Alex and Julia and Bill are in the other room and Alex is hollering something that sounds like "ALL WE DO!" over and over...and in between his thundering cry is little Julia's echo of "Do! Do!"
Her vocabulary, by the way, is just increasing by the second.
"kinny" means "candy".
"es mah coot" means "it's my coat"
those are my current favorites.
We've been using a portable playpen to block off the stairs to the second floor - to keep Julia penned in on the main floor.
Then she started to get strong enough to move the playpen out of the way, so we put the vacuum cleaner in there and that has worked very well.
Until today.
She has moved the playpen multiple times and each time she gets through the barricade, she books it up the stairs like a little wild creature, quiet and fast.
So I put the stroller in the playpen with the vacuum cleaner, figuring that would buy me a few more weeks of mental health.
But no.
She can move that too.
Alex loves it: "Mommy! Julia's going up the stairs!" And since I was in here fixing a torn page in one of Alex's books, I yelled into the kitchen to Bill, who apparently hadn't heard Alex sound the alarm, because he just kind of said "What? Where's Julia? Did she really go up the stairs?" "YES!" and so he headed up the stairs to catch the little wild creature, with Alex following along, laughing gleefully.
She is great entertainment for him.
So I've been feeling overwhelmed and stressed and depressed and lots of other awful things lately. Mostly while I'm at work. Yesterday was particularly bad, actually. There were moments throughout the day when I just wanted to say "you know what? I just can't do this any more. See ya." but I didn't because I did the math and I don't think we could afford it, plus I really should discuss that sort of thing with Bill first.
Finally the day finished and I went and got my kids and the day began to improve.
For one thing, on the ride home, out of nowhere, Alex announced "You're a banana sandwich, Mommy!" He said it like it was some secret I'd been hiding and he'd figured it out and thought it was pretty amusing.
Later on, after we'd been home for a while, and the kids were settled down doing something relatively safe, I got the mail.
And there it was. My "House on the Hill" catalog. (I'd link to it but my computer's being weird and I could lose this post so I'll do the linking later...) House on the Hill is a company that makes and sells springerle molds, among other things. I've posted a recipe for them somewhere in my recipes category. I need to restructure that section, now that I'm thinking about it.
Anyway, it brought me a much-needed change of focus. Here it is, October, and guess what, it's time to start planning the Christmas cookie baking. YAY!!! I don't know how to explain how happy that made me, and then, the more I thought about it, mentally planning who I need to bake for, and how many batches I'll need of the different recipes...and I realized, this year will be BETTER than the previous years!!! I can do MORE!!! I can go back to doing some of the more time-consuming decorated giant cookies that I used to make YEARS ago! I can make those really cool gingerbread cookie BOWLS like I did about, oh, probably ten years ago....I HAVE TO START MAKING LISTS!!!
I couldn't sleep last night. I know I sound nuts. It's just cookies, after all. But no, it's way more than cookies. It's creativity, for one thing. It's COOKIES, for another. It's traditions. It's the holidays. It's me showing off, probably. But none of those things compare to the biggest thing of all - the thing that makes all the other elements so VERY possible this year:
My kids are toddlers.
Both of them.
I loved both of their babyhoods - I'm not dismissing that section of their lives. I sort of miss it, when I see little tiny baby clothes at the stores. But. Now. They can play by themselves. I don't have to carry either one of them everywhere all the time. They mostly sleep through the night, which means so do I. In short - I have more time and more freedom. I need a little of that right about now.
And another fun thing - Alex helped me last year, cutting out the almond stars. He will help again. And maybe Julia can help too...though I can just see her just ignoring the whole "helping" aspect and grabbing blobs of dough off the table and shoving them into her gaping maw as fast as she can....
But still. I am wound up now. If I didn't have to work today, I would have stayed up last night making my lists - of cookies, of ingredients, of people I'll send these to or bring them to, of other stuff I need (cookie tins, for one thing...)...ah, the bliss of lists.
We'll bake some cookies this weekend, me and Alex. You know, for practice.
Last week Julia got written up (again) for biting. She was waiting in line with her little classmates, waiting to go outside. I'm guessing things weren't moving along fast enough - so Julia bit another kid on the arm.
I signed the Incident Report form and as we were leaving the room, the teacher called "Bye bye, Cujo!"
I'm making dinner...fish tacos and roasted diced sweet potatoes and a cold bowl of shelled edamame and corn sliced off the cob. Sort of a succotash, only cold. Not exactly a salad. It doesn't need anything else.
As I stood slicing cooked corn off the cobs a few minutes ago, I was whisked back to when I wasn't tall enough to wield a knife or work at the counter.
When we were little kids, my sister and I (and whatever friends happened to be at the house that day) were pressed into labor in August to shell peas or snap beans or shuck corn.
My mother was one to can things in tall mason jars that were stored upstairs in the glass-front cupboards of the "back kitchen." The kitchen had once been a functional kitchen but eventually it became the laundry room and storage room and gateway to the place to hide the Christmas presents (the hiding place - at least one year - was in what we called "the back bathroom" - a room mostly used to bathe the dogs - in a glorious free-standing claw-foot tub. I wish I could have taken that tub before the house was sold, but, of course, where would I put it here?)
Anyway, I remember rows of canned peaches and tomatoes up on the shelves - high up where my sister and I couldn't reach them.
My mother was also one for blanching and freezing things. That's what I remember her doing with the peas and beans and corn. Especially the corn. I wasn't nuts about the green things...but I liked it when she did the corn. We'd shuck the corn and pile it onto platters for her, and she'd drop a few ears into a big pot of boiling water, just for a minute or two, I imagine, and then once they'd cooled, she'd stand an ear on end on the cutting board and slice off the kernels in long bands.
I loved those. I'm sure my sister did too. We'd probably hang around hoping to either steal or be given a little section of kernels before being shooed out of the kitchen. Then after all the corn was sliced off the cobs, Mom would pack freezer bags full of broken sections of kernels, twist the tops of the bags and tie them (back in the days before ziploc bags...when we lived out on the prairie...heh heh heh) with the little twist tie things...and Dad or one of us would bring them down to the big freezer in the basement and place them on the shelves with all the other frozen produce.
We didn't grow all these - Mom would go to one of the local farms and buy things in bushels. We groaned about the work at the time - the shucking and the snapping and the shelling...but I think back to how good that corn tasted when she opened up a bag of it in January, and I tell my complaining younger self to shut up. It's worth a little effort in August.
And so, to a lesser degree, I'm doing the same thing. I've roasted tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper until most of the water is gone and all the fresh tomatoey sweetness is condensed and mixed with the oil...and I've frozen these in batches to make sauce with this winter. We've roasted beets as well, and they are frozen too. Eggplant as well - I sliced it up and baked it, and now I can throw together some eggplant parmigiana pretty fast too.
I figure each year we'll put away more...and when the kids are older, I'll probably go buy a bushel of corn for them to shuck, and I'll blanch it and pack it away for the winter too.
Last night Julia was sitting on my lap facing me when she suddenly yanked my glasses off with her left hand and jabbed me in the eye with her right index finger. She smiled really huge and asked "Dat?" as I writhed in pain.
My left eye still hurts today, and there's a red area just below the iris.
Today when I picked the kids up at daycare, I was carrying her out of the building, Alex gallantly pushing the doors open ahead of us, and she bit me. Twice. Just below my left shoulder, right above my armpit. She warned me first - "Bite!" - and again, she grinned all the while.
She has been "written up" at daycare for biting. Alex went through a biting phase too, but somehow it's different with Julia.
She seems to understand and embrace her power.
One day she bit a kid 3 times. Twice because (according to the note on her incident report) he was looking out the window and she wanted to look out too, and she wanted him to move. So she bit him.
Not one to suffer fools gladly, she bit him again, just to make sure he understood. That's two.
Later that day, Julia was playing sweetly and innocently with a toy or a ball or a machete and this same boy (I think) was beside her, and he invaded her personal space by gently resting one hand upon her shoulder and leaning a bit closer to see what she was playing with.
Clearly his motives were impure, so she bit him. That makes three.
She hasn't been written up since then, so apparently he has learned from his mistakes.
And then there's my sister, Meredith.
She is also not one to put up with fools, but as an adult, she understands that biting is a no-no.
So she takes karate instead.
Last Friday night I finally got myself down to see one of her belt promotions.
I went by myself - one of my rare nights out. Drove the half hour singing along loudly with my "Journey's Greatest Hits" CD and delighting in not being told "Stop singing, Mommy!"
Meredith was already inside, and her kids and husband arrived a little after I did. I sat on one of the benches in front, and my niece, Natalie, sat with me. Calvin and Jacques were somewhere in back of us.
(Natalie, by the way, takes karate too, and, interestingly enough, also used to bite when she was small. One day my sister was standing at the sink doing the dishes and from behind her came Natalie's little voice announcing "I'm a bite you!" And she did. I believe it was the LAST time she did it.)
I took pictures during the night with a really irritating disposable camera - fortunately it was fast film, because (I discovered later) the flash would only work if you held the button down WHILE taking the picture. Stupid camera. Should have brought my REAL camera.
Anyway, there were students of all levels there, and after doing a series of warm-ups, they started doing their katas. After each student or students reached the limit of what they had learned so far, they bowed and took their places at the other end of the room.
My sister and another kid (he looked like a kid, anyway), the only two getting their 2nd kyu brown belts, were last. (Mere did I get that right? I somehow don't think I did...)
All through the evening, with the exception of the goofy look she gave me at the very beginning, before they started the jumping jacks, she looked very focused, very calm. In control. No sign of butterflies at all.
She is so cool. I really am proud of her. I admire her for taking the first steps a couple of years ago, and for sticking with it and just being so matter of fact about it. I overthink everything. She is the Nike ad. She just does it.
And she kicks ass. So don't get in her way either, if she wants to look out a window.
Go, Mere!!
Maybe next time they'll let you wear one of the Samurai helmets!!
This week has been pretty tough for Alex.
Mornings especially. More specifically, when it's time for me to leave him at daycare.
It didn't used to be this hard.
Well, no, that's wrong. It's been this hard. At various stages, various ages. He's gone through periods of time when, for whatever reason, the fact that I'm leaving is cleaving his little heart in two.
Which has the same effect on me, of course.
I know in the past some of it has been just normal little-tiny-person attempts to make me do what he wants me to do. I know that once I've left him behind, after the daycare staff have peeled him off of me, he's fine, and that once I disappear he stops sobbing, claps his hands together and demands crayons and paper because, dammit, he wants to make some pictures. I know he's fine.
But this week he hasn't been as fine. He's been really crying. Red face, tears rolling, drooling, loud, crying.
It rips me apart, you know.
I know he eventually settles down, and when I come to pick him up at the end of the day, he's busy playing or singing or coloring or playing with clay or running around with his friends.
But still. I feel like crud when he cries like that.
I sort of was wondering if maybe it's because usually when I drop him off in the morning, the teacher for his room isn't in yet and he's got to join the other (mostly bigger) kids in the preschool room for a little while. Sometimes some of the other "early preschool" kids are in there already, but it doesn't seem to matter. So I thought maybe he's just timid around the bigger kids. It's louder in there, it's a big room, and first thing in the morning is a little chaotic at times.
And I was a shy, timid kid.
And so I'm thinking, have I somehow influenced him to be shy? To be a little afraid of bigger kids? What have I done to make him afraid? Does he sense my nursery-school shyness? Has he picked up on it somehow, and now he's doomed to be...(painful gulp)...like me all through school???? Oh, please, God, no. Don't do that to him.
I don't know if Bill was shy at that age. I suspect he might have been. But I don't know and he wouldn't remember.
But then I figure I'm being silly. How could he pick up on that? I'm not afraid of these preschoolers NOW, after all. I'm WAY bigger than they are, and if I really wanted to, I could take those Legos away from them like THAT.
So...is it genetic? Is this just the way he's wired?
Or...is he going through a phase? Like being afraid of the talking tree at the Bugaboo Creek Restaurant that we've gone to with him a few times and probably won't go to again with him until he's thirty and we can just leave him outSIDE if he doesn't want to come in past the talking tree. (Or talking tree-man, as he refers to him.) There's a talking bison head in there too...and a moose head too. Now, if you think about it, it's disturbing enough just because these are just HEADS up there. Throats and bodies are gone, so how these things would make any kind of a sound is beyond explanation. But that doesn't seem to be what freaks Alex out. He accepts the fact that there is a live bison HEAD ONLY on the wall. He's just bothered by the fact that it will suddenly speak. He likes his animals to be seen and not heard.
Julia, on the other hand, thinks they're pretty exciting. "Kitty!! Kitty!!" she shouts gleefully, pointing at the talking disembodied bison head up on the wall. She'd like one in her crib, I think.
Of course, she's too little to have the overactive imagination of a three-year-old. Her time will come, I figure. And his will have past...so he'll have a grand old time scaring her with talking bison heads and talking tree men...
I digress...
So anyway, after being concerned for the past several days about Alex's extreme crying when I try to drop him off, I did something uncharacteristically sensible - I asked the morning preschool teacher about it. I asked if he keeps crying after I leave...and she said this week he's been more upset than in the past, especially yesterday. He stood (this breaks my heart...I'm a horrible, horrible mother) staring at the window after I'd waved bye bye to him, bawling, and yelling "Mommy, come back!" over and over.
I can hear it. I can see the wet, red face and the awful open crying drooling mouth.
How do you spell "guilt"...it's spelled E M P L O Y M E N T. It's spelled M O R T G A G E. It's spelled C A R P A Y M E N T.
Anyway...I'm glad I talked to her because what she said next made sense, and if I wasn't so busy flagellating myself for my horrible parenting skills, I might even have thought of it myself...she asked if last week was his first entire week of not being at daycare.
Ah. Yes, it was. It was a hugely different week. Two flights on an airplane, not to mention all the irritation and stress and down time before each flight...and then spending several days and nights in a completely different place...and then coming home and just being home for a few days - and then being plunged right back into full time daycare.
At three, that's a tremendously disruptive thing.
So I'm glad tomorrow's Friday. Last day of the week to have to peel my son off of me and slink away guiltily and reluctantly to my job...wanting to say to him, "Alex, I don't want to go to work any more than you want me to leave. But I have to, and so you have to, and it sucks at this moment, but you will be fine and you will have fun today and by this afternoon you will have forgotten all about right now."
I tried shrinking that down this morning, and telling him that sometimes when we don't want to do something, we have to be brave and do it anyway.
"I don't want to be brave!"
Sigh.
My job is my job. Motherhood is my adventure.
This morning at work was fine. Friday. Couldn't wait to leave, of course, but not for any particular reason other than because YAY, IT'S FRIDAY.
After lunch, the day took a nosedive. I don't talk about work much here - hardly ever - and I won't really go into anything now - but we've all had really infuriating, frustrating, horrible days at work, right? Today was a day when I kind of wanted to just hang up the phone (on the person who was on the other end) and walk out of the building. Permanently.
But I have my half of the kids/mortgage/car/food/utilities/everything else to support, so I didn't do that. I just did what we all do most of the time. I waited it out. And left on time. Still seething inside a little. Calm, but seething.
Drove down the road to daycare, went into the building and there, sitting on the piano bench playing the high notes was my little baby girl - sitting with a boy around her age who was playing the low notes. Julia couldn't decide if she wanted to continue playing her duet or have me pick her up, so she kind of went back and forth. I let her play a bit longer (the classroom teacher was hanging out with them) and I went down the hall to get Alex.
He was sitting at the table with his best friend and another girl who has been there probably since all three were in the infant room. Gathered Alex's things together, and re-tied his sneakers, and told him to say bye bye to his friends.
His best friend, C, said to Alex: "bye, monkey butt butt."
And at the door, Alex called back "bye poopy!"
Now, we had a little conversation this morning about how we DON'T call other people "poopy." He had been calling the morning teacher in Julia's room "Poopy" even though she had been kind enough to climb up on a chair and get big scary Barney down from his perch on top of the cabinets. I told him to cut it out, and he kind of scampered out of range and did it again. I told him not to call anyone poopy, and if he did it again, I would take Barney away. The teacher looked sternly at Alex (which isn't always easy) and agreed with me. Alex pushed the envelope. "Hey poopy" he smirked. I marched across the room and he retreated but there was, of course, no escape from Etiquette Mommy. I got him, the teacher took Barney, and I told Alex (as he paused for breath in between his protests and wails) - calmly - that he and I were going to have a little chat. I lugged him down the hall - not an easy thing to do. He weighs 34 pounds and is 39 inches tall and very energetic when he doesn't want to have a little chat with mommy.
We marched to the other end of the hall to his classroom which was empty - EXCEPT for his beloved "Miss Teffy" who was setting up the tables and chairs. She looked up with a smile for Alex and saw his red and teary face and looked at me and I smiled grimly and said "Alex and I need to have a talk." I tried to have him sit in a chair over in the corner, but of course that didn't happen - he kept hurling himself off it, sobbing "I don't WANT to sit in a chair!" So I picked him up and spoke very firmly but very quietly in his ear. I told him we don't call people "poopy" because it's not nice, and if he keeps calling people "poopy" I will have to take things away from him.
I don't remember what else I said because frankly, every time I said "poopy" in a serious voice I wanted to laugh. It is so HARD to be firm and serious about the word "poopy." You try it! See how many times you can use it in a paragraph - sternly - without starting to giggle and snicker. Motherhood isn't for the weak-willed, you know.
Fortunately for me, Alex calmed down and saw the error of his ways, and we went back to Julia's room where he agreed not to call anyone "poopy."
