Repost: Crisis at the Circulation Desk

It’s just one of those days, folks, so here’s a repost from early of 2009, a few short weeks before Nicholas was born:

***

Scene: the circulation desk at the public library. Behind the counter, a young man and a middle-aged woman. In front of it: two very pregnant women, with small children in tow.

A discussion ensues, instigated by Alex (who else?), about babies in mommies’ tummies. We share due dates, smiling and laughing, because our daughters were enthralled by each other only a few minutes ago at the play kitchen set.

It begins when Alex says he thinks we need five babies. (You might notice, BTW, that he’s increased his ideal family size in the last few days. hehehe.) The woman behind the counter says something like, “Or you could have eight at once, like that one woman. It’s just sickening.”

“W-well,” I hedge, knowing these are deep, dangerous waters, and I don’t really want to navigate them, “I’m all about big families, but not like that.”

Snort. “I’m not all about big families. I believe in zero population growth.” Sardonic shrug; then, realizing she’s overstepped the bounds of common courtesy: “But to each his own.”

Well, okay, then.

Do I say, Excuse me, you do realize you’re talking to pregnant women? Like, on the verge of delivery pregnant?

Do I say, children are a blessing, regardless of how they got here, and no, I can’t stand what Nadia Suleman’s doing either, but the children are holy?

Do I say, siblings are a gift to each other?

Do I say, yes, we need to take better care of the earth, but not at the expense of having children, who are quite possibly the best thing that can happen to a person, because they make you grow, and teach you to view the world in a whole new way?

Do I say, So where does my daughter with Down syndrome fit into your “zero population growth”? Does she even get a place in your utopia?

No.

I draw a stunned blank…I smile weakly and say nothing at all. I pinch my lips shut, put the kids’ books in the cloth library bag, and head out the door. And I comfort myself by thinking that I get to teach my kids to value family, and children, and the earth…

…and that nothing I might have said would have made any difference anyway.

Published in: on May 10, 2010 at 5:47 am  Comments (2)  
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In The Darkness (repost)

If there was ever a morning when a person was justified in recycling old content, this would be it: up with kids four times between 10p.m. and 4 a.m., and never really getting back to sleep, yet too tired to get out of bed.

It seems fitting, then, that this morning I look back to a time almost two years ago, when I was newly pregnant with Nicholas, and unwrap the gift of the two children who, these days, are depriving me of my sleep.

***

“For you, darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day.”
—Ps. 139: 12

It’s been on my mind, but I didn’t realize just how terrified I was of losing this baby until I had waited an hour and a half past my appointment time last Friday. It was an unusual backlog, even for a doctor who takes his time with patients and never makes them feel that he’s in a hurry. I wasn’t upset over the delay, but after reading 150 pages of very non-life-giving nonfiction, I tossed the book aside and lay back on the examining table to pray.

When the doctor came in a minute later, I was already on the verge of tears. He pulled out the Doppler with the warning that it’s sometimes hard to find a 10-week-old baby’s heartbeat. And indeed, the only heartbeat we heard, a whisper of a pulse, was mine. I knew that because it was far too slow to be a baby’s.

“Let’s move you down the hall and get an ultrasound,” he said.

Soon, I was prone in the darkness with the wand pressed against my skin, and the fuzzy, silent image appeared. The baby was wiggling…not the trembling, uncontrolled movement that I remember from early ultrasounds, but the measured, deliberate kicking of hands and feet. The baby stretched its back and pointed its tiny nose up in the air. And in the center of the image was a little shimmer of gray, like stardust caught in a single point in space and time, struggling to escape. It was that moment when I fell in love with the child nestled beneath my heart…a child I can see only in shadows and obscurity.

Later that night, back at home, with Julianna cradled in my arms in the darkness, I gazed into her gleaming eyes and hummed a lullaby. I am as familiar with the contours of her face as I am with my own, but in that dimness her features were blurred and indistinct, like those of her unknown sibling. In the dark places of the world, we are known only by the one for whom darkness is light. May God bless my child of shadows, and bring him or her into the light.

tuesdays unwrapped at cats

Moms’ 30-Minute Blog Challenge

Published in: on April 20, 2010 at 5:40 am  Comments (6)  
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All Systems go

All systems go for tomorrow, despite a nasty, unproductive cough. Here’s a good story: At 3:00 this morning I woke up and began coughing again. I could feel the gunk coating my lungs, and I was thinking, oh man, am I even going to have a baby tomorrow? I’m taking my kids to Mom and Dad’s, and how am I going to explain to Alex if we have to put it off till Monday, and Mom’s got to go back to work on Monday anyway, and how are we going to deal with the kids while we’re in the hospital, and the doctor’s office doesn’t open till nine, which is after I told my parents we’d be at their house, and…and…and…

 

I took myself firmly in hand. All right, let’s do the only thing we can do at 3:25a.m. Call the office and leave a message. They’ve told me before that someone’s always in at 7:30 or 8 and will return messages. So I grabbed the phone and headed into the closet so I wouldn’t wake Christian. I left a message, explaining the situation, and went back into the bedroom. I put the phone in the cradle beside Christian and circled the bed.

