I don't know much about the whole nature-vs.-nurture argument, but I do know that my kid is not cuddly. He was, in the beginning. God, I could just look at that picture all day long, with him in the diaper we hadn't yet realized was way too small, and my look of exhaustion after having tried to soothe him for hours, with that last vestige of baby belly a few weeks old.
At first he really insisted on constant warmth, and would fall asleep on my chest constantly. In fact I spent the first month or so prodding him awake through each feeding, as he would drift off still latched onto my boob. Then something happened and he stopped falling asleep on me. In fact, he wouldn't sleep at all unless he was swaddled and just left alone (kind parently soothing was constantly drowned out with screams translated roughly to Leave! Me! Alone!).
When he had his first cold we tried bringing him into bed with us, but that just made him scream louder. We can't even sleep on the futon in his bedroom because he can pick up his head high enough to see us and that makes him scream at us.
But lately, on rare occasions, it seems that I have regained my position as comforter. I catch him trying to reach out his arms for me to take him when he's upset. I pick him up when he's tired and he melts onto my shoulder, instead of pushing me away. When he is nursing, he pats my chest with his free hand or reaches up and touches my lips with a finesse he doesn't exhibit with anyone else.
And last week, after Marc left for work, and I'd fed J, instead of putting the baby back in the crib, I curled up with him on my bed and we both drifted back to sleep. He doesn't fit in the nook between my chin and my thighs anymore, but if we both fold our legs just right we make a nice little lopsided yin-yang. He tugs on the blankets and pushes me closer and closer to the edge of the bed and I woke up each time with a sore back, but it's totally worth it.
It doesn't work every time. If he's not tired he'll just maul my face with his fingernails while trying to pluck my eyeballs and teeth and babble DADADADADABLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHNANANANANANA until we get up. I'm hoping that we'll keep working on the snuggling, though. Especially now that the weather's getting colder, because he owes me a bunch of heat after I spent last winter warming him via hot flash.
Now that a lot of our stuff is all packed up, spending the days here in the apartment is kind of boring and sad. Today J and I picked up Marc at lunchtime and drove to the post office to get a second change-of-address form for Marc's business. I took the route that goes along the water. This is one of the great things about living on the Connecticut shoreline. There is water around every corner, between the River and the Sound.
Then we went to a storage place to buy some more boxes. There was a really nice lady working there who first asked into exactly what kind of car we planned to fit all of those boxes, and who then came out to the parking lot to help us actually load the car. It didn't look too good for a little while there, but we managed.
We dropped Marc off and came home. J took a nap and then we got back in the car and went to Stonington. A couple of friends had told me about a store that I wanted to check out, and then J and I took a walk down by the beach. The boxes were still in the car and they were sort of trapping his stroller underneath so I put him in the carrier.
I'm not going to be able to carry him in that thing much longer. Between that fact, the falling leaves, the stark gray day and view at the beach, and the depressing condition of our apartment, I started to feel kind of down. I love autumn; it's my favorite season, but it is also a reminder of the way things fool you with their beauty into not noticing that they're dying.
There were a couple of other parents around with their kids, and they were skipping stones and climbing all over the rocks. J and I just sat on a bench and watched them. I walked around a little so J could see the flags up close, and then we picked up some smooth beach rocks to take to Marc. At first I was looking for beach glass or something tidal-poolish, but I know Marc likes smooth things.
I ended up finding two bigger rocks and a little rock that fit the bill. That's been a theme for me lately -- two big ones and a little one. Like us, two big people and a little person, at least for now.
Being a mother is tough work. It's harder than I ever imagined. But it is also the most rewarding job I've ever had. Watching J grow, seeing how he learns different things and just observing how he IS, how he exists in the world and how the world adjusts to accommodate him, that's the bonus for all of my hard work. It's better than stock options but requires much more emotional investment in the job.
I'm trying to concentrate on seeing each day for what it is, not for what we didn't get accomplished or for what we missed out on. Being sad about J growing up does me no good, and it does him no good. I'm much better off helping make each day count toward the person he will become, teaching him how to be a responsible and loving human being. In the meantime, I get to just let him be the little person that he is, while he still is. Someday we'll be two big ones and a medium-sized one, and then we'll just be three big ones. Or maybe two big ones and an even bigger one. Or a bigger one and two medium-to-big-sized ones, depending on how much Marc and I shrink in our old age.
