HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO WILL (yesterday)! I am once again married to an older man.
Love you darling :-)
Monday, August 31, 2009
This one time...at family camp....
So we're back, and the whole trip was pretty great. Emily did really well traveling, breaking the trip up into 3-4 hour chunks worked out really well. Next time though, I will probably try to book us hotels in Binghampton instead of Scranton, because Scranton? SUX. I-81 is pretty much the worst road ever built, but the stretch near Scranton is especially terrible. It is constantly under one kind of construction or another that necessitates closing it down to 1 lane, except that no one is ever actually DOING any work. See, around us, when they're not actively doing work on the road, THEY PICK UP THE TRAFFIC CONES AND LET YOU DRIVE ON IT. Not so up there. Add to that the facts that it is the dreariest place on earth (the pool at our hotel on the way back was closed in August. If it's closed in August, when is it warm and sunny enough to be open?), they like to hide their Wegmans up in the mountains way off the main road, their Red Robin got absolutely every item we ordered wrong, and the people we met were not very bright, and you've got yourself a pretty lame place. Emily did enjoy watching the Polkafest 2008 channel on TV in the hotel room though.
So yeah, I guess I just said the trip was awesome and then went directly to complaining about the part that wasn't. Better get back to the good parts.
Emily was great in the car, although she tended to start yelling "Need to go pee pee in the potty!" whenever she was bored. After stopping every 15 minutes for awhile (we don't want to undermine her progress by telling her to go ahead and pee in her pullup! But ugh, it's raining and we're actually making progress on 81 and it's SO unsafe to pull over and get out of your car on the side of an interstate!) we got into a good rhythm, and she actually stayed dry throughout every leg of our trip except while she was asleep.
Gorham itself was nice. Will was beside himself to finally be back to the place he spent all his childhood summer vacations after a 10 year hiatus. To him, this place is heaven on earth. To me it was nice, but aside from the pleasant weather it could've been one of the lakes in the mountains we have near us. But it was definitely fun, and Emily had a blast. She did lots of random running around, she tried out the rock climbing wall, rode a pony for the first time, fed the ducks, went swimming, made a clay sculpture, and played "soccerball", which consisted of putting basketballs back in their holders, or just stomping in puddles on the basketball court. She was fearless, and I was proud. Exhausted, but proud. Plus, discounting one day when she didn't use a potty ONCE, she stayed 100% daytime potty trained the whole time we were there. It helps to have a room full of people to clap and cheer every time she emerged from the bathroom after having peed in the potty. And between the baby, who has decided that my bladder is much too spacious and needs to be compressed, and Emily potty training, we did a lot of emerging from the bathroom. At least Emily claps for me and says "yay mommy!" every time I pee in the potty as well.
Everyone got along really well too. Will's mom's family all act super-happy all the time. My family on the other hand, are kind of known for their biting sarcasm and cynicism, so I wasn't sure how we'd all get along. It turns out that having a toddler around really helps, because EVERYONE kind of has to act super-happy when dealing with a toddler. I DID get a bit sick of all the inquiries (always accompanied by a light backrub) about whether or not I was getting enough rest, and admonishments to make sure I was taking care of myself. Are YOU going take over chasing after Emily and provide me a bed in which to nap? No? Well then stop telling me what I already know!
Will was a superstar though (He's healthy again! He's back! Huzzah!) and my mother-in-law did take Emily for us a couple times so we could go on a little hike or learn that we kinda suck at canoeing. But through a laborious method we came up with out of desperation to not get left behind by the group, we managed to keep up with the best of them by the end.
The food was surprisingly good. The presence of a vat of oatmeal at breakfast and a salad bar and soup offering at lunch and dinner meant that even Will didn't have to resort to eating alternate meals. The portions were sometimes a bit paltry though, so I occasionally had to pull the pregnant lady card in order to get enough to eat. Luckily we had brought tons of food, so no one was in danger of starving.
I kind of also fell in love with the cook. I went back to the kitchen one day to ask for more chicken patties for the table, and they were supplied to me by a 40-something man with blue eyes and a very compelling air about him. Oh, and an Australian accent. Sigh. He really reminded me of that military guy in season 4 of Lost who keeps trying to kill everyone on the island except that he cooks for a YMCA camp instead of being a slightly crazed mercenary.
When I went back to the table, I told Will about my new crush, but he said he had already asked him out. Apparently while Will was back there he had overheard an old lady asking the chef out, but he turned her down. At that point Will asked if he could ask the chef out, and the chef told him yes. So I guess Will and I are in competition for the same guy. Will has a head start because he's already asked him out, and because he's in good shape and, you know, NOT 5 months pregnant, but I'm banking on the chef having at least a slight preference for women. We'll just see the next time we go back to Gorham.
The trip home was less good than the trip up, what with Emily getting a slinky caught in her hair that had to be cut out, Scranton trying to make our little girl sad every chance it got (hotel pool closed, Wegmans wouldn't let her play on their indoor playground, I-81 being SHUT DOWN TO 1 LANE FOR NO REASON AGAIN forcing us to take windy backroads that made her sleeping head flop around like crazy) and on the very last 5 miles of the trip, me hitting a deer on Rt. 40. We were really SO lucky because even though I hit the thing hard enough that I saw pieces fly off (shudder), we weren't hurt and the car wasn't hurt. It was right over a blind hill, and I probably only managed to slow myself down to 45-50 mph before impact, and I KNOW you're not supposed to slam the brakes and swerve but how on earth are you supposed to overcome your instinctive reaction in a situation like that? The deer did not really die though, and I will forever have nightmares about watching the thing seize and pull itself up to an upright lying position before just giving up and laying down to die. Apparently no one cares about deer on the side of the road on a Saturday evening, because no one would come to put it out of its misery. All we had was a swiss army knife, and Will did not want to try to kill a wild animal with nothing but a pocket knife. I don't blame him one bit. And I just hope I broke the deer's spine so it couldn't feel anything below the waist (if deer have waists).
So as I said, we're back, we're thankfully undamaged, and we'll be returning to Gorham the next time August rolls around and we DON'T have a crawling baby.
I have as many pictures as the connection at the Big Moose Inn would let me upload in a reasonable amount of time up here, and if I'm feeling post-y I'll put up some more later.
So yeah, I guess I just said the trip was awesome and then went directly to complaining about the part that wasn't. Better get back to the good parts.
Emily was great in the car, although she tended to start yelling "Need to go pee pee in the potty!" whenever she was bored. After stopping every 15 minutes for awhile (we don't want to undermine her progress by telling her to go ahead and pee in her pullup! But ugh, it's raining and we're actually making progress on 81 and it's SO unsafe to pull over and get out of your car on the side of an interstate!) we got into a good rhythm, and she actually stayed dry throughout every leg of our trip except while she was asleep.
Gorham itself was nice. Will was beside himself to finally be back to the place he spent all his childhood summer vacations after a 10 year hiatus. To him, this place is heaven on earth. To me it was nice, but aside from the pleasant weather it could've been one of the lakes in the mountains we have near us. But it was definitely fun, and Emily had a blast. She did lots of random running around, she tried out the rock climbing wall, rode a pony for the first time, fed the ducks, went swimming, made a clay sculpture, and played "soccerball", which consisted of putting basketballs back in their holders, or just stomping in puddles on the basketball court. She was fearless, and I was proud. Exhausted, but proud. Plus, discounting one day when she didn't use a potty ONCE, she stayed 100% daytime potty trained the whole time we were there. It helps to have a room full of people to clap and cheer every time she emerged from the bathroom after having peed in the potty. And between the baby, who has decided that my bladder is much too spacious and needs to be compressed, and Emily potty training, we did a lot of emerging from the bathroom. At least Emily claps for me and says "yay mommy!" every time I pee in the potty as well.
Everyone got along really well too. Will's mom's family all act super-happy all the time. My family on the other hand, are kind of known for their biting sarcasm and cynicism, so I wasn't sure how we'd all get along. It turns out that having a toddler around really helps, because EVERYONE kind of has to act super-happy when dealing with a toddler. I DID get a bit sick of all the inquiries (always accompanied by a light backrub) about whether or not I was getting enough rest, and admonishments to make sure I was taking care of myself. Are YOU going take over chasing after Emily and provide me a bed in which to nap? No? Well then stop telling me what I already know!
Will was a superstar though (He's healthy again! He's back! Huzzah!) and my mother-in-law did take Emily for us a couple times so we could go on a little hike or learn that we kinda suck at canoeing. But through a laborious method we came up with out of desperation to not get left behind by the group, we managed to keep up with the best of them by the end.
The food was surprisingly good. The presence of a vat of oatmeal at breakfast and a salad bar and soup offering at lunch and dinner meant that even Will didn't have to resort to eating alternate meals. The portions were sometimes a bit paltry though, so I occasionally had to pull the pregnant lady card in order to get enough to eat. Luckily we had brought tons of food, so no one was in danger of starving.
I kind of also fell in love with the cook. I went back to the kitchen one day to ask for more chicken patties for the table, and they were supplied to me by a 40-something man with blue eyes and a very compelling air about him. Oh, and an Australian accent. Sigh. He really reminded me of that military guy in season 4 of Lost who keeps trying to kill everyone on the island except that he cooks for a YMCA camp instead of being a slightly crazed mercenary.
When I went back to the table, I told Will about my new crush, but he said he had already asked him out. Apparently while Will was back there he had overheard an old lady asking the chef out, but he turned her down. At that point Will asked if he could ask the chef out, and the chef told him yes. So I guess Will and I are in competition for the same guy. Will has a head start because he's already asked him out, and because he's in good shape and, you know, NOT 5 months pregnant, but I'm banking on the chef having at least a slight preference for women. We'll just see the next time we go back to Gorham.
The trip home was less good than the trip up, what with Emily getting a slinky caught in her hair that had to be cut out, Scranton trying to make our little girl sad every chance it got (hotel pool closed, Wegmans wouldn't let her play on their indoor playground, I-81 being SHUT DOWN TO 1 LANE FOR NO REASON AGAIN forcing us to take windy backroads that made her sleeping head flop around like crazy) and on the very last 5 miles of the trip, me hitting a deer on Rt. 40. We were really SO lucky because even though I hit the thing hard enough that I saw pieces fly off (shudder), we weren't hurt and the car wasn't hurt. It was right over a blind hill, and I probably only managed to slow myself down to 45-50 mph before impact, and I KNOW you're not supposed to slam the brakes and swerve but how on earth are you supposed to overcome your instinctive reaction in a situation like that? The deer did not really die though, and I will forever have nightmares about watching the thing seize and pull itself up to an upright lying position before just giving up and laying down to die. Apparently no one cares about deer on the side of the road on a Saturday evening, because no one would come to put it out of its misery. All we had was a swiss army knife, and Will did not want to try to kill a wild animal with nothing but a pocket knife. I don't blame him one bit. And I just hope I broke the deer's spine so it couldn't feel anything below the waist (if deer have waists).
So as I said, we're back, we're thankfully undamaged, and we'll be returning to Gorham the next time August rolls around and we DON'T have a crawling baby.
I have as many pictures as the connection at the Big Moose Inn would let me upload in a reasonable amount of time up here, and if I'm feeling post-y I'll put up some more later.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
A letter to my Endocrinologist
Dear Dr. Adrianna,
Boy, we've known each other for a long time, haven't we? When you joined the practice I had been going to since birth, it was perfect timing. There I was, a 14-year old with a major thyroid problem, and a family doctor who had run out of ideas for how to treat me. I was lucky enough to start seeing you just as you began practicing. We didn't know it at the time, but you would become quite popular in the years to come.
You were not afraid to take quick and decisive action, even with a person as young as I was, and my quality of life has improved dramatically because of it. Plus I get to tell fun stories about the Christmas when I was radioactive. That geiger counter and I kept the family entertained through many a long winter's night.
As I got older, I came to appreciate all the one-on-one time you spent with me. When you walk into that room, you sit down like you're looking forward to a conversation with a friend, and we talk about all sorts of things, not just my medical issues. I now know how rare that is.
So your nurse is a numbskull who I can't stand (as a person, OR as a nurse). That's not really your fault, right? And I only have to put up with her for a bit before and after the appointment. It's you I'm really there to see.
And so it takes over 6 months to get an appointment with you. As long as things are going ok I only need to see you once a year, right?
And so you only work 2.5 days a week. I can rearrange my schedule once a year, can't I?
And so I moved over the mountain and your office is now quite out-of-the-way.
Except that it's all becoming not OK.
Whenever I call to get an appointment or a prescription refill or a lab slip, I am on hold FOREVER, and then I'm always treated like an idiot by the secretaries, who are all definitely God's gift to the medical community.
And sure, last time I called for a lab slip nothing happened for a week, and when I called back again your numbskull nurse sent it to my old address (which shouldn't even be on file there anymore), but I finally got the slip just barely before my baby was out of the developmental time period when it's SO important to closely monitor thyroid levels. That counts, right?
But when numbskull nurse called me last week after hours so I couldn't call her back, then called me again bright and early Monday morning, then called me AGAIN today to say she still hadn't gotten my lab results, I started to get annoyed. When I apologized and said that my OB was supposed to have sent the results to them and that I would talk to them about it in person at my appointment tomorrow, and numbskull got SNIPPY with me and said "Well make sure you do, because Adrianna has been waiting since June for these results", I kind of snapped.
You mean you guys are getting irritated about waiting for lab results? Like I get irritated having to wait 6 months to get an appointment with you? Like I get irritated waiting weeks for my lab slip to show up so that I can get the blood tests that you are now hassling me about? Like I get irritated waiting an hour past my appointment time to finally get called in to see you? Like I get irritated waiting on hold, waiting at the lab because you guys won't draw my blood anymore, dealing with your nurse, basically doing everything it takes to see you just so that I can get that half hour with you each year?