 

Just as I sat down, the phone rang. Christian woke with an inarticulate gasp and every limb flailing, but even so he got to the phone before me. “lo?” he mumbled, and then he laid there for five seconds and shoved the phone at me.

 

“I thought I was the only person who couldn’t sleep!” said the bright, cheery voice of one of the nurses at the doctor’s office. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the message light go on!”

 

I sat down and said blankly, “You couldn’t sleep…so you went to the office?”

 

Not that I’m complaining, mind you! And after all, I suppose that’s what I do if I can’t sleep at 3a.m., too…I come downstairs and turn on the computer. It’s just that I don’t have to shower and drive to get to work!

 

Anyway, for all that, I still didn’t get an answer until 10:00 this morning. Now I’m on Z-Pac, and they tell me that although a cough doesn’t affect the C-section, the C-section will affect the cough. “As in, coughing will hurt like the dickens,” they said. “But it won’t harm either one of you.”

 

So Dad and I pulled the kids’ suitcases from the van, moved car seats from our blue van to theirs. I spent the rest of the morning trying to remember every instruction my mother needs to keep my kids from melting down in the next two days, and lying on my parents’ couch trying to sleep while Julianna batted my face with cold little hands and Alex brought very old Disney crank reels for me to look at.

 

The joy and delight with which my children and my parents interacted this morning was breathtakingly beautiful. (Although I’m sure that 48 hours from now, all four of them will be just as excited to get away from each other!) Dad is especially susceptible to Julianna’s charms. He almost couldn’t tear himself away to go to his lunch meeting.

 

At naptime, I took my leave. It was really hard to leave Julianna in the crib, smiling so big at me…she and I have reached a new closeness in the last few days, as if Daddy’s girl and Mommy’s girl are coming closer together. She had no idea, when I laid her down, that she won’t see me again for two days, and that when she does, everything will be different. In her whole life, we’ve never been apart longer than twelve hours. It was hard to walk out of that room.

 

And then there was saying goodbye to Alex, my little mama’s boy, who has had me wrapped around his finger since he was six hours old and he looked up at me with the exact expression I had seen on his daddy’s face a hundred times before. “I miss you already,” I said, choking up as his chubby arms went around my neck.

 

No car seats in the van. Thirty miles back home, with no voices in the back seat. No bickering (yes, they can bicker, even when one can’t talk), no giggling, no mutual annoyance or hilarity, no vocal competitions. No giggling Alex when I went through the car wash. Silence in the house.

 

Nothing to distract me from a good old-fashioned, hormonal, oh-(whatever)-this-is-really-it freak out.

 

Nothing except the phone calls from my best friend and my in-laws, asking how I was doing. God bless you guys.

Published in: on March 18, 2009 at 2:30 pm  Comments (1)  
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Do They Know?

Alex is big enough to understand. In a couple of days, the baby’s coming out of Mommy’s tummy. He’s spent the last several months putting his hands on my belly and giggling every time Baby kicks him; he talks about it to everyone. But he was 21 months old when Julianna was born. He can’t possibly comprehend the changes about to come down the pike.

 

Can he?

 

Julianna, of course, has no clue. Yes, she knows “baby.” She loves her doll babies and every baby she meets. But the reason for Mommy’s changing body shape, the reason she’s always in a stroller now instead of on my hip, the reason she moved to a new bed…no clue. Several times, I’ve taken her hands and put them on my belly, saying, “There’s a baby in Mommy’s tummy” and signing “baby.” She always gives me this Mommy, you’re silly look and laughs. No clue. Concepts are way over her head.

 

Aren’t they?

 

But if they really don’t get it, why are they acting the way they’re acting?

 

Alex screams when he doesn’t get his way. He completely falls apart over nothing. A missing shoe, even if it’s right under his nose; being unable to get the cap off the toothpaste—these things are the end of the known universe. Julianna will whine for hours, and refuse to communicate by sign; she shrieks if Alex gets anywhere in her personal space; when you try to get her to walk, she picks up her feet and howls.

