good deal on a Kia Sedona, so I agreed that any kind of minivan would be a useful experience, and he picked up the Kia and brought it home, then had me drive it to his sister’s house, a very familiar journey.

Pulling out of our street onto the main road was probably the most nerve-wracking part of the trip. I was surprised at how high off the ground I felt – it was like driving my own car sitting in a lawn chair on the roof. But as I got off the city streets and onto the highway, I was surprised but relieved to find that it didn’t feel as ponderous or heavy as I’d expected. In fact, it had more pep than my sedan. The only time I had any sense of the weight of the van was when I was making a tight turn at a high speed. I had another minor nervous moment when I had to back the beast out of a parking space at a busy highway rest stop, but even that was more manageable than I expected. I ended the weekend confident that I would be able to survive, and possibly even enjoy, driving a minivan. (The satellite radio tuned to the Broadway station might have contributed to that impression.)

That feeling was confirmed a few days later when we found a 2008 Odyssey at a dealership and took it for a test drive. As expected, the familiar Honda cockpit helped to put me at ease, and since we had our son in the back seat, he helped to distract the salesman a bit and I could concentrate on my driving. We took the car on the highway and on some back roads so I could get a feel for how it handled under various conditions. I even turned around in a parking lot and laughed when I realized that this big beast had a tighter turning radius than my little sedan! I found that very comforting.

Then last night, we went to a dealership that had a number of Odysseys on their lot that fit our criteria: right year, right body type, right mileage, right features, and of course, right price. One of them had more bells and whistles than most, even the backup camera that had originally been on our “must have” list but that we’d been unable to find in any other vehicles at other dealerships. The sticker price made me catch my breath a bit, until my husband reminded me that the “online” price (and the one we would be paying) was considerably less than that. (Of course, that also reminded me of how much I hate car dealers’ deceptive and manipulative selling tactics, but that’s another whole blog entry.) Our wonderful saleswoman, Luda, had us take it for a test drive, and instead of yammering on about how wonderful the car was, she chatted with my son in the back seat (and let him play with the DVD remote, which endeared her to all of us immediately) and let the car sell itself, which it did.

My husband and I had a little chat in the waiting room and agreed that this was the car we wanted, and within an hour I had signed, initialed, and gotten copies of a whole stack of paperwork promising that this would be my very own mom car. So today I go to the bank to have them cut the biggest check I’ve ever written and then back to the dealership to drop it off and sign, sign, sign my life away on another stack of paperwork. And then just wait a day or so for them to get new plates and detail the car to ensure that new car smell, and she’ll be all mine!

And yes, she is definitely a “she”. I had joked to my husband on the way to see the car that I was thinking of naming it “Stan the Van”, but this car is much too elegant and ladylike to be a Stan. In fact, I was so grateful to our saleswoman for being so helpful and unpushy that I’m thinking of naming it in her honor: Ludmilla, or Millie, for short. I just hope that she and Gustave get along.

Do You Know What I Know?

Like most toddlers, Ryan is always happy to show off his new tricks to anyone who’s willing to watch (or listen). Within the past few days, he’s had both a babysitter and his grandmother, Bammy, to show off to, and he took advantage of it both times. He ran around like a crazy boy, putting a box on his head and marching around, demonstrating his ability to put his potty seat on the potty without help, pointing out each and every wall in the room and proclaiming, “Wall!”, and breaking a few eardrums demonstrating his understanding of both the concept and the word “echo”. He’s very proud of what he’s learned.

But he doesn’t always need an audience. Sometimes he’s perfectly content to be his own audience. Yesterday morning, I woke up to a quiet recitation of his entire vocabulary coming from the other end of the hall. He had woken up and was entertaining himself (and unbeknownst to him, me) by going through his whole repertoire, just like a little parakeet. Uh-oh. Ball. Pooh. Potty. Wall. K (clock). Cuckoo. Pee! (“Pee” is always said with an exclamation point. He is a boy, after all.) Book. Mama. Poop! (Also always said with an exclamation point. Still a boy.) Vroom. Moo. Baaa. Neigh. Woo woo (that’s a train whistle). Woof woof. Up. Down. All done. Potty. (That one is apparently worth saying twice.) What. Why. Bye-bye. Bum. Eye. Bear. (All right, we’re from New England: he says bayah. Whattaya gonna do?) Rar. (That’s his lion/tiger/bear/dinosaur noise.) Ah-boom. Ah-ah-ah-choooo. Balloon. Echo! (Said in either an ear-splitting screech or a barely audible whisper, never anything in between.) Bee. Blue. At that point he had apparently exhausted himself and went back to sleep for 20 minutes or so, then woke up and did it all over again.