I wish I could say that J was crawling. Actually, wait, no, wow, I take that back. I'm happy for him to remain immobile for a little longer -- long enough for my back to stop aching from my latest strain, long enough so that we don't have to fully babyproof this apartment, as long as he wants, really. I'm not one of THOSE parents, the parents who see that Trixie could crawl by this age and get competitive. No, I'm happy with his daily workouts and his weekly sessions at Gymboree.
In the meantime, we've spent a few weeks down on the floor, J up on his hands and knees, rocking forward and backward, and then plopping down onto his belly and waving his hands and feet like an Olympic breaststroker. Heh, breaststroker's probably not the word they use. Anyway, this amount of movement is spectacular to witness from a tiny person who just recently was known as The Blob. It doesn't hurt that it is occasionally punctuated with this sound: heyYA heyYA heyYA as he rocks to and fro, and then what can only be described as the exact opposite of a manly, guttural, hearty scream; it is a sound so ear piercing and urgent that telephone conversations around here are regularly interrupted with, "Um, do you need to go?" "No, believe it or not, that's a happy noise."
The real reason I'm not worried is because everyone who witnesses this behavior tells us, "Oh, just put a toy he really wants in front of him, and he'll be crawling in no time." Just for humor's sake, again, not because I am in ANY kind of rush for him to be even more underfooot than he already is, we try this every so often. (Also because my parenting philosophy, it turns out, owes a lot to the "just for humor's sake" way of life.) Does he crawl? No. He does everything but. Does he get the toy? Oh, yes. He strains, he farts, he rolls, he squeals, he commences the up and down crawl-attempt routine, he smiles, and then he reach-reach-reaches, a reaching I can only describe as the reach you would perform if you'd just been poisoned and the antidote sat just beyond your fingertips as your assailant stood on your back in heavy boots, and I actually believe that it is through this reaching that he has grown to the height of a sixteen-month-old.
Sometimes the up-and-down routine results in backward movement, much to J's chagrin. This usually results in his backing up into a corner, or under the coffee table. I'm not sure why he so enjoys being under the coffee table, but he'll stay there for 15 minutes or so, happy as a clam. Sometimes he chews on the leg of the table, sometimes he just lies on his back and looks up at the underside, and sometimes he just lounges around.
So, for now, no, he isn't crawling, yet somehow he's still managing to kick my ass.
No, I haven't given up on this little corner of the internet. In fact, I've got plans for a whole new weblog. I think it's time to admit that the think wasn't so hard to know after all.
In the meantime, however, life keeps flying past. We're moving in a week, and Marc is doing all (most) of the packing while I sit here and think sad thoughts about this apartment that I never really liked all that much anyway. I'm an awful mover. There's something about seeing all of our possessions out of their normal context that makes me sad. Maybe it reminds me that our lives are not permanent. Maybe it just goes against my inner OCD. Either way, expect me to be frantic and depressed for a few weeks, or at least until we get things settled.
The house looks, quite frankly, amazing. Thanks to help from pretty much everyone we've ever met in our entire lives, we managed to pull it together with some time to spare. Thanks go, in particular, to new neighbors and new readers John and Tristan, who met us once and instantly became our friends. They've given up a few long evenings to help us out with the painting and the baby wrangling, helping us get over a few humps where we thought things would never get finished. More importantly, they've helped us feel like we're welcomed into our new neighborhood. We lived in this apartment for two years and never met anyone but our one creepy neighbor, and John and Tristan arrived on our doorstep the evening after our closing with a bottle of champagne and plastic cups, and we sat on the porch and discussed our Big Plans. For that, we can not thank them enough.
Of course, the kid also grows ever larger, and although he has slowed down his growth a bit, he still elicits comments like, "What a big fellow you are!" and "I bet you give your Mommy quite a backache!" He finally falls within the 5-95%ile curve for weight, but just barely. Height-wise, he hovers somewhere around "Stringbean."
I know there's hardly anyone reading anymore, but if there's something you'd particularly like incorporated into the new weblog, let me know. I'm planning for something like this, journalish, but with lots of product design reviews and family-culture commentary. I think that's where my mind is most of the time, these days, and I have plenty to say about it.
J's awake, so I'm going to sign off. Plus I'm getting less and less sympathetic looks from my husband, who is doing all (most) of the packing.
Since J had doubled in age since we last updated his photo page, there are TONS more pictures now available for your viewing. Just click on over...
...and then come back and let me know what you think of the new gallery format. It's just a temporary setup but I'll pass your feedback on to my designer.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mother for painstakingly recording readings of several children's books on tape for J. That tape is the first thing to put the kid to sleep so far today. And I get to hear the stories on the baby monitor.