Until, of course, the end of the day when we were leaving the room. I had nothing to take from him, and after the day I'd had, pretty much everything was taken out of me, so I just said "Alex" in my clenched-jaw warning voice and he raced ahead of me out the door and down the hall. We got Julia's stuff and as we were leaving I saw Alex's best friend's mother, L, who works there. She and I had a long talk the other day about our sons using the word "poopy" and our various strategies for making them stop.
While Alex tried to push the door open, I went over to her and said - I admit it, gleefully - "I'm ratting out your son." Her eyes got wide and I know she was mentally unwrapping a bar of soap for her little boy's dinner, and she said "Did he say - ?" and I shook my head. "No," I told her. "He said 'bye monkey butt butt'." And her jaw dropped and she rolled her eyes and shook her head (typical I-am-a-mother-of-a-three-year-old-and-I-am-losing-my-mind behavior) and said "What is it now with the 'butt butt'?" (Who would ever imagine herself asking that particular question? I'm sure she never did.) and I laughed and she did too and she said "Yeah, you laugh, Alex isn't saying that" and I said "Yet."
She held the door open and waved at Alex as we went out of the building and then she called "Bye, Alex" and he turned around and called to her "Bye bye poopy!"
We both reprimanded Alex at the same time and then looked at each other, trying not to laugh. She just pointed at me and I said "I know. I had that coming to me."
And as we went to the car I mumbled (because he doesn't listen anyway) not to call people "poopy." He got in the car, I put Julia in her car seat and as I was going back around to Alex's side of the car to buckle him in I heard someone call "Hey Poopy!"
It was another friend of mine, J, whose son is a year younger than Alex and her daughter is a month older than Julia. I'd told her before about Alex's expanding vocabulary. I told her what had just happened and she laughed very loudly (I've told her she's next) and waved to Alex as she went past my car.
"Hi Alex" she called.
"Hi poop-" he started to say. And then - amazingly - stopped.
J immediately turned her back to the car so she could guffaw in private. I hid behind the car and tried working up a glare to stop myself from cracking. J ran into the building and didn't look back. I buckled Alex into his car seat and told him, just once more, just because I like to beat my head against a brick wall repeatedly, not to call people "poopy."
Then I walked around to the other side of the car, got in, fastened my seat belt (in case anyone was wondering) and started the car. And tried not to laugh too soon after the "poopy" conversation. We pulled out of the parking lot and began the drive home.
And I realized then that sometimes nothing works better for getting rid of the aftertaste of a bad day than a little boy exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech.
When I was learning how to drive, my mother was my instructor about 99% of the time. She taught me well, and for that I thank her, and also - in advance, apologize, sort of, that this is one of the two main memories I have from learning to drive. (The other one is of driving the Lincoln Continental that we used to have and taking a right turn but not taking ENOUGH of one and driving up onto someone's lawn. That was with Mom. Sorry Mom, but that was memorable. All the words of wisdom and all your patience - in my typical fashion, they are forgotten.)
Anyway, one night I had called home to get a ride after my shift as a busgirl was over. The restaurant about 10 minutes from home. Dad came to get me, and this time he handed me the keys. I hadn't yet driven at night, and it didn't seem like that big a deal until we were on the little winding two-lane road heading back to the highway.
The road didn't have streetlights, that I can recall, and if it did, they were infrequent. It was dark. I drove carefully and started to feel okay until another car came zipping along in the opposite direction.
I've heard that deer crossing streets at night are startled and then frozen in place, mesmerized by the approaching headlights of a car. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but for a moment, that's how I felt. I couldn't help but look directly at the oncoming car and I was no longer able to focus on what I was doing.
"What do I do?" I probably shouted - instant panic.
And he just told me to look down at the white line on the road to my right and follow that.
That's it.
And it worked. Immediately. I wasn't in a panic any more, I wasn't endangering us or the other car, everything was fine. We arrived home safely and he has probably forgotten all about it.
I haven't.
I still hear him say it whenever I'm in a similar situation.
I could expand on this, obviously. Turn it into something bigger, something more symbolic...how, in that moment, he taught me to deal with big scary moments by just keeping focused on what I needed to do and not focusing on the panic or the danger or the oncoming headlights. Just follow that white line and don't look into the other lane.
I could turn this into a big secret-of-life Father's Day post.
I could. I've got a rather dusty degree in English - I've got to trot it out somehow every now and then.
But I can't bring myself to do it.
It would be flashy and showy and not about my father, really, but about how cleverly my brain can connect the dots.
My father isn't flashy and showy so such a story wouldn't be appropriate. It wouldn't fit.
My dad just taught me how to keep from getting in an accident that night, and he did so in his usual quiet, understated style. Calmly, and without fanfare.
That's who he is to me.
He belongs to the local Rotary Club. The Rotary motto is "Service Above Self." (I don't think that violates any secret handshake-type rules they have - to let that out of the bag.) I know that means doing things for the good of others...and without tooting your horn about how helpful you are in the process. You just do what you can do. You don't ask for praise about it. You don't point to yourself afterward and say "look at what I did!" You just move on to the next thing.
But that doesn't mean you don't have fun. He has a great sense of fun. I think that's one of the reasons all the grandchildren gravitate toward him. They don't love him more than Grammy...but they recognize that at heart he is one of them.
Here's another little image...I am in the kitchen at my parents' house, years ago - but it could just as easily happen later this afternoon - I am on my way out the door, Mom is about 6 feet from me, and Dad is in the background, hanging out.
I don't know what was going on but for whatever reason, my mother was kind of wound up about something...and my Dad helpfully interjected a few words into the mix, and set my mother off. She got that tight-lipped look on her face that we call her cat whisker face and gave me a look like she was trying to count to ten or twenty or a hundred...her back was to my father, but I could see him sitting back there, a huge grin on his face, holding a big imaginary spoon in his hands and stirring the contents of a huge imaginary pot.
It is great fun for my sister and me to drive my mother to the point where she makes the cat whisker face. And I believe we actually learned that from our father.
There is, of course, more. He taught me to throw, to catch, to use a screwdriver and a hammer and a handsaw and a wrench...to measure accurately...to hold a camera ("Keep your elbows in"), to process film, to print photographs, to be critical of my work without being critical of myself....all kinds of little things that are not flashy or showy - but they get the job done.
Thanks, Dad. For teaching me how to look.
They are walking ahead of me, hand in hand. Both tall and slender. Different shades of blond. Long legs on the left striding along while the shorter legs on the right skip and hop and scurry to keep up. The taller one has dirty blond hair, curly and short. Broad shoulders, sunburn at the back of the neck. The shorter one has longer, nearly white-blond hair, just curling at the ends. There is a hint of color on the backs of his little calves.
Bill is carrying the fishing pole, Alex carries the "tackle box" - a zip loc bag with a couple of daubers and some little hooks. The pole is older than all of us put together. It was Bill's grandfather's, and then Bill's, and now Alex will use it. The reel is brand new. There are worms in some dirt in a little plastic tub on top of the stroller. Julia rides - the only one allowed the luxury. I push the stroller, and watch my two boys, my two men, ahead.
The morning is slightly breezy but you can feel the coming heat, and the humidity has already made all our hair damp. The infrequent breezes tickle the warm dampness at the backs of our necks with cooling fingers and then are gone, and we know it will be another scorcher.
We are walking to Gorton's Pond. It is just down the road, kind of, from where we live. Bill used to walk miles to go fishing there when he was a kid. Alex won't have that hardship. Bill and I have gone fishing in the canoe there too, as Alex will one day.
This morning we reach the sandy beach area at one end. Bill and Alex cross to the shady part at the other end; I struggle to push the stroller through the dry sand and finally give up, turn the stroller around, and pull it.
Bill shows Alex how to put a worm on the hook, "the worms help us catch the fish, buddy" and shows him how to cast. "You put your thumb on the button, and bring the pole back, and then swing it around and letgoofthebutton when the pole gets right HERE." The hook and worm, and the yellow and red dauber, arc across the quiet, almost still water and plunk down about thirty feet away. (Maybe more, maybe less - I have a hard time judging distances across the open water.) Bill is crouched at the water's edge, one arm around Alex. Both big hands and both little hands grip the metal fishing pole. Alex watches his hands. Bill watches the dauber and tells Alex what he should be looking for.
"You watch the dauber, Alex. Alex, watch the dauber...and when you see it move - like that - keep watching...when it moves again, you LIKE THAT you JERK the pole and then reel. Reel buddy. That's right. Keep reeling. Keep reeling. You've got a FISH! Keep reeling!"
Alex's first fish. A little five inch sunfish. At some point before this morning Bill said he wanted Alex's first fish to be really special - like, oh, a Tuna or a Marlin, I'm guessing. But the first fish IS a special fish, no matter what kind it is.
Bill got the fish off the hook and let him go, and asked Alex if he wanted to catch another fish. A nod and a "yeah" and the pole was brought back and then snapped forward, the line stretching out over the water again.
Julia watched with some interest and with some impatience. I'd brought bread in case there were any ducks or geese or swans, but since there weren't, I gave her a piece instead. (No, it wasn't stale.) That kept her busy for a little bit.
I took pictures. Black and white. The event called for black and white. I shot a whole roll while we were there. 36 pictures or so. Alex caught 7 or 8 sunfish. And then we walked home.
The reel was a birthday present. Alex turned 3 on Friday. Three. "I'm not four yet" he will say, shaking his head, a somber expression on his face. No. But three is pretty exciting all by itself.
I started going fishing when I was three. With my grandfather - Dad's father. And with my Dad too, though my main memory is just with Grandpa. I felt a fish grab the bait and was so startled that I committed the nearly unforgiveable sin of LETTING GO of the pole. Like lightening, Grandpa snatched the pole before it could go under and told me, in no uncertain terms, that you never let go of the pole. I have not forgotten.
I think Bill started at a later age. It was in his blood. He just had to. His mom would go with him when he was younger. And here we are now: Alex is three, and just caught his first fish. I don't know who was happier - Alex or Bill or me.
He didn't want to leave. Alex, I mean. He insisted on carrying the pole for almost the entire walk home. "I want to catch more fish!"
You will have plenty of opportunities, Alex. Guaranteed.
Happy Birthday, my little man.
P.S. My dad just called. Not about this - he called because he has an excess of basil and thyme and sage and dill plants and wanted to know if we needed any. Nope. But we'll take a grape tomato plant.
And I told him about Alex's adventure this morning. I could hear the grin on my father's face.
And I could hear the whirr of ten pound test line zipping off of a reel, arcing across the generations.
My sister's kids are here for the weekend. Bill went to pick them up yesterday afternoon, and my sister will come get them tomorrow - and we'll all have Julia's birthday dinner here late tomorrow afternoon before they go home.
It is a noisy house now - lots of laughing, shrieking, singing...Alex growling at Calvin "You're a fireman, Calvin" - no idea what that really means...Julia's taking a nap at the moment but she's been having fun too - carried around by her older cousins...lots of attention...lots of entertainment.
We took everyone to a nursery near where we used to live - it's out of the way (there's one just up the street from us in fact) but we like this place a lot, so it's worth the little drive. Came home with soil and manure in the back of the truck and an assortment of annuals and perennials in my Outback.
We got impatiens for the side garden in the back yard that's shaded by the neighbor's arborvitae (however it's spelled - big evergreens, basically), and Bill has been reading about roses and found a "Mr. Lincoln" - they're hardy, hybrid tea roses that grow well in just about any climate - including ours, which is currently cold and windy and not welcoming to all the little seedlings I've got hanging around the basement.
Anyway, to continue...I got a couple varieties of columbine, and a beach rose - white - for the sunken boat garden. Some other little annuals to fill in the gaps while other perennials grow and fill in.
Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend. Three days off. I hope the weather warms up. It's just too cold right now to put some things outside...and my sunken boat garden is still just a boat and a lake of dirt. I'd like to get going on it next weekend...that would be really, really nice.
Oh, and the first of my irises bloomed yesterday - and a second flower on the same stalk bloomed today. It's purple, with a little yellow at the base of each petal. There are a ton more just on the verge of blooming. This week should see a burst of purple and white in front of my house.
And that's the update. Bill is making paella for dinner, and it's just about ready, so I am going to go wake up Julia now and holler downstairs for the other three kids.
A year ago on this day of the week - Thursday - but it was actually the 20th of May - my daughter was born.
I wrote about it here.
And tomorrow will be her official birthday.
And the family will come for dinner on Sunday night, after my sister gets back from a well-deserved weekend away, to celebrate and watch Julia smear spaghetti and cake and ice cream all over her cheeky little face.
But for some reason, the day of the week is the anniversary of a lot of events in my life. Not all of them. But some.
My first date with Bill was on a Wednesday.
Alex was born on a Monday.
Julia was born on a Thursday.
I'm sure there are others - I just don't feel like trying to remember them for this post.
I have other things to say.
Probably because of Julia's birthday, and other things going on in my life right now, I've been feeling a surge of emotions welling up in me. I have been feeling tears push against the backs of my eyes. Which is funny, because it's been ages since I cried about anything. Anti-depressants apparently do that - I didn't know, and I just realized it a couple of weeks ago. I don't cry so easily any more. Which is good. But at the same time, it's not easy to cry any more, and I haven't decided if that's good or bad.
But anyway. I've been feeling a lot of stuff close to the surface.
And that's probably why I had a kind of strange day yesterday.
I've been feeling kind of...well...yucky lately. I'm on several kinds of medication - a couple of them for the sinus infection I had at the beginning of the month - I still have almost two weeks left on the antibiotic. Yes. Antibiotic. My second round of them recently, though not back to back - I had a couple of weeks in between them. But still...for most of the week, the feeling yucky, the fatigue, the weird eating patterns, the aversion to coffee...the antibiotic...hmmmm...I started wondering if maybe I was pregnant.
No, couldn't be. I'm just imagining things. So I told myself every day.
But that was stupid - not knowing. Just saying no wouldn't make it not true. What if...? So yesterday on my way home from work on my lunch break, I suddenly was flooded with the idea that maybe I really was pregnant. I can't explain it - it was like a wave pouring onto the beach, flooding all the footprints and washing sand out to sea. It felt true. And so I had to know. I had to be certain, one way or another. If I wasn't, fine, just a little bit of panic. No harm done. But if I was - better make some changes in a hurry so I wouldn't cause harm to the tiny creature....
For some reason, in my mind, as I drove to the pharmacy, the baby was a girl. That's it. I jumped way ahead - even counting months on my fingers (pathetic, but I admit it) and reasoning that whatever it was, two kids could share a room, the other would have his/her own room, and Bill and I would convert the computer/music room into our bedroom - as we figured we'd end up doing eventually anyway.
I got to the pharmacy and was actually shaking inside. I was distracted, to say the least. And...I was excited. I was actually hoping. Insane as that sounds, I was. I felt this clear bubble of joy pushing up through all the sadder stuff that's been clogging me and pushing tears against my eyes. I found myself smiling.
I went home and took the test. This one only took a minute. I think the ones I used when I was pregnant with Julia took three minutes...and I think Alex's took five. But who knows. I could be wrong. This one took a minute. I set a timer and left the room, wandered aimlessly into my bedroom, and picked up Julia's ultrasound picture from my bureau - where it still sits, though it should have been added to her baby book by now. That grainy, black and white and gray image...the little gnocchi-like gray blob that was Julia-to-be....Babies are miracles.
I remember all of my pregnancies, however brief.
The very first one - I found out right before my birthday...I remember a couple things...going to dinner at my parents' house...in the kitchen, talking to my mother, she opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Luna di Luna Pinot Grigio - the bottle is blue, I see it in her hand...she said she'd bought it to have with dinner...and I couldn't have asked for a better moment. I said "I can't have any of that for another eight months." She got it immediately. Of course. Screams and hugs.
And I remember having to go in for an ultrasound several days later because I'd had some bleeding...and the kind way the radiologist told Bill and I that there was no heartbeat...and how he pointed to a picture of his three kids, and said that he and his wife had three kids, and she had been pregnant six times. So don't be discouraged. We went to my parents' house...more hugs...but with tears.
The next time I found out while we were still in the process of moving into this house. I'd been moving heavy boxes and furniture over the course of a few weeks, I think. And then I found out. It was a little scary - what if. What if all the lifting somehow killed the baby...and I didn't know it yet. The other one was fairly recent - I didn't want to go through that again. So we just tried not to get excited. Tried not to think about it too much. Just in case.
And then - again - bleeding. I tried to be strong. It might be happening again. There might be something wrong...but there wasn't. He gave me a couple of scares, but Alex was born the following June.
And the third...as I remember it, I was tired a lot early on...it was winter...I had a small child...I was working full time...I felt off. But figured that was because I was pregnant. Then I went in for the first checkup at eleven or twelve weeks...and I remember the expression on my OB/GYN's face. She was trying not to express anything, I'm sure, but that was what gave it away. Her face was no longer relaxed. And I was no longer pregnant. The image on the ultrasound machine looked like a chunk of moon rock floating in space. Empty space. No life form.
I was alone. I went home, numb. Not crying. I had to get Alex at daycare. Bill was at work. It was April. And Joe, our nephew, stopped by unexpectedly. And he was the first person I told. He asked me, grinning, how I was feeling. And I couldn't lie to him. Bill got home a little later, and I told him after Joe had gone. Here we go again. Another trip to the hospital, and then home empty, and empty-handed.
And then the fourth. I invited my mother to the ultrasound. She'd never seen one in real life. The same radiologist. A very kind man. One of the best memories - of all the pregancies - no matter what the news was. And, this time, again, the news was not good. No heartbeat. I can't remember what he called it, something about an egg and a sperm joining but no baby resulting...a kind of false pregnancy. But, he said, once in a great while, there is a heartbeat - it just isn't showing up. So he had me make an appointment to come back at the end of the week so he could take another look. Okay. Fine. Whatever. I did not cry. I set my jaw and glared at my mother so she wouldn't say anything sympathetic. We spoke flatly. About nothing. And I went home.