 

That’s not to say that they’re a universal nightmare, because they’re not. There are still plenty of times when Alex is thoughtful, helpful, giggly and sweet. Julianna will stick out her tongue and give us a silly grin as she walks back and forth from Christian to me; at other times, she loves to be tickled and munched on, and asks for more. She and Alex still love to wrestle, and bedtime is not complete for either of them without a hug from Big Brother or Little Sister.

 

At the same time, though, there has been a clear shift in behavior the last few weeks. So perhaps the kids “get it” more than we think they do. Or maybe they don’t understand what’s going to happen; they just know something is going to change, and the very not knowing is unsettling them.

 

If that’s the case, then what’s it going to be like after the baby arrives? Better, because we’re already in transition…or harder, because this is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg?

***

Addendum: it occurred to me this morning as I was stumbling wearily around the park with Alex while Julianna had PT…it’s no wonder they’re ambivalent. I know as well as can be known, what’s coming down the pike, and I’m ambivalent. Everyone comes in this week and says, “Two days! Are you excited?” And I think, Ugh, mostly I just want my body back! I’ll deal with the rest as it comes. I’m tired, queasy, and listless. I wish I had a more beautiful or poignant response, but that’s the plain truth. Baby raptures will come in a few days. For now, I’m just ready not to be pregnant anymore!

Published in: on March 17, 2009 at 5:36 am  Comments (1)  
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The Final Countdown Begins

I spent yesterday driving crazily around St. Louis, from doctor’s office to Penzey’s to instrument repair shop to drop off my flute. Apparently when you’re pregnant, you forget how to get from point A to point B. Or at least, you lose all common sense, which would tell you that you should take the route that you know, even if it seems a little out of the way, instead of trying to take a road that ought to go where you need to go, only to discover that you’ve wasted ten miles and twenty minutes of drive time.

 

I often wonder about the usefulness of the late pregnancy doctor visits, but at least I got some questions answered about the hospital procedure. Despite having done it twice before, I’m a little fuzzy on the details. Dr. Dixon poked around at some length before telling me I have a head-down baby (wouldn’t you know, the third time around, I finally have a baby who might have been possible to deliver vaginally!), and his guess is between 8 ½ and 9 pounds. Mind you, that’s this week, not next week on D-day. J Yes, apparently I grow them huge. He also gave me some suggestions for easing the persistent low-grade nausea I’ve been experiencing for a month now.

 

At one week and counting, the to-do-before-Baby list lengthens out:

 

  • Empty the crib of books (and find a new home for them!), and change the sheet
  • Pull out the size 0 diapers
  • Pull out the car seat
  • Haircuts for the boys (the girls had them on Monday), so we’re all spruced up and looking our best for our new arrival
  • Put together a chicken & rice casserole to join the lasagna in the freezer
  • Pack the kids for two nights and Grandma & Grandpa’s and two nights with Daddy in St. Louis
  • Pack for the hospital, including busy work
  • Clean the house (my last cleaning for six weeks…darn the luck)
  • Find the cable to connect the camera to the computer…we’ve always used the docking station, so we really have no idea where it is.
  • Scrapbook the last two sets of pictures, so I’m all caught up for the onslaught of new pictures to archive!
  • Make up “welcome note” paper for hospital visitors
  • Last swim lesson
  • Last date without baby-in-tow, which we are only doing because we were asked to do an NFP presentation on Saturday, so we figured we’d make good use of babysitting
  • Find a dolly of some sort to facilitate the transport of two non-mobile children and all choir paraphernalia to and from church during the 6 weeks when I can’t carry anything
  • Call the hospital and insurance to make sure we pick a pediatrician who’s covered

We won’t have a dull moment between now and then, that’s for sure. We’re trying to squeeze in as many therapy appointments for Julianna as we can, and this morning Alex and I have a preschool visit with the public schools. The program that Julianna will enter next year at this time also accepts children as “buddies” or “mentors,” and we’re having Alex evaluated to see if he qualifies. From a logistical standpoint, it just makes sense to try to get both kids going to the same place at the same time. But I also want to make sure that it will be a good fit for him. I’m a little conflicted. It would be wonderful for Alex to grow up around children with special needs, learning gentleness, compassion, kindness. But on the other hand, part of the preschool experience (maybe the most important part) is interacting with peers, which implies playmates at your own level—something that he doesn’t get much of as it is. So I have to ask a lot of questions today.

 

Well, enough of a long, rambling post. Time to get going on The List.