Thanks, Mom.
J is the biggest kid in his Gymboree class, with the possible exception of one five-month old boy. He is also the youngest, by at least a month in each case. He basically stares around at the other kids, and I truly believe that he is plotting the demise of each of them, and their mothers, and the teacher, and that friggin clown, and the lights on the ceiling, and the parachute thing, and every single twinkly floaty bubble, damn bubbles!
I'm all for homemade, but I'd rather sleep than pay this kind of attention to detail.
J has really started hitting us hard with the smiles this week. He has been smiling in the morning for a while, but now he smiles after almost every nap, and he can hardly control himself when one of us is changing his diaper. I'm not sure if it's because he's gaining more control over his face or if it's due to the increased sleep he's been getting. Either way, I'd much rather have him smiling than screaming in my face.
He has also gotten much better at eye-contact. He spends a lot less time staring into space and a lot more time focused on our faces. He seems to be endlessly fascinated by our eyebrows. (And who wouldn't be? -- he's probably wondering what eyebrow fate will befall him.)
Eye contact seems to lead directly to smiles, which makes me believe he isn't so much smiling, as imitating. Sometimes the smiles are accompanied by a little guhhh sound, or foot-thumping, and I think those are the real happiness smiles. The rest probably lie somewhere between gas and contentedness.
Today these two developments collided in a nearly catastrophic way when I held him up to the bathroom mirror: unbreakable eye contact and an increasingly smiley subject... I think he may have popped another dimple in the process.
I was reading this Ask.Metafilter thread about video games for moms, thinking, I could never get my mom to play video games. Then I realized, wait, I am a mom. And that, of the games mentioned, I've enjoyed all of the games that I've tried. And that they mentioned a couple that I have thought of trying (Wario Ware, Snood for my GBA; Animal Crossing, Super Monkey Ball for the Cube). Yowza, this thread is for J!
Before I had J, I would look at children with pacifiers and think, "not my kid." My father gave us two back in March along with a tube of Desitin and a small bottle of whiskey. "You don't think you'll need these, but you will." I asked him what the whiskey was for and he said, "Pour two fingers worth into a glass. Rub some on the baby's gums when he's teething and keep the rest for yourself."
After J was born, it became immediately apparent that he loved to suck. The doctor calls what he likes "finger juice" -- a (hopefully clean) adult finger placed print-up in the baby's mouth, fingertip on his soft palette. J will greedily suck away, actually lifting his head up with sucking power if you try to pull your finger back. We take hand-washing a lot more seriously these days.
When we got home from the hospital, freshly circumcised baby in hand, we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves. He was obviously in a lot of distress, but it isn't easy to keep a finger in a baby's mouth while you're inevitably drifting off to sleep yourself. So in desperation, Marc broke down first and decided to open the package of pacifiers from my father and boil them (the pacifiers need to be "sterilized" before they can be sucked on and then dropped on the floor repeatedly). He took this picture of boiling binkies to show my parents just how long we were able to hold out.
But much to our dismay, pacifiers are not the magical finger substitutes we hoped they would be. J can usually keep one in his mouth for about thirty seconds, if even that long. When they come out, his weird sucking pattern makes them actually pop out with some velocity -- they aren't just lazily dropping away, unless he's fallen asleep (not likely). We've tried four different brands to date, and nothing seems to do the trick as well as our fingers. (And fingers don't do the trick as well as a boob, but that's another story and would probably help explain the fact that at his one month appointment J weighed in at 13 lb. 3 oz.)
So much for sacrificing my disdain for the binky -- it hurts to give up such high moral ground for nothing, and I get the feeling there are many more humbling parenting lessons to come.
... and then he slept from 1:30 until 5, going 6 hours between meals. Go figure. I think we are still in some kind of transitional phase where nothing will make sense. We're on our way to a routine, though, I hope.
So far this isn't working at all. J has yet to actually cry himself all the way to sleep. This is how the three hour blocks of our lives have been going:
0:00 - 0:15 Eat
0:15 - 0:30 Pooping, basically docile and happy, though grunty
0:30 - 0:45 Pretty much happy and sleepy looking
0:45 Spit up
0:45 - 1:00 Diaper and clothing change and preparation for nap
1:00 - 3:00 Some combination of blood curdling and whimpery crying
3:00 Eat
Luckily, he still manages to tire himself out enough to sleep at night. This is the best part of a sleep-deprived baby -- we get a five- to six-hour chunk of sleep and then two shorter chunks before morning. If it weren't for that sleep, I don't think I'd be able to handle the screamfest.