And that Friday Bill came with me. And I expected nothing. I was not hopeful. This was just doing what needed to be done to confirm the bad news. And then it would be another trip into the hospital for an outpatient "procedure." I decided that week that I didn't want to go through this again. Alex would be fine as an only child. I was finished. This was too, too painful.
And then he found the heartbeat. And everything went fine after that. And in May the next year, Julia was born.
And so here I am again. Waiting for a timer to go off so I can find out what's going on. And it did. It went off. I walked, did not run, walked back to the bathroom and looked at the two little windows in the plastic stick. And I wasn't pregnant. I'm not pregnant.
And I felt the little clear bubble pop. And all that stuff that has been welling up and that was pushed aside by the thought of one more baby, unplanned, but so what, all of that stuff poured back in and welled back up and I felt a little pricking against the backs of my eyes. And I wanted to cry. But I didn't. I don't think I could. I just felt. I just felt sad.
Which was strange, because I've always said I just want two kids. But not so strange either. The idea of another baby was a happy thing. Except for some of the physical side effects - the heartburn, the carpal tunnel, the swelling - I loved being pregnant. I loved to feel the babies move inside me. I loved the magic of it. Amazement would wash over me now and again - there was a living creature inside of me. ME! I have never felt so powerful, so alive. So completely happy in my own skin.
So I felt sad. I'd allowed myself to get excited, and this was the letdown. It would pass. It has passed. I don't feel the sadness I did yesterday.
I think some of it was brought on by Julia's upcoming birthday. She will be one. One whole year old. She's talking a bit - and babbling a LOT. She isn't walking yet, but it could be soon. It will be whenever she damn well pleases - that's the kind of person she is. She's not an infant any more. That chapter of my life is closing. They are still my babies, they are still little...but she is not completely dependant on my any more. She gets around. She knows her mind, and she is a determined little thing. And she's not an infant now. I guess maybe I wanted an infant, one more time. Maybe that's greedy. I am so lucky to have two healthy children - maybe it's greedy to want more. Or greedy to want to be pregnant again...to feel the first fluttery movements...and later the rolling alien creature flailing around inside shoving feet and elbows against my bladder and ribs. I wanted to feel that again. I wanted to feel that so I could put some other, less pleasant, feelings somewhere else for a while. I wanted to focus on something new.
That was yesterday.
Today - I am happy and content. I do not need another baby to distract me. I have two funny, lively, amazing and beautiful children and a husband who, to his own amazement, is a fabulous and natural father as well.
I have so much.
So happy almost birthday, Julia. My little scrunchy-faced girl. My littlest baby.
I took this picture this past Sunday.
You know what gets me the most?
Alex. His right hand, sturdy little fingers lined up together, carefully holding his sister.
That, and the expression on Julia's face.
I am so blessed.
Yes, look at the time. It's after two in the morning. Julia woke up an hour ago and she just FINALLY went back to bed.
Ordinarily if she wakes up and won't go back to sleep right away, I fix her a 4 ounce bottle and we go downstairs to the basement where the TV is and watch Nick at Night - I think I've mentioned before that she has a crush on Will Smith.
Well, her timing was wrong, so I started looking for something else to watch - and found Bringing Up Baby.
Didn't help at all. She woke right up. Loved the leopard, first of all. She was screeching and babbling in utter delight at the TV every time the big kitty cat made an appearance. But that wasn't all. She seems quite taken with Cary Grant too. She just watched him, eyes unblinking, her little mouth (now with THREE teeth!) in a silent "oh"....I am not making this up. It was very cute.
Anyway. After a while of this, I realized she wasn't going to go to sleep at all if I kept watching the movie, so I went back to Nick at Night and watched Murphy Brown find out the sex of her baby. And I stood there in the dark trying to hold Julia in a comfortable, relaxing position for her, alternately patting her back and rocking her, so she would go back to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...but she kept fussing.
So I did what I used to do with Alex. I sang. And for some weird reason, even though my brain stocks hundreds of song lyrics and melodies, the only thing I can come up with in this situation is "Sweet Baby James." So that's what I sang.
And she stopped squirming and fussing - immediately - and just stared up at me.
I had her cradled in my arms (my left hand eventually went numb - she's not as tiny as she used to be), rocking her back and forth, singing in my James Taylor voice.
...there is a young cowboy...
And her eyes were unblinking at first, just staring (probably in horror, thinking "boy, she really has an awful voice") and then........
...he works in the saddle, and he sleeps in the canyon...
her eyes began a series of progressively longer blinks until, finally, finally...
...deep greens and blues are the colors I choose...
I finished the chorus,
...and rockabye, sweet baby james...
and carried her
back to
her crib.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........
Goodnight, little moonlight lady.
This morning was full of the usual insanity as the two adults and two children that live in this house did their usual weekday morning stuff to drive each other crazy. I drove to work tense and mad at myself for yelling at Alex earlier, and annoyed at Bill for pointing it out to me as if he never loses patience. (At least that's how it sounded to me).
Anyway...long day at work, also had to bring Julia to the doctor - yep, another ear infection - or the one she just finished antibiotics for never went away.
And now we're home, and after a bit of post-daycare Wild Thing-ness from Alex, here is what has prompted me to write:
Alex and Julia crawling - both of them - from the living room toward the kitchen. Alex in front, pausing every so often to summon Julia with a little beckoning motion and an encouraging "Come on, Julia! Come on!" And she makes her little happy noises, and flashes her big fat-cheeked two-toothed smile at him, and follows.
And then the two of them are standing at the child safety gate that separates this computer/music room from the hall. The gate comes up to Alex's waist. Julia is about five inches taller than the gate - when she stretches up - and so just her spikey hair and little forehead and big blue eyes and huge proud smile appear above the gate. And her two little hands grip the wooden frame of it...Kilroy-like.
And now they are both in the living room. I don't know exactly what they're doing...but Alex is laughing, and Julia is making happy little squawking sounds, and no one is crying.
Of course, as soon as I typed that, Julia started crying. But she stopped just as quickly, so I think it was just annoyance.
And now Alex is calling to me "I got Julia's hair! I got Julia's hair" so there could be another cry of annoyance or anger or pain or just-you-wait-buddy-til-i'm-a-bit-bigger-and-you'll-get-yours soon.
But no. Quiet. They are playing together. Or playing in the same room and occasionally interacting. Sometimes they just make faces at each other and laugh great belly laughes over and over and over.
Two children under the age of three is insane at times. But I'm so glad I have the two of them. And glad, more so, that they have each other.
I'm home today - Alex has a fever. He's sleeping on the couch at the moment...the end of The Jungle Book is playing on the VCR. His current favorite movie.
But I'm not writing about him today, though I could. Endlessly.
Yesterday I spent a few hours watching my sister, Meredith, and her kids, Calvin and Natalie, compete in a karate tournament. It was really cool.
Calvin, who is 12, started karate classes when he was in the first grade, and a couple years later Natalie, who is 9, did the same thing. Meredith started a couple of years ago. To be honest, I mostly went to see her. But I watched all of them, and took pictures of all of them too, and hopefully one or two of the pictures will come out good - with one of them kicking or spinning around or doing something - not just appearing to stand there immediately after kicking or spinning or whatever.
The whole event began with five different demo teams coming out to center court (this was held in a gym), one team at a time, to do their demonstration - an exhibition of all their best kicks and moves and weapons mastery - and loudness. Loud yells punctuating much of what they did. One team in particular - if they'd been competing at loudness, they would have won. They certainly had the loudness intimidation factor perfected. But they didn't win. Actually the team Calvin was on won. I didn't see the entire group though - I spent most of my time peering through the viewfinder of my camera, focused on Calvin, anticipating (or trying to) a leap or kick or spin that would make a good picture. So I only saw him.
After the demo team competition, the regular competitions began. There were 8 areas marked off, and everyone was divided up by age groups (or that's how it looked to me, anyway.) Age groups, and then skill levels or belt colors or something along those lines. (I should have taken notes...but I didn't.) Anyway, my sister was assigned to a corner at one end of the court, and both kids were at the other end. So I watched from the bleachers for a little while, with my parents, who had also come, until it looked like someone from my family was about to compete. Calvin was first, so I hurried down to the other end of the gym to hang out and wait for him to go...and at the same time I was keeping an eye on my sister's corner, because I could see that she'd be up soon...and then it became quite stressful as I looked back and forth from Calvin to Mere, hoping that their turns wouldn't come at the same time. They didn't. Fortunately. And after both of them I got to watch Natalie, and then it was back down to the other end to watch my sister spar.
I have to say the coolest part was watching my sister wearing head gear, a mouthguard, a protective belt kind of thing around her abdomen, and padding on her hands and feet...and there she was before her sparring matches...stretching and hopping in place and looking totally focused on what she had to do...and then she went in there and did it. Punched and kicked and all that.
Did she win? Nope. Not at all. But to me that's not what's so cool about all this. I mean, yeah, a trophy would have been great. But it wouldn't have been any more impressive to me if she had won. The fact that she is doing this - and in front of people - that is what is so cool.
And Calvin and Natalie, too...at their age, would I have been comfortable out in front of people? Even in a competition like this, where it's like a circus, with tons of things going on at once...and everyone who is competing is pretty much oblivious to what everyone else is doing...and the people in the bleachers are mainly watching their sons or daughters or grandkids or siblings or whoever and might idly cast a glance at another competitor, but not for very long or with much thought...would I have done that?
Not a chance.
I took ballet and tap when I was very little, and I was in a couple of recitals...and the famous thing I said to my parents after one recital, when I was so shy and scared that I dreaded going out on stage, was "I kicked up my bravery." Where did that little kicking girl go?
I was thinking a lot about this yesterday, on my way home. And I don't know if I can describe this well, but here goes...I was thinking about how it would be to be, say, Natalie's age, 9, and out there in front of a ton of people, trying to focus on my kata and do it correctly for the judges and block out everyone around me, no matter how scary it would feel to have all those potential eyes watching...and I realized that it's not all the eyes of the people in the bleachers (or in an audience, or classroom, or wherever) that have affected me all these years. It's all the eyes I carry around inside of me...all the eyes in my own head that are constantly - and critically - watching me. Every little thing is scrutinized. And these little eyes also have little voices (no, I'm not crazy, stick with me on this) that are, unfortunately, for the most part, hypercritical.
That's what's scary. To me. And I have to get over that. I really do. They've done nothing for me, ever. They have just kept me from trying things. Sure, they've prevented me from falling on my face in front of a big crowd of people - but so what? I've still fallen down in front of people PLENTY of times under various circumstances and I'm still around. In fact, my falling down stories are part of a collection of stories that my sister and I laugh over to this day.
So who needs these stupid eyes watching me in my head, and their rotten little critical voices. I used to feel like if I could figure out WHY I listen to them, then I could make them stop. But now I'm realizing - who cares? Who cares where they came from? They've already received way more attention than they deserve and here I am, facing a BIG birthday this summer and feeling like I've got very little to show for reaching this milestone. It's not the getting another year older that is bothering me - it's the getting another year older and feeling like I haven't come very far from the shy kid I started out as.
I know that's not entirely true. I am a functioning member of society. I can look people in the eye and stuff like that. I'm really good at standing up for other people, like at work or something. I'm great at that for everyone except myself.
And that's what I need to work on. Much as I love photographing members of my family - and I really do love that - I realized yesterday that there probably aren't many photos of me doing anything. Okay, I got married. So there I am in those pictures. But it's not like I worked hard to get to that point, you know? It was like a birthday party. You show up, you get your picture taken.
But most of the time, I'm the one taking the pictures. I'm the one watching. I'm the one capturing other people as they do things. Cool things. Like leaping and spinning. Cool things. Like kicking up their bravery.
I need to get out there and do something.
But anyway, back to my karate sister and her karate kids - I didn't stay to watch the whole thing, though I would have liked to. But I got to see each of them get out there and show what they could do.
And, inspired by this, I did crunches (50) (with my kids crawling or sprawling on top of me during most of the 50) and some other ab stuff and some yoga. I have noticed that when I work out, those little eyes in my head don't watch me so much, and their little voices tend to get quieter. So maybe if I just try to focus on doing things - any things - I can make the critical watching eyes and their critical little voices go away. They've overstayed their welcome.
Thanks Mere. Thanks Calvin and Natalie. You guys inspire me. Kiai! (did I spell that right?)
I've had a pretty happy day for myself. We went grocery shopping this morning and got stuff to have on hand so we can throw meals together quickly during the week...especially the days when Bill works late and I'm throwing food around and juggling children at the same time. It's like Iron Chef only there's no competition and I'd really like to see Bobby Flay try to do much of anything carrying a baby in one arm and trying to keep the older child from touching the stovetop. ("That very, VERY hot, Mommy" he says, pointing at the burner not in use and coming within a milimeter of touching it.) (Oh, and why is he even that close to the burner to begin with? Because we're STILL waiting for our stovetop to be fixed, so we're using the two electric burners in the basement...and so while I'm making dinner with one hand and holding Julia (who longs to dive into pasta sauce, apparently), Alex pushes a chair over and decides he's going to help me. That's why.)
Anyway...where was I going? Oh, yeah, stocking up. So what I most wanted to accomplish today was to roast a whole bunch of garlic and have that on hand to add to things here and there. So I cut 12 heads of garlic in half, dumped some olive oil on them, and wrapped them in foil and baked them at about 350 degrees or so for around an hour. After they'd cooled a little, I squeezed out all the garlic into the food processor, poured in a little olive oil, and pureed it all. It's stored in a little ceramic container with an airtight lid and I am so pleased about it that I'd sound like a crazy person if I continued to go on about it.
I also diced 4 big green peppers and froze them. And julienned 5 big red peppers and froze them too. And sliced 5 pounds of onions (in the food processor, otherwise I'd still be weeping) and froze them. That's what I wanted to do, and it's done. Dinner is in progress - I've got a tray of cut up beets roasting away, and also a pan of cut up potatoes roasting too. Bill will be grilling salmon steaks in a little while, and I'll also saute the beet greens and my newest favorite vegetable - broccoli rabe - in a little olive oil with a little salt and pepper and a grating of romano cheese at the end.
So my day has been all about food, which is fine with me.
It's also been about the garden...seeds for the early crops (HA - like we'll have acres and acres...) have been planted - Bill is in charge of the garden, pretty much, though I participate in planning what we'll grow every year. Still, he is the master gardener. I just pick stuff and cook it when it's ripe. He's planted arugula, swiss chard, broccoli rabe, peas...and other things - I don't remember what his chart said. But he's very organized about it.
And now I must go, because Julia has just realized that being in a playpen isn't half as much fun as crawling all around the living room...and she's sobbing brokenheartedly about it, which I can't ignore.
No - wait...oh, here is why I am happily married even though I will occasionally need to vent about little things about my husband...there is silence now, because he and Alex are in the living room building things with blocks, and Bill took Julia out of the playpen and Alex gave her a wooden block to gnaw on, and so there is peace.
Wow.
I was up three times with Julia last night.
I am on auto-pilot most of the time now, so I could probably be struck blind all of a sudden and I'd still be able to function in the middle of the night, since I hardly turn on any lights anyway. Which is why ALL the pathways in the house need to be clear. All the toys and other stuff can be piled up to the ceiling, as long as it is out of my way when I'm on my nocturnal prowls. That means please don't leave your shoes right in the middle of the kitchen floor like that because I don't want to trip over them and whack my head on the sink. Trust me - you don't want that either, because I'd get to be hospitalized and you would have to take care of both kids all the time (she said ominously).
So anyway, the second time I got up, I groaned loudly, rolled out of bed, put my hair in a ponytail, put my glasses on (so I can see CLEARLY in the dark) skimmed the hardwoods, barefoot, barely making a sound on my way to the kids' room, lower the side on Julia's crib, catch her as she's rolling back and forth in her crib, where she is shrieking in imagined pain or outrage or just for fun, pat her on the back and bounce her up and down for a second on the off chance that she'll just miraculously go right back to sleep. It never ever happens, but I remain hopeful. Pad softly (on little cat feet) out of the room, shut the door, and carefully hurry down the stairs (12 steps total) to the main floor. Round the turn through the living room, and again to the left to the kitchen. The keypad to disarm the security system (I have to shut off the basement motion detectors whenever Julia and I are up at night so we can sit down there in the semi-dark and watch every episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air ever filmed) is on the wall next to the basement stairs. I pass it on the way to the kitchen, where I make a 4 oz bottle of formula and Julia is still grumpy and squirmy in my left arm. I shake the bottle to dissolve the formula, flick on the light to the basement stairs (the only light I turn on at night) and head down the 13 steps to the basement.
And halfway down there is a sudden PIERCING SHRIEKING HORRIBLE SOUND and it's not Julia crying; it's the alarm going off because I walked right by the keypad without punching in the code so I spin around on the 7th step and run back up as fast as my little legs can carry me, drop the bottle on the floor and punch in the code, hoping that that's all I'm supposed to do because if there's more I can't remember what it might be, and ahhhh, there is silence. Except for my rapidly pounding heart. And the amazing sound of my husband, hurrying down the stairs in the middle of the night. I yelled to him that it was just me, and he tells me he has the number to the security office in his wallet, but that's okay, I have it in mine, so he turns around without another word and heads back to bed...probably cursing me, who knows.