Published in: on March 12, 2009 at 5:23 am  Leave a Comment  

The End of Pregnancy

The upper part of the Spring Valley Trail at Rock Bridge State Park winds through a grove of old cedar trees teeming with tree frogs whose constant chirrup, along with the rush of wind over evergreen, almost drowns out the distant noise of the city’s frenetic energy. I wandered off-trail this afternoon, dodging dead undergrowth to a place where I could make a reflection/writing station out of a picnic blanket stretched across a soft carpet of fallen needles and moss, the breeze filling my nostrils with the sweet scent of cedar. It isn’t perfect. I like to get away from everyone when I come to nature. I don’t want to hear traffic; I don’t want anyone to come by walking their dogs. I come to nature to commune with quiet, to find a place where my soul and my mind can rest, away from the constant grating of manmade noise.

 

But such places are hard to find where I live, and I’m trying to learn to find spiritual quiet without demanding perfect stillness. If I had been a more daring young woman, I might have done what my cousin Melanie did, and set off as a nomad across national parks, hiking through pristine wilderness in hours stolen from working whatever job I could find.

 

But I was not a courageous young woman. Not that way, anyway. And God has His plans for each of us, which always turn out for the best, as long as we approach them with the right attitude—an attitude of openness, of willingness to look for the good in whatever is handed to us.

 

After choir practice last night, I spoke to a woman for whom getting out of bed in the morning can be so painful that it sometimes causes her to have words with God. But the words she uses make all the difference. “I say, ‘God, fix me. I mean, fix my mind—so I don’t get resentful.’” Now that is the proper way to frame a prayer. Listening to her humbled me. This pregnancy, I have not kept a willing spirit and a grateful heart. Grateful for my baby, yes. Oh my, yes. But a woman who has traveled the road of infertility has no right to be as whiny as I have been these last months.

 

Early on, when I gained no weight, had no discomfort, and no morning sickness, I worried about miscarrying. It couldn’t be this easy—not with our history. Mid-pregnancy, I fussed about how much weight I gained all at once. And then, right before Christmas, the SI joint stuff hit. The twentieth of December, I could barely walk. I remember that date because we were caroling with the choir.

 

And now? Two weeks from this moment, it’ll all be over…barring Murphy’s Law, of course. Here at the end of pregnancy, I’m tired all the time. Too tired to clean, to play with the kids, even to write properly (which always energizes me). And vaguely nauseous some part of every day—just enough to sap my energy. I don’t remember being this tired before. It’s probably a combination of being 34 instead of 30, having the stomach virus and now a cold, and my usual trouble sleeping. I am grateful that the SI stuff has really settled down this week…as witness, I’m sitting cross-legged on the ground typing this on my NEO.

 

But still, I feel guilty for the energy I’m not giving my kids. Alex always wants to play with me…he doesn’t get nearly enough of me. And I feel sure that if I worked more with Julianna, she’d be much farther along.

 

And oh, the mess in our house! Christian’s always been the one to want the house spic n span, but these days it’s driving me crazy, too. Probably because I see it every time I turn around, and working up the energy to address it takes all day. By which time, of course, it’s worse!

 

When I set out to write about the end of pregnancy, I meant to make it humorous: laugh about how desperate I am to be able to lie on my back, to run, to bend over, to give piggyback rides. To balance the negatives with some raptures about the baby. It has gone in a different direction than I intended!

 

Well, I can rhapsodize about Baby, at least. I’m pleased to say that my baby already has a pattern of waking and sleep. S/he wakes up like clockwork between 5 and 5:30 every morning and then wakes me up with tickles under the ribs, knees poking out my right side (always my right), and playing scales on my stomach. I mean my stomach. Not the skin over my abdomen, but the organ itself. Now that is a weird feeling!

 

The only thing I will miss about pregnancy is watching the baby hop across my abdomen, jerking it this way and that, stretching lazily so that my belly undulates and rolls like a banner in the breeze. (Sort of. That’s really not a good analogy, but there’s nothing else on earth like the movement of a baby.)

 

And suddenly, here on my blanket beneath the cedars, the wind settles into quiet, and the soft, weak March sun wraps its tendrils around my neck, and I am sitting amid a symphony of cedars playing in canon as the breeze skips from one quadrant to another, caressing my skin with the outermost reaches of its passing.

 

And unexpectedly, I find the peace I came here searching for.

Published in: on March 5, 2009 at 9:20 pm  Leave a Comment  

Random Tidbits

I’m up early this morning and don’t have my writing materials, so I’ll just take this opportunity to record a few little random tidbits of life, which are more for the benefit of family records/history than what I usually post.