I am actually writing this now to keep myself from reading about letting your child cry himself to sleep, internet articles that vary from "you are making your child give up on ever getting any love from you and you are a terrible parent!" to "if you don't do this now your child will grow up with sleep issues and will be less happy and healthy in the long run you terrible parent!"
The doctor said it would take him "30-45 minutes, but I'm guessing he'll be in the 45 minute range" to fall asleep, so after 30 or 45 minutes (or 15 or 20, depending on my tolerance for that span of time) I go and make sure he isn't suffocating or puking or chewing his hand off. I know what you're thinking, because I thought it, too, that he realizes that if he cries long enough, I'll come, but that would be a little too advanced for a newborn, I'm afraid. The doctor agrees, so go to hell with your "don't let him see you come in the room" warnings.
That said, I just heard a big wet fart and he is now sleeping, and we are at about 1:45 in the cycle. Well, we're still in the beginning phase of the experiment, so, you know, the data could still be in the anomaly section.
In the time it took me to type that last paragraph, he woke up and went back to sleep and woke up again.
so tired...
yet so determined to see the end of Law & Order...
Last night at 9 PM I called the pediatrician because, as much as I didn't want to be that mother, I was having a pretty hard time of it. J had been screaming during feedings for the past few days, really acting like I was inflicting some kind of harm. Marc was finally around and awake to fully witness this spectacle, and kindly informed me that not only would I not be that mother, but that he would happily call the pediatrician himself if necessary.
Today we went to the doctor (did I mention that we have the best pediatrician ever? Our appointment was for 4 PM on a Sunday) and my son, my 24 day old son, weighed in at 12 pounds, 7 ounces, up nearly three pounds or, more acurately, 26% of his original body weight. Breastfeeding works, and it turns out I'm a force-feeder. Luckily this should well prepare my child for life as a half-Italian oldest grandson in a family of zealous cooks.
Like good parents of a first born grandson, we've made sure that the journey of the 26% has been well documented, and J now has his own little corner of punkly to keep track of the action: punkly.com/J. Enjoy.
First, sorry this is becoming a hard know to J. Available subject matter includes J, the weather, and what I had for breakfast, so enjoy the J stories.
Now onto the good news -- J slept in the crib last night! No longer can we refer to his bedroom as "J's walk-in closet." He ate at 11:30, then Marc swaddled him up and he passed out until 3. After he ate again, he actually went BACK to the crib without much trouble and slept until 7. This is really amazing, since we were convinced that he would be sleeping in the Magic Nana Chair until his legs were long enough that he could rock himself to sleep. Turns out if you let him eat amply, he doesn't give a damn where he's sleeping.
Now, if he could just figure out how to keep the pacifier in his mouth, we'd be all set. (Except for the poop -- there would still be poop.)
1. The baby needs to be fed.
2. The baby needs to be changed.
3. The baby needs a bath.
4. Mommy needs to eat.
5. Mommy needs to pee.
6. Mommy needs a shower.
Prioritize the above. Hint: Changing the baby comes first. Then, assume that the baby pees while being changed, including into a puddle that unbeknownst to you soaks into his own hair. Reassess.
We've read some about babies' vision. A newborn baby's sight is basically optimized to see his mother's face as he is breastfeeding. Babies are most attracted to high contrast, graphical images. They love faces, and J will in fact stare at us for minutes at a time (that's the equivalent of several grown-up days in the life of a newborn).
We've been having a hard time getting J to settle down in his crib, and in fact he spends most of his sleeping time in what we've taken to calling the Magic Nana Chair, a gift from my grandmother that reclines the baby to just the right angle for knocking him out pretty consistently. It is also almost far enough back for pacifier-retention, too, but not quite (it's Magic, not Miraculous -- J's not so good at the pacifier yet).
Today, though, he managed about forty-five non-crying minutes in the crib, thanks to a stuffed green giraffe with a bell inside that J got from my mother. I first put it near J's face in the hope that it would block the pacifier from dropping out of his mouth. When I looked to see if he was sleeping after he'd been quiet for a few seconds, I found him staring, enraptured, into the giraffe's tiny black eyes. Every few seconds I would hear a little jingle as he reached out and smacked the giraffe's face with his little hand.
My son was giving his new best friend a beat-down.
Marc just answered a question that's been thrown around here for a few days now... What is J looking at? When he's in his car seat in the living room, he's frequently staring up toward the ceiling. Previous theories about what he was looking at included the pictures on the wall (dark frames providing interesting light/dark contrast), the sprinklers on the ceiling (for their resemblance to nipples), and the lamp (reenacting his most vivid memory and attempting to "come into the light").