I'm afraid if you guys are getting irritated with me because my OB messed up and after I have promised to correct it at my earliest convenience, I am going to have to forget about our good rapport and tell you to stick it WAY up there.
I am going to find a new endocrinologist.
Boy, we've known each other for a long time, haven't we? When you joined the practice I had been going to since birth, it was perfect timing. There I was, a 14-year old with a major thyroid problem, and a family doctor who had run out of ideas for how to treat me. I was lucky enough to start seeing you just as you began practicing. We didn't know it at the time, but you would become quite popular in the years to come.
You were not afraid to take quick and decisive action, even with a person as young as I was, and my quality of life has improved dramatically because of it. Plus I get to tell fun stories about the Christmas when I was radioactive. That geiger counter and I kept the family entertained through many a long winter's night.
As I got older, I came to appreciate all the one-on-one time you spent with me. When you walk into that room, you sit down like you're looking forward to a conversation with a friend, and we talk about all sorts of things, not just my medical issues. I now know how rare that is.
So your nurse is a numbskull who I can't stand (as a person, OR as a nurse). That's not really your fault, right? And I only have to put up with her for a bit before and after the appointment. It's you I'm really there to see.
And so it takes over 6 months to get an appointment with you. As long as things are going ok I only need to see you once a year, right?
And so you only work 2.5 days a week. I can rearrange my schedule once a year, can't I?
And so I moved over the mountain and your office is now quite out-of-the-way.
Except that it's all becoming not OK.
Whenever I call to get an appointment or a prescription refill or a lab slip, I am on hold FOREVER, and then I'm always treated like an idiot by the secretaries, who are all definitely God's gift to the medical community.
And sure, last time I called for a lab slip nothing happened for a week, and when I called back again your numbskull nurse sent it to my old address (which shouldn't even be on file there anymore), but I finally got the slip just barely before my baby was out of the developmental time period when it's SO important to closely monitor thyroid levels. That counts, right?
But when numbskull nurse called me last week after hours so I couldn't call her back, then called me again bright and early Monday morning, then called me AGAIN today to say she still hadn't gotten my lab results, I started to get annoyed. When I apologized and said that my OB was supposed to have sent the results to them and that I would talk to them about it in person at my appointment tomorrow, and numbskull got SNIPPY with me and said "Well make sure you do, because Adrianna has been waiting since June for these results", I kind of snapped.
You mean you guys are getting irritated about waiting for lab results? Like I get irritated having to wait 6 months to get an appointment with you? Like I get irritated waiting weeks for my lab slip to show up so that I can get the blood tests that you are now hassling me about? Like I get irritated waiting an hour past my appointment time to finally get called in to see you? Like I get irritated waiting on hold, waiting at the lab because you guys won't draw my blood anymore, dealing with your nurse, basically doing everything it takes to see you just so that I can get that half hour with you each year?
I'm afraid if you guys are getting irritated with me because my OB messed up and after I have promised to correct it at my earliest convenience, I am going to have to forget about our good rapport and tell you to stick it WAY up there.
I am going to find a new endocrinologist.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
My Who down in Whoville
Well, we had our ultrasound today, and Zippy cooperated! The technician (who was full of exclamations about the baby like "Hey there gorgeous" and "what a cutie-pie" that were delivered with complete professional boredom) was able to get a "hamburger shot" (which I will not post) but that means we have a little girl in there! Here are the other pictures:
Her foot (a VERY long, thin Deyle-looking foot. I sincerely hope she doesn't end up with size 13 feet like her grandmother and aunts on Will's side):
Her face:
So the first thing I thought when I saw this side-profile picture is that she looks kind of like a Who, what with the teeny upturned nose and her mouth down at the bottom of her face. What do you think?
I'm sure it's just an unflattering angle. And considering Emily looked like a terrifying skeleton and then came out looking adorable, I'm not too worried.
So yeah, we'll have 2 girls! Will and I are very excited to see our two little blonde girls running around in dresses looking adorable. I'm also excited to be able to re-use all of Emily's old clothes and other pink paraphernalia, and to be able to see how they are similar and different without wondering if the differences are because of their genders. I guess my morning sickness this time WASN'T because I'm having a boy!
I am also excited because I will be getting 2-3 MORE ultrasounds during this pregnancy to monitor our little girl's growth (she measured 1 day ahead today, so she's doing great so far). So yay for that too!
And while I'm posting pictures of one of my girls, I've got to post this picture of my other girl. Does she have a kickin' tan or what? I'm jealous, neither her mommy or her daddy tan like that, we just burn:
Also, just because it's adorable, here is Emily modeling her life vest for our trip next week, and her new hiking boots:
She looks totally prepared to be a big sister :-)
Her foot (a VERY long, thin Deyle-looking foot. I sincerely hope she doesn't end up with size 13 feet like her grandmother and aunts on Will's side):
Her face:
So the first thing I thought when I saw this side-profile picture is that she looks kind of like a Who, what with the teeny upturned nose and her mouth down at the bottom of her face. What do you think?
I'm sure it's just an unflattering angle. And considering Emily looked like a terrifying skeleton and then came out looking adorable, I'm not too worried.
So yeah, we'll have 2 girls! Will and I are very excited to see our two little blonde girls running around in dresses looking adorable. I'm also excited to be able to re-use all of Emily's old clothes and other pink paraphernalia, and to be able to see how they are similar and different without wondering if the differences are because of their genders. I guess my morning sickness this time WASN'T because I'm having a boy!
I am also excited because I will be getting 2-3 MORE ultrasounds during this pregnancy to monitor our little girl's growth (she measured 1 day ahead today, so she's doing great so far). So yay for that too!
And while I'm posting pictures of one of my girls, I've got to post this picture of my other girl. Does she have a kickin' tan or what? I'm jealous, neither her mommy or her daddy tan like that, we just burn:
Also, just because it's adorable, here is Emily modeling her life vest for our trip next week, and her new hiking boots:
She looks totally prepared to be a big sister :-)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Preparing
A week ago I realized that we are leaving for upstate NY at the end of THIS week (yes, that trip I discussed that I said we weren't going to do), and I sort of panicked. I booked everything last week, and thank goodness that all worked out despite my procrastination. And so far, that procrastination-panic has served me well. So well in fact, that I MAY actually be ready for this trip when it arrives. I am maybe (probably) fooling myself, but because I had NOTHING done 2 weeks ahead of time, I jumped into action and now I have most everything except the packing done a week ahead of time.
Preparing for a trip has 2 phases for me: Phase 1 is buying things/washing things/gathering things into my house (I have no idea why, but EVERY trip seems to require that I go out and purchase a bunch of new clothes/gear etc., mostly for Emily) and Phase 2 is packing it all into suitcases and such. I guess there's a Phase 3 as well, which would be getting everything into the car, but that's Will's job so I don't really pay much attention to that :-)
The packing phase will take awhile this time around I fear, for several reasons. Emily is potty training right now (and still doing great!), so that means that instead of just bringing a pack of diapers with us and buying more if we need them, we'll be bringing our entire stash of big-girl undies, a bunch of pull-ups, and some overnight diapers as well, not to mention a ridiculous number of clothing changes in case of accidents AND a portable potty for those roadside emergencies. There is also the fact that while temperatures are in the mid to high 70's during the day up there (so we'll need shorts, sunscreen, bathing suits, bug spray), they drop into the high 40's at night (so we'll also need pants, jackets, blankets, mittens). They are also forecasting some rain, so we'll be stuffing raincoats and ponchos and rubber boots into our already-groaning suitcases. And what else could we possibly need to bring? How about a bunch of shelf-stable, low fat, high protein, 100% whole grain food for my husband*? Why not! I'm sure our car will be absolutely cavernous with extra space so lets shove the contents of the pantry in there for good measure.
Also we will be bringing bikes.
So yeah, maybe I'm not so close to being done. But at least I have everything we need SOMEWHERE in the house.
And most of you are probably scratching your heads and wondering why we're even GOING on this trip since I complained about it before, then said we weren't going, and am now complaining about it again, and the reason is because I'm crazy.
Actually, the REAL reason is because we made a few adjustments to the plan, and now that we've taken control of our own destiny I think the trip is do-able. We will be taking 2 days to drive up and 2 days to drive back so that we can try to stay within Emily's car-barfing time limit. It will also give us a chance to relax, swim, and shop at a Wegmans along the way and basically just make the traveling part more relaxing and fun. In NY we booked ourselves a room at an inn 2 miles from the actual camp, so we will be sleeping in our own private room, IN THE SAME BED, and NOT in bunk beds with Will's parents. We will have a bathroom attached to our room, so I can shower myself and my toddler without desperately trying to conceal my ever-growing bulk from the eyes of random strangers in a communal shower. And if we should find that we have had enough beading and poetry and geocaching and horseback riding (oh wait, can't do that) and water-skiing (oh wait, can't do that either), we can simply retire back to our OWN lakeside Inn and enjoy an alcoholic beverage at the bar. Well *I* can't, but it's the PRINCIPLE!
All this prepping and planning and fretting has distracted me pretty effectively from the fact that I am having my gender determination ultrasound tomorrow. With Emily I camped out in front of the imaging center for a week beforehand, just to be sure I was there the minute they opened that Friday (not really) and practiced filling my bladder to the perfect "Hey! I can totally see the baby!" level in the days leading up to it (yes really). This time I know that no matter how much or how little water I drink, they will inevitably call me back half an hour late when my bladder is practically bursting, then complain that they can't see anything because my bladder is in the way, so I'm not stressing about that. And to be fair, we have already seen Zippy once before at this point so really, he/she is already old news.
But in all seriousness, I'm dying of curiosity. I am not one of those serene "We just want a healthy baby" mothers. Of course I DO want a healthy baby, and of course I TELL people who ask that I just want a healthy baby, but with Emily I definitely wanted a boy. I wanted to help Will carry on the Randall name. I felt like we HAD to have a son at some point, and it would be best to have a son first and take the pressure off. Luckily Will wasn't living in the 1400's like me (although his family and business DO kind of function like a monarchy, so maybe I wasn't SO off the mark). When we found out she was a girl, I was honestly a bit disappointed. But it made me realize that I DID want a girl, I had just wanted a boy first. I would've been disappointed to never have a girl to be, well, GIRLY with. My mom is an unapologetic tomboy. She has 1 pot of eyeshadow that she wears only on special occasions, she never wears jewelry, and she got the first and only manicure of her life on her wedding day. I can still remember being in middle school and discovering the makeup aisle at CVS (probably still People's Drug). It was amazing to me that there were different cleansers and moisturizers for different parts of your body, you could own SEVERAL different lipstick or eyeshadows at once, and the things you could put into and do with your hair were limited only by your imagination (and skill, unfortunately). Along with all the other not-so-shallow things I look forward to experiencing with Emily, I have LOVED being able to put bows in her hair and dress her up and I look forward to introducing her to the joys of nail polish.
Besides. We were going to have 2 kids, and if the second was a girl, we'd try for a 3rd.
But now, 2.5 years later, I am almost positive that this will be my last baby. And am I desperate for a boy? Not really. But I don't feel all serene about it. I feel like I can see the drawbacks of both, so I haven't gotten my heart set on either possibility.
If Zippy is a boy, he can carry on Will's name, we'll have realized the American dream of having 1 girl and 1 boy, and no mom can look down her nose at me and say "You wouldn't understand, YOU don't have any BOYS". But we also have that "What would we do with a boy?" thing, which is fairly ridiculous but still a very real feeling that I think many parents have.
But you know what? I kind of want Emily to have a sister too. I love having two women (I can't believe I'm calling them women, weren't they just 6 and 8?) I can chat with, complain with, and go to the spa with. And aren't little brothers annoying and icky? Plus I KNOW how to raise a girl, at least until the age of 2. And part of me feels that our chances are weighted towards girl. I was 1 of 3 girls, Will had 2 sisters, our families kind of like to make girls.
But this baby really, truly, could be either. And the fact that it's (probably) my last baby makes this more monumental. The thought that I am less than 1 day away from finding out who is going to officially complete my family is a bit overwhelming. Today is the last day of my life that I won't know if I am a mom of 2 girls or one of each.
Plus I can't wait to start calling this little "it" bumping around in my belly by its name.
Your sister loves to run around naked Zippy, I hope that at least for tomorrow you're not shy either!
*Will has actually been quite gracious and has said that he is willing to eat the food they serve at the camp, EVEN if it's white pasta, as long as we pack protein powder and beef jerky and nuts and tuna packets and 2 loaves of bread and peanut butter and dried fruit and...
Preparing for a trip has 2 phases for me: Phase 1 is buying things/washing things/gathering things into my house (I have no idea why, but EVERY trip seems to require that I go out and purchase a bunch of new clothes/gear etc., mostly for Emily) and Phase 2 is packing it all into suitcases and such. I guess there's a Phase 3 as well, which would be getting everything into the car, but that's Will's job so I don't really pay much attention to that :-)
The packing phase will take awhile this time around I fear, for several reasons. Emily is potty training right now (and still doing great!), so that means that instead of just bringing a pack of diapers with us and buying more if we need them, we'll be bringing our entire stash of big-girl undies, a bunch of pull-ups, and some overnight diapers as well, not to mention a ridiculous number of clothing changes in case of accidents AND a portable potty for those roadside emergencies. There is also the fact that while temperatures are in the mid to high 70's during the day up there (so we'll need shorts, sunscreen, bathing suits, bug spray), they drop into the high 40's at night (so we'll also need pants, jackets, blankets, mittens). They are also forecasting some rain, so we'll be stuffing raincoats and ponchos and rubber boots into our already-groaning suitcases. And what else could we possibly need to bring? How about a bunch of shelf-stable, low fat, high protein, 100% whole grain food for my husband*? Why not! I'm sure our car will be absolutely cavernous with extra space so lets shove the contents of the pantry in there for good measure.