Random tidbit #1: Julianna
We receive our services through Missouri First Steps, which is a tremendous program, covering everything she needs until age 3. The therapists tell me that once she graduates from First  Steps, there will be many more battles to fight. (Yay.)

Anyway, at present the therapists come to our house: Physical, Occupational, and Speech. Gerti, our PT, still gets 2 visits a week, but as soon as Julianna really gets walking we’ll be cutting back to one and passing the other to the other therapists, who get 6 visits per month. I detail this to explain that we have 5-6 visits per week…except this week, because Gerti is out of the country, and other scheduling factors combined so that we had only TWO therapies this week. We did not know what to do with ourselves. Particularly Julianna, who simply has gone on strike this week. She won’t walk–whenever you try to set her on her feet, she picks her legs up and howls. She won’t drink from a glass–preferring to go without liquid altogether. I’m shaking my head and saying, Kiddo, regression’s supposed to happen AFTER the baby comes!

However, on the up side, she had a great week for signing. She learned 5 new signs: Daddy, Mommy, hat, fish, play. And she pointed to “cat” when Chris, the speech therapist, asked her to choose between two pictures. So both of those are good things.

Random Tidbit #2: Alex

Alex is definitely transitioning out of nap time. The trouble is that he still really needs it, even if he can’t or won’t go to sleep. So by evening, there are purple marks under his eyes and he’s acting…well, not good. The other thing this affects is bedwetting. He’s always been a sound sleeper–once he fell out of bed without waking up! This is why, we think, he is still wetting at night instead of getting up to go to the bathroom. I’ve let it go for months now without trying to work on it, but it’s very frustrating. It seems like all his friends are dry at night, and he’s not only wet, he’s as drenched as any baby.

Random Tidbit #3: Alex

On a more positive note, a couple of language funnies. He’s always said “pwanio” instead of “piano.” Christian & I think it’s adorable, but about a week ago, I thought, oh, my goodness, this child is nearly 4 years old. If I let this go much longer he’s going to get into the habit, and imagine the musicians’ kid at age 7 having to learn to say “piano” properly! So I brought him over and taught him to say it properly. Christian was really mad at me. :)

However, he still says “amn’t.” He’s got the gist of language so well that he created for himself the one contraction that we DON’T use. You’re really tired, Alex–it’s time for bed. “No, I amn’t!” Adorable.

OK, so honesty compels me to admit that even though he made up an appropriate contraction, he doesn’t have his past tense straight yet.

Random Tidbit #4: Baby

Baby is manifesting his or her personality by waking up every time I sit down or lie down, and using me as a boxing target…and a tickle target. Its favorite time is when I first lie down at night. I get a good 15 minutes of crazy movements. The kind where an entire leg from the knee down pushes out of my flank, and I can run my fingers along both sides. The kind where both sides of my body bulge at the same time. The kind where my stomach jumps and rolls like something out of an Alien movie. And s/he LOVES to take those little toes and tickle the underside of my ribcage. I must say, it’s most unfair, because I have very little defense against internal tickling! But maybe it’s a payback-in-advance  for all the tickling this little one will have to endure from Mommy in the years to come. :)

Random Tidbit #5: Writing

I set a goal to have my novel complete & submission-ready before Baby. I think that ship has sailed, much as I hate to capitulate. I’m very close, but my focus has gone in other directions lately…an assignment for Family Foundations (thank you, Christina!), and some composing, which I always miss when I go into a musical dry spell. And let’s be honest…a lot of blogging. Balance, Kate, balance.

So we’ll see what happens when I finish my assignment, which I should be able to turn in well ahead of deadline. Who knows? Maybe the last fixes and polishes on the novel won’t take too long. Maybe I’ll still make it! Think positive!

Published in: on February 28, 2009 at 6:28 am  Leave a Comment  

Of oopsies and unmade decisions

Yesterday, between thunderstorms, the kids and I went outside. I knew it was not a good idea to put Julianna on the wet ground, but neither could I carry her for an hour, and I wanted to show Alex the buds starting to pop out. So I walked her over to the basketball hoop and left her to fend for herself for five minutes. Naturally, when I returned, she was sitting on the wet driveway, soaked through—but happy.

 

Alex took her for a long ride in his jeep. I couldn’t even keep up, he was running her down the sidewalk so fast, but she had a ball. When we finally got back to the house, I put Julianna on the floor of the garage and popped inside to use the restroom. By the time I headed back out, she was tapping on the door. I opened it and saw…

 

Black handprints…all…over…the…door.

 

Which, naturally, led me to look at the hands that made the prints. My reaction went something like this:

 

“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

 

Cute little terrycloth jacket: Black.

 

Cute little pink