Turns out he was looking at the handle of the car seat.
Guess who took a shower this morning -- me!
We are doing seriously well... we even had a little dancing session when we downloaded the last couple of tunes from The Area 52 Project. J might have just been trying to kick off his blanket, but as the mother of such a gifted child I assumed he was grooving and slapped on the wrist rattles so he could get his percussion career started.
Our only problem so far has been that when J is finished eating, I usually hand him to Marc who somehow manages to convince him that lunch is over. Without Marc here, there's no way to reset his expectations for more boob chow. So I put him on the floor. It's not the nicest way to end a meal -- "Done eating, kid? Good. Now lay on the floor!" -- but it seemed to do the trick with minimal crying. Hopefully this won't propagate into adulthood, with J on the floor at the end of a fancy dinner party, pacifier in one hand, cheesecake in the other.
Tomorrow's the day that we make the big switch, from zone defense to man-to-man. J doesn't seem to have any idea that his advantage doubles as of 7 tomorrow morning when his pop returns to work but I can't stop thinking about it. I'm not so much nervous as positive that this peaceful, sleep-loving, angelic little bundle of happiness is going to suddenly transform into a colicky raving lunatic baby around 7:03. Plus I'm already really, really tired.
Expect more photos soon, including J's first bath at home (he was surprisingly calm, especially while we washed his hair) and his first walk (which he totally slept through).
As you'll see in those photos, the pregnancy beard is gone. Marc left the hospital for a couple of hours on Friday and took care of business. I have to admit, while I had grown fond of the beard, I was really happy to see his cute face again, particularly those dimples. The beard had really taken on a life of its own in those last few weeks. While he's not thrilled about having to shave again, I think he's happy that my mother has stopped calling him a lumberjack.
In related news, we discovered this morning that J has a dimple on his right cheek, which means that cheek-wise, Marc and I are neck-and-neck, genetically speaking.
Marc has uploaded the rest of the photos from J's birth (oh, so flattering -- nothing too gory, though) and from his first night at home.
You can find the newest photos (as always, though it has been a while, we admit) at the top of the page at Punkly --> Us --> Photos.
When the pediatrician told us that the only toes you really need are the big ones, my first thought probably shouldn't have been, great! That leaves eight for me to eat! Then I realized that baby toes are probably like those mint Girl Scout cookies, the cookies that come in a box, in two tubes, the cookies that you have to put in the freezer so you don't eat first the whole foot, er, tube, and then the other tube and then you're just staring at your adorable but toeless baby in an empty box of cookies.
You're probably looking for something a little bit more specific. Let me start here... childbirth hurts like a word I'd hate to leave here in posterity as something related to my perfect little child. It hurts more when you arrive at the hospital already dilated 7 cm, progress to 9 on the wheelchair ride to the delivery room, and after having been in the hospital for less than two hours and without any pain medication or really even a chance to make it to the third kind of LaMaze breathing, out pops a baby.
I say "pops" here as a courtesy to those of you who prefer to think of childbirth as a bloodless, endearing experience, softly lit and with the kind of music that you hear at a day spa.
That really is the whole story -- I was having pretty much painless contractions for more than a day and a half. I started feeling nauseous on Wednesday afternoon and took a nap from 5 to 7:30. Marc woke me up for grilled cheese and soup. After dinner I decided I should go to bed. I still wasn't sure if I was going to give birth or throw up. Marc came to bed at 11:15. Five minutes later my mother came upstairs. We told her that the contractions were getting worse. She stood in the doorway so she could see me breathe through the next one. She wanted to decide if she should go to bed or not. Two breaths into that contraction, my water broke. We packed up and headed out (I updated my weblog while Marc loaded the car) around 11:50. We never took the birthing ball out of the backseat of the car. I never did throw up.
As harrowing as the experience was, I would puke a thousand times a day for a hundred first trimesters, would carry a giant lump under my shirt for the rest of my life, would leak fluid and blood and any other torture appropriate for the situation; I would do all of that and I would do it over and over and over again if it meant that I got to be as completely overjoyed as I am right now.
J C Colello
was born at 1:41 AM
on 4-01-04
weighing 9 lbs. 14 oz.
and measuring 22 in. long.
... and will kick your baby's ass.