Also we will be bringing bikes.
So yeah, maybe I'm not so close to being done. But at least I have everything we need SOMEWHERE in the house.
And most of you are probably scratching your heads and wondering why we're even GOING on this trip since I complained about it before, then said we weren't going, and am now complaining about it again, and the reason is because I'm crazy.
Actually, the REAL reason is because we made a few adjustments to the plan, and now that we've taken control of our own destiny I think the trip is do-able. We will be taking 2 days to drive up and 2 days to drive back so that we can try to stay within Emily's car-barfing time limit. It will also give us a chance to relax, swim, and shop at a Wegmans along the way and basically just make the traveling part more relaxing and fun. In NY we booked ourselves a room at an inn 2 miles from the actual camp, so we will be sleeping in our own private room, IN THE SAME BED, and NOT in bunk beds with Will's parents. We will have a bathroom attached to our room, so I can shower myself and my toddler without desperately trying to conceal my ever-growing bulk from the eyes of random strangers in a communal shower. And if we should find that we have had enough beading and poetry and geocaching and horseback riding (oh wait, can't do that) and water-skiing (oh wait, can't do that either), we can simply retire back to our OWN lakeside Inn and enjoy an alcoholic beverage at the bar. Well *I* can't, but it's the PRINCIPLE!
All this prepping and planning and fretting has distracted me pretty effectively from the fact that I am having my gender determination ultrasound tomorrow. With Emily I camped out in front of the imaging center for a week beforehand, just to be sure I was there the minute they opened that Friday (not really) and practiced filling my bladder to the perfect "Hey! I can totally see the baby!" level in the days leading up to it (yes really). This time I know that no matter how much or how little water I drink, they will inevitably call me back half an hour late when my bladder is practically bursting, then complain that they can't see anything because my bladder is in the way, so I'm not stressing about that. And to be fair, we have already seen Zippy once before at this point so really, he/she is already old news.
But in all seriousness, I'm dying of curiosity. I am not one of those serene "We just want a healthy baby" mothers. Of course I DO want a healthy baby, and of course I TELL people who ask that I just want a healthy baby, but with Emily I definitely wanted a boy. I wanted to help Will carry on the Randall name. I felt like we HAD to have a son at some point, and it would be best to have a son first and take the pressure off. Luckily Will wasn't living in the 1400's like me (although his family and business DO kind of function like a monarchy, so maybe I wasn't SO off the mark). When we found out she was a girl, I was honestly a bit disappointed. But it made me realize that I DID want a girl, I had just wanted a boy first. I would've been disappointed to never have a girl to be, well, GIRLY with. My mom is an unapologetic tomboy. She has 1 pot of eyeshadow that she wears only on special occasions, she never wears jewelry, and she got the first and only manicure of her life on her wedding day. I can still remember being in middle school and discovering the makeup aisle at CVS (probably still People's Drug). It was amazing to me that there were different cleansers and moisturizers for different parts of your body, you could own SEVERAL different lipstick or eyeshadows at once, and the things you could put into and do with your hair were limited only by your imagination (and skill, unfortunately). Along with all the other not-so-shallow things I look forward to experiencing with Emily, I have LOVED being able to put bows in her hair and dress her up and I look forward to introducing her to the joys of nail polish.
Besides. We were going to have 2 kids, and if the second was a girl, we'd try for a 3rd.
But now, 2.5 years later, I am almost positive that this will be my last baby. And am I desperate for a boy? Not really. But I don't feel all serene about it. I feel like I can see the drawbacks of both, so I haven't gotten my heart set on either possibility.
If Zippy is a boy, he can carry on Will's name, we'll have realized the American dream of having 1 girl and 1 boy, and no mom can look down her nose at me and say "You wouldn't understand, YOU don't have any BOYS". But we also have that "What would we do with a boy?" thing, which is fairly ridiculous but still a very real feeling that I think many parents have.
But you know what? I kind of want Emily to have a sister too. I love having two women (I can't believe I'm calling them women, weren't they just 6 and 8?) I can chat with, complain with, and go to the spa with. And aren't little brothers annoying and icky? Plus I KNOW how to raise a girl, at least until the age of 2. And part of me feels that our chances are weighted towards girl. I was 1 of 3 girls, Will had 2 sisters, our families kind of like to make girls.
But this baby really, truly, could be either. And the fact that it's (probably) my last baby makes this more monumental. The thought that I am less than 1 day away from finding out who is going to officially complete my family is a bit overwhelming. Today is the last day of my life that I won't know if I am a mom of 2 girls or one of each.
Plus I can't wait to start calling this little "it" bumping around in my belly by its name.
Your sister loves to run around naked Zippy, I hope that at least for tomorrow you're not shy either!
*Will has actually been quite gracious and has said that he is willing to eat the food they serve at the camp, EVEN if it's white pasta, as long as we pack protein powder and beef jerky and nuts and tuna packets and 2 loaves of bread and peanut butter and dried fruit and...
Monday, August 10, 2009
Preemptive Nostalgia
I believe I have mentioned before that Emily seems to develop in sudden leaps vs. gradually. Perhaps I think this because it is easier to observe the developmental leaps than the gradual changes that are, inevitably also taking place. But as many times as I make this observation, I am still always surprised when another one comes along, mostly because it seems the leaps themselves get bigger each time.
For example, in the past 2 weeks alone, Emily has started sleeping in a big girl bed. Naps are still iffy, but she's a champ at going to sleep and sleeping through the night. In the last WEEK, Emily has blasted through potty training 101 and is now practically an expert. For several days in a row now, she has not had a single accident, even if we're out of the house and she has to use the potty at a store or at church, except for her afternoon poop which is always an accident, and usually a comical one. But other than that one time each day, she will TELL me she has to pee, and run to the potty, without bribes or sticker charts or anything more than a high five and praise when she's done. I have no doubt we'll experience a regression or two, and we're a long way from getting through the night without diapers, but for now I'm pinching myself and hoping karma will not deliver me a 4-year old Zippy who still wears diapers to make up for my luck with Emily.
Add to this already impressive list of recent accomplishments the fact that she just learned to drink from a cup, and will now SWIM (like legs kicking, arms reaching, body moving towards the wall and everything) in the baby pool with her water wings on, not to mention all the tiny little improvements in her speech that you would only really notice or care about if you spent every day with her, and my head is spinning trying to keep up. Or maybe it's just the heat, which makes this pregnant lady feel like passing out the second I step outdoors. I know I am super-lucky because it has been a mild summer, and I am not SUPER pregnant, and I have air conditioning and don't live in Florida, but still I feel awful and I hate feeling so delicate.
But back to my original point, WOW Emily!
The thing is, I am nothing but excited and proud. And for some reason that confuses me. Shouldn't her accomplishments be bittersweet for me? I hear so many moms celebrating but also lamenting their toddlers' milestones, coupling statements like "Junior learned to open doors by himself today" with "Whatever happened to my little baby?" I remember when Emily was tiny, when she was just a small but solid weight in my arms and I spent my time cooing at her and marveling at how pink and fat and round human feet look before they've been used, but I also remember that taking care of a baby is grueling, painful, self-sacrificing and thankless work. I often felt that I was just putting milk into and cleaning used milk off of her until she turned into a real person, because teeny babies are basically eating, pooping, crying machines with very little personality. We love them because we are hard-wired to love them. Because they are OURS, and they need us, and because of the promise of a personality to come. If we care for them, they will eventually turn into real boys and girls, no Blue Fairy needed.
So now Emily is turning into a real person. Instead of feeling nostalgic, I am kind of feeling like my hard work is paying off. She's becoming someone who can talk to me, someone who is very much like every other two-year old out there, but of course also infinitely better. THIS is Emily now, how can I wish to go back in time to when parts of who she IS weren't there? I think back to the first time she ate rice cereal, the first time she crawled, her first steps, and I really don't feel much nostalgia. I look back at her pictures and I marvel at how much she's changed, but I don't really MISS the baby she used to be.
I wonder why? Is it because I have another baby coming soon and I know I will get another chance to carry around and care for a wide-eyed little person again? Is my blind urge to reproduce almost spent and now I can see things more from Will's "Babies are cute, but I prefer a kid who I can actually interact with any day" point of view?
I'm sure that when Emily is a tempestuous, door-slamming teenager I will feel like I would gladly clean up a few stray poops and spend 20 minutes walking 10 ft to my car while we step in every hole and point at every blade of grass if it means snuggles on demand and a heart-melting "wuv mommy" every now and then, like I enjoy now. Is the age vs. funness level of a kid a bell curve? Will she be at her most fun and sweet and personable when she's 9 and then descend back into "I'm just feeding this self-centered thing until it goes away to college" territory?
The sad part is, I think that probably is what happens. Kids naturally get more annoying so that we don't miss them as much when they inevitably fly the coop. And thinking of being away from Emily for a whole week just about kills me now, so I guess things HAVE to change or else I'll never be able to leave her at school or travel to any of the places I have yet to see.
So instead of real nostalgia, I am experiencing preemptive nostalgia. So many people have told me to enjoy these years because they go by so fast, so I figure I'd better listen. I think to myself every day "Soak it up now, because one day you'll miss it". So maybe I HAVE been soaking it up enough that I don't miss it looking back. I hope that's the case.
Or maybe it's just that she's still only 2, just barely not a baby anymore, and I still get to spend all day every day with her. The thought of sending her off to preschool next year with a backpack and a lunch box brings tears to my eyes, but then again so did the thought of ever letting my stationary lump of a 6 month old walk out of my arms and across the hard floor into a world full of sharp coffee table edges and electrical wires. Maybe if I concentrate hard on enjoying every minute I will be able to hang onto my feeling of "Yeah, it was nice back then but there were downsides too and now it is so much better."
Or maybe this lack of nostalgia itself is something I should concentrate on and enjoy while it lasts because in a couple days I'll be sitting at her high school graduation sobbing with the best of them over whatever happened to my sweet little 2 year old.
For example, in the past 2 weeks alone, Emily has started sleeping in a big girl bed. Naps are still iffy, but she's a champ at going to sleep and sleeping through the night. In the last WEEK, Emily has blasted through potty training 101 and is now practically an expert. For several days in a row now, she has not had a single accident, even if we're out of the house and she has to use the potty at a store or at church, except for her afternoon poop which is always an accident, and usually a comical one. But other than that one time each day, she will TELL me she has to pee, and run to the potty, without bribes or sticker charts or anything more than a high five and praise when she's done. I have no doubt we'll experience a regression or two, and we're a long way from getting through the night without diapers, but for now I'm pinching myself and hoping karma will not deliver me a 4-year old Zippy who still wears diapers to make up for my luck with Emily.
Add to this already impressive list of recent accomplishments the fact that she just learned to drink from a cup, and will now SWIM (like legs kicking, arms reaching, body moving towards the wall and everything) in the baby pool with her water wings on, not to mention all the tiny little improvements in her speech that you would only really notice or care about if you spent every day with her, and my head is spinning trying to keep up. Or maybe it's just the heat, which makes this pregnant lady feel like passing out the second I step outdoors. I know I am super-lucky because it has been a mild summer, and I am not SUPER pregnant, and I have air conditioning and don't live in Florida, but still I feel awful and I hate feeling so delicate.
But back to my original point, WOW Emily!
The thing is, I am nothing but excited and proud. And for some reason that confuses me. Shouldn't her accomplishments be bittersweet for me? I hear so many moms celebrating but also lamenting their toddlers' milestones, coupling statements like "Junior learned to open doors by himself today" with "Whatever happened to my little baby?" I remember when Emily was tiny, when she was just a small but solid weight in my arms and I spent my time cooing at her and marveling at how pink and fat and round human feet look before they've been used, but I also remember that taking care of a baby is grueling, painful, self-sacrificing and thankless work. I often felt that I was just putting milk into and cleaning used milk off of her until she turned into a real person, because teeny babies are basically eating, pooping, crying machines with very little personality. We love them because we are hard-wired to love them. Because they are OURS, and they need us, and because of the promise of a personality to come. If we care for them, they will eventually turn into real boys and girls, no Blue Fairy needed.
So now Emily is turning into a real person. Instead of feeling nostalgic, I am kind of feeling like my hard work is paying off. She's becoming someone who can talk to me, someone who is very much like every other two-year old out there, but of course also infinitely better. THIS is Emily now, how can I wish to go back in time to when parts of who she IS weren't there? I think back to the first time she ate rice cereal, the first time she crawled, her first steps, and I really don't feel much nostalgia. I look back at her pictures and I marvel at how much she's changed, but I don't really MISS the baby she used to be.
I wonder why? Is it because I have another baby coming soon and I know I will get another chance to carry around and care for a wide-eyed little person again? Is my blind urge to reproduce almost spent and now I can see things more from Will's "Babies are cute, but I prefer a kid who I can actually interact with any day" point of view?
I'm sure that when Emily is a tempestuous, door-slamming teenager I will feel like I would gladly clean up a few stray poops and spend 20 minutes walking 10 ft to my car while we step in every hole and point at every blade of grass if it means snuggles on demand and a heart-melting "wuv mommy" every now and then, like I enjoy now. Is the age vs. funness level of a kid a bell curve? Will she be at her most fun and sweet and personable when she's 9 and then descend back into "I'm just feeding this self-centered thing until it goes away to college" territory?
The sad part is, I think that probably is what happens. Kids naturally get more annoying so that we don't miss them as much when they inevitably fly the coop. And thinking of being away from Emily for a whole week just about kills me now, so I guess things HAVE to change or else I'll never be able to leave her at school or travel to any of the places I have yet to see.