I call the security office hotline and tell them it was a false alarm and to verify that it's me, they ask for my passcode, which, bright girl that I am, I have NOT written down on the little card with their phone number on it, because in the event that the card should become lost or stolen, someone could break into my home, pretend they are me, stop the police from coming over, and steal all the diapers and dirty dishes. Anyway, I think I know what my passcode is, but then I panic, thinking that maybe I'm wrong, and if I give them the wrong passcode, they'll think I'm a burglar (who brings her crying baby with her on break-ins) and send the police over to arrest me in my stained tee shirt and sweats. After hesitating (suspiciously, I'm sure) I hazard a guess, and - thank goodness - I get it right. They tell me they will cancel the call to the police, and I am free to go.
So Julia (who is wide awake and kind of excited by all this) and I (who am wide awake and not at all happy about it) go back down the basement stairs. My heart stops for a second halfway down, just in case the alarm has somehow re-set itself, even though I obsessively looked at it three times before going ANYWHERE. And we turn on the TV and I change Julia's diaper and give her a bottle and try to take deep cleansing breaths. Around 2:30 we go back to bed, where I proceed to have weird, disjointed dreams about creepy bearded men trying to get in front of me in line somewhere. (I have no explanation for that one).
This morning Bill and I kind of briefly talked about this as we sped about in our own frenzies to get ready for work and out the door...he said we behaved exactly as we shouldn't have. One person should have gone to stay with the kids (protectively) while the other...I don't remember...maybe watched for the police or watched for the burglar. But his first instinct was just to run downstairs and see what had happened...and he said "what if I'd found you lying there dead?" - but instead of this having any kind of emotional effect on him, it just led him to conclude that if I'm already dead, there's really no need for him to become dead too...so if it happens again, I expect him to dash to the kids' room and wait there until the police come. I will have to fend for myself.
Julia isn't exactly crawling - she scoots along like an inchworm.
But.
She moves forward.
And - she occasionally says "bye bye" (or a reasonable facsimile) when she is waving.
When your child is first born, every relative on both sides of the family will tell you who the baby looks like. And once the child starts to do things, no matter how small, the relatives will also tell you who the baby behaves like. They can't seem to stop themselves. It's almost like they are laying claim to the child because he looks like or acts like so-and-so did way back when. Pointing out proof of bloodlines or something.
Of the two, behavior is more fascinating, at least to me. Watching the little personalities emerge and recognizing myself or my husband or someone in the family...that's really, really cool. "That's my son!" or "That's your son!" (Depending, of course, on just what the son has done....)
So, we were shopping at The Sports Authority last weekend. Well, I was shopping, everyone else was along for the ride. And I wasn't so much shopping as I was clawing and pawing through jogging bras to find as many as I could in my size of one particular design that I bought a while back and it is the BEST one I've ever owned, so I wanted ALL of them. I was lugging Julia around in my left arm and searching through the racks with my right hand. It was awkward and Julia weighs 17 lbs 6 ounces, but I was on a mission. I found four, by the way.
But that's not the point of the story.
The point comes next. While Julia and I were in search of the perfect woman's support garment, Alex and Bill were wandering around in the more manly areas of the store. It was while they were in the fishing section that Alex suddenly announced - in his loud and proud little boy voice: "I DID GAS!" And he wasn't finished, either. A little bit later he announced "I DID GAS AGAIN!"
He's Bill's son, you know.
But then, there are other moments...like at the dinner table one time, I asked Alex to hand me his plate..."It's a bowl, Mommy, not a plate."
Or this...it is that part of a weekday morning when all is chaos as we are getting ready to leave the house, and I am trying to get both kids ready to go and I call out to Alex, who has wandered off somewhere, "Okay, Alex, time to put on your socks and shoes!" and he corrects me: "No, Mommy, boots; not shoes."
And so on.
Well. Years and years ago - when I was too young - I was the manager of a small bookstore (part of a very large chain) in a little mall outside of Boston. It was a lovely place to work. Every so often all the store managers had meetings to discuss what to do in case of an armed robbery. Fun.
I was in way over my head. I lacked confidence, big time. And my way of getting past that feeling of "any minute now they're going to realize they made a BIG mistake putting me here and FIRE ME" was to be a bitch on wheels.
I had inherited my employees from the previous manager, who, if I remember correctly, was fired, but I don't remember why. Among the crew was this one guy who I just didn't click with AT ALL. I was too nervous, too unsure of myself, to relax about anything during that time, and he was laid back and older than me and oh, whatever. We just didn't click. He probably knew I didn't know what I was doing (or at least I didn't think I knew what I was doing), and just knowing that he knew I was out of my element drove me nuts and contributed, in part, to my dictatorial behavior at times. Not a bright and shining period in my life.
He and I were working at the front of the store one day, opening boxes of books and entering them into the store's fledgling computer inventory system. I was at the computer, he was on the other side of the counter emptying boxes and putting the books onto shelves or on a display table or something.
And then it happened.
He said "Can you hand me the slasher?"
And I said "The what?"
And he said "The slasher - you know, so I can open this box?"
And I said (icily, I'm sure, because that's how I spoke a lot of the time back then) "It's called a blade."
And he looked at me like I was insane and ridiculous - which I was - and laughed slightly, and said something dismissive (and sensible) like "slasher, blade, same thing."
And I said "It's. Called. A. BLADE."
And he probably decided it was too stupid to even continue the discussion; better just to give in or she might bite or something....
So anyway. I made the mistake as some point after that of telling this story to my sister, and so of course she will remind me of it when I am being particularly anal.
"It's a blade! It's a blade!" she will snarl, in a Wicked Witch of the West voice. It works. I shut right up.
But my point is...it's a blade...it's a bowl...it's a boot...
Yes. He's my son. Heaven help him.
Julia has learned how to wave. It's kind of a limp-wristed wave at the moment, but she's very proud of herself, which is clear because she smiles really big and you can see all two of her teeth when she does. Plus her little eyes light right up, which only increases her charm...
She waves at Alex, at us...and at The Baby in Mirror Land.
The Baby in Mirror Land is a little baby who appears to be about Julia's age and has a mom who appears to be my age (under harsh lighting) and who we mostly visit in the bathrooms, because that is where we have the largest Windows into Mirror Land.
Julia loves to smile at the Baby in Mirror Land...and now that she knows how, she also loves to wave at the Baby in Mirror Land. And she KNOWS that the best way to see the Baby is when we go into either of the two bathrooms and can look through the big Window into Mirror Land and that charming other Baby and her Mother will be right there waiting.
So now, Julia begins waving and smiling whenever we are simply near the doorway to one of the bathrooms.
Because she thinks that's where we're going...and so of course as soon as I see her start to wave, we must go in.
Mustn't disappoint the Baby in Mirror Land, after all.
And the other half of this disjointed story is that Julia is ALMOST crawling. She can turn herself around while on her stomach, and roll over and over like a tumbleweed, and in her agitation to get at the cat, she can even push herself backwards while shrieking.
But as of yesterday, she can propel herself forward while lying on her stomach, her bare little feet digging into the carpet one at a time and shoving her whole little self forward so she can get to that little tiny black bit of fluff before Mommy sees it and whisks it out of sight and reach.
The chaos looms ever closer.
wwwrrrrrrrRRREEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW...
I loved that show - reruns anyway - when I was a kid.
I have no idea what a two-eleven was - or is - or how quickly Code 3 means they should respond...I'm guessing from the immediate siren sound after it, that Code 3 means pretty quickly.
And that is my segue into the event of December 31st. I was at work, kids were at daycare, Bill was at home because he is a teacher and had that whole week off. He called me late morning to see if there was anything else I could think of for him to pick up at the store, and then he left the house at approximately 11:15 am to go to the bank and the grocery store and Home Depot and the asian market we like to shop at.
I got sprung from work early - around 2:00, so I left him a message on our answering machine, picked up the kids, and headed home. Turned onto our street and saw a police car parked on the street. My slow brain first thought Bill's cousin (who is a police officer) was visiting, but the car was from our town, not the one he works for...then I thought it had nothing to do with us, and then I pulled into the driveway and saw Bill and a police officer outside and Bill saw me pull in and marched rapidly toward my car with his hand out in a "STOP" position. So I did.
Our house was broken into. We'd been robbed.
Fun fun fun. They didn't get much - we don't have a whole lot of stuff that is both small and worth stealing. They did get our DVD camera and some (but not all - SO THERE) of the stuff that went with it...and all the coins from various jars and coffee cans that we were MEANING to cash in soon...and they went through the bureaus in our bedroom and through my jewelry box, but it doesn't look like they got anything (because - HA HA - most of what I have isn't worth anything and the things that are worth anything are things I sometimes wear but forget to put away in the jewelry box where they belong so I lucked out because I am lazy. There's a lesson for you!) OH - and they took the diaper bag. The black, backpack-like diaper bag. I believe they used it to take out all the change they stole.
The only thing that hurts is that in the DVD camera was a disk that we hadn't filled up yet. Little things like Alex telling us what sounds various animals make...Bill taking Alex trick or treating...Julia doing cute little Julia things...Christmas morning when Bill got Alex singing "Jingle Bells" from his crib...and later, coming down the stairs into the living room...Alex saying over and over, in awe, "presents....presents!"
That's the stuff you can't replace. Can't get reimbursed for. That file a claim for. That's what you kick yourself in the head about - why did I leave that IN THERE??? That's the one thing you want to somehow communicate to the losers that broke in that if they would just drop the disk in the mailbox we'd be happy and fine, keep the DVD camera. We'll just upgrade.
So it wasn't the happiest of New Years.
But on the other hand...this was all right after the Tsunami hit Asia all over the place...so in comparison, we've got precious little to complain about. We are all alive, we have a roof over our heads.
And now we have deadbolts on the doors and a security system installed.
I was going to use the break-in to somehow excuse my lack of writing in a month and a half...but that's not the reason. There is no specific reason, other than just the general busy-ness of a family and a job and most of January spent with one or more of the four of us sick in some form or another.
But I miss writing. I would find myself in bed at odd hours of the night, after being up for the umpteenth time with Julia...and I'd be writing stuff in my head...composing things to post. But then sleep deprivation would work its magic and the next morning I'd have absolutely no idea what I'd wanted to write about.
So now I'm writing little notes to myself at work (which is where I do a LOT of thinking about things that I'd like to post...because it's far more entertaining than the work I should be doing)...because I don't want to forget stuff, and I need to write more.
So I plan to. But now the timer on the stove has gone off, which means I have to get my shoes back on and drive back to work - my lunch break is over.
Sorry for the long gap in writing. I've missed you.
This year is Alex's first real Santa-oriented Christmas...we (Bill especially) talked up the whole down-the-chimney, leave out the milk and cookies thing ahead of time...and it was fun the next morning. Christmas Eve we exchanged one gift each (well, two for Alex) and then made a big ceremony of having Alex choose which kinds of cookies Santa would like (five different kinds, one of each) and a glass of milk...put it here on the coffee table so Santa would see it...and then off to bed...Alex just kind of going along with our lunacy...Bill and I a couple of giggly idiots...And then the next morning, the kids wake up, Bill brings up the DVD camera and films Alex still in his crib singing "Jingle Bells" while I'm changing Julia's diaper...I'd asked Alex if he thought Santa came, and he said no, but then Bill told him Santa DID come...so Bill headed down the stairs first, so he could film Alex...I followed...and as Alex got past the wall to the point where he could see into the living room, he started saying "presents...presents...presents..." in a hushed but excited little voice...and we showed him the plate where the cookies had been "all gone!" and he picked up the empty milk glass and looked inside at the little film of white at the bottom...and then we began. Started with the stockings...first thing he pulled out was candy (this is all he tells people now when they ask what Santa brought him - candy) - a Chocolate Santa - which he unwrapped and ate. We had real breakfast later. And so we sat there on the floor tearing paper off of packages...Julia enjoyed the bows...tried to eat the paper too and got mad when I took that away from her (as it dissolved in her mouth)...Bill and I each got each other the 2004 World Series on DVD. I'd planned to from the start, and then I unwrapped it and almost laughed, but I kept quiet and handed him a little package from Julia to Daddy - the same DVD. The last time we did that was early in our relationship and we got each other a toilet plunger - I don't even know why. Weird.
Dinner was at our house - a last-minute change of venues. Everything worked out well - roast beef and yorkshire pudding...a chicken on the grill for non-red-meat-eating family...my sister brought baked squash...we had baked potatoes...grilled romaine lettuce (try it - with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar after it comes off the grill)...and just some cupcakes and cookies for dessert because we were all stuffed...crowded living room of family exchanging gifts before the meal...then spread out through the main floor and the finished basement after dinner....
And I have today off...nothing much going on...took Julia in for her flu shot booster, went out to lunch, picked out paint for the bathroom...other than that...kind of getting back to normal around here. Didn't get all the baking done I'd planned to...but I did a lot...Bill is working now on putting the sink top in our downstairs bathroom where it should have been put a year and a half ago after our basement flooded and the repair work was done...the guy that did the bathroom was lazy and just wanted to be done and gone. So while everything else was done beautifully - basement ceiling...carpeting...painting...the bathroom - this guy's only part in the whole thing besides contracting with all the GOOD people who did everything else - the bathroom looked the worst. So Bill is fixing it, and we're painting the walls a cool, bluish-greenish-greyish color called Wickford Bay.
But now - we're going to spring the kids from daycare so Alex can play in the snow.
I hope you all had a lovely and peaceful Holiday!
At last, Julia has sprouted her first two teeth. The first one showed up on Monday, and the second one was yesterday. They are barely visible, surrounded as they are by the bulging, swollen flesh of her lower gum...but if you, like me, have been inspecting her cranky little mouth for days, then you can find them. And if you can get your finger in there and can shove her pesky little tongue out of the way, you can feel the first one. It's about a quarter of a milimeter further out than the second one.
The whole teething thing was a piece of cake with Alex. I don't remember much about it, except that all of a sudden, the weekend that he turned 5 months old, those first two bottom teeth showed up. I do not remember him being as unhappy about the process as Julia has been. But that could be the same kind of maternal amnesia that prompts mothers of one child to go ahead and go through labor again to get another kid.
So Julia will be demanding real solid food soon. I know it, judging by the way she eyes the food the rest of us eat. She gulps down her pureed baby food...but I know it's not really what she wants.
We'll be having roast beef and yorkshire pudding on Christmas at my Mom's house. I expect Julia will demand some of that.
Alex has been sleeping for almost three hours. Julia is sleeping too. They both have colds with horrendous-sounding coughs that are so frequent and juicy-sounding (in a gross way) because they are two and under and do not yet know how to blow their noses or (gross again) spit constructively. And so they have runny noses, they sneeze frightening slime, and they cough. Open-mouthed sea lion coughs. Especially my dainty flower daughter.
I'm working on teaching Alex to cover his mouth when he coughs, so he can catch all the spitty germs in his hand rather than letting them fly free. He dramatically covers his mouth after the coughing is finished. But at least the hand is now involved, so we're getting there.
Both kids were WIDE AWAKE last night until finally around eleven. I was too, of course, listening to them cough, sometimes in unison, sometimes separately...sometimes in harmony...sometimes in counterpoint...it was kind of like "Do, a Deer" from The Sound of Music if Julie Andrews and all the kids had had the croup.
Only not as joyful.
Anyway, this morning I had Julia dressed and ready to go...was getting Alex dressed and ready to go, and he was wiping his runny nose on the back of his spit-free hand while coughing his germs at me...and I asked him "Alex, do you want to stay home today?" And he said no. So I asked if he wanted to go to school and see his friends today...and he said no, so I figured I should be the grown-up and make an executive decision - so we stayed home, the kids and me. And it went pretty well, despite the coughing and the tug-of-war for my attention.
I kind of liked it, to be honest. And I have eggplant parmesan in the oven, and dishes are all done, and my little boy is now waking up calling for me...Bill will be home soon...that's about where I am at the moment.
Gotta go - have a lovely evening!
"Want more pay-toes, Mommy?" (tomatoes)
"WOW!...............Lotta food!" (looking at a big spoonful of whatever he's eating at the moment...)
"Figgadiddy! Figgadiddy! Figgadiddy!" (this was in the car this afternoon)
"You want figgadiddy?"
"No! (scornfully) Want figgadiddy!"
"Oh...You want spaghetti?"
"Yah."
"Don't touch Julia eyes" (as he is touching them and her nose with his crawly little toddler fingers....)
"Bite a tongue!" (Alex's reaction to eating spicy food...like a chili pepper from the garden. But he went back and tried another one anyway.)
"Scar not nice!"
"No, Scar's not nice." (If you've seen The Lion King you'll understand.)
"Waheena not nice, too!"
"That's right, the hyenas aren't nice either."
"Have a fun showoo, Daddy?" (shower)
"Don't eat boogies, Owl."
"Does the owl eat boogies?"
"Yeah!"
"Does the cow eat boogies?"
"No!" (as in "of course not, silly Mommy")
(Owl and Cow are two stuffed animals that are, to Alex, kind of partners. He had them with him in the car when this little exchange took place. He has other "partner" stuffed animals: Nemo and Bruce the Shark...Mufasa and Pig (who is really named "Pink" but Alex just calls her "Pig")...Elephant and Doggy (and Doggy's registered name is "Fluffy," but Doggy is the informal, affectionate moniker.))
And then there was Bill's attempt to create a song about not eating "boogies" - my husband is sort of a distant nephew of Fred Rogers. I can't prove it, but it's got to be some sort of genetic thing about making up songs about anything. So the song - what there is of it - is supposed to go like this:
"Do we eat boogies?"