Age: 4 minutes
I've been having mildly uncomfortable contractions for about 12 hours now. Nothing I couldn't sleep through, or talk through, or write a weblog entry through, so we haven't timed them (except for the first few) and we're treating today like a normal day -- Marc's at work, Mom's watching TV and racing through another book, and I'm about to have some cereal and sit on the couch for a few hours.
I'm mostly saying this because I know you're all watching to see what happens, and even I'm getting sick of the lack of progress. Also, if I should happen to give birth tomorrow, I want to have firmly established ahead of time that the declaration will not be an April Fools' Day joke. It will, however, be all Marc's fault, since he's the one who really wanted an April baby.
... I am now 1, or maybe 2, centimeters dilated, and 50% effaced. Neither of these is any great progress, but it's better than last Monday's appointment, when the midwife said, "Boy, that baby sure is happy in there..." So while I'm not exactly putting stamps on the birth announcements yet, at least the presence of a baby head in the vicinity of my cervix has been confirmed. ("Houston, we have a cranium...")
We also passed the first (and hopefully only, since I'm now LATE) "non-stress" test, which is just the sort of combination of positives and negatives that I haven't been able to parse since going to Japan. I'm pretty sure that "passing" was "good". I do know for sure that my blood pressure is 115 over 56, which is pretty close to dead for a woman with a past-due fetus in her abdomen, but still considered "good". "Good" and "less good" are the words that medical professionals use when they want to make you feel informed but not so knowledgeable that you will attempt to self-diagnose. Incidentally, "late" is a word that medical professionals use when they want to make you feel gigantic.
About 10 minutes into the test, an alarm sounded because the baby's heart rate had been below 120 for a few seconds, and the alarm continued to sound for the next 15 minutes or so while my mother and I stared at each other with wide eyes, wondering if I'd a) failed, or b) busted the equipment. Needless to say, after a few seconds of NEEEE-NERRRRR-NEEEE-NERRRRR, the baby's heart rate had pretty well recovered, to the point where the child may never sleep again. Luckily, they did not take my blood pressure again after this part of the test.
In other news, I just shook the 96 oz. juice bottle with the cap only partially in place. Hallelujah, it's raining OJ.
Still no baby.
Last night I had a dream, though, that made me think today could be the day. I was lying in bed after my third or fourth pee of the night, thinking of relatives of ours who have died, and trying to think of the trait I most hoped for the baby to inherit from each of them. When I drifted off to sleep, I started dreaming about all of the people I'd just been imagining, plus some others I couldn't recognize, who were standing around a foggy hole about ten feet in diameter. They were passing around a bundle clearly representative of a baby, each sort of physically gesturing about the baby and reluctantly handing it on. My grandmother (my mother's mother) was first, and was obviously in charge, encouraging the others to follow suit. The last was Marc's grandfather (his mother's father), who was the most reluctant. I watched him hold the baby for a long time before he buried his face in the blanket and sort of cast the baby away in a swooping toss, toward the hole.
I've been hoping to dream about the baby for months, after reading an account of someone's child coming to them in a dream to declare the name they wanted, and I've had plenty of dreams that were baby-related, but they mostly involved parental incompetence on my part. This was the first time I woke up and thought, well now, that had some weight to it.
When I told Marc about the dream, he reminded me that yesterday was the two-year anniversary of his grandfather's death.
So, our dead relatives have apparently given their blessing, which leaves what? Nothing, I hope. Bring on the baby!
Still no baby. For anyone keeping score, I'm t-minus seven days to my due date, which means I could go as long as another three weeks without medical intervention.
That said, I feel pretty damned pregnant.
We are (gulp) ready. My mom's in town, watching me like a pot, expecting me to blow as soon as she's left alone in a room with me. Marc's ready for a couple of weeks off of work, during which time he's got enormous plans that will probably amount to wishing he could sleep more and lots of poop talk. We even printed out a hospital information sheet for everyone with directions and phone numbers and visiting policies. I'm half-packed, and with one foot out the door, I think that's as good as I could have hoped for.
All we need is the stinkin' baby! Or at least a contraction or two, for crying out loud.
We saw another ultrasound the other day, complete with big head, chubby cheeks, absurdly long baby legs and big feet... the baby version of Marc's face on my body?
If you thought babies were cute, you should see their clothes.
If you thought their clothes were cute, you should see them after they've been laundered.
Thanks to the ongoing generosity of our extended family, we've begun assembling the baby's image, including wardrobe and accessories, and while I don't think the baby will care if it comes home in a three-piece Baby Lauren ensemble, I can't deny that I'm a little impressed that my child will be dressed more fashionably than either of its parents.