So instead of real nostalgia, I am experiencing preemptive nostalgia. So many people have told me to enjoy these years because they go by so fast, so I figure I'd better listen. I think to myself every day "Soak it up now, because one day you'll miss it". So maybe I HAVE been soaking it up enough that I don't miss it looking back. I hope that's the case.
Or maybe it's just that she's still only 2, just barely not a baby anymore, and I still get to spend all day every day with her. The thought of sending her off to preschool next year with a backpack and a lunch box brings tears to my eyes, but then again so did the thought of ever letting my stationary lump of a 6 month old walk out of my arms and across the hard floor into a world full of sharp coffee table edges and electrical wires. Maybe if I concentrate hard on enjoying every minute I will be able to hang onto my feeling of "Yeah, it was nice back then but there were downsides too and now it is so much better."
Or maybe this lack of nostalgia itself is something I should concentrate on and enjoy while it lasts because in a couple days I'll be sitting at her high school graduation sobbing with the best of them over whatever happened to my sweet little 2 year old.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Foreign Object
I have this clock sitting on my dresser. Recently, the handle on top broke off. Emily has appropriated it, as she enjoys playing with it while she's in our room. It's not especially pointy or dangerous, so I haven't glued it back on yet, and as long as I am there with her I don't mind her playing with it. She calls it a "dinglehopper" (as she has also recently gotten into The Little Mermaid)
Today she was holding it during our physical struggle to get her into her naptime diaper. Afterward, she asked where her dinglehopper was, and although I searched the sheets, blankets, pillows, nightstand, and floor, I couldn't find it. I even wondered if it had ended up in her diaper, but she wouldn't let me look, and a quick squeeze didn't reveal any dinglehopper-shaped objects.
I put her down for her nap, but she woke up a mere 35 minutes later, much to my disappointment. She refused a diaper change, she just wanted to watch Cats on youtube, so we watched Cats and danced for awhile. I just finally changed her diaper, and sure enough, there it was, coated in poop of course.
No wonder she only slept for 35 minutes.
Today she was holding it during our physical struggle to get her into her naptime diaper. Afterward, she asked where her dinglehopper was, and although I searched the sheets, blankets, pillows, nightstand, and floor, I couldn't find it. I even wondered if it had ended up in her diaper, but she wouldn't let me look, and a quick squeeze didn't reveal any dinglehopper-shaped objects.
I put her down for her nap, but she woke up a mere 35 minutes later, much to my disappointment. She refused a diaper change, she just wanted to watch Cats on youtube, so we watched Cats and danced for awhile. I just finally changed her diaper, and sure enough, there it was, coated in poop of course.
No wonder she only slept for 35 minutes.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Lets be blunt
I feel naked today because I dropped off my engagement and wedding ring at the jewelery shop to be tightened, cleaned, polished etc. and I always feel especially self-conscious not wearing my ring when I'm walking around with a belly sticking out. So what did I do? I went to a nail salon, a place where a lack of wedding ring is SURE to be noticed. But you know what? The technician didn't say anything about it, nor did she comment about my legs while doing my pedicure, which I realized with horror were sporting a good 3 days worth of stubble (it's hard to shave when Emily has decided showering with Mommy is super-fun). The technician DID ask how much we paid for our house though, so it wasn't that she was a super-discreet person. But come to think of it, the guy at the jewelery store asked me if Will and I had gone on a baby-making trip this time around like my mother-in-law told him we did the last time I got pregnant, so maybe bluntness was just going around today.
I have especially enjoyed making this particular errand day into a "Sara day" (Groceries? Bah! We don't need groceries! But look at my pretty nails!) because I have spent the last few days embroiled in potty training, and it has been harrowing. Emily has actually been amazing, yesterday she only wore a diaper while sleeping and the only accident we had was while she was at the gym daycare, and that was because she was terrified of the auto-flushing toilet in the daycare bathroom and chose to pee in her pants instead of sit on the big loud scary toilet. The daycare girls informed me that I could've draped a piece of toilet paper over the motion sensor on the toilet to keep it from flushing. Unfortunately they shared this information AFTER Emily had been reduced to a sobbing trembling heap, so yeah, I'll probably be sending her to daycare in pull-ups until she's 4. At least I'll be able to get in more than 10 minutes of workout before having to run back to daycare to check if Emily needs to use the potty (pssst...the answer is always "NO".)
But as well as she's doing, it's still a LOT of work for me. I have to take her to the bathroom every half hour or so, summon buckets of enthusiasm every time she pees in the potty, then clean and dry the potty so it's ready for its next go-round 25 minutes later. It is also just naturally more stressful to try to do ANYTHING, especially driving anywhere, because at any moment I could hear "Emmy PEED!" and then I will be back on here complaining again that I STILL don't remember how to take apart and clean Emily's carseat. It's actually way more work than just changing her diaper occasionally, especially when she wants to help pour her pee pee into the big potty and ends up dousing the floor with a Bjorn potty full of urine. I apparently have yet to learn that most child-related transitions (feeding Emily solid food, changing to a big-girl bed, potty training) SEEM like they'll save you tons of time and result in a more self-reliant child, but time and again I have to painfully realize that it is actually WAY more work before you get to the point where the child can feed themselves, put themselves to bed, use the potty unassisted etc.
But EVENTUALLY it will be less work, and that's what keeps me going.
I have especially enjoyed making this particular errand day into a "Sara day" (Groceries? Bah! We don't need groceries! But look at my pretty nails!) because I have spent the last few days embroiled in potty training, and it has been harrowing. Emily has actually been amazing, yesterday she only wore a diaper while sleeping and the only accident we had was while she was at the gym daycare, and that was because she was terrified of the auto-flushing toilet in the daycare bathroom and chose to pee in her pants instead of sit on the big loud scary toilet. The daycare girls informed me that I could've draped a piece of toilet paper over the motion sensor on the toilet to keep it from flushing. Unfortunately they shared this information AFTER Emily had been reduced to a sobbing trembling heap, so yeah, I'll probably be sending her to daycare in pull-ups until she's 4. At least I'll be able to get in more than 10 minutes of workout before having to run back to daycare to check if Emily needs to use the potty (pssst...the answer is always "NO".)
But as well as she's doing, it's still a LOT of work for me. I have to take her to the bathroom every half hour or so, summon buckets of enthusiasm every time she pees in the potty, then clean and dry the potty so it's ready for its next go-round 25 minutes later. It is also just naturally more stressful to try to do ANYTHING, especially driving anywhere, because at any moment I could hear "Emmy PEED!" and then I will be back on here complaining again that I STILL don't remember how to take apart and clean Emily's carseat. It's actually way more work than just changing her diaper occasionally, especially when she wants to help pour her pee pee into the big potty and ends up dousing the floor with a Bjorn potty full of urine. I apparently have yet to learn that most child-related transitions (feeding Emily solid food, changing to a big-girl bed, potty training) SEEM like they'll save you tons of time and result in a more self-reliant child, but time and again I have to painfully realize that it is actually WAY more work before you get to the point where the child can feed themselves, put themselves to bed, use the potty unassisted etc.
But EVENTUALLY it will be less work, and that's what keeps me going.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Acro-baby
This pregnancy has been very different from my last. Not 100% different, but still kind of opposite all the same. If -10 represents a pregnancy where you suffer severe morning sickness the whole time, can't move because you ache so much and the baby spends all its time pummeling your organs and +10 represents one of those pregnancies where women are like "Hmmm, I seem to have a stomach ache. OH! Did I just pop out a baby? I never even knew I was pregnant!" then I would rate my first pregnancy as a +7, and this one so far as a -2. Emily traveled about docile-ly in my uterus, gently nudging me now and then but not really giving me any bad symptoms or aches. And this pregnancy is not by any means BAD bad, but still a bit more on the bad side than the good.
I felt the first identifiable flutter of movement about 2.5 weeks ago, at almost exactly the same gestational age (13 weeks 3ish days) I felt Emily move for the first time. Predictably, I didn't feel any more movement for the next week or so, and over the past week I have felt the baby pretty much every day but only very tiny bumps here and there and I'm never sure if they're actually the baby or my newly rebellious lower digestive system. However I am no longer able to lay on my stomach comfortably, and when I'm up walking around I feel like I have a tiny bowling ball sitting in my lower abdomen. This is in stark contrast to Emily, who always floated around up high, affording my bladder copious room and behaving herself quite nicely in there.
But today must be the day. Zippy has decided that the gagging and nausea, crippling backaches, early-onset waddling and exhaustion are not enough to REALLY make sure I know (s)he is there. I swear if I had an ultrasound right now you would see a baby with its limbs flung out in the shape of a star. It feels like when you bite into a dorito and it gets lodged across the top of your mouth, except it's happening in my pelvis. It's not PAINFUL, but it certainly feels odd. Periodically Zippy will perform some sort of spin or roll and the pressure lets up for a moment, and then (s)he will return to the original splayed position. It's neat on the one hand, because it's the first real, strong movements I've felt, but Zippy is surprising me with his/her strength and activity level already. I wonder how the next 5 months of us sharing a body will go when the baby is already pulling stunts like this now, when (s)he still has some room to float around and move. This kid had better find a new favorite position before things get too crowded in there, or I'm going to have to start poking back. And I had better figure out if this baby is a girl or a boy soon or else I'm going to drown in my own pronoun overuse.
I'm infinitely glad the baby is still in there. I'm glad to be able to start feeling the movements for sure. I suppose I'm even glad to be experiencing some of the bad parts of pregnancy so that I won't be as tempted to have a third child when I'm 97% sure I only want two. Also I will not go through life being one of those annoying women who chirp "My pregnancies were so easy, I don't know what all the fuss is about". But this pregnancy has me a bit gun-shy at this point. It has forced me to realize that I am not, in fact, a pregnancy viking, and that it wasn't my body itself being immune to most of the discomforts of pregnancy last time, it was just an easy pregnancy. Which then leads inevitably to the same questions I'd ask myself last time when some sort of new symptom showed up. How bad is it going to get? And if I'm not just naturally good at pregnancy, maybe I'm not just naturally good at labor either? If Emily was so agreeable and calm in the womb and continued to be so after her birth, does this mean this little acrobat is going to continue being crazy once (s)he is born? I've been feeling pretty smug, having been through all this before and having read the statistics that second-time mommies tend to have an easier time of it in many ways, and now my fondly-held beliefs are somewhat shaken.
Ok, and I just took a quick break to consult google's opinion on things that can be more difficult the second time around, and now I'm as terrified as a first time mom reading What to Expect... Nice job, Sara. Sheer, unbridled terror was one of the only symptoms that was much better this time around and you had to go screw that up too.
I felt the first identifiable flutter of movement about 2.5 weeks ago, at almost exactly the same gestational age (13 weeks 3ish days) I felt Emily move for the first time. Predictably, I didn't feel any more movement for the next week or so, and over the past week I have felt the baby pretty much every day but only very tiny bumps here and there and I'm never sure if they're actually the baby or my newly rebellious lower digestive system. However I am no longer able to lay on my stomach comfortably, and when I'm up walking around I feel like I have a tiny bowling ball sitting in my lower abdomen. This is in stark contrast to Emily, who always floated around up high, affording my bladder copious room and behaving herself quite nicely in there.
But today must be the day. Zippy has decided that the gagging and nausea, crippling backaches, early-onset waddling and exhaustion are not enough to REALLY make sure I know (s)he is there. I swear if I had an ultrasound right now you would see a baby with its limbs flung out in the shape of a star. It feels like when you bite into a dorito and it gets lodged across the top of your mouth, except it's happening in my pelvis. It's not PAINFUL, but it certainly feels odd. Periodically Zippy will perform some sort of spin or roll and the pressure lets up for a moment, and then (s)he will return to the original splayed position. It's neat on the one hand, because it's the first real, strong movements I've felt, but Zippy is surprising me with his/her strength and activity level already. I wonder how the next 5 months of us sharing a body will go when the baby is already pulling stunts like this now, when (s)he still has some room to float around and move. This kid had better find a new favorite position before things get too crowded in there, or I'm going to have to start poking back. And I had better figure out if this baby is a girl or a boy soon or else I'm going to drown in my own pronoun overuse.
I'm infinitely glad the baby is still in there. I'm glad to be able to start feeling the movements for sure. I suppose I'm even glad to be experiencing some of the bad parts of pregnancy so that I won't be as tempted to have a third child when I'm 97% sure I only want two. Also I will not go through life being one of those annoying women who chirp "My pregnancies were so easy, I don't know what all the fuss is about". But this pregnancy has me a bit gun-shy at this point. It has forced me to realize that I am not, in fact, a pregnancy viking, and that it wasn't my body itself being immune to most of the discomforts of pregnancy last time, it was just an easy pregnancy. Which then leads inevitably to the same questions I'd ask myself last time when some sort of new symptom showed up. How bad is it going to get? And if I'm not just naturally good at pregnancy, maybe I'm not just naturally good at labor either? If Emily was so agreeable and calm in the womb and continued to be so after her birth, does this mean this little acrobat is going to continue being crazy once (s)he is born? I've been feeling pretty smug, having been through all this before and having read the statistics that second-time mommies tend to have an easier time of it in many ways, and now my fondly-held beliefs are somewhat shaken.
Ok, and I just took a quick break to consult google's opinion on things that can be more difficult the second time around, and now I'm as terrified as a first time mom reading What to Expect... Nice job, Sara. Sheer, unbridled terror was one of the only symptoms that was much better this time around and you had to go screw that up too.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Blast from the present
I still live near the town where I went to school as a kid, so inevitably I run into people now who I used to know back in my school days. I am usually impressed with how time mellows people. I also have a bit more confidence nowadays than I had back when I was a shy teenager in high school, so I usually find it surprisingly easy now to converse with people who I didn't necessarily hang out with (or even like very much) back then. I still occasionally feel a little voice in my head that says "Wow, I'm talking to a POPULAR girl" or "Eeew, he used to be a GOTH kid" before I tell that voice to shut up for God's sake, this is the real world and no one cares who was POPULAR or GOTH unless they're planning on running for an elected office.