"No...no"
The beat in the first line is on "do" and "boog", and then the next line is supposed to be "no" on the first beat and the other "no" right before where the second beat should fall. Bill thought it was pretty clever (he is classically trained, after all), and so he tried to get Alex excited about it too. He figured, since Alex is only two, that he'd give Alex the easier line - the "no...no" line, partly because "no" is a word Alex has become pretty good at saying, and (I think) partly because the little story line within the song is the parent making sure the child understands that no, we don't eat boogies. This little "just checking" Q & A format serves to confirm the child's understanding of family policy and also provides for the child a sense of pride in getting the answer right. So, Bill took on the role of "parent" in our little song/story, and Alex was given the role of "child." It went something like this:
Bill: Okay, Alex, ready?
Alex: Yah! (oh, and by the way, he is not saying "yah" as in "ja" - he just says it fairly abruptly, so it doesn't really sound like "yeah" - it's shorter. Just wanted you to be aware of that.)
Bill: I say "Do we eat boogies?" and you say "No...no." Ready?
Alex: Yah.
Bill: (in the sing-songy voice) Do we eat boogies?
Alex: No.
(long pause as Bill waits for Alex to come in with the second "no" any time now...any time now...)
Bill: (demonstrating) "No...no." Try it again. Ready? Do we eat boogies?
Alex: No.
Bill: "No...no." Can you say it like that? Try again. Do we eat boogies? (here he nods encouragingly and mouths the next line for Alex - "no...no")
Alex: NO! Daddy.
Bill: (he cannot stop himself now) Do we eat boogies?
Alex: NO! Stop it, Daddy. (as he runs away)
For a four-month-old...
Julia can roll over.
From her back onto her stomach.
It requires enormous effort, especially to get past that elbow that she's lying on when she's almost, almost all the way over. She screeches and yells like a little tiny wild woman. And she's not even happy when she's successfully on her stomach. She continues with the screeching - I think she's saying some rather un-ladylike things at that point.
About a month or so ago we went hiking around Carbuncle Pond, which is in Coventry, RI, and is (shh - don't tell anyone) one of Bill's favorite places to go for Opening Day of Trout Season. Anyway, the plan was mostly to go and pick the wild blueberries that grow along the shore, but there weren't very many, so besides hiking along a trail, the main activity was (for Bill and Alex)...(mostly Bill) looking for frogs to catch.
Bill actually almost caught a bullfrog - a big one - but it got away. The memory still torments him. "I coulda had that frog...I had him in my hands...mutter mutter mutter...."
Some of the time was also spent making sure Alex didn't fall into the water. I carried Julia in my trusty Baby Bjorn (I love that thing), and took pictures. There is one picture of me from that day and no, I am not posting it because the sun beams too brightly off my giant forehead and I look rather freakish. Sorry.
Anyway - though blueberries were scarce and the bullfrog got away, Alex was still impressed with Bill's hunting abilities - "Daddy catch a fog a hand!"
That's Julia a few weeks ago at my parents' house...sitting on my sister's lap.
Julia, by the way, has made her first foray into the wonderful world of baby cereal. She has started, as Alex did, with delicious, bland rice cereal mixed with some formula. The first time she tried it I'd mixed one part cereal with about 5 parts formula, like the box says, and it was just like I was spooning formula into her mouth, and she kind of looked at me after a few droplets' worth as if to say "What's the point of this?" So yesterday and today I added less formula and made more of a wet paste, and that was way more fun to mush around in her mouth, apparently.
She seems to enjoy it - the experience, if not the actual taste. I don't think she's encountered excitement in her food yet, other than finally being fed after yelling really loudly for what seems like an eternity.
I propped her on the floor this afternoon, on a towel, on her stomach, wearing only a diaper. And I shot just about a whole roll of black & white film on her holding her head up ("just like a big girl!"). I'd done the same thing with Alex at about this age, and I got some really nice pictures (if I do say so myself), so I'm hoping to do the same with Julia and have matching drooling baby portraits...after the Julia ones are printed I'll post one of each kid in here. It's a lot harder taking pictures of Julia - if Alex sees the camera he wants to play with it. So I let him shoot a couple of pictures with the throw-away camera we usually have around, just to satisfy him. Maybe some day I'll post some of his photographic artwork....
I know - I've been horribly negligent about posting lately. Rue pointed out that it's been two weeks since my last post.
Exactly. And if I hadn't read that in the comments section moments ago, who knows - it could have been another week or two until I started typing. To be honest, part of me was thinking maybe I should just sort of quietly bow out of this weblog, with apologies to my (handful of) readers for not being able to handle it.
But I haven't decided to do that after all. I just don't know - yet - how often I'll write.
But that's not the point of this post, so I'll steer myself back on track.
It's hectic. That's my understated summation of life back at work - full time - with two little kids in daycare.
Within hours of my first day back at work I was considering having a third child, just to get another three months off. And I don't really want a third child - I wanted two, I have two. But that should give you - and especially should give me - a good indication of how I need to eventually make some drastic changes in what I do to bring home a paycheck.
To make it all even more complicated, Bill went back to work today - both at the middle school and at the college.
I'm finding that as long as I'm ORGANIZED at night, the mornings run relatively smoothly. So far.
Did I ever mention that I'm also a supervisor of sorts in my department? Well, assistant director, actually. I suppose that should be in caps.... Anyway, that means, in part, that my friend, the director of the dept, and I alternate possession of "the phone" - for emergency calls - every week. I think I've mentioned that I work for a moving company. So anyway. Last Thursday was sort of the ugliest evening since my return to work.
Bill, not yet back at work, had spent all day helping move heavy furniture from his friend John's girlfriend's apartment into the apartment she would be sharing with John. Long, hot day...two second floor apartments, all stairs, no elevators. Bill called me around 4:30 - I was still at work - he was hanging out with John until the brewshop opened at 5, then would pick up the ingredients he needed for a batch of barley wine he was planning to make the next day, and then he'd be home. No problem - I figured he would.
So I get out of work, drive to daycare, and get the kids. It works like this...I usually get Julia first. I strap her into the Baby Bjorn kangaroo pouch thing against my chest, collect her empty bottles and the little sheet that describes her day (how much she drank from each bottle, how long her naps were and when, what the contents of each diaper were, and - my favorite part - her mood and what activities she participated in each day. Usually "happy" is circled, and today, for example, she colored. Really. My 3 1/2 daughter apparently held chubby kid crayons in her tiny fingers and colored. Actually, she sat in the lap of one of the teachers while she helped one of the older kids in the infant room color something. So it would be more appropriate to say that Julia observed some coloring.)
Back to the after-5:00 pm- race for home...
So I've got Julia and all her stuff, hang out for a minute chatting with whichever teacher is in the infant room at the time, and then go get Alex right across the hall. He usually spots me immediately, except for today, when he was busy going down a slide head-first. He's not supposed to, which is probably half of the appeal. Anyway - he races across the room, politely shoving other slower-moving toddlers out of the way. The toddlers closer to the door (somehow it's usually always all the girls) gather around to gaze in fascination at Julia and point at her and say "baby!" in knowing voices. Alex elbows his way to the front of the throng and begins crowd control. "Don't touch Julia sock!" he admonishes them. "Don't touch Julia!" And if his stern tone doesn't work, he shoves them. Yes. He got right up in one poor girl's face (she has an almost permanent surprised-verging-on-hurt expression on her face, but today it was actually warranted) and told her not to touch Julia (she hadn't been) and gives her a little shove. Then he turned to growl at another little girl who was reaching toward Julia's tiny little piggy toes. It's pretty funny. Except when he knocks someone over. I can usually catch his arm before that happens. I don't know if he's being protective of Julia or just possessive. Probably the latter.
Anyway, we get his little lunch bag with all the empty containers and sippy cups, I sign him out, and off we go. He carries Julia's bright pink insulated bag, and I carry his. He is helping. We go outside and he has learned NOT to dash out into the parking lot. (We had a little chat about that sort of thing after he did it the second time and, knock wood, he hasn't made the attempt since. Yet.) We head toward the car and Alex scrounges in among the decorative shrubs outside his little brick "school" to find rocks. He loves his rocks. And because of this, there aren't too many rocks left for the collecting, since most of them have made their way into my car and into his outdoor rock collection on top of a cinder block.
I finally get him strapped into his seat, get Julia in hers, get their lunch bags in the car (rather than on top of the car, which I almost did once, til some other mother flagged me down - still in the parking lot, fortunately!) And off we go. Alex keeps up a running commentary on everything we see on the ride home - and everything we will see. There is one of those huge inflatable gorillas on the roof of a car dealership not too far from where daycare and my workplace are. Alex loves this big gorilla. ("Big a-ridda") His little voice quivers with excitement as he announces - several times - "See a big a-ridda soon!" Then we talk to the big a-ridda as we go by, then we comment on the fact that the big a-ridda is back there, bye bye big a-ridda, see you later! And then it's anticipation about the next thing - a big balloon on top of another car dealership...and later, a big balloon on top of a Texaco station. He is also excited about big trucks (Look-a dat beeg truck!), stone walls, geese, birds, and - as of this afternoon - big stores. I ask him about his day and who he played with, and it's actually one of my favorite parts of the day. He's so interesting, this tiny little person.
But last Thursday...well, it was my week for the phone, which usually isn't a big deal during the week. But I get home, turn it on, and the "you have one new voicemail" bell rings. And at the same time, Alex wants more juice, doesn't want to take his shoes off, doesn't want dinner, doesn't want me to talk on the phone. Julia decides to wake up from her car-ride snooze and cry VERY LOUDLY. I listen to the message, try to get Alex interested in throwing some toys down the basement stairs, and beg Julia to wait just a minute while I call this lady back.
It was horrible - I was on the phone - off and on and off and on - about 10 times, dealing with this situation, which wasn't exactly an emergency, but it required attention and that's my stinking job, after all. And meanwhile, Bill called, because he was stuck in rush hour traffic and wouldn't be home as soon as he'd thought.
I try to feed Alex, try to feed Julia. Deal with the phone. Bill gets home, he takes over with the kids (I don't know how single parents maintain any bit of their sanity) and I deal with this work-related problem. And Julia decides that NOTHING IS GOOD ENOUGH RIGHT NOW AND I JUST WANT TO CRY VERY VERY LOUDLY!!!!! Which increases everyone's stress level except Alex, who is perfectly happy to YELL EVEN LOUDER just to be heard.
I'm feeling tense just remembering.
And my watered-down description doesn't do it justice, either. It was just insane. But then it passed. Alex and Julia went to bed, the work problem was all set for the night. I don't know what I ate for dinner - or if I ate anything. I am quite sure I slept soundly.
Last night I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time...not until after midnight, I know. And then Julia woke up at one in the morning. Screaming. Quiet as soon as I picked her up, so I'm not sure what woke her up - she's been so great about sleeping through the night. Alex was awake too - he requested juice when I leapt into their bedroom to get Julia. So I got him some juice, got her a bottle, tried to feed her sitting on the double bed in their room but Alex wanted to get out of his crib and sit on the bed too, and so rather than let it escalate into him crying, I took him out of his crib, he stretched out on the bed with his sippy cup while Julia drank maybe a quarter of an ounce and fell right back to sleep. I put her in her crib then had to contend with little Mr. Now-that-I'm-out-of-the-crib-there-ain't-no-way-I'm-ever-going-back. It actually didn't take as long as I'd expected. Just started my litany of everyone he knows going ni-nights. ("And Grammy is going ni-nights, and Papa is going ni-nights..." and so on through the family trees.
I went back to bed and tried to get comfortable - it was very muggy last night - and then two hours later Julia was awake again. Alex slept through it this time. I got her settled back down, and went back to bed, and then had to get up about two hours later to start the day.
I've had a little headache right between my eyebrows for most of the latter half of today. I'm tired. I'm tired, and I'm not eating right. I skip breakfast (though I will cook or pour or spread jam on it for everyone else) and lunch is haphazard...the only decent meal I have is dinner, and by then I'm so glad to have food in front of me and so aware that at any moment a child could demand my attention (and it's not that Bill just sits there and ignores it all - it's that when there is screaming involved, they want Mommy.) that I just inhale my food at the speed of light.
Unless we wait til after the kids are asleep to eat. It's kind of late by that point, but at least we can notice what we're eating.
And no, it's not really like my house is one big scream-fest. It's not. It's actually a lot of fun, when there's no screaming.
Alex helped me make eggplant parmesan on Saturday. Helped me make the sauce - with tomatoes from our garden that he and Daddy picked that morning. Helped put the tomatoes through the food mill...helped taste the sauce after it had cooked down...helped later the eggplant and sprinkle the cheese...it was fun.
So that is how things are - a mixture of laughter and chaos and lots of books to read every night to Alex and laundry and dishes and lunches and bottles and eggplant and tomatoes and bath time and stuffed animals and running under the sprinkler and going to work because we have a mortgage and other bills and a car to pay off and groceries and diapers to buy and wanting some day to find something employment-wise that is more meaningful to me, but being aware and content in the knowledge that my tall blond husband and my little tiny blond boy and my even tinier reddish-blond (her hair is coming in lighter now) girl are really the most meaningful parts of my life, and that I am both rich and enriched because of them.
Of course, that last bit makes it sound like I'm a pound cake with vitamins added.
Anyway, that's where I am. Again - no proof-reading this post. It's time for me to go ni-nights.
It is peaceful and serene at this moment, though that could end at any time because Julia will wake up at some point and I will need to feed her. In fact, there she goes - sighing...she is perhaps dreaming of food...a nice yummy bottle of formula (or "for-MEE-ah" as Alex pronounces it) because the one she had this morning was burped back up, all over Julia and Mommy and the living room chair Mommy was briefly relaxing in after getting Alex dressed, fed and ready to go and while Bill's uncle and cousin were having their breakfast and while Bill is lying on the air mattress in the basement having a migraine. Had to get Uncle and Cousin to the car rental place at eight to pick up their car, so naturally, Julia, who NEVER burps anything up except one and only one other time, had to burp up a gallon of formula. (It expands in the stomach...it only started out as four ounces when I mixed it for her.)
Anyway, so that was fun. Julia thought so. She gave me a big icky smile while I got her out of her yucky onesie and into a dry one.
Yes, we have houseguests. Family house guests. They arrived on Saturday the 7th and will depart on Saturday the 14th. I will do all the laundry on Saturday the 14th and work very hard at relaxing on Sunday the 15th in an effort to avoid the rotten fact that on Monday the 16th I have to go back to work.
I don't want to.
I am very happy to be home, playing with my smiling baby and my 2 year old son (who also goes to daycare some of the week so he can "see a fens" (see friends) and my also-home-because-he's-a-teacher husband.
I am very happy to do laundry and shopping and dishes and cooking and cleaning and all that other domestic stuff without having to cram it in early in the morning or later in the evening after all the rushing is done and the smaller members of the family are sleeping.
I am very happy to have leisure time to read the paper. Or magazines. Or books, glorious books. I am reading a few right now, which, if I have time after this long-overdue post, I'll add to my list of recommended books over on the right. But since it's been nearly a month since I last posted, I should do this first.
Let's see...well, after the clambake/cookout thing we pretty much decided we're not going to do one next year. Not on that scale, anyway. Not that it was a huge thing this year, but there were a few irritating episodes that happened this year, and some bigger ones last year, and we decided that we neither want nor deserve the aggravation. So we'll probably just do some smaller cookout things instead and save ourselves the headaches. It's disappointing, but I think we'll be happier.
Um.....of course my mind is a blank. Frankly I don't know how I'm going to manage working again...my once fabulous and frightening memory (both the short and the long term branches of it) is feeble and unreliable now. I blame the hole in the Ozone layer. No particular reason, but it's a convenient scapegoat for lots of things. (I know, it's all the mommy stuff - lack of sleep, the distraction of two little kids, and so on. I know.)
Alex is a riot. He's well into his "terrible" twos, except that sometimes it's really hard not to laugh at some of the "terrible" stuff. Particularly when I agree with him.
In addition to the Uncle and the Cousin staying here right now, we also had three more relatives during the weekend - Bill's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew (one of two) from Seattle. Uncle and Cousin are in from Ohio. Anyway, so there were five extra people in our house all weekend, which was a VERY BIG adjustment for my little blond boy, no matter how much fun they were.
So Alex has been "acting up." Or out. Or both. He's also suffered some little injuries, one of which was a lovely bump on his head, right above his right eyebrow, which he got when he had been kneeling on a chair at a table on the deck when we were preparing to serve Saturday night's feast of steamers, little necks, cheeses and crackers, lobsters, ribs, corn on the cob, and salad. Very few people had salad. Anyway, Alex was having some brie (he is a cheese snob) on a piece of melba toast and was possibly reaching for more - I didn't see it happen - when suddenly he was on the deck under the table and crying very loudly and with definitely real tears.
For some reason everyone (in my opinion) seemed unable to MOVE and therefore they all just stood or sat, frozen in place, mumbling little tidbits of sympathy. Maybe no one wanted to miss out on another little neck with some of Bill's brother Ray's cocktail sauce. Maybe someone was afraid someone else would drink their glass of Bill's homemade mead or the homemade Reisling he'd just poured. I don't know. And maybe that's not what was going on, but that's how it seemed to me as I shoved my husband aside (he was peering down at Alex speaking in a soothing manner, LIKE THAT WOULD HELP!!!!!) and came close to also shoving someone else out of the way too but I managed not to and asked him in a terse but polite voice to get out of the way, and I plunked myself down under the table and grabbed my sobbing little boy and held him until he wasn't sobbing so much. (When we discussed this event at a later time, Bill repeatedly told me "Jayne, you dove under the table." Like that's an odd thing to do.)
Anyway, I rocked Alex back and forth and glared at all the legs around the table. The unmoving legs of all these uncaring individuals that I'm related to by marriage and ONLY by marriage. I wanted to bite them. Sleep deprivation will do that to a normally sane person.