I love that’s he not only aware of all the new discoveries he’s making, but also that he’s just as delighted by them all as I am.

 

Pregnancy: The Ghost of Christmas Future

I am writing this entry at three o’clock in the morning. No, I’m not up with a sick child. No, I wasn’t out partying and am just getting to bed. No, I didn’t have a four-hour nap yesterday. No, I’m not even having trouble sleeping because I can’t get comfortable. Yes, I’m exhausted. But one of the joys of pregnancy (for me, anyway), is periodic bouts of insomnia.

It seems to me that a lot of the symptoms and discomforts of pregnancy serve to prepare a woman for having a small child. Pregnancy insomnia is practice for those long nights when the baby just won’t stop crying unless you’re walking up and down the hall with her in your arms, or for those nights when he wakes up every hour on the hour and wants to be held. Those funny leg twitches you get in the middle of the night give you practice jiggling a colicky baby on your knee for hours on end. Not being able to find a comfortable position to sit in gives you practice for finding the exact position in which the baby will finally relax and stop crying.

But above and beyond all those practice skills you’ll need in a few months, there are lots of discomforts that give a mother sympathy for a baby. What are the biggest complaints of a small baby? Gas and diaper rash. The boxes of Prilosec and giant bottle of Tums on my nightstand are proof that I have sympathy for any digestive issues, and between the hemorrhoids and the constipation, you’d better believe I have sympathy for any disorders of the “undercarriage”. Even the difficulties of eating – like feeling starved, but just not wanting to eat – are often echoed from pregnancy to newbornhood.

So instead of letting myself get frustrated at the heartburn, the soreness, and the exhaustion, I’m trying to think of everything the new baby will be going through and trying to fix this moment in my mind to give me patience when he or she is dealing with upset tummy, sore bottom, and tired crankiness.

And then I’m going to get myself some warm milk, sit in the rocking chair, and turn on some soft lullabies. After all, it works for the baby.

Wow!

For the past few weeks, Ryan’s vocabulary has been absolutely exploding. He picks up a new word or two almost every single day. Of course, a few of those words are merely mimicking something he hears someone say, but with no understanding of the meaning. For example, we tried to get him to say “thank you” the other day and got something that sounded vaguely like “takoooooo”, but he didn’t repeat it and he didn’t say it in the right context. But some words he grabs onto and relishes and uses every chance he gets. When I see him begin to play with his food instead of eating it, I often ask him, “Are you done?” and now he’s taken to announcing “Done!” whenever he’s finished with his dinner, or when his sippy cup is empty, or even when he’s ready to get out of his high chair. He obviously understands what “done” means. But my favorite new use-it-all-the-time word that he’s picked up is “wow!”.

I’m not always sure exactly what he’s referring to, but he seems to understand that “wow” means you’re looking at something new, or interesting, or different. And he often repeats it many times in succession, often with increasing (or at least varying) intensity or inflection. “Wow. Woooowwwww. Wow! WOOOWWWW!” In the morning, when he wakes up, we often hear a few quiet wows, apparently as he contemplates the excitement and adventures of the new day. Saturday night, we were visiting friends in New York and stayed in a hotel room with Ryan’s porta-crib beside our bed, and we woke at 3:45 am to the sound of a small voice excitedly (if somewhat drowsily) exclaiming, “Wow. Wow. WOW. Wow! Wooooooowwwwwww.” I’m not certain if he was even truly awake or not, but I can only assume he had just had an amazing dream.

The speed with which his vocabulary is growing is incredible to me, and the fact that the vast majority of his words are clearly understandable and used in the right context makes me shake my head in wonderment. That little brain is absorbing and learning at a rate that is just astonishing. His whole world is opening up as he learns to talk about it, to express his thoughts to the rest of the world, and to communicate with other people.

Wow.

Pardon Me, I Think I Got Some Quirk on Your Shirt

I knew that my husband Herb was the man for me when I discovered that instead of rolling his eyes at my quirks, he merely laughed and humored me about them. When he discovered my complete lack of a directional sense, he bought me a GPS. And when he discovered that I name my cars, he shook his head, laughed, and admitted that his sister does, too.