My dance class through high school was no different than what you'd expect to find when you get 10 or more teenage girls together. A couple girls rise to the title of "most popular", a couple more girls are permitted to hang around them and be considered popular by association, and a couple girls are considered "other", and are tolerated but never really made to feel welcome. I never did anything to make the other girls not like me (oops, I guess I just let slip where I fit into this little system) but I was quiet and I was a bit chubby and often that's enough. My memories of my dance years are mostly good, but speckled with instances where pranks were played, exclusions were made obvious, and all are pervaded by an angsty teenage "Why don't they like meeeeeeeeeeee?"
But this is not a sob story. I'm just laying a little background and believe me, I am over it now. But what I am NOT over is this: I ran into a girl from dance last week in the lobby of my gym, I walked by and made eye contact and smiled, prepared to say hi, and she blatantly looked at me then looked away. Seriously? Dude, your mother babysat me when we were kids. We spent pretty much every single day together at the dance studio throughout middle and high school, I never knowingly did anything to offend you (I wish I could say the same for the reverse) and NOW, 10 years later, when we're ADULTS, you still feel like you're too good to say hi to me?
I'll be fair here. She HAD been talking to some guy for awhile who was holding a sleeping toddler, and she seemed to be shooting him her best and brightest fake smile, so maybe I was interrupting her game. I was there with my very own (much cuter) toddler and my own (much hotter) man though, so it's not like she could've gotten the impression that I would swoop in and try to steal her toddler-toting guy. Still, I'd think seeing an acquaintance for the first time in 10 years even while you're in the middle of trying to get some play warrants a hi, a wave, an eyebrow raise, SOME kind of acknowledgment.
But apparently not. Apparently MOST people mellow with time, but some stay stuck in their high school roles. And I hope she is enjoying the fact that she's still POPULAR in her own head, because behavior that's accepted from teenagers is considered rude from adults in the real world. If she meant that little snub to have the same effect on me that it would've had in high school then she must be disappointed, because SOME of us have changed and all it did was leave me wondering what kind of life she's been leading in the last 10 years that has allowed her to keep such a high opinion of herself.
She must not be a mom, that's all I can say. Getting poop on your shirt a couple times will cure you of your high opinions real quick. And if she ends up getting together with sleeping toddler guy, I hope that toddler acts appropriately for HER age and teaches stuck-in-the-past girl that she's not actually the most important person in the world.
My dance class through high school was no different than what you'd expect to find when you get 10 or more teenage girls together. A couple girls rise to the title of "most popular", a couple more girls are permitted to hang around them and be considered popular by association, and a couple girls are considered "other", and are tolerated but never really made to feel welcome. I never did anything to make the other girls not like me (oops, I guess I just let slip where I fit into this little system) but I was quiet and I was a bit chubby and often that's enough. My memories of my dance years are mostly good, but speckled with instances where pranks were played, exclusions were made obvious, and all are pervaded by an angsty teenage "Why don't they like meeeeeeeeeeee?"
But this is not a sob story. I'm just laying a little background and believe me, I am over it now. But what I am NOT over is this: I ran into a girl from dance last week in the lobby of my gym, I walked by and made eye contact and smiled, prepared to say hi, and she blatantly looked at me then looked away. Seriously? Dude, your mother babysat me when we were kids. We spent pretty much every single day together at the dance studio throughout middle and high school, I never knowingly did anything to offend you (I wish I could say the same for the reverse) and NOW, 10 years later, when we're ADULTS, you still feel like you're too good to say hi to me?
I'll be fair here. She HAD been talking to some guy for awhile who was holding a sleeping toddler, and she seemed to be shooting him her best and brightest fake smile, so maybe I was interrupting her game. I was there with my very own (much cuter) toddler and my own (much hotter) man though, so it's not like she could've gotten the impression that I would swoop in and try to steal her toddler-toting guy. Still, I'd think seeing an acquaintance for the first time in 10 years even while you're in the middle of trying to get some play warrants a hi, a wave, an eyebrow raise, SOME kind of acknowledgment.
But apparently not. Apparently MOST people mellow with time, but some stay stuck in their high school roles. And I hope she is enjoying the fact that she's still POPULAR in her own head, because behavior that's accepted from teenagers is considered rude from adults in the real world. If she meant that little snub to have the same effect on me that it would've had in high school then she must be disappointed, because SOME of us have changed and all it did was leave me wondering what kind of life she's been leading in the last 10 years that has allowed her to keep such a high opinion of herself.
She must not be a mom, that's all I can say. Getting poop on your shirt a couple times will cure you of your high opinions real quick. And if she ends up getting together with sleeping toddler guy, I hope that toddler acts appropriately for HER age and teaches stuck-in-the-past girl that she's not actually the most important person in the world.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Bedding
Ok. I want to get this out there right now because there are way too few people who actually come out and say this. 26 months is too early to switch your child to a big girl/boy bed! When you do your preliminary research, you will find the internet is full of parents who say they successfully moved their children to big beds when they were as young as 15 months old. Everyone you know with kids will advise you that THEY switched their children MUCH younger and you'd better switch your child soon, because if you wait too long they'll be TOO used to their crib. You will worry that if you don't switch your child soon and get them used to their bed before the new baby comes, they'll associate the switch with the baby's arrival.
However, if you search "toddler bed won't sleep" (which I probably should have done BEFORE we converted Emily's crib), you'll find even more people who are having terrible problems getting their child to sleep once they've been moved into a big bed.
I am one of those parents. Will is another.
We don't have too much of a problem with nighttime. She will, if she's tired, go to bed fairly easily, although she requires me to rub her back and hum songs to her until she's fast asleep. She will then sleep all night without a problem, and if she wakes up in the morning before we do, she'll go sit or lay by her door and wait until we open it to let her out. She seems to have grasped very quickly that we don't like her letting herself out of the room and wandering the house on her own.
The problem is naptime. She does NOT want to nap in her bed. We've averaged about 2 good naps per week since we switched her, whereas she used to reliably sleep every day in her crib. If she doesn't take a nap, the rest of the day is one fun-filled tantrum after another. She's refused to come home with us from the gym daycare (I wonder what the daycare providers think of us as parents when our daughter cries and runs away and hides when we try to take her home), she's completely melted down when she couldn't pry open her clip-on bug repellent cartridge, basically anything will set her off. I've tried laying down in bed with her, but all that happens when I do that is I fall asleep enough to let my guard down, then Emily kicks me in the face or jumps on my stomach. If I leave her alone in her room, she just pulls out every book she owns and plays for 2 hours straight.
Don't let her calm demeanor fool you
Turn your back for a second and THIS happens
I hate that she's not getting as much sleep as she needs. I hate that my little girl, who is usually a sweet, giggly, reasonable girl who makes me wonder what all the "terrible two" fuss is about undergoes a complete personality change when she's un-napped and becomes a psycho hose beast. I hate having to mutter excuses about Emily missing naps to people in line at the store as she screeches. I hate that it's been over a year since I've had one of those "I can't take it anymore, when is this day going to be over" kind of days, and now I'm having them again.
If she DOES by some miracle take a nap though, we can't get her to go to sleep at night until after 10, even though we start trying at 8:30. I'm used to having a bit of time during the day to straighten up, make calls, plan meals, relax, etc. and I'm not getting that anymore. Will and I are also used to having an hour and a half or so between Emily's bedtime and our own, and we're not getting that anymore either because instead of just tucking her in and letting her fall asleep by herself around 9, we have to stay in with her until she's all the way asleep.
I am not ready for her to give up her naps. When the baby comes, I was banking on the fact that Emily's naps would give me time alone with the baby at the very least, and at best time to catch up on my own sleep if I was lucky enough to get both kids napping at the same time. But more importantly, EMILY is not ready to give up her naps. I just haven't been able to convince her of this.
One interesting development in this whole bed-changing situation has been Emily's complete infatuation with a throw pillow I bought to go on her bed. She LOVES Birdy, and she LOVES "talking" to Birdy. She has us make Birdy "talk" to her, and she holds long conversations with him. She'll tell him things she won't tell us, mostly complaints about things I do. I don't know if she's too polite to bring up her grievances to my face or what, but she will tell Birdy. She recounted for Birdy the story of how mommy put spray and a band aid on her boo boo, and it "really really hurt!" She told Birdy how it made her mad that Mommy carried her upstairs instead of letting her walk by herself. I guess that's why psychologists use the same trick with kids.
Emily may not be doing very well in the napping department, but she's actually doing very well in the potty training department. On the days when we're home for awhile and she's amenable, I drink a lot of water myself and take her to the bathroom with me every time I go, and she rarely has an accident. She has even started telling me "Emmy have to go pee pee" and running off to her potty by herself. Our next hurdle will be to get her to do the same thing when she's wearing undies. If she is wearing any article of clothing on her lower body, she seems to think it's a diaper and decides using the potty is optional. Then we have to deal with using potties while we're out and about, which will not be easy. But at least we're making progress...
And in other potty news, Remy has decided that he doesn't care for the fancy new dog door that we spent lots of money on just for him, and unless we stay on him he will decide it's much more convenient to relieve himself on the screened-in porch rather than deal with bumping his delicate nose on the door and going outside. I remind everyone that if you have any interest in adopting two dogs from me the offer is always there.
And if you have any magic tricks to get toddlers to nap in their big girl beds, I might even consider giving you JUST the good dog*
*Ha ha, NEITHER of them is the good dog
However, if you search "toddler bed won't sleep" (which I probably should have done BEFORE we converted Emily's crib), you'll find even more people who are having terrible problems getting their child to sleep once they've been moved into a big bed.
I am one of those parents. Will is another.
We don't have too much of a problem with nighttime. She will, if she's tired, go to bed fairly easily, although she requires me to rub her back and hum songs to her until she's fast asleep. She will then sleep all night without a problem, and if she wakes up in the morning before we do, she'll go sit or lay by her door and wait until we open it to let her out. She seems to have grasped very quickly that we don't like her letting herself out of the room and wandering the house on her own.
The problem is naptime. She does NOT want to nap in her bed. We've averaged about 2 good naps per week since we switched her, whereas she used to reliably sleep every day in her crib. If she doesn't take a nap, the rest of the day is one fun-filled tantrum after another. She's refused to come home with us from the gym daycare (I wonder what the daycare providers think of us as parents when our daughter cries and runs away and hides when we try to take her home), she's completely melted down when she couldn't pry open her clip-on bug repellent cartridge, basically anything will set her off. I've tried laying down in bed with her, but all that happens when I do that is I fall asleep enough to let my guard down, then Emily kicks me in the face or jumps on my stomach. If I leave her alone in her room, she just pulls out every book she owns and plays for 2 hours straight.
Don't let her calm demeanor fool you
Turn your back for a second and THIS happens
I hate that she's not getting as much sleep as she needs. I hate that my little girl, who is usually a sweet, giggly, reasonable girl who makes me wonder what all the "terrible two" fuss is about undergoes a complete personality change when she's un-napped and becomes a psycho hose beast. I hate having to mutter excuses about Emily missing naps to people in line at the store as she screeches. I hate that it's been over a year since I've had one of those "I can't take it anymore, when is this day going to be over" kind of days, and now I'm having them again.
If she DOES by some miracle take a nap though, we can't get her to go to sleep at night until after 10, even though we start trying at 8:30. I'm used to having a bit of time during the day to straighten up, make calls, plan meals, relax, etc. and I'm not getting that anymore. Will and I are also used to having an hour and a half or so between Emily's bedtime and our own, and we're not getting that anymore either because instead of just tucking her in and letting her fall asleep by herself around 9, we have to stay in with her until she's all the way asleep.
I am not ready for her to give up her naps. When the baby comes, I was banking on the fact that Emily's naps would give me time alone with the baby at the very least, and at best time to catch up on my own sleep if I was lucky enough to get both kids napping at the same time. But more importantly, EMILY is not ready to give up her naps. I just haven't been able to convince her of this.
One interesting development in this whole bed-changing situation has been Emily's complete infatuation with a throw pillow I bought to go on her bed. She LOVES Birdy, and she LOVES "talking" to Birdy. She has us make Birdy "talk" to her, and she holds long conversations with him. She'll tell him things she won't tell us, mostly complaints about things I do. I don't know if she's too polite to bring up her grievances to my face or what, but she will tell Birdy. She recounted for Birdy the story of how mommy put spray and a band aid on her boo boo, and it "really really hurt!" She told Birdy how it made her mad that Mommy carried her upstairs instead of letting her walk by herself. I guess that's why psychologists use the same trick with kids.
Emily may not be doing very well in the napping department, but she's actually doing very well in the potty training department. On the days when we're home for awhile and she's amenable, I drink a lot of water myself and take her to the bathroom with me every time I go, and she rarely has an accident. She has even started telling me "Emmy have to go pee pee" and running off to her potty by herself. Our next hurdle will be to get her to do the same thing when she's wearing undies. If she is wearing any article of clothing on her lower body, she seems to think it's a diaper and decides using the potty is optional. Then we have to deal with using potties while we're out and about, which will not be easy. But at least we're making progress...
And in other potty news, Remy has decided that he doesn't care for the fancy new dog door that we spent lots of money on just for him, and unless we stay on him he will decide it's much more convenient to relieve himself on the screened-in porch rather than deal with bumping his delicate nose on the door and going outside. I remind everyone that if you have any interest in adopting two dogs from me the offer is always there.