Well that's not true, of course. The uncaring part. They care very much. They love Alex and would spoil him completely if they lived closer. It happened very quickly anyway. And it's not like he was drowning. Or even bleeding. (Though how could anyone know about the bleeding from ABOVE THE TABLE????)
Anyway, we finally emerged and I took Alex inside and got him some ice (in a little terrycloth cover with Elmo on it) and had Elmo kiss the booboo for a while til Alex didn't want to feel that cold thing on his head any more or sit with Mommy.
The other fun thing that happened to my poor little guy, apart from a few other minor bumps and bruises, was the evil splinter he got on Sunday at the annual gathering of Bill's family members at Uncle Don and Aunt Ruth's summer cabin on the lake. Pond. Reservoir, actually.
Anyway, he probably got the splinter from the hand rail that goes from the deck down to the dock at the back of the house. He was up and down that a lot. I didn't discover it til later that afternoon, and he wasn't complaining about it because he was having fun most of the time. No nap that day, so he started getting pretty cranky and difficult as the afternoon wore on. Bill and I (and Bill's nephew, Ryan) took Alex and Julia home. Both kids fell asleep in the car. Both little kids. Ryan is 17. 18 now - it was his birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday Ryan!
When we got home, I decided to get the splinter out before putting Alex to bed so it wouldn't get infected or painful during the night (as splinters are wont to do...). I'd tried at the other house, but the tweezers there weren't sharp enough to do the job. There was also nowhere to pin Alex down so I gave up quickly.
I changed him into jammies and started trying to get the splinter while he was still in that "I'm-very-drowsy-and-I-can't-fight-back" state, but he became very alert all of a sudden and stopped cooperating. Bill held him and we brought him into the bathroom where there's better light.
Oh, it was horrible. You'd think I had given him a slug of whiskey and a leather glove to bite on and had started sawing his gangrenous leg off. Yes, it was that bad. Bill had his right arm wrapped around Alex, holding him to his chest as hard as he could, and with the left hand he tried to hold Alex's right arm still so I could take this damn fat little chunk of wood out of my boy's tiny finger. The fleshy part in the first section right above the hand. Alex kept shrieking and crying and yelling "NO! NO! ALL DONE! NO MOMMY!!!!!" and oh my God I felt like throwing up. His voice got more and more worn out and ragged with all the shrieking and toward the end it was like he had all but given up hope of ever not being jabbed with sharp pointy evil tweezers by an inept surgeon named Mommy.
If he hadn't wiggled so much, of course, I'd have been done in a minute or so. But I had to pick at the skin a little to expose one end of the splinter, and then the wood kept breaking in the tweezers, til finally I got a good grip and the splinter slid out cleanly and I have never been so relieved to be finished with something than I was at that moment.
I'd rather give birth again than have to do that to him again. But that's not the way it works, is it.... You go through horrible pain to bring forth these little beings, and you think that's the worst pain you've ever felt. But it's nothing compared to any kind of pain your little one has to endure from that point on. You would rather cut off an appendage of your own than hear them scream in pain.
And this was just a splinter.
Bill suffered more than I did. I find, more and more, that he's more of a softy than I ever thought he could be. I think I had already made up my mind that getting a splinter out of Alex's finger would not be fun, but that I couldn't think about anything BUT the splinter until after or I'd fail in my endeavor. I think Bill just didn't expect that much screaming and wriggling.
So the next morning my goofy and delightful husband - who thinks I am silly for diving under a table - APOLOGIZED to Alex first thing the next morning and promised to do something fun with him later. Alex hadn't even remembered it. Hadn't even noticed the band-aid on his finger....
So anyway, all kinds of traumas and emotions and tensions here recently...and Alex - apart from getting wounded now and then - has taken to expressing his disapproval for my executive decisions about what he shall and shall not do by GROWLING FIERCELY at me. He is very blond and three feet tall and has perfect skin and his blue eyes flash every emotion with equal intensity.
"I go outside" he says, trying to unlock the screen door.
"No, not yet, you need to wait til (whatever it is at the moment) and then you can go outside."
"I GO OUTSIIIIIIIDE!!!!"
"Alex...not yet. You will go outside in a minute."
Pause...then..."ROAR!" (Look out! It's a Lion!) And as he says this he kind of leans toward me in a threatening manner...his little blond mane shaking slightly as he glares at me with his wild animal eyes.
I do not laugh, though it would be a great relief to do so immediately.
Instead, I bravely stare him down.
Next, since the roaring didn't work, he tries to deafen me by SCREAMING SHRILLY AND AT A GLASS-SHATTERING PITCH. Just a simple, loud and high "AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!" And he looks at me, waiting to see if I will scurry, my spirit and will trampled, to the door and unlock it.
I don't of course, and he resorts to either throwing things that should not be thrown, or slamming doors or repeating the roar and scream technique in case I wasn't paying attention and he's giving me one more chance before he chews me up and spits me out.
It's very entertaining. Really. Bill and I compare stories and laugh hysterically at night after the lion sleeps (tonight...in the jungle, the mighty jungle...).
Bill is vertical now...he took a shower - right on schedule. It is three past noon as I type this sentence. He's on the road to recovery. And Julia is still sleeping!!!
I think that's it for now. I will attempt to proof read this now, but if I get interrupted, you can blame Julia for whatever I missed.
Pouring rain this morning - and most of the rest of the day too, so far.
I was up at 3 with Julia...then we both fell asleep on the couch after she'd had her bottle and a change of diaper.
We woke back up around 5 or so, I fed her again, she was awake but content to hang out in her little music-playing vibrating chair, so I put sneakers on and had a whole 20 minute mixed-grill workout before she decided that she'd had enough of sitting in that chair.
I have one of those step things. I mumble this - it's a Tracy Austin brand and came with a video cassette filled with all sorts of aerobic things to do on the step thing - which I think I watched part of once...(she's just way to peppy for me. No matter how physically fit I may become, I think I will remain a little surly.)
Anyway, I just step up onto it and back off. Left on, right on, left off, right off. I'll usually count steps, and count, say, a hundred leading off with the left foot, then switch and do a hundred leading off with the right. It entertains me. Plus it gives me a countdown, which is great when my thighs really don't want to do this anymore...ninety five, ninety six, ninety sev-en, ninety eight, ninity NINE, a HUNdred! Thud.
So I did that for five minutes or so, then did pushups, (bent knee - I'm just starting up again), about a hundred crunches (I will regret that tomorrow but there was Rocky music playing in my head), then more on the step thing, and finally some yoga.
It felt good.
Have to go now. Julia calls.
This morning I walked for 40 minutes.
It's a nice loop around part of the neighborhood, approximately two miles or so. I left the house at 5:35. Julia had been up and had had her early morning meal of the day and was back in our room with a bottle nearby in case she woke up while I was gone. My husband had grunted a sleepy acknowledgement after I whispered that I was heading out the door.
I got a stitch in my side within the first ten minutes. I haven't done this in a while. I can't walk slowly, either. Even if I try, I find myself speeding back up to my usual pace. Can't help it. The stitch worked itself out eventually. I didn't even notice when it was gone, and forgot all about it until I started typing just now.
I love the early morning. This morning was nice, too - cool, cloudy. A perfect day to start this. Again.
It's therapy, of a sort. It is my response to "the courage to change the things I can."
It is partly a physically necessary thing - I need to get back into some regular form of exercise, for my health, if for no other reason. It is partly a mentally necessary thing - I need to focus on me rather than get back on the worrying-about-someone-else wheel. The worrying does no good for either of us. Trust me. I've spent a lot of years on it. Mental marathons going nowhere.
So. This worked wonders for me years ago, before I got happily distracted with my own actual life. And I am still happily distracted a lot of the time, but I feel myself getting back on the wheel, too. And I need to get off of it, before I get trapped on it again.
It's exhausting to worry about someone who drinks. Exhausting. I spent so long looking for answers. I really did. I read and read and read. I thought I could find an answer. A reason. A key. I'm intelligent, I'm somewhat intuitive, empathetic, sympathetic, and all that. I'm a firstborn child, and female. It just seems like I'm designed to get in there and solve problems. Fix everything and make it all better.
But not everyone on the planet is clamoring for my help. This person wasn't. Isn't. At least, not in the ways I was offering, and not in the ways I wanted to be of assistance. I beat my head and heart against a brick wall over and over and over and you would think an intelligent, intuitive, empathetic, sympathetic, firstborn chick might get the hint after a while, but no. It took a long time for the message to sink in.
When it did, it was one of those "aha!" moments. Not a happy one. Kind of a depressing one, really. Depressing as hell. But "aha" nonetheless. And so I marshalled all the energy that had gone into trying to solve a problem that didn't want to be solved into myself, set my jaw, and attacked my own "stuff." Attack, attack, attack. I frowned a lot, I believe. A determined, keep-it-all-foremost-in-my-mind kind of frown, so I wouldn't be sidetracked and lose focus on my "stuff."
And I maintained that focus for half a year. And after that half a year I let some things slide (didn't work out every single day any more) but that was okay, because I was doing better mentally. Keeping myself off of the wheel.
Over the past bunch of years I've mostly tried to stay off the wheel when it starts spinning. It's hard, and I don't always succeed.
And now, with a husband, a toddler and a newborn (all of whom I love with every cell of my body and every bit of my heart), a full time job I'll need to go back to in about a month (that I don't love much but it's a good paycheck and I like the people I work with), now I need to make sure that I carve out a chunk of time every day to set my jaw again and work on my "stuff" again.
And what, exactly, is my "stuff" anyway?
Some of it's physical - the flab, the lack of muscle tone, that sort of thing. I want to be healthy. I want to feel better and, yes, look better. For me. Just me. My husband, who, yes, is way overdue for an eye exam, seems to love me even when I am horrified by what I see in the mirror. He, vision-impaired man that he is, is supportive and loving no matter what idiot notions pop into my head about what I look like. He knows exactly what to say when I (cruelly, yes) ask "do you think I'm fat?" He says "yes, Jayne, I do. I think you're hideously fat." He is oddly reassuring.
I also want to set a good example for my kids. The number of overweight kids in this country is alarming, and I don't want my kids becoming a part of that statistic. So, rather than put them on diets when it's too late and trying to correct whatever has caused the problem, I want to set a healthy, active example. I was not an athletic child, and I wasn't an athletic adult much. But it's not too late to change that.
And the other stuff is mental and emotional stuff. Bouts with depression. Inability to stick with some things, particularly if they will benefit me in some way. The feeling that I am supposed to put everyone else first. That kind of thing.
So anyway, that's what precipitated my walk this morning.
An important morning for me.
Tomorrow will be day two...but also, in a way, another day one.
It's still quiet in my house, though that will change soon.
I've been up since 3:50, when Julia, who propels herself up the length of her bassinet with her feet during her slumber, butted her little head against the bumper pad and could propel herself no farther (or is it "further?") and woke up in minor outrage - as she has been doing consistently for about a week now.
The good thing about this is I've been getting about 6 hours of sleep every night, which is HUGE. And she's just 7 weeks old. This didn't happen this early with Alex.
Speaking of Alex, his bedroom is above this room (the music room/office) and I can hear him doing his morning calisthenics - jumping up and down in his crib - and pausing to talk with his stuffed animals. I will need to go soon, I imagine.
But anyway - so lately I've been up at about quarter to four every morning...and so I've been feeding Julia by four a.m. and watching whatever's on TV at that hour, (not the "paid programming" stuff) and I have discovered an old show I used to watch when it was running - it was called "Profiler" and it was about an FBI profiler and all the serial killers she tracked down in addition to searching for the man who had killed her husband. I loved the show, though for some reason I don't think I watched the entire series while it ran...don't remember why...maybe that's when I started dating Bill or something.
Anyway, so while I feed my sweet little baby girl, I watch this series. And of course, the ending of the show today was a cliffhanger - maybe the end of the series, certainly the end of a season. So Julia just has to wake up on time tomorrow so I can see how it ends. I might even have to set my alarm clock, just to make sure.
Heh heh...suddenly thought how funny (only to me) it would be if I do set the alarm and Julia wakes up anyway and I forget to shut the alarm off...and it wakes Bill up while I'm down in the basement staring at the TV...hee hee hee. Okay, it's only funny to me, I know.
Hey, I put Julia's crib together yesterday. I love assembling things. I felt like Alex sounds when he (lately) shouts "I did it!" when he accomplishes something, like clicking the buckle together on Julia's little musical bouncy chair. The look on his face is priceless - the pride and surprise of a 2-year-old. I probably didn't look as cute as Alex when I finished the crib, but I felt the same "I did it!" bubble up inside of me nevertheless.
I told Julia, who was watching, "your mommy is so cool!" and she agreed, of course. I want to be an example of a strong, capable, multi-talented woman. Of course, right after that I was changing Julia's diaper and almost put the one I'd just removed from her right back on again. I was too distracted by my amazing ability to follow directions and use an allen wrench and a philips head screwdriver and a level....
Anyway, the crib. It's this one, in the cherry finish. It looks nice. All ready for her, with sheet and bumper pad and dust ruffle.
And yes, I went pink with the sheets. I bought two. One plain sheet, one white with lots of little pink dots. The bumper pad is pink, too. My hands shook....BUT - the dust ruffle is red. Which mimics what I did with Alex's crib - light blue sheet and bumper pad and navy dust ruffle.
Would you please re-read that little paragraph????? I am discussing crib sheet coordination!!!!! A part of me is so absorbed by all of this, and yet there's another part of me that is cringing with something like pain about how insipid it sort of sounds....the colors I've chosen for CRIB SHEETS!!!
Oh, hell, I can't help it. I can't stop myself, and I don't have the mental energy to try. It's where I am right now. And I'm very happy and grateful to have my two kids, who give me the opportunity to babble about crib sheets.
And I find it physically impossible not to buy pink things for Julia. Even though it goes against every other instinct I have. But I am powerless to ignore the urge. The red dust ruffle offsets it a bit, at least.
Alex glanced at the crib last night but didn't say anything. I've been casually mentioning that eventually Julia will sleep in that room with him. He has not objected. Yet. I figure I'll just leave the crib there for a while so he can get used to it. She doesn't need to be in there yet, although part of me thinks if she was sleeping in the crib she just might stay asleep longer, since she'd have more propulsion space and wouldn't encounter the bumper pad quite so soon.
But if that happened, I'd miss my 4:00 date with the TV, and I just have to watch tomorrow morning, so she is definitely not sleeping in that crib tonight.
Okay, have to go now...though Alex seems to be keeping himself entertained by playing his music box and talking to the stuffed animals.
I will leave you with one little Alex cute thing - though of course I could go on and on about other Alex-related cuteness ad nauseum because I am in danger of becoming that kind of Mommy - but anyway - his pronunciation of octopus: "applepus."
Have a great Thursday!
Julia is 6 weeks old as of yesterday.
And she's smiling!! On purpose!! At me!! And at Bill, too, which, in some ways, is even better, because he responds to her smiles, and that is an important milestone in the development of a father.
Plus, to generalize and stereotype in the same breath, this is the beginning of the "wrapping Daddy around your little finger" phase in the life of a little girl.
Just kidding. I don't recall having my father wrapped around any of my fingers, and I don't think he was wrapped around my sister's fingers either. Or is. But then, Mere and I weren't your cliched "daddy's girl" girls anyway. I remember wishing I was a boy back when I was younger anyway - I idolized my maternal grandfather and my father, and I guess somehow I thought it was better somehow to do the stuff they did...not realizing that I didn't need a penis to learn the difference between a flat head and a phillips screwdriver...or that pliers and wrenches can sometimes be used for the same purposes, but not always,...and that catching a ball or throwing it or kicking it can all be done with hands and feet, regardless of gender...and that it's not a masculine thing to attach a big wire basket to the front of your Schwinn - anyone with the proper tools and rudimentary mechanical ability can do this. And have a paper route.
But I digress.
And I did get past that "I wish I was a boy" thing. I was such a tomboy for a long time, though....which, in retrospect, is not a bad thing. I've always thought the word itself was odd...but I am glad that I learned how to do all those stereotypically "boy" things - I am a pretty capable person as a result.
Please don't anyone write and tell me "girls can" do all the things I mentioned above - I know that. I'm proof of that, actually. But somehow when I was growing up (I'm in my thirties - that's all you need to know) there was still a wider line of division between what you did and didn't typically do as either a boy or a girl. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me.
Anyway - I digress again. And babble too. Back to my daughter.
She is smiling.
And it's one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. So were my son's first smiles.
There's just something about those intensely alert and focused eyes and that open-mouthed, toothless grin that grabs your heart and squeezes real tight. And it doesn't ever completely let go, I've noticed.
So she's smiling in response to me speaking in a Minnie Mouse voice (a few octaves above my normal speaking voice) and saying the silly goofy things you have to say to babies..."How's my little baby Julia? Hi! Hi! Hi! Are you smiling? Are you smiling? That's my pretty girl! Oh what a pretty smile!"
I am slightly queasy as I type that - and yet, I can't help but let it pour out of my mouth when I'm looking at her big eyes and big smile. Mommy insanity.
Of course, Bill is equally silly. He does this "ka ka ka ka" thing at her - kind of a Jimmy Durante "hot cha cha" thing (or whatever he used to say) - and it works. She smiles at him and gazes adoringly. He is under her spell.
And Alex. Oh my little guy.
He is still really wonderful with Julia. He gives her hugs all the time and wants to hold her. Demands. Insists.
So I have him sit on the couch in the corner - anchored against the back and the arm - and have him hold his arms out - and I place Julia carefully on a diagonal across his little tiny lap - and he gently holds her and last night leaned his blond head against her reddish-brown one.