I bought my first car when I was 20. It was a wee, peppy, brownish-red hatchback that I dubbed Tess. She served me well for many years and when she finally succumbed to high mileage and body rot, I traded her in for a brand-new, wee, peppy, bright blue hatchback named Willy. Willy also served me well for many years, and eventually succumbed, not to high mileage (although he was up there), but to my need for a “grown-up” car. He was supplanted by a graceful, elegant, sleek, burgundy sedan named Marguerite, which was the car I was driving when I met my husband.

Marguerite was actually a major contributor to my receiving the family seal of approval, at least from my niece and nephew, who were about 12 and 10 at the time. At one of our early meetings, they shyly asked me if my car had a name, and were surprised and delighted when I introduced them to Marguerite. They giggled and told me that when Uncle Herb got his car, he refused to give it a name so they named it for him. In keeping with his (Uncle Herb’s as well as the car’s, that is) stodgy nature, and inspired by the license plate bracket advertising “Smith Motors”, they dubbed his car Mr. John Smith. And of course, after we were married, they informed me that Marguerite was now Mrs. John Smith – although she still goes by Marguerite socially.

After 13 years and well over 200,000 miles, Mr. John Smith, like an elderly pet, was beginning to cost more for maintenance and repairs than it was worth for the resulting increase in lifespan, so (unlike with a pet), we immediately began to look for a newer model. And just yesterday, Herb brought home a beautiful, sleek, suave, three-year-old, European model of elegance, having left Mr. John Smith behind to begin his next life as an ashtray. I had already claimed naming rights, assuming that Herb had no interest in bequeathing a suitable moniker on the new arrival, even going so far as to tell my sister-in-law that although I had loosened him up considerably in our three years of marriage, convincing him to name a car was beyond even my considerable powers of persuasion.

So as soon as he pulled into the driveway in the new car, I announced that he looked like an Angelo. Herb shook his head and laughed – and then informed me that he couldn’t possibly be an Angelo, because he’s German, not Italian. And he promptly suggested the name Dieter. I objected that Dieter made me think of the old Saturday Night Live sketch with the creepy “touch my monkey” guy, which immediately led us both to suggest “Hans or Franz!” – which we also just as promptly vetoed. After throwing around a few more German names, one or the other of us came up with Gustave (which makes us both think of the brilliant composer Mahler), and we agreed that the car was, indeed, a Gustave.

Who knew that my quirk would finally rub off on him? I know that he’s still just humoring me, but the fact that he was willing to jump right in and participate in my quirk makes me very happy. Now if only I could get his sense of direction to rub off on me a little…

In Theory and In Practice

For some reason, my husband and I were discussing Yogi Berra quotes the other day, and we agreed that one of his best is, “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”

In theory, I love being pregnant. Bringing a new life into the world, feeling a baby grow and move inside my body, watching my own body change and ready itself to sustain a new life – it’s amazing and humbling! In practice, being pregnant can be pretty miserable. Nausea, heartburn, constipation, headaches, incontinence, mood swings, hemorrhoids, itching in places that should never itch, swollen ankles, skin turning dark in weird places, stretch marks, skin tags – it’s amazing that any woman volunteers to go through it more than once.

But here I am, one of those women who voluntarily, intentionally, and determinedly is going through it a second time. And if you’re wondering why, after that list of symptoms, rest assured that at times I wonder why myself. But here’s the answer that I come up with every time: pregnancy may be nine months of misery interspersed with moments of joy, but motherhood is a lifetime of joy interspersed with moments of misery. From that first moment in the hospital when they laid Ryan on my chest and I looked into that tiny, perfect face, I forgot about any of the sickness and pain I’d gone through to reach that point. And even now, as I’m in the midst of the unpleasant symptoms, I can look forward to the moment when I meet this baby for the first time and know that once again, all the memories of my current discomfort will melt away.

Everything is always easier in theory. It’s predictable, it’s fixable, it’s all laid out and nothing is unexpected. But in practice, life throws you curve balls. The symptoms that responded to medications last time don’t respond this time. I have symptoms I never had before. My expectations of what I’d encounter and how I'd deal with it are completely off target. With a second pregnancy, theory gave me a false sense of security about what I was in for, and practice deflated my confidence and made me start all over again from the beginning. But with a second pregnancy, I also have the foreknowledge of exactly how amazing motherhood will be – with the first pregnancy, I only had the theory, but with this one, I have the practice. And in this case, the practice is so much better than the theory!