And if you have any magic tricks to get toddlers to nap in their big girl beds, I might even consider giving you JUST the good dog*
*Ha ha, NEITHER of them is the good dog
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A monster (baby) of a post
I've started several blog posts over the past week, but most of them have just been me whining and trying to make up my mind on various minutiae that I find important. I have decided to spare you the boring details, and just give you the results of my many hours of deliberation.
#1, I think Will and I will take a trip to Jamaica in October. I want to see the Caribbean again before I have a second little kiddo to feel guilty about leaving (it has been 3 years! Waaah!) so I decided we'll hop down for 4 nights and stay at one of the super-cheap all-inclusives down there (i.e. not Sandals, unfortunately). I chose Jamaica because it is the cheapest place to fly to aside from Puerto Rico (and I don't want to go there). So now I just have to decide whether we want to go to a resort that has a higher satisfaction rating and is near town, or a resort that has a slightly lower satisfaction rating but has a really neat location with a snorkeling lagoon and lots of rocks and tide pools to hop around and explore. Not to mention it is right next to Hedonism 2, so if Will and I get tired of sitting on the beach looking at the ocean, we can just turn our chairs 90 degrees to the left and sit on the beach watching people have orgies. And then probably 180 degrees to the right because I doubt many people who go to Hedonism are young attractive people anyone would actually be interested in seeing in the nude.
#2, We are going to convert Emily's crib into a double bed, skipping the toddler bed phase altogether. She is still in a crib because she has never tried to climb out and I am afraid to mess with what works. She sleeps like a champ, and I don't want to change something for the sake of changing it, then start waking up to a little girl poking me in the arm at night just because she's tickled she can get out of bed by herself. But on the other hand, we DO need to change her bed over at some point, and the earlier we do it, the less likely it will be that she associates the change with the new baby, and there are going to be enough changes going on then that we don't need to add more.
So then I had to decide on bedding. Emily's room is light pink, so I didn't want anything that was too light pink because I don't want her bedroom to look like the Barbie aisle at Toys R Us. I fell absolutely in love with this set, but was forced to fall right back out of love with it when I realized it would cost about $700. So now I'm in love with this bedding (CUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!) but of course it is sold out. So now I have to wait. And I hate waiting. But I guess while I wait I can consider the intelligence of putting a dry-clean only comforter on the bed of a child who is probably a year or two away from being nighttime potty-trained. Hmmm.
#3, I think we ARE going to go up to Camp Gorham with Will's parents, but we're going to be staying at a different place about a mile away so that we can have our own room. We'll have to pay more than we would've of course, but it makes a fairly impossible situation actually possible so I guess we'll suck it up.
Ha! I guess I didn't really spare you the minutiae of my decisions. Except that this really is the abbreviated version...I like to make things difficult.
So now onto the main event! We got to see Zippy up close and in person today!
We arrived at the office about 15 minutes early, my bladder "comfortably full" as was instructed. We didn't end up going back to the ultrasound room until about 10 minutes late though, so my bladder was starting to verge on uncomfortable by the time I hopped up on the table. The technician started going to town on my stomach with the ultrasound thingy, and the first thing she said was "Oh my gosh, look at your bladder! It's this great big black abyss over here and it is FULL. Are you ok?" By that point I had already glimpsed a little miniature human being on the screen and it really wasn't terrible, so I bravely soldiered on. This makes the second time an ultrasound technician has been shocked at how full my bladder was, so I guess I don't have to drink quite as much water before these things as I assumed.
So we got to watch the baby kicking around for awhile, but Zippy stayed stubbornly curled up on his/her stomach so the tech couldn't really measure the nasal bone. She had me roll onto my side and jabbed me repeatedly in the stomach with the ultrasound thing, creating earthquake-like conditions in my uterus, and we finally got the baby to roll onto its back. Then she said "Stay right there, when the doctor comes in he'll want to take a look too, and since this is the best we've seen the baby the whole time just keep that position."
So yeah, then we waited for over 30 minutes for the doctor to show up. Laying in one place with your goo-covered belly hanging out and without any pillows for support is not real fun, and Will did not seem to pick up on my subtle comments that he was perfectly positioned to give me a nice backrub, but the time eventually passed and the doctor finally showed. It's always nice to meet someone for the first time while covered in goo with your pants pulled obscenely low, but at this point I am used to the fact that pregnancy robs you of all dignity. The doctor had quite a lot of personality, he was the type who will just keep going with the jokes if he has someone who will joke back, so we all had quite a humorous conversation for awhile. He was young and he seemed like someone who we would hang out with even outside of doctor's appointments, which made it all the more shocking when he started asking me about "last menstrual periods" and "previous vaginal deliveries". When I think of someone who is a High Risk Obstetrician, I think of an older guy who is very serious, and this guy was quite the opposite. That was a good thing for us, but it's difficult to imagine him breaking the news that your baby doesn't have a heartbeat anymore or other such serious things that he probably deals with on a daily basis.
The minute he put the ultrasound thing back on my stomach, he said "This baby is a pain in the butt". Apparently Zippy was laying facedown again, perpendicular to the way babies usually lay, and with his/her hands in front of his/her face. But at that point I had seen that the baby had all the expected appendages, along with a heartbeat and was moving around a good bit, so I didn't really care whether they got the measurements or not, I had seen what I came there to see! But they eventually did measure the nasal bone, and it appears that the likelyhood of Zippy having a genetic disease is quite low, so that's definitely good.
Another good thing is that while the OB told me "If you're going to have anything wrong with you while you're pregnant, treated hypothyroidism is one of the best" (woohoo?) he also said that we'd throw a few extra ultrasounds in every 6 weeks or so just to track the baby's growth and make sure things are progressing as they should. This makes me exceedingly happy, but also irritated because I had hypothyroidism when I was pregnant with Emily too, and what I wouldn't have given to have an extra ultrasound or two thrown my way! I will enjoy my plethora of ultrasounds this time around, but I already have the peace of mind of knowing that I've made a normal baby once before and I can probably do it again. Poor Sara of 2006 was a terrified wreck until she got to see her baby at 20 weeks. And I know, I know, waah waah, about 99.999% of women who have given birth since the beginning of time never saw their babies prior to delivery, but what can I say, I am a selfish American with an overblown sense of entitlement and easy internet access and I want what everyone else is getting!
I am also very glad though that someone is taking my thyroid thing a bit more seriously. My regular OB and my endocrinologist are fairly blase about the whole issue, and I know that most of the time things are fine, but there ARE issues that can arise, and if we have the technology available and the insurance to cover it, shouldn't we monitor things if we can?
In closing, Zippy pics!
The top of Zippy's head, with 2 hands (I only count 4 fingers on the one hand but I'm sure the other one is there somewhere, RIGHT???)
The elusive laying on his/her back position...poor thing looks pretty uncomfortable despite the cushy placenta bed upon which he/she rests. I don't blame him/her for preferring to curl up on his/her tummy.
This position made the technician chuckle...Zippy is working on sitting up already! Also butting me in my abyss-like (abysmal?) bladder (not pictured)
And here is the piece de la resistance. The only picture we got of Emily at her ultrasound was a front-facing picture where she looked like a terrifying skull emerging from behind a curtain that she was pulling aside with little bony fingers. I tried to find this picture, but it's nowhere to be found, leading me to fear that it's hiding somewhere waiting to quietly creep out and scare the heck out of me. Well, terrifying skeleton, meet even MORE terrifying alien with exposed brain baby:
I can already see the family resemblance.
#1, I think Will and I will take a trip to Jamaica in October. I want to see the Caribbean again before I have a second little kiddo to feel guilty about leaving (it has been 3 years! Waaah!) so I decided we'll hop down for 4 nights and stay at one of the super-cheap all-inclusives down there (i.e. not Sandals, unfortunately). I chose Jamaica because it is the cheapest place to fly to aside from Puerto Rico (and I don't want to go there). So now I just have to decide whether we want to go to a resort that has a higher satisfaction rating and is near town, or a resort that has a slightly lower satisfaction rating but has a really neat location with a snorkeling lagoon and lots of rocks and tide pools to hop around and explore. Not to mention it is right next to Hedonism 2, so if Will and I get tired of sitting on the beach looking at the ocean, we can just turn our chairs 90 degrees to the left and sit on the beach watching people have orgies. And then probably 180 degrees to the right because I doubt many people who go to Hedonism are young attractive people anyone would actually be interested in seeing in the nude.
#2, We are going to convert Emily's crib into a double bed, skipping the toddler bed phase altogether. She is still in a crib because she has never tried to climb out and I am afraid to mess with what works. She sleeps like a champ, and I don't want to change something for the sake of changing it, then start waking up to a little girl poking me in the arm at night just because she's tickled she can get out of bed by herself. But on the other hand, we DO need to change her bed over at some point, and the earlier we do it, the less likely it will be that she associates the change with the new baby, and there are going to be enough changes going on then that we don't need to add more.
So then I had to decide on bedding. Emily's room is light pink, so I didn't want anything that was too light pink because I don't want her bedroom to look like the Barbie aisle at Toys R Us. I fell absolutely in love with this set, but was forced to fall right back out of love with it when I realized it would cost about $700. So now I'm in love with this bedding (CUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!) but of course it is sold out. So now I have to wait. And I hate waiting. But I guess while I wait I can consider the intelligence of putting a dry-clean only comforter on the bed of a child who is probably a year or two away from being nighttime potty-trained. Hmmm.
#3, I think we ARE going to go up to Camp Gorham with Will's parents, but we're going to be staying at a different place about a mile away so that we can have our own room. We'll have to pay more than we would've of course, but it makes a fairly impossible situation actually possible so I guess we'll suck it up.
Ha! I guess I didn't really spare you the minutiae of my decisions. Except that this really is the abbreviated version...I like to make things difficult.
So now onto the main event! We got to see Zippy up close and in person today!
We arrived at the office about 15 minutes early, my bladder "comfortably full" as was instructed. We didn't end up going back to the ultrasound room until about 10 minutes late though, so my bladder was starting to verge on uncomfortable by the time I hopped up on the table. The technician started going to town on my stomach with the ultrasound thingy, and the first thing she said was "Oh my gosh, look at your bladder! It's this great big black abyss over here and it is FULL. Are you ok?" By that point I had already glimpsed a little miniature human being on the screen and it really wasn't terrible, so I bravely soldiered on. This makes the second time an ultrasound technician has been shocked at how full my bladder was, so I guess I don't have to drink quite as much water before these things as I assumed.
So we got to watch the baby kicking around for awhile, but Zippy stayed stubbornly curled up on his/her stomach so the tech couldn't really measure the nasal bone. She had me roll onto my side and jabbed me repeatedly in the stomach with the ultrasound thing, creating earthquake-like conditions in my uterus, and we finally got the baby to roll onto its back. Then she said "Stay right there, when the doctor comes in he'll want to take a look too, and since this is the best we've seen the baby the whole time just keep that position."
So yeah, then we waited for over 30 minutes for the doctor to show up. Laying in one place with your goo-covered belly hanging out and without any pillows for support is not real fun, and Will did not seem to pick up on my subtle comments that he was perfectly positioned to give me a nice backrub, but the time eventually passed and the doctor finally showed. It's always nice to meet someone for the first time while covered in goo with your pants pulled obscenely low, but at this point I am used to the fact that pregnancy robs you of all dignity. The doctor had quite a lot of personality, he was the type who will just keep going with the jokes if he has someone who will joke back, so we all had quite a humorous conversation for awhile. He was young and he seemed like someone who we would hang out with even outside of doctor's appointments, which made it all the more shocking when he started asking me about "last menstrual periods" and "previous vaginal deliveries". When I think of someone who is a High Risk Obstetrician, I think of an older guy who is very serious, and this guy was quite the opposite. That was a good thing for us, but it's difficult to imagine him breaking the news that your baby doesn't have a heartbeat anymore or other such serious things that he probably deals with on a daily basis.
The minute he put the ultrasound thing back on my stomach, he said "This baby is a pain in the butt". Apparently Zippy was laying facedown again, perpendicular to the way babies usually lay, and with his/her hands in front of his/her face. But at that point I had seen that the baby had all the expected appendages, along with a heartbeat and was moving around a good bit, so I didn't really care whether they got the measurements or not, I had seen what I came there to see! But they eventually did measure the nasal bone, and it appears that the likelyhood of Zippy having a genetic disease is quite low, so that's definitely good.
Another good thing is that while the OB told me "If you're going to have anything wrong with you while you're pregnant, treated hypothyroidism is one of the best" (woohoo?) he also said that we'd throw a few extra ultrasounds in every 6 weeks or so just to track the baby's growth and make sure things are progressing as they should. This makes me exceedingly happy, but also irritated because I had hypothyroidism when I was pregnant with Emily too, and what I wouldn't have given to have an extra ultrasound or two thrown my way! I will enjoy my plethora of ultrasounds this time around, but I already have the peace of mind of knowing that I've made a normal baby once before and I can probably do it again. Poor Sara of 2006 was a terrified wreck until she got to see her baby at 20 weeks. And I know, I know, waah waah, about 99.999% of women who have given birth since the beginning of time never saw their babies prior to delivery, but what can I say, I am a selfish American with an overblown sense of entitlement and easy internet access and I want what everyone else is getting!
I am also very glad though that someone is taking my thyroid thing a bit more seriously. My regular OB and my endocrinologist are fairly blase about the whole issue, and I know that most of the time things are fine, but there ARE issues that can arise, and if we have the technology available and the insurance to cover it, shouldn't we monitor things if we can?
In closing, Zippy pics!
The top of Zippy's head, with 2 hands (I only count 4 fingers on the one hand but I'm sure the other one is there somewhere, RIGHT???)
The elusive laying on his/her back position...poor thing looks pretty uncomfortable despite the cushy placenta bed upon which he/she rests. I don't blame him/her for preferring to curl up on his/her tummy.