Unfortunately, thanks to the continuously improving ultrasound technology, I think it is a lot less common to wait until the baby is born to discover its sex. We decided that we would wait to find out at the birth, even though the ultrasound technician could have told us a few months ago.
This increased likelihood of already knowing the sex results in an industry-wide shortage of gender-neutral clothing for newborns. Again, I know that the baby doesn't care, but this means we have a growing pile of yellow duck clothing along with plenty of the poop-endangered white.
Ducks: the gender neutral gamebird. Who knew?
And the subsequent conclusion, you can put a girl in blue, but you can't put a boy in pink. Actually, you can't put a girl in blue if you are bothered by strangers asking, "What's his name?" Putting a boy in yellow may cause a similar problem. My mother is appalled that we've put a airplane-oriented bedroom set on the registry, and has offered to hand tie pink ribbons to it should the baby turn out to be a girl.
In summary: I have completely revamped my standards on gender-neutrality as applied to children under 3 months old. I am ashamed, as a woman who tends to prefer men's jeans, but then, I have boobs to clear up any uncertainty.
I'm so tired of everybody telling me how hard this is going to be. It's a discussion I can't win -- I understand that I have absolutely no concept of the realities of childbirth or childbearing, and I express that, and yet everyone feels compelled to chirp up with some inane comment letting me know that it will be so much worse than anything I can possibly dream up.
My mission as a mother will include making soon-to-be mothers feel confident and capable by regaling them with stories about how things really ain't so bad. Why do we insist, as a society, that children make our lives a living hell? Why not tell stories of the wonderful parts of parenting, and not just the horror stories?
...of course, that's if they've already made it through the power-puking stage.
I'd like to thank my husband for not pointing out the obvious, that my switch to all elastic-waisted pants, all the time, is a clear violation of one of my life philosophies: To wear sweatpants in public is to have given up on life.
Expect this to be the first of many philosophies I'm forced to revise thanks to the presence of a child.
I'm startled to discover that our birthing class teacher was right: Poop Labor actually may precede Actual Labor.
But for the woman in our class who winced and cried out, "They're going to wash your butt?" when told that the nurses would probably come into the room and wash her butt, I am particularly concerned. This is the same woman who stood up at the end of the vaginal birth video and announced, "I'm ready to go," while all of the other couples hugged and the women tried not to cry.
Good luck, Heather and Jon!
update: She's here!
M: If you don't update your website soon, you're going to lose your readers.
K: If they're not already gone, they're not going anywhere.
Yesterday I met my new midwife, who speaks very quickly. She's one of two CNMs (certified nurse-midwives) practicing via my OB-GYN's office. I think we've got the most liberal birthing scenario I can imagine being comfortable with -- two midwives on call, doctor backup at the hospital from one of three OBs I've already met, what seems to be a very lenient hospital in terms of "weird" birthing preferences (bring whoever you'd like, eat if you're hungry, no unnecessary or unexplained procedures, make noise, take off your fetal monitor, move around, play music, take a shower, bump around on a birthing ball, take the baby still slimy, go home when you're ready, etc.).
We even found a hip old pediatrician, who also happens to be a lactation consultant, and who referred to my boobs first as "equipment," and later as "units." He seemed particularly impressed with my nipples, but really, who wouldn't be?
We're in what's starting to feel like the home stretch, and today I bought a carseat and a stroller. The teacher in our chilbirth education class says if it takes you less than 30 minutes and breaking into a sweat to install the carseat, then you've done it wrong. I say that's Marc's job, since I can't spend more than five minutes on anything without rivulets finding their way into my new cleavage.
If you've been planning a visit to see us, come soon because the spare room is about to be less spare, and the bed's the next thing to go.
I do have two more months, and really no good excuses for having nothing to say here, except that my breasts are all the news that's really fit to print, and they're not, really, so when I try to write, they're all I can think about, and this is the most I've been able to put into words in weeks.
I'm not exactly clear on how my pants are supposed to stay up when my waist is bigger than my hips. Pregnant-lady-half-elastic helps, and so does a belt, but when I'm carrying a carload of packages and trying not to bump my belly on my rearview mirror, I can't help but wonder why there isn't a better solution than putting everything down and hiking up my jeans for the fifth time since I left the mall.
Beerbellies of the world, how do you manage?
After fifteen weeks of pregnancy, I still have a really hard time actually telling people that I am pregnant. I think of myself as a pretty good story teller, and yet there's no neat way to build up to the climax of procreation -- here's how I told my friend Felicia yesterday:
"Yes, we miss living in the city a lot. It's so quiet here, which can be nice sometimes, but which makes crowds surprising and kind of scary. When we actually find where the people are, it's disconcerting to realize there are so many of them. We were trying to make it down to Marc's parents about once a month, but even then we usually don't get into Manhattan, because by the time we reach the Bronx on a Friday night, we're too pooped for plans, and Saturday somehow gets devoted to family events. We've been in for a couple of Sunday brunches, and that's nice, but it's still Sunday, you know? Lately we haven't even really been to the Bronx much, because, er, I'm pregnant!"
My mother, on the other hand, has reached new levels of sharing thanks to my pregnancy. I was trying to find out if anyone else in my immediate family had a known inability to burp on command, a talent I wish I had to help with the gigantic bubble of gas trapped in my throat, when my mother asked, "How does it come out? A fart?" (To which I hastily replied, "No, it comes out right before my lunch does.") It's going to take me some time to get over this, my mother's first known use of the word fart.
Before I knew I was pregnant, I started having these inadequate parenting dreams. The situation I remember most vividly involved my rushing through a crowded open-air market. I was carrying twins under several layers of drapy clothing, trying to breastfeed both at the same time without being noticed.
Everybody wants to know about morning sickness. Well, I spent the first three weeks of my pregnancy with no obvious symptoms other than hot hands and feet. As someone with chronically frozen toes, this was a notable change. Around the time we started telling our parents about the pregnancy, I started feeling sicker and sicker. Then I quit my job, because I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. Or the afternoon. There were (and still are) a lot of days when I didn't shower or put on any clothes, let alone wash my hair, apply deodorant, or throw used tissues into a proper receptacle. At the worst times, I would spend several hours at a time contemplating the way the trees waved in the breeze outside of our bedroom window. In the evening, we would watch Jeopardy!, but I was too sick to guess answers. I lost a lot of weight. The exact amount is unknown, because the doctor's office claims my prepregnancy weight must be a mistake, since I couldn't possibly have lost as much weight as the difference indicates.
A couple of weeks ago I learned that pregnancy officially begins on the first day of your last period, not at the time the egg was technically fertilized. That two week jump in timing was the greatest cause for joy that I have known in years (it was in fact a bigger cause for joy than the actual discovery that I was pregnant; I admit this knowing that it may belittle the miracle of life and make me sound like a big pregnant wuss, but I'm living in a small bubble these days, and I take what I can get) as it meant moving two weeks closer to the end of my first trimester, when I'm supposed to feel much better. Well, achy and miserable still, but human, at least.
And here I sit on the precipice of 11 weeks, and although I power puked when I got out of bed this morning, I later managed to bathe (including washing my hair!), dress in almost completely clean clothes (I'm in one of only three pairs of pants that don't make me look like a ragdoll or Ed Grimley and I have technically worn them before, though never out of the house), and eat.
Eating is another endeavor altogether these days. I'm sick when I get up, and if I'm lucky enough to throw up, I'm left peckishly hungry until about 6 PM, when I start to crash back into a bloated, gassy, sour mound of discomfort. So I eat little snacky things all day long, trying to pick up whatever nutritious bits I can, and then greet my husband when he returns home from work hoping for dinner with the same news most every day: you're on your own, honey.
Turns out Marc's not just full o' weed, and there is such a thing as a pregnancy beard.
Here's a picture of a pregnancy beard.
Here's an article on the questionable Couvade syndrome, including a short mention of men who grow facial hair or suddenly purchase new cars during their wives' pregnancies.
But we still haven't been able to find any exact guidelines (should he shave at all? Should he shave before the birth so that he doesn't scare the baby or confuse the baby when he has shaved? Is he allowed to shave for an interview?).
The truth is, I've spent the better part of the last nine and a half weeks doing what I do best -- avoiding puking at all costs.
The truth is, there have been lots of burps, and some phlegm, but for the most part I've been a heaving success.
The truth is, nobody tells you how much this hurts, and even the people who know, I mean, the people who have been here, will deny it.
The truth is, hormones ain't gonna do nothing but get you screwed and then screw you. There will also be occasional bouts of acne.
The truth is, we don't have the space, or the time, or the funding for this, but here we are and we planned it this way.
The truth is...
The truth is, we are overjoyed, which sounds like such a made-up word, until you realize that being joyful beyond reason, being so wired despite being so winded, being, just being and being statically charged and physically spent all at once... that being all that really doesn't have a better word.
The truth is, pretty soon our little family will be a little bigger.
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