Oh my aching heart. No camera handy, but the image is in my brain and I am sure he will do it again and next time I will be ready.
But - must close now - I hear Alex talking to his stuffed animals and Julia is yelling so she's awake again too.
Oh - but the best news - she has slept 6 and a half hours for the past two nights!! Already!! Alex took way longer, as I remember.
Anyway - gotta go!
I'm hoping I do this right...but anyway, the attempt in progress is to post a photo of Julia in her car seat one recent morning, with "Pink the Pig" (see this post for info) on top of her and her older brother standing nearby. He had just given Pink to Julia, after insisting, most of the rest of the time, that Pink is his.
Anyway, I thought it was a funny picture so I figured I'd post it, as I am in need of funny things today.
(P.S. - Hooray, I did it right.)
but there's little likelihood of sleeping, is there? I tried, honest I did, to take naps twice yesterday, but the first time Julia woke up and even though Bill had her I could still hear her screaming and wailing while she waited (HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!) for him to get the bottle for her, and in the meantime, her cries woke up Alex, who only wanted MOMMYYYYYYY because he wasn't feeling well, so I had to get up, couldn't ignore him calling for me like that. And the other attempted nap after that - well, I managed to sleep about an hour and a half that time, but then Bill's Aunt Ruth and Uncle Don dropped by to see Julia, and so Bill came to get her - she was sleeping in the room with me - and I had to get up to be sociable...so there went that opportunity. And of course Julia got hungry while Aunt Ruth was holding her and started crying and my BODY responded and I carred her into the kitchen (Julia, not Aunt Ruth) to get a bottle warmed up and noticed that on the left side I had leaked so when the bottle was ready I handed Julia and the bottle off to Aunt Ruth and went upstairs and changed into drier clothes and came back down to smile politely through my desperate need to be sleeping. And last night Julia only slept for an hour and a half at the longest, which was the first stretch - from ten to eleven thirty. After that it was half an hour to an hour at most each time. I watched the beginning of a movie (As Good as it Gets), went to bed, and was back up with Julia in time to see the last fifteen minutes of it. Then she was completely awake from three til four thirty
we had Alex's birthday party on friday - just family, which includes Emily, because she is kind of uber-family in a way, and earlier that day I had gone to Toys R Us to get a few last things and saw Bill's cousin Kristin, who I haven't seen in over a year or longer...her younger son is half a year older than Alex, and we were talking, catching up, and I noticed that my sentences were rambling all around in circles and other shapes and it took every bit of my concentration to bring them back to the original topic...
and I remember another time in my life when I was very very tired...and it was at a baby shower for Betsy, and I'd made a baby quilt, by hand, and, true to my procrastinating nature, I'd stayed up all night finishing it and had about two hours of sleep...my mother came to the shower too, my sister was living out of state and unable to...and because Mom had recently had surgery on her foot I had to drive, which was probably not the safest option, but it was the only one short of hiring a chauffer...and I remember sitting there with all these other people in this church basement, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland - very distorted, and BIG. And when Betsy got to the quilt, she unwrapped it and held it up for all to see and announced (in what seemed like an enormously booming voice)
"Jayne made this!"
and pointed at me and all heads turned, it seemed, to stare at the Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog-sized person teetering drunkenly on a folding metal chair behind them...I smiled back stupidly, politely, red with embarrassment and horror at the sudden attention...a balloon character rejected from the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade...just hovering there, leering at people...
I was at my mother's and my sister's houses today earlier (not at the same time, of course) and especially at my mom's I could just feel myself ABOUT. TO. SNAP. from being tired and humorless and did I say humorless? I meant it, but despite the VERY CLEAR WARNING SIGNS my mother thought it would still be fun to tease me...I just worked really hard on keeping my mouth shut and my VERY STRONG URGE TO SCREAM AND SWEAR AND RUN AWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY to myself...and so we are all still on speaking terms...and now I am home and Alex is asleep and Julia is asleep and I just had a piece of pizza that Bill picked up but NO, I can't really take a REAL nap because Bill is finishing up a 15 gallon batch of beer for our third annual clambake/cookout/beerfest this summer (next month) and so I have to be READY so if Alex wakes up I can keep an eye on him until the brewing is done and the beer is in carboys and the propane flame is out. And then, after I feed the chickens and gather the eggs, I WILL be taking a nap. I don't care if it's at dinner time, either. I'm taking a nap.
Gotta go, Julia's awake again.
This is one way people go insane, isn't it?
(Since I don't even know what this will be about yet...there's the title.)
Yesterday Bill asked me how much sleep I think I'm getting in a night...and so I thought about it, and figured out that it's about 5 hours, broken up into smaller bits, in between Julia's awake periods.
And before anyone suggests that Bill take one of those night time feedings, let me just say that since he's working and I'm not at the moment, then we've agreed that I will be the one with the interrupted sleep at night, since I have the opportunity (which I rarely take advantage of) to take a nap during the day and he wouldn't. Plus, he is one of those people who really requires 7-8 solid hours of sleep and I - as proven by first one child and then the next - am not one of those people. Sure, a solid 7-8 hours of sleep sounds nice, but since I wasn't even sleeping well in the last couple of months of my pregnancy anyway, it's not all that big a deal to be sleeping even less now.
Though I will be happy when the periods that Julia sleeps lengthen....
But enough of that stuff....
Yesterday Emily took Alex to the mall to a Build A Bear store in one of the malls around here.
Emily, for those of you who don't know (and because I'm too lazy to link to any previous descriptions), is our nephew Joe's girlfriend and Alex's baby sitter. We consider her family. She lives about 10 minutes from us, and Alex adores her. Actually, we do, too. Emily will call up, out of the blue, and ask if she can take Alex for a couple of hours. (Joe does, too, when he's not in Iraq) Anyway, that's what happened yesterday - Emily got out of work early and offered to take Alex to the Build a Bear place in the mall, so after his nap, that's where Alex went.
Bill said, after Emily's phone call, that he doesn't think he could ever be as nice as she is. I agree - he couldn't. It's not in his nature to offer to take anyone's toddler for a couple of hours. Ever. But Emily is great with kids, and with all her babysitting history probably has more experience with small children than I do....Plus, she's genuinely a really nice person.
So - off they went, and I couldn't enjoy the toddler-free hours at all because I'm bordering on insane and all I could do was wallow in sleep-deprivation-induced Mommy guilt ("I should be the one taking Alex to fun places! I'm a loser mommy!!!") and my typical control-freak worry that SOMETHING BAD would happen. So while Bill cleaned the hardwood floors and Julia napped, I sat and watched some of the Boston/Kansas City game and worried and, yes, cried a bit. I was overjoyed when they got home. I'm just a wacko.
Anyway - back to the bear thing - Alex came home with two creations - (Emily is also one of the most generous people I know) - one for him - a lion wearing cut-off jean shorts, brown sandals, and a brightly-colored shirt with turtles all over it - and a pink pig wearing a denim dress. The Lion's name is Mufasa, the pig's name is Pink. Each comes with a birth certificate and a little cardboard box "house."
The pig is supposed to be for Julia, but Alex really likes her too, so since Julia is actually smaller than the pig right now and doesn't appreciate the pig yet (especially when Alex, in a moment of magnanimity (is that a word?) places the pig directly on top of Julia while she's strapped in her car seat waiting to be brought out to the car). Both pig and lion spent last night in Alex's crib and rode with us to daycare this morning.
He says "pig" like this: "paaage" - in other words, it rhymes with "page" but the "g" is still like the "g" in "pig", and he draws out the "a" a little.
As we were driving to daycare, Alex had both animals on his lap in his car seat...and he was talking - either to them or to himself - and suddenly my mommy super-hearing picked out the anatomical term "peepee" and I threw a glance back to see just how anatomically correct Mufasa was, but no, my innocent almost-two-year-old little boy had his hand up under the pig's dress (She is wearing white satin underpants, too, by the way) and before looking back at the road in front of us I realized that she was face down...
"Alex, that's her tail - pigs have tails."
"Tay-ull"
"Right, tail."
Oh, he's funny.
And now Julia's making little snorting, grunting noises, so I believe she'll be waking up soon. Time for me to get off the computer and get some other things done, I guess. Laundry, laundry, laundry...dishes...OH - we bought a salmon fillet yesterday - going to put that in the smoker this afternoon, it's been brining since yesterday. Should be a yummy dinner.
Have a lovely Monday, all!
So we went to watch the Memorial Day Parade where my sister lives so we could see her kids march - and my father also marched (of course, but I wasn't thinking that comprehensively before...) with other veterans from WWII. Hard to believe my father was a part of that generation, of that war - he is very youthful and most people are surprised to find out his actual age. Which proves that years alive mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
Alex enjoyed the parade - he's never seen one - all the noise and the fire trucks and the bands and some horses...plus the company of his grandmother (Grammy, aka what sounds like "Terry") and his Auntie Mere and Uncle Jacques, plus our friend Beth and her kids, Ceiliedh and Conor.
We all sat (or stood) on the front lawn of my parents' "old" house - they have not closed on it yet - I think the projected date is the middle of this month - I could be wrong - so while it's still in the family, we have it for parade viewing.
After that we went to my parents' new house for lunch. Then back here - nap time for Alex and Julia, work outside time for Bill, and I don't remember what I did - time for me.
Not much else. Puttering around without a car today, which doesn't matter to me - it's pouring rain, perfect day for doing laundry (ooh, exciting) and dishes (jealous yet?) and other little projects.
Princess Julia is taking a nap now...
I'll try to write again later. For now - I feel the need to empty the dishwasher and get the kitchen looking nice and tidy again.
No, I don't have any original thoughts in my head. That's why I have to use song titles as titles to my posts now.
Anybody see any of the Cheers marathon on TV last night? I did...I saw 3 episodes from 1 in the morning til around 2:30, and then bits and pieces until 7 this morning when I decided I was tired of being in the basement. Julia was also finally asleep. A deeper sleep than she was for most of the after-midnight portion of last night/this morning.
But anyway, Bill and Alex are watching The Lion King right now. Julia is taking her big morning nap, and I'm heading for the shower in a minute or two.
Lion King is Alex's new favorite, and he particularly loves the opening scene where all the animals assemble so Rafiki can hold up the baby Simba, future king, so all can see. (In case no one has seen this movie...hahahahahahaHA!!! I'm overtired and punchy...heading toward giddy.)
But even better - Bill brought Alex to the zoo yesterday and Alex got to see real elephants, giraffes, zebras, a cheetah, and so on. So now, as all the animated animals make their appearances on screen, Alex SHOUTS out "Ephant!!" "Zeebah!" "Jaff!!" and so on. He is thrilled because he has actually seen these creatures and recognizes them...granted they're in a zoo and not roaming the savannahs, but still...it's just so cool to see him get so overjoyed about these.
By the way, he felt that the elephants at the zoo were "too big." He kept saying "too big ephant" yesterday.
Bill took pictures too, so I'll make a little "My Trip to the Zoo" photo album for Alex, maybe later today.
Hee hee hee.
Tomorrow we'll go watch the Memorial Day Parade where my sister lives - her kids will both be marching. Calvin will play trumpet with the school band, and Natalie will be with her Karate class. I think Alex will enjoy the parade...Julia will probably sleep through the whole thing.
That's it for now. Shower time for me.
Alex and Julia are both still sleeping. Bill is outside mulching the back corner garden, which has a couple of small lilacs and a rose bush and a bleeding heart and some lilies and lily-of-the-valley.
And I am inside.
I've puttered around, getting little things done - finally shelved some books in the cookbook and food-related shelves...washed Julia's bottles...wrote in doctor's appointments and birthdays for June on the wall calendar....
I'm getting fidgety. But Julia's making little noises (they sound like panic-stricken shrieks from a chipmunk, truth be told) so I know she'll be awake soon. And as soon as I start nursing her, Alex will wake up. Guaranteed.
Bill took Alex to the zoo this morning, which Alex loved. Saw elephants, zebras, giraffes, cheetas, snow leopards (which he calls snow cheetahs) and bears and one of the polar bears and penguins and an ark's worth of other animals. Certain ones, though, were most impressive. The elephants are "too big" in his opinion. And Bill said the cheetah kind of scared him, as it was only about 6-8 feet away from Alex (behind glass or plexiglass or whatever they use to keep them apart) and around eye level...Bill took some pictures, and we'll pick them up this afternoon too.
Oh, hey - (I know so many people have been waiting for this tidbit of news) - the dried up part of Julia's belly button/umbilical cord has fallen off. I'm glad, because I always (both with her and w/Alex) feel like the diaper nudges it and causes great pain until it's out of the way.
As you can see, I'm full of exciting news and stories of adventure today.
Really, I have nothing major to say, and I don't even feel like typing, exactly, but I feel stuck in limbo until a child wakes up. I should just go upstairs and do something constructive, like get rid of clothes that I never wear...but I've lost the drive to accomplish much today, so that will have to keep until tomorrow.
And so, since this post is going nowhere, I'll end it now.
I should have taken a nap, actually. Maybe tomorrow.
And I'm already worrying about what the psychological effect Julia's birth and the necessary splitting of my attention between my almost-two-year-old son and my infant daughter will be on Alex...I figure - why wait?
I remember when my sister's daughter (Natalie) was born, and at some point I asked how Calvin, who was 2 years and 8 months at the time, was dealing with it. Even though I visited every weekend, that didn't really give a clear picture of normal home life...and Meredith said Calvin was wonderful to Natalie and mad at his parents.
And I think Alex is kind of doing the same thing, though I could be reading too much into it. He's very sweet to Julia - wants to give her hugs, etc, and likes to point out her hair, eyes, nose, etc. But he knows how to (as my mother would say) push my buttons, so - usually in the hour or so before his bedtime - he will start out gentle and then push the envelope...either by being less gentle (like trying to lean his full weight on Julia if she's in my lap when he hugs her) or by doing things that he knows he's not supposed to do - like standing on the arm of the oversized chair I sit in downstairs when I'm nursing Julia. And he grins. And when I ask or tell him to get down, the answer is a loud, defiant NO!
And I know this is NORMAL. Not just as a response to the baby but also for his age.
But it still works me.
I handed Julia off to Bill last night so I could put Alex to bed - figuring this would be a nice mommy/son part of the day (now that he was not on the arm of the chair, ready to fall backward and crack his skull open on the cedar chest - which is a good 8 feet away, but my brain likes to anticipate ALL situations, especially the scary and highly unlikely ones).
So up we went, and sat on the bed in his room and looked at pictures in a book that's a bit too wordy for him at the moment but has line drawings of a donkey on two facing pages - he is calling them horses, and I don't feel like dealing with specifics on that right now - and I got him in his jammies...but he didn't want to be in his crib, and then he wanted ALL his stuffed animals, including this giant pink bunny that a couple of Bill's middle school students gave him before Alex was born and I figured now that Julia's here, she could have it, but no, Alex likes it. Probably because it's about the same size he is.
He calls bunnies "Honey," by the way. With an almost loving emphasis on the first syllable.
Anyway, bedtime went from serene to sobs once I got Alex into the crib. So I caved and added all the stuffed animals to his crib. He was happy then - "bye bye Mama - you are dismissed now" but I couldn't leave them there because I had a vision of him climbing onto Honey the big pink bunny and escaping from his crib. He has not made any attempt to do this before, but I figured now is the time.
So somehow - and I don't even remember how - I got big pink bunny and some of the larger teddy bears out and assembled in a family-portrait-grouping on the bed - and this was acceptable.
And then I tried to say goodnight and leave - OH NO YOU DON'T MAMA - I'M NOT DONE MESSING WITH YOUR HORMONALLY IMBALANCED MENTAL STATE JUST YET!!!!!!
So he cried and called me back and I weakly obeyed - all I wanted was a happy son at that moment, so I was prepared to be a spineless sucker about everything.
But in hindsight, I think the problem really was that we skipped his normal routine - or at least the routine I have with him. Bill's is slightly different. But anyway - I think that was more the problem than him feeling abandoned by me. So he actually started it - "Uncle Bob - ni-night?" "Yes, Uncle Bob is going ni-nights." And on through all the family members as usual. Then each of his in-the-crib stuffed animals kissed him goodnight, and I did, and everything was fine.
Except Mama, Goddess of Guilt. She went downstairs and had a little sobfest for herself, and then stared at the Boston/Oakland game for a while until she returned to her normal (or what passes for normal) mental state and actually paid attention to the game.
So here I am this morning. Up with Julia a few times through the night. I was trying to just nurse her in bed, but she is both noisy and sloppy, so that wasn't working. Now I go to the basement, so Bill can sleep and I can watch sitcom reruns or bits of movies or whatever else I can find on TV while Julia has her third dinner and remains wide awake for a good half hour and poops at least twice: once while she's nursing and then once again immediately after I change the first diaper and get her little clothes and socks back on.
She is funny. She keeps her hands up near her face when I'm trying to nurse her or give her a bottle (she will take her meals any way she can get them, though she's sloppier with the bottle for some reason). I try to slide a little burp cloth or something under her many chins (her head is sort of like a petite butternut squash - little top half of the head and then a big round part where her cheeks and chin are. Sounds horrible but no, she's actually cute. And not orange like the squash - it was just the only thing I could think of right now to compare her to. Oh shut up Jayne.) - anyway - I try to get the cloth under there so when she sloshes milk down her chin her clothes won't be soaked. And she won't let me do this!! I swear she is intentionally trying to prevent me from getting the cloth tucked in. And she's strong, too...strong of will and strong of arm.
And so tiny. Wow. Alex was this small too. And now he's big enough to stand on furniture and torture Mommy. And smart enough to wrap a tired, mentally and emotionally weak Mommy around his little finger. At least at bedtime. He doesn't try this on Bill too much - Bill is neither tired nor weak, and Alex knows this.
Oh well. We will work this out. I will get some sleep again in a few years and I'll be all set.
And I know that no matter what I do there will be bumps in the road and I will never stop feeling Mommy guilt for one thing or another, and that my children will have their sweet and loving moments and their "you love him/her more than me" and "I hate you/him/her" moments...and there will never be completely smooth sailing in these waters - and that's how it goes, and it's okay. It's all part of the deal you make when you choose to have kids. And it wasn't even buried in the small print. It's right there in my own past.
My mother reminds us (often. especially with each of her daughters' second pregancies) that she consciously made every effort to treat us fairly. Not necessarily the same, of course, but fairly - so neither one would feel like she favored the other one. (Yes, Mom, we know, already!) But you know what - didn't matter. There were still times one of us seemed to get more attention/praise/love/presents/food/nourishment/shelter (okay, not so much the last three) than the other. But it's the child's perception vs the parents' intention - and they just don't match up all the time, do they? No matter what. We joke about it all now, of course....
Plus we all know she likes my sister best.
Just kidding, Mom! :)
Julia is sleeping. Alex is at daycare. Bill is at work. And I am able to drink a cup of coffee while it is still hot.
All I have for the moment are random thoughts and observations and whatever...I was trying to make mental notes Thursday, so here's what I remember...
I was actually having contractions Thursday morning when we got to the hospital. Still only 3 cm, though, so I was put on the pitocin drip anyway at 8 in the morning.
The nurse I had for most of that day (her shift ended an hour before Julia arrived) was great - nice to have her to talk to before the contractions got really bad. And the did get really bad. Yes, pitocin is effective, but I'd heard the contractions would be worse...and they were, though different too, because I didn't have back labor this time.
I stayed at 3 cm all morning, so the Dr broke my water around noon or so.
Stayed at 3 cm most of the afternoon - which was depressing as hell, since in my mind I should be progressing if the contractions hurt more.
Took some stadol at one point to give myself some rest...but eventually that wasn't helping either.
The next nurse I got spoke in a too-high, too-sing-songy voice, as though everyone she came in contact with was about 5 years old. In between contractions I wanted to snarl and bite her. She called me silly - I can't remember why. I believe it had something to do with some stupid thing she said and my surly response to her attempted humor. I don't like to be called silly by people who talk to me like I'm five while I'm having contractions and am in no position to chase her from the room.
But - she was pretty on target as to when Julia would be born.
I got checked again near 4:00 and was at 6 cm, but it was becoming insanely painful and I was losing my resolve for no epidural. When I heard it was only 6 cm, I asked for a spinal (which is similar, but instant and lasts only 2 hours)...so they sent out a search party for the anaesthesiologist and I went back to trying to breathe correctly and the high-pitched keening that was the only way I could get through each contraction.
Someone had me sign the consent form for the spinal. I think I scribbled something kind of like my name on one of the lines at the bottom of the form.
Most of the time my eyes were shut. Occasionally I'd open an eye a tiny bit and see a random nurse's face looming in at me like a talking balloon...someone told me I was going to hyperventilate if I didn't slow down my breathing. So I tried to do that better.
Still no spinal...I really really really was on the verge of becoming a bitchy, demanding, raving lunatic at one point. WHERE THE HELL IS HE?????????? But I didn't. I have not uttered a single bad word in either labor, that I can remember. I'll have to ask Bill about that.
At some point in my fog, my Dr arrived and must have done another internal - my mind had since separated from everything except the contractions. Someone could have jabbed my thigh with a fork and I wouldn't have noticed. Or cared.
Anyway, I heard someone say "she's at 9" and I realized that meant me, and 9 cm meant almost ready to push. At that point the anaesthesiologist appeared to my left, and I was being "encouraged" to sit up so they could poke me in the back...but at 9 cm, what was the point? So I sent him away. I vaguely remember that he was kind of short, dark haired with male-pattern baldness invading on him at a rapid pace.
So anyway, after wailing that I wanted to push, I finally heard them say I could, and Bill and the annoying nurse got into position on either side of me, each grabbing a foot and the Dr was there at home plate, ready to catch.
It is really bizarre to have several adults all yelling PUSHPUSHPUSHPUSHPUSHPUSH at you.
I pushed. But apparently not hard enough at some point - my Dr kindly but firmly told me I was putting too much energy into yelling. (I don't remember how she phrased it, but I stopped yelling.)
I got to feel the top of Julia's head as she crowned. Slimy hair.
Fortunately I was expecting the pain - the "ring of fire" as the biggest part of the baby's head pushes through. What was odd was having the phrase "The Ring of Fire!" echo in my head in the voice of Bloat - the pufferfish in "Finding Nemo" (Robert, from "Everybody Loves Raymond").
Baby's head came out. This is the most bizarre part for Bill - just a little head poking out.
Didn't know til later, but the umbilical cord was around her neck and she was rather blue. My Dr told just said "You have to push the baby out now.
So, more PUSHPUSHPUSHPUSHPUSHPUSHing and out came the shoulders and - great sigh of relieve - the rest of her little body. They cut the cord and whisked her over to the heated baby-inspection table and started - for lack of a better phrase - roughing her up to get her to breathe. I must have opened an eye because I remember seeing her blue little head...and then waitingwaitingwaiting to hear her cry.
When she finally cried - loudly and with gusto - I think I finally started to relax. Bill was over there with her, and they let him cut the cord the second time - to shorten it, now that she was breathing and all was well.
I delivered the placenta a bit after that - piece of cake compared to the head.
And I couldn't do anything for several long minutes because I started shivering really hard and I couldn't seem to move or talk. Teeth chattering, body shaking. Your body temp drops after delivery. Thank goodness for very warm hospital blankets.
I only needed one stitch.
The time between 3 cm to 6 cm to 9 cm to PUSHPUSHPUSHPUSH to deliver was maybe 20 minutes. I had no idea. Time is so distorted at that point.
And Julia is fine. Healthy, hungry, good strong neck - lifts her head if I'm holding her against my shoulder to burp her. Her eyes are funny - she cracks them open and looks back and forth suspiciously...who are these people and how did they all get into my womb?
I endured that annoying nurse for the rest of the night and the next night. The second night she asked if I needed any pain meds and I said nope - and she said I was the easiest patient there. Well...maybe...but mostly it's because I DON'T WANT TO BE SPOKEN TO LIKE I'M FIVE, THANK YOU!
But - she was a good nurse, as were all the rest of them that took care of me. And my doctor is great, too.
For that matter, everyone and everything in my world is great. And I am glad to be home and to begin this next chapter in my life.
Gotta go...
was born on Thursday, 5/20/04, at 4:16 in the afternoon.
She has a good headful of dark hair. Alex did too, and is now very blond, and I think the same will be true of Julia.
She weighed 8 lbs, 4.8 oz, and measured 20" long.
She and Mommy came home yesterday.
And we are both doing well....
Alex (for now) adores his baby sister.
That's all for now - Mommy is tired and will try to type more tomorrow.
And to all of you who sent their good wishes - a heartfelt thankyou from me and my family.
Or ends, depending on how you look at it.
In about fifteen minutes we'll be leaving the house to drop Alex at my sister's and to bring me to the hospital where I will be induced and this baby will be born.
Not the way I'd hoped to have this go, but...
Anyway, I'll write more when I get home again in a couple days.
My husband has been obsessively working in the gardens and seeding the lawns during the past month.
This is his way of nesting - he even said so this morning, as he was putting a little wire fence around our strawberry rectangle (sure, it would be more poetic to call it a "patch" - but it's not. It's a rectangle) and then draping some sort of mesh over the top to let light in and keep bugs, animals, and curious little boys out.
The grass seed has been the longest-running project this spring. He and his friend John roto-tilled the back yard to get rid of the ankle-breaking hills and valleys back there, and then Bill fertilized and seeded it. And then every morning he would get up early (okay, I would wake up early and wake him up so he could get up) and get the sprinklers going, and every evening he'd run the sprinklers again. Which is fine. It needed to be done.
But the best part would be the sight of him patrolling the perimeter, pausing every now and then to squat down and squint at the dirt, looking for a baby blade of green to poke through.
One day I stood in the kitchen and just watched him squatting there, staring, unblinking, at the brown back yard. I could see him trying to will the seed to grow. It was agony for him. Two weeks - two long weeks went by, with lots of watering, lots of staring, lots of second-guessing his gardening methods, and occasional cursing of the flock of starlings that had a nice picnic in the back yard one morning...Bill would come back inside, dejected, muttering to himself, almost tearful.
It was...well, it was annoying except that it came in useful one time when I was starting to go insane because I hadn't felt the baby move lately one night and he said, in a sort of "not again" tone of voice, that the baby was fine. Which, of course, was not what I wanted to hear but it annoyed me enough that I came up with two perfect analogies that Bill could relate to so he could understand why lack of baby movement was torture for me. The grass seed - and his staring at it for huge chunks of time willing it to grow - was one analogy. (The other analogy was beer-brewing-related: I likened my temporary worry to how he feels when the latest batch of beer doesn't start fermenting as rapidly as he thinks it should. This involves a lot of staring at the stuff and willing the yeast to start working. Very much like watching grass seed not grow.)
So back to the nesting...we now have a lovely brick walkway around the raised vegetable garden...he has plans to put flagstone in behind it to separate some of the smaller gardens...some of the smaller gardens have been weeded and mulched...all the grass seed (that wasn't carried off by birds) has FINALLY sprouted and the yard looks more green than brown now...plans are made for creating a fruit garden along the back fence - we already have a thriving raspberry bush that was his mom's, and will put in blueberries and whatever else we think of, once we move the monster climbing rosebush somewhere and move the last of the irises up to the front of the house, and move the other plants and flowers to their assorted new homes. We will have someone come in and grind the stump from the dead maple, and then we'll plant the little baby red maple in that spot...and then fence in the back yard so Alex will be easier to keep track of...and on and on.
Bill is now taking a nap. Impending fatherhood is exhausting work.
That's what Alex sounds like when he is saying "where are you?"...he was saying that to my stomach this morning.
I've got an appointment with my OB/GYN later this morning. Bill stayed home so he could go with me, which is nice. I think my hobbling around the house, half bent over, and doing Lamaze-type breathing whenever I move the wrong way and my back spasms kind of convinced him it would be a good idea. I'm not a treat to watch, trust me.
So - who knows that the story will be later today...maybe they'll induce me. I didn't want to initially, but I've reached the point (and I blame this on my back) where I feel like the opportunity has passed, and I'll never have this baby now. She will grow and grow in there until my skin won't stretch any more and she'll finally just pop out one day...my skin will split open like an egg shell and she'll stand up, take the car keys and be on her way....meanwhile I'll lie there on the kitchen floor yelling for someone to get me a needle and thread so I can stitch myself together and yelling to her to fasten her seatbelt and be home by nine because it's a school night....
The daughter of a woman where I work gave birth recently to twin boys. She carried them to 37 1/2 weeks...each baby was just under 8 pounds. EIGHT POUNDS!!! Alex was just under 8 pounds, and I think this next baby will be bigger...so the thought of TWO of them in there weighing close to 16 pounds together of JUST BABY...never mind all the fluid and the placentas and all that - IT MAKES ME WANT TO TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS AT THE MERE THOUGHT OF GOING THROUGH THAT!!!
I think my husband would faint if this one baby turned out to be twins...one hiding behind the other when we had the ultrasound in December. He'd faint, and then when he came to, he'd crawl out of the room and drive straight to Seattle and hide out at his brother's house for the next 18 years.
Okay, no, he wouldn't, he's stronger than that. He'd probably turn around once he got to Chicago....
So I'm still pregnant.
My due date was two days ago. Which is fine - Alex wasn't born til three days after his due date, and since a "due date" is something we already-born-and-grown people seem to need to pin on the unborn just to give ourselves something to circle on the calendar, I'm not all that concerned about going past mine. The baby will usually be born when the baby is good and ready to be born. Our first attempt to impose a curfew on the little one...their first rebellion..."but Mom - I don't have a calendar in here! I didn't know what day it was!"
But still. Wednesday, the due date, was my last day at work. I spent yesterday alternating productivity with two - count 'em - two naps.
Today so far I have done less...had one nap...and spent a good 45 minutes annoying my unborn child. Why? Because I suddenly couldn't remember the last time I'd felt any movement, and rather than tell myself "the baby's probably sleeping" (or, more accurately, rather than tell myself that and accept it) I started nudging and shoving and grabbing what I believe is a foot up there near my ribs - in a more and more frantic attempt to make this kid move.
And even worse - I got out the "listen-to-your-baby's-heartbeat-whenever-you-want-to" thing Bill bought for me when I was pregnant with Alex. It's upstairs, and I can't remember the brand name, and no, I'm not going to run up there and check. I don't run right now.
Anyway - the package of this thing is a riot - a smiling pregnant woman is sitting comfortably on a couch, her smiling husband/boyfriend/father-of-her-child/convenient passerby is there with her. Each is wearing a headset, and the headset wires are plugged into a teardrop-shaped plastic device that she is holding comfortably against her pleasantly swollen fully clothed belly. Apparently they are listening to the baby sing a nursery rhyme or two - that is how pleased they look.
This is how it really works: pregnant Mommy leans back against a bunch of pillows in bed, shirt up, swollen Mount Stomach rising from the sheets, a ring of clouds gathered around the summit...anyway, Daddy sits next to Mommy, darting a few terrified glances at Mount Stomach and looking away quickly whenever there is movement. He reads a book on how to lager beer. Mommy wears a headset and is jamming the teardrop thing against her belly, listening for the "whoosh-whoosh-whoosh" sound you're supposed to hear when the heartbeat is found, and instead hearing scary gurgly things from her own cramped intestines...sometimes she hears other strange noises - almost word-like - that make her wonder if maybe Satan, rather than her husband, is the real father of this unborn child...
The poking, listening, poking, listening thing goes on for ages. And if the baby is under oh, 7 1/2 to 8 months old, there will be no heartbeat found, as this device is not as advanced as the doppler thing they use in the doctor's office.
I have heard one heartbeat in total. None with Alex, one with this baby.
No heartbeat this morning, however, which, combined with a motionless belly, started a high-pitched whistle sound in my head and launched the idea of hopping into the car and flying to my doctor's office so she could listen and either we'd hear the heartbeat or this would be one of the worst days of my life and I'd be there all by myself and WHY WON'T THE BABY MOVE????????????
And then, of course, just as Mommy was about to require her own crib and bumper pads, there was movement. Not a lot, but it was real.
Sigh.
And then everything was fine, and I sort of wanted to giggle hysterically, but instead the phone rang and it was my sister and so I told her and she completely understood and commiserated and laughed with me, which was way better than solitary hysterical giggling.
So I'm feeling better, mentally, at the moment.
But still, I've had enough. I would like this baby to be born so rather than nudging her while she's sleeping so I can make sure she's alive, all I'll have to do is hover over her bassinet and make sure her chest is going up and down.
24 hours a day until she's about a year old.
My sister pointed out what I've been suspecting for a while now. The old wives' tale seems to be true....
We were at the May breakfast sponsored by our Dad's Rotary Club this morning - Bill and Alex and I, Meredith and her kids, our Mom, and eventually Dad when he could take a break.
Meredith was looking at my horrifyingly swollen feet, and then she took a look at the crop circles on my tongue (yes...I looked it up - it's a weird viral condition called "geographic tongue" where strange circles appear on the surface of the tongue, disappear, then turn up again in another spot. Apparently stress brings these on, and I notice they often appear on a Monday morning...)and then - she took a long look at my face.
"You know your nose has changed." She said.
"I know!!! It's fatter!!!"
The baby girl I'm carrying has done what the "old wives" predicted...she is stealing my looks. I had thought my nose was looking wider. It is.
We both burst into hysterical laughter - just the two of us - dissolved in our own private mirth. Every so often, after we'd stopped giggling, we'd look at each other and start in again.
She is the only one on earth who would tell me that my nose looked different.
I mentioned it to Bill on the ride home and he said he hadn't noticed. And that even if he had noticed, he wouldn't tell me.
Which is just as well. That's my sister's job.
I called my sister at 7 this morning to see how Alex had fared last night - his first night away from home in his entire 22 months outside the womb.
Natalie, my niece, (aka "Nanee" to Alex) answered - Alex had a great time, she told me. He slept in her room, eventually in his playpen/makeshift crib, but took a long time to go to sleep - he was having too much fun with his cousins.
Next I talked to Calvin, my nephew, and he also informed me that he started out the night in that same tiny bedroom with Natalie and Alex - he slept down at the foot of Natalie's bed, but eventually he went to his own room just to get some sleep. He also told me that Alex didn't cry once the whole time.
Finally I talked to my sister - I could hear Alex's little voice in the background. And Mere reiterated what both kids had said - Alex had a great time and didn't shed a single tear.
WAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! HE DOESN'T NEED ME ANY MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just kidding, mostly. I'm glad he did well - I won't have to worry about him when we drop him there en route to the hospital.
Mere also told me that Natalie actually complained that Alex wouldn't let her go to sleep (Natalie is the night owl of the two kids) - and Alex was also awake around 5:30 this morning. He's had an exciting time. I got to Mere's house around 9 or so this morning and hung out with all of them outside...Alex and the kids playing with soccer balls and badminton rackets...or drawing on the sidewalk with chalk...or collecting rocks.
By late morning Alex finally crashed - he just stood in the front yard and burst into overtired and overstimulated tears. I loaded him into the car and he was asleep about five minutes into the ride home. He's still sleeping - I figure he needs a longer nap than usual.
I'm glad he's home. My little guy.
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