This position made the technician chuckle...Zippy is working on sitting up already! Also butting me in my abyss-like (abysmal?) bladder (not pictured)
And here is the piece de la resistance. The only picture we got of Emily at her ultrasound was a front-facing picture where she looked like a terrifying skull emerging from behind a curtain that she was pulling aside with little bony fingers. I tried to find this picture, but it's nowhere to be found, leading me to fear that it's hiding somewhere waiting to quietly creep out and scare the heck out of me. Well, terrifying skeleton, meet even MORE terrifying alien with exposed brain baby:
I can already see the family resemblance.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
At least we'll have groceries
This past weekend was spent painting the town red for Kim's bachelorette party. By "the town", I mean Cleveland, OH, and when I say I painted it red, I mean I waddled around a wine festival for a few hours, stopping every 10 ft or so to hide in the shade, then had some pizza and went to bed. Rock on!
The actual party took place the night before Carolyn and I arrived, so when we rolled up at their inflatable penis-filled hotel room around 11:30AM on Saturday, people were just shuffling out of bed, sipping water and warily eyeing muffins from the breakfast buffet. The fact that most everyone was hungover made for a more subdued wine festival experience, but it was still lots of fun and I couldn't drink anyway so it was fine by me.
I had been anxious about spending the weekend with a group of girls who have all known each other for years, some since they were kids. Kim is excellent at staying in touch with old friends, so there were elementary school friends, high school friends, and college friends there, with Carolyn and I as the sole representatives of her after-college life phase, but it turned out that all the girls were incredibly friendly and we felt pretty comfortable right away. I guess when you're all drinking out of penis-shaped straws and wearing matching shirts there's a built-in sense of camaraderie that allows you to skip the formalities. My shirt, by the way, was a maternity shirt with an iron-on rhinestone decal that said "Girls night out" and had a picture of a martini glass on it. It actually looked like a Cosmo because it was pink, but it had olives in it, but EITHER WAY, it's always classy to wear alcohol-related apparel when you've got a baby belly poking out. Doubly classy when you put a sticker that says "Lust" (supplied to all of us by the people at the Seven Deadly Zins tent) on said belly. Seriously though, I HAD to put it there, nowhere else would've been half as funny.
I had also been a bit concerned about the fact that I was supposed to sleep in a cot or on a sleeper sofa in a room with 4 other girls, mostly because it takes me a long time and lots of thrashing to get myself comfortable before falling asleep at night. I also did not bring my snoogle (my gigantic pregnancy body pillow that I LOOOOVE and Will hates, but he was totally snuggling with it while I was gone). That worked out well though, because the girls ended up getting a third room just for Carolyn and me and it was a freakin' PALACE. I had my very own room with a big old king-sized bed and enough pillows to sufficiently stand in for my snoogle (Carolyn graciously took the fold-out couch, but I split the pillows evenly).
So the weekend was fun, and it was nice to get a chance to talk to Carolyn on the car rides up and back. Usually when we talk it's either over her lunch break or right after the gym in the evenings, so there always seems to be something pressing one of us has to get back to. Our husbands have been marveling that we just talked the whole way up and back...they can't believe it, but they also kind of can.
While I was away having fun, Will got to be solely in charge of Emily, which was a first. He did admirably well, taking her to the farmer's market, the gym, his parents house, then blueberry picking, and fireworks-viewing. A monumental feat with a toddler! Even still, when asked what she did this weekend, the only thing she mentions is that she shucked corn with Daddy.
So after his excellent performance this weekend, he has been rewarded with a week filled with a grueling battery of tests, but I am hopeful that we may be making some progress to finding out what's causing him to feel so exhausted all the time. He spent last night at the sleep lab in the hospital trying to sleep while hooked up to a million wires and while being watched by a girl in the other room. We don't have the results back yet, but the technician did tell him that while he doesn't appear to have sleep apnea, his legs did not stop moving the whole night. I haven't noticed this myself, but I HAVE noticed that instead of just rolling over like a normal person, Will tends to LAUNCH himself into the air and perform the roll before slamming back down, causing great unrest in the bed. Perhaps that is part of it. Some wild googling has resulted in my professional diagnosis of Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, which could definitely be causing his "loss of zest for life", as they put it.
So after that last night, today he had an appointment at the allergist where they stuck him with quite a few different allergens in his arm, many of which caused him to itch horribly. He appears to be allergic to cats, grass, trees, weeds, and mold. None of these are all that shocking, we kind of suspected most of them already, but the allergist says that having all these allergies could definitely be contributing to his tiredness, and she wrote him a prescription for allegra. Let's hope that helps.
On top of all of that, today is day two for him of going cold turkey off of caffeine. It came as something of a shock to us when he calculated up his caffeine intake and realized he was taking in more than double the recommended amount per day. His days of working overnight back in the spring caused a sharp increase in his espresso intake which didn't go away when he was able to go back to working only during the day, and coupled with his (Men's Health-recommended) 6 cups of green tea of the course of the day, that's quite a lot. So now he's going through withdrawal from that too :-(
But we've finally uncovered 3-ish things that MIGHT be causing his tiredness, so I feel like that's good progress. Hopefully by the end of this week we'll be on our way to fixing most of the issues, plus I am now entering the second trimester so before long we'll be a wellspring of boundless energy around these parts, I just know it.
And I am in awe of Will for keeping track of and showing up on time to so many appointments, because I failed to make mine today and I only had one to remember. It was not ENTIRELY my fault (maybe just 99%) because my endocrinologist is named Dr. Hohl (pronounced Hall) and my dentist is named Dr. Hall (pronounced....Hall) so when I got the appointment reminder call on Monday from Dr. Hall's office, well I didn't even think about it. I of course ended up on the other side of a sliding glass window from a very confused receptionist while 30 minutes away a dental hygienist was tapping her foot waiting for me to show. Oh well. I am not fond of going to the dentist anyway, and especially not while pregnant, so I can stand to wait I think.
It also turned out that the bridal shop in Frederick does not ACTUALLY carry the maternity bridesmaid dresses that the website says they carry, so other than getting an oil change and treating myself to a yummy lunch, my day has been kind of a bust. So to avoid winning "Most Useless Person Ever", I am probably going to go shopping now because those groceries are not going to buy themselves. And with my luck today I'll show up to Giant to find that it has closed down and I'll have to scavenge nuts and berries from the woods nearby, so I'd better leave myself some time.
The actual party took place the night before Carolyn and I arrived, so when we rolled up at their inflatable penis-filled hotel room around 11:30AM on Saturday, people were just shuffling out of bed, sipping water and warily eyeing muffins from the breakfast buffet. The fact that most everyone was hungover made for a more subdued wine festival experience, but it was still lots of fun and I couldn't drink anyway so it was fine by me.
I had been anxious about spending the weekend with a group of girls who have all known each other for years, some since they were kids. Kim is excellent at staying in touch with old friends, so there were elementary school friends, high school friends, and college friends there, with Carolyn and I as the sole representatives of her after-college life phase, but it turned out that all the girls were incredibly friendly and we felt pretty comfortable right away. I guess when you're all drinking out of penis-shaped straws and wearing matching shirts there's a built-in sense of camaraderie that allows you to skip the formalities. My shirt, by the way, was a maternity shirt with an iron-on rhinestone decal that said "Girls night out" and had a picture of a martini glass on it. It actually looked like a Cosmo because it was pink, but it had olives in it, but EITHER WAY, it's always classy to wear alcohol-related apparel when you've got a baby belly poking out. Doubly classy when you put a sticker that says "Lust" (supplied to all of us by the people at the Seven Deadly Zins tent) on said belly. Seriously though, I HAD to put it there, nowhere else would've been half as funny.
I had also been a bit concerned about the fact that I was supposed to sleep in a cot or on a sleeper sofa in a room with 4 other girls, mostly because it takes me a long time and lots of thrashing to get myself comfortable before falling asleep at night. I also did not bring my snoogle (my gigantic pregnancy body pillow that I LOOOOVE and Will hates, but he was totally snuggling with it while I was gone). That worked out well though, because the girls ended up getting a third room just for Carolyn and me and it was a freakin' PALACE. I had my very own room with a big old king-sized bed and enough pillows to sufficiently stand in for my snoogle (Carolyn graciously took the fold-out couch, but I split the pillows evenly).
So the weekend was fun, and it was nice to get a chance to talk to Carolyn on the car rides up and back. Usually when we talk it's either over her lunch break or right after the gym in the evenings, so there always seems to be something pressing one of us has to get back to. Our husbands have been marveling that we just talked the whole way up and back...they can't believe it, but they also kind of can.
While I was away having fun, Will got to be solely in charge of Emily, which was a first. He did admirably well, taking her to the farmer's market, the gym, his parents house, then blueberry picking, and fireworks-viewing. A monumental feat with a toddler! Even still, when asked what she did this weekend, the only thing she mentions is that she shucked corn with Daddy.
So after his excellent performance this weekend, he has been rewarded with a week filled with a grueling battery of tests, but I am hopeful that we may be making some progress to finding out what's causing him to feel so exhausted all the time. He spent last night at the sleep lab in the hospital trying to sleep while hooked up to a million wires and while being watched by a girl in the other room. We don't have the results back yet, but the technician did tell him that while he doesn't appear to have sleep apnea, his legs did not stop moving the whole night. I haven't noticed this myself, but I HAVE noticed that instead of just rolling over like a normal person, Will tends to LAUNCH himself into the air and perform the roll before slamming back down, causing great unrest in the bed. Perhaps that is part of it. Some wild googling has resulted in my professional diagnosis of Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, which could definitely be causing his "loss of zest for life", as they put it.
So after that last night, today he had an appointment at the allergist where they stuck him with quite a few different allergens in his arm, many of which caused him to itch horribly. He appears to be allergic to cats, grass, trees, weeds, and mold. None of these are all that shocking, we kind of suspected most of them already, but the allergist says that having all these allergies could definitely be contributing to his tiredness, and she wrote him a prescription for allegra. Let's hope that helps.
On top of all of that, today is day two for him of going cold turkey off of caffeine. It came as something of a shock to us when he calculated up his caffeine intake and realized he was taking in more than double the recommended amount per day. His days of working overnight back in the spring caused a sharp increase in his espresso intake which didn't go away when he was able to go back to working only during the day, and coupled with his (Men's Health-recommended) 6 cups of green tea of the course of the day, that's quite a lot. So now he's going through withdrawal from that too :-(
But we've finally uncovered 3-ish things that MIGHT be causing his tiredness, so I feel like that's good progress. Hopefully by the end of this week we'll be on our way to fixing most of the issues, plus I am now entering the second trimester so before long we'll be a wellspring of boundless energy around these parts, I just know it.
And I am in awe of Will for keeping track of and showing up on time to so many appointments, because I failed to make mine today and I only had one to remember. It was not ENTIRELY my fault (maybe just 99%) because my endocrinologist is named Dr. Hohl (pronounced Hall) and my dentist is named Dr. Hall (pronounced....Hall) so when I got the appointment reminder call on Monday from Dr. Hall's office, well I didn't even think about it. I of course ended up on the other side of a sliding glass window from a very confused receptionist while 30 minutes away a dental hygienist was tapping her foot waiting for me to show. Oh well. I am not fond of going to the dentist anyway, and especially not while pregnant, so I can stand to wait I think.
It also turned out that the bridal shop in Frederick does not ACTUALLY carry the maternity bridesmaid dresses that the website says they carry, so other than getting an oil change and treating myself to a yummy lunch, my day has been kind of a bust. So to avoid winning "Most Useless Person Ever", I am probably going to go shopping now because those groceries are not going to buy themselves. And with my luck today I'll show up to Giant to find that it has closed down and I'll have to scavenge nuts and berries from the woods nearby, so I'd better leave myself some time.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Whoosh whoosh whoosh
Zippy has a heartbeat! It's somewhere in the 170's, which is pretty much where Emily's was at this point too, but apparently that's pretty standard. My OB also assured me that it doesn't feel like I'm carrying twins, PLUS I still haven't gained any weight (sweet!), PLUS they'll now draw my blood for me AT the office instead of sending me to the creepy lab across the street that is always crowded and just skeezy. So I am feeling pretty jazzed. Once we got past the confusion of me having to convince the secretary that I was pregnant (they had me down for a well-woman check, and I had to tell her that I WAS well, but I was also pregnant) and once I managed to produce my second urine sample since they got all excited and threw away my first one, everything went very well.
The thing that got me most excited though, is that I get to have an ultrasound in 2 weeks! Squeeee!
Apparently in the time since I was pregnant with Emily, they have started to offer early screenings for genetic abnormalities. I don't have any risk factors, but it includes an ultrasound so hells yes I want to do it! I had my appointment today in a room with a sign over it that said "Sonogram". I asked the nurse if that meant I got a sonogram, and she hemmed and hawed and basically said "Maybe". I sat there waiting for the doctor, staring at the sonogram machine (and Will sat there giggling at the pile of condoms that they use on the sonogram probes) hoping for a sonogram but also not.
The rule, it seems, is that if the doctor can find the heartbeat with the doppler, that's proof enough that you're pregnant and the baby is doing well so they don't do a sonogram, but if they can't find the heartbeat, they go looking for the baby. This rule makes me feel so torn. While she's pushing the doppler around in the goo on my belly, and I'm laying there listening to the static, part of me thinks "Please let there be a nice strong heartbeat" while another part of me that I keep telling to shut up thinks "Please don't let her find the heartbeat so that we can have a sonogram and see the baby!". SOMETHING is making me exhausted and making my stomach pop out, so I am pretty sure things are progressing as they should, but even still I can't quite bring myself to wish not to hear a heartbeat.
But hear a heartbeat we did, so Zippy is in there presumably growing away and doing what he/she should, AND we get to see him/her in 2 weeks! Now that we have a heartbeat and I'm not having any concerning symptoms, my odds of miscarriage are down to about 4%, and I am at the point where I would already know if my pregnancy was ectopic, or molar, or if I had a blighted ovum, or any of the other strange and terrifying things that can go wrong but still mimic a healthy pregnancy.
But even with many of my concerns eliminated, I still can't wait to see those arms and legs on an appropriately-sized, properly attached baby waving at me in 2 weeks :-)
The thing that got me most excited though, is that I get to have an ultrasound in 2 weeks! Squeeee!
Apparently in the time since I was pregnant with Emily, they have started to offer early screenings for genetic abnormalities. I don't have any risk factors, but it includes an ultrasound so hells yes I want to do it! I had my appointment today in a room with a sign over it that said "Sonogram". I asked the nurse if that meant I got a sonogram, and she hemmed and hawed and basically said "Maybe". I sat there waiting for the doctor, staring at the sonogram machine (and Will sat there giggling at the pile of condoms that they use on the sonogram probes) hoping for a sonogram but also not.
The rule, it seems, is that if the doctor can find the heartbeat with the doppler, that's proof enough that you're pregnant and the baby is doing well so they don't do a sonogram, but if they can't find the heartbeat, they go looking for the baby. This rule makes me feel so torn. While she's pushing the doppler around in the goo on my belly, and I'm laying there listening to the static, part of me thinks "Please let there be a nice strong heartbeat" while another part of me that I keep telling to shut up thinks "Please don't let her find the heartbeat so that we can have a sonogram and see the baby!". SOMETHING is making me exhausted and making my stomach pop out, so I am pretty sure things are progressing as they should, but even still I can't quite bring myself to wish not to hear a heartbeat.
But hear a heartbeat we did, so Zippy is in there presumably growing away and doing what he/she should, AND we get to see him/her in 2 weeks! Now that we have a heartbeat and I'm not having any concerning symptoms, my odds of miscarriage are down to about 4%, and I am at the point where I would already know if my pregnancy was ectopic, or molar, or if I had a blighted ovum, or any of the other strange and terrifying things that can go wrong but still mimic a healthy pregnancy.
But even with many of my concerns eliminated, I still can't wait to see those arms and legs on an appropriately-sized, properly attached baby waving at me in 2 weeks :-)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Vacation Schmacation
We have returned from Ocean City. It was beautiful, sunny, warm, perfect beach weather. That is, on Friday, the day we left. The rest of the week was freezing cold, gray, rainy, bleh. Every day someone would venture out onto the porch, peek hopefully at the sky and remark "I think it's clearing! I see some blue!" only to be blasted with an icy, misty, sandy ocean wind and come scurrying back inside.
I didn't mind so much. Emily is apparently stoically frightened of the ocean and of bodies of water larger than a bathtub in general, so she wasn't disappointed that it was too cold to swim. I say "stoically" frightened because there was no shrieking or crying or running away from the waves, there was just zero interest in getting any closer to the ocean than was necessary to access the beach sand, and flat-out refusal to be coaxed any closer to the water. She did love going to the pool even though she would only go in the first two steps, and any time we were not wrapped in towels shivering by the pool, she was asking to go to the pool.
Will and I were forcibly reminded though of why Emily has slept in her own room since the day we brought her home. This child thrashes, whines, cries, talks etc. in her sleep, then if she spots someone in the room with her, is awake and ready to go by 7AM, even though she reliably sleeps until 8:30-9 when we're at home. We were awakened many times over the course of the night by pitiful sleep-spoken sentences coming from the pack and play, like "mommy help blanket" and "watch a show", then at 7 (IF we were lucky), we'd hear giggling and "Mommy wake up!" and that was it. Emily doesn't have a sleep button. She actually woke up at 7 on Monday, 6:30 on Tuesday, 4:50 on Wednesday etc. We were DESPERATE for sleep, and once again, we could not take part in any fun activities like going out to bars with my sisters or playing games or watching movies because the minute Emily fell asleep, we had to go to sleep. This sleep deprivation was particularly difficult, considering I am exhausted already by the growing of another little kiddo to wake us up on vacation. We had kind of thought this crazy early waking up business that she did when we were in Bar Harbor was because she was sick, but apparently healthy Emily wakes up incredibly early on vacations too. This time though, it was too cold to go walking around with her outside, nothing was open for us to drive to, so we were forced to wrangle a toddler in a condo full of sleeping people for hours until it was a reasonable time to release her, thereby waking everyone up.
We did have some fun times though. Emily enjoyed the Kite Loft, playing on the beach (wearing a sweatshirt and pants), and she had her first carousel ride. When we finished, she pointed at the roller coaster next to the carousel and said "Ride that". I may finally have a roller coaster buddy! But maybe not, because once again, as soon as we got Emily out of the car after driving home from Ocean City, she barfed. Every time we have ever driven that girl in a car for longer than an hour or two, she barfs. EVERY TIME. So I'm thinking she gets motion sick in the car.
I guess family vacations from here on out are more for providing our children with experiences than they are for mommy and daddy to relax. Perhaps I am stupid for not having realized this already. But I guess I will have to work on not missing Emily so much when we go away, because it appears leaving her at home is the only way to get in an actual vacation.
So now I turn my attention to the trip we have planned in the end of August. If I don't let myself think about the details, I'm excited about it. We're going to Camp Gorham, up in the Adirondacks, which is the place Will went in the summer every year growing up. I've never been, and he's very excited to show me around his old stomping grounds and introduce me to people he grew up with. I am excited to finally see the Adirondacks, about which everyone I know speaks with breathless awe.
But now, we look at the details. It is an 8 hour drive up there, which is over twice as long as Emily's barf threshold. We will be staying in a cabin with a large portion of Will's mom's family, so we'll once again be desperate for sleep and desperately trying to keep her quiet every morning in a cabin full of people. There are apparently toilets in the cabins, but no showers. For those you have to walk a ways and share with the other campers, which sounds delightful considering the temperature is usually in the 40's at night. Probably the MOST annoying thing is that meals are served in a bit mess hall. Now this sounds wonderful to me...a whole week of having someone else making breakfast lunch and dinner for us! I like to eat as healthy as the next person, but when offered a prospect like that, I will gladly eat white-flour pancakes and hamburgers made with ground beef containing more than 8% fat.
Will, however, will not.
"We'll just take our own food", he says offhandedly. No big deal.
Right. We'll drive 3 people, all our stuff, AND enough food to feed a growing toddler (a lot), a pregnant me (a whole lot) and a healthy Will (you can't even imagine) 8 hours, to a place where there is no refrigerator? And then we will somehow doggedly prepare all our own meals in a cabin with no microwave or oven or stove while everyone else trots gaily off to the mess hall to have food prepared FOR them? All while making sure Emily doesn't wander off and get eaten by a bear or fall into the lake? Sounds wonderful.
And today, I find out that we're supposed to sleep in bunk beds in the same room as my mother and father-in-law. I have shared a room with my mother-in-law once before. I do not speak of this occasion, at least not on the internet. And that was when I was NOT a pregnant grouch and I did NOT have a toddler waking me up at 5 every morning.
I want to go. Just like I wanted to go to Alaska last year. But every time a trip is planned on that side of the family, things seem to get more and more complicated and stressful to think about as we approach go time. The 6 hour flight to Vancouver to get on the cruise ship (probably miserable with a 12 month old, but still in the realm of possibility) turned out to actually be a gazillion hour flight to Juneau with several layovers (I get hives thinking about trying to pull that off). A nice family vacation in the woods turns into "Oh yeah, and you have to sleep in a room with 4 other people, 2 of whom you are NOT comfortable sharing a room with. And you can't sleep in the same bed as your husband for a week. And there is no alcohol allowed". Not that I can drink, but it's the PRINCIPLE! I feel like I'm in high school again, but without the freedom because I also have a 2 year old to take care of.
I'd like to think I'm not a high-maintenance person. Sure, I love staying at an all-inclusive luxury resort as much as the next person, but camping and adventure travel can be lots of fun too. Anyone will tell you though, that taking care of a toddler, even in your own home on your own schedule with everything you need within arm's reach can be trying at times, and taking care of a toddler in the wilderness when many of the arrangements are out of your control can make you weep.
And call me crazy, but I like to sleep with my husband :-)
I didn't mind so much. Emily is apparently stoically frightened of the ocean and of bodies of water larger than a bathtub in general, so she wasn't disappointed that it was too cold to swim. I say "stoically" frightened because there was no shrieking or crying or running away from the waves, there was just zero interest in getting any closer to the ocean than was necessary to access the beach sand, and flat-out refusal to be coaxed any closer to the water. She did love going to the pool even though she would only go in the first two steps, and any time we were not wrapped in towels shivering by the pool, she was asking to go to the pool.
Will and I were forcibly reminded though of why Emily has slept in her own room since the day we brought her home. This child thrashes, whines, cries, talks etc. in her sleep, then if she spots someone in the room with her, is awake and ready to go by 7AM, even though she reliably sleeps until 8:30-9 when we're at home. We were awakened many times over the course of the night by pitiful sleep-spoken sentences coming from the pack and play, like "mommy help blanket" and "watch a show", then at 7 (IF we were lucky), we'd hear giggling and "Mommy wake up!" and that was it. Emily doesn't have a sleep button. She actually woke up at 7 on Monday, 6:30 on Tuesday, 4:50 on Wednesday etc. We were DESPERATE for sleep, and once again, we could not take part in any fun activities like going out to bars with my sisters or playing games or watching movies because the minute Emily fell asleep, we had to go to sleep. This sleep deprivation was particularly difficult, considering I am exhausted already by the growing of another little kiddo to wake us up on vacation. We had kind of thought this crazy early waking up business that she did when we were in Bar Harbor was because she was sick, but apparently healthy Emily wakes up incredibly early on vacations too. This time though, it was too cold to go walking around with her outside, nothing was open for us to drive to, so we were forced to wrangle a toddler in a condo full of sleeping people for hours until it was a reasonable time to release her, thereby waking everyone up.
We did have some fun times though. Emily enjoyed the Kite Loft, playing on the beach (wearing a sweatshirt and pants), and she had her first carousel ride. When we finished, she pointed at the roller coaster next to the carousel and said "Ride that". I may finally have a roller coaster buddy! But maybe not, because once again, as soon as we got Emily out of the car after driving home from Ocean City, she barfed. Every time we have ever driven that girl in a car for longer than an hour or two, she barfs. EVERY TIME. So I'm thinking she gets motion sick in the car.
I guess family vacations from here on out are more for providing our children with experiences than they are for mommy and daddy to relax. Perhaps I am stupid for not having realized this already. But I guess I will have to work on not missing Emily so much when we go away, because it appears leaving her at home is the only way to get in an actual vacation.
So now I turn my attention to the trip we have planned in the end of August. If I don't let myself think about the details, I'm excited about it. We're going to Camp Gorham, up in the Adirondacks, which is the place Will went in the summer every year growing up. I've never been, and he's very excited to show me around his old stomping grounds and introduce me to people he grew up with. I am excited to finally see the Adirondacks, about which everyone I know speaks with breathless awe.
But now, we look at the details. It is an 8 hour drive up there, which is over twice as long as Emily's barf threshold. We will be staying in a cabin with a large portion of Will's mom's family, so we'll once again be desperate for sleep and desperately trying to keep her quiet every morning in a cabin full of people. There are apparently toilets in the cabins, but no showers. For those you have to walk a ways and share with the other campers, which sounds delightful considering the temperature is usually in the 40's at night. Probably the MOST annoying thing is that meals are served in a bit mess hall. Now this sounds wonderful to me...a whole week of having someone else making breakfast lunch and dinner for us! I like to eat as healthy as the next person, but when offered a prospect like that, I will gladly eat white-flour pancakes and hamburgers made with ground beef containing more than 8% fat.
Will, however, will not.
"We'll just take our own food", he says offhandedly. No big deal.
Right. We'll drive 3 people, all our stuff, AND enough food to feed a growing toddler (a lot), a pregnant me (a whole lot) and a healthy Will (you can't even imagine) 8 hours, to a place where there is no refrigerator? And then we will somehow doggedly prepare all our own meals in a cabin with no microwave or oven or stove while everyone else trots gaily off to the mess hall to have food prepared FOR them? All while making sure Emily doesn't wander off and get eaten by a bear or fall into the lake? Sounds wonderful.
And today, I find out that we're supposed to sleep in bunk beds in the same room as my mother and father-in-law. I have shared a room with my mother-in-law once before. I do not speak of this occasion, at least not on the internet. And that was when I was NOT a pregnant grouch and I did NOT have a toddler waking me up at 5 every morning.
I want to go. Just like I wanted to go to Alaska last year. But every time a trip is planned on that side of the family, things seem to get more and more complicated and stressful to think about as we approach go time. The 6 hour flight to Vancouver to get on the cruise ship (probably miserable with a 12 month old, but still in the realm of possibility) turned out to actually be a gazillion hour flight to Juneau with several layovers (I get hives thinking about trying to pull that off). A nice family vacation in the woods turns into "Oh yeah, and you have to sleep in a room with 4 other people, 2 of whom you are NOT comfortable sharing a room with. And you can't sleep in the same bed as your husband for a week. And there is no alcohol allowed". Not that I can drink, but it's the PRINCIPLE! I feel like I'm in high school again, but without the freedom because I also have a 2 year old to take care of.
I'd like to think I'm not a high-maintenance person. Sure, I love staying at an all-inclusive luxury resort as much as the next person, but camping and adventure travel can be lots of fun too. Anyone will tell you though, that taking care of a toddler, even in your own home on your own schedule with everything you need within arm's reach can be trying at times, and taking care of a toddler in the wilderness when many of the arrangements are out of your control can make you weep.
And call me crazy, but I like to sleep with my husband :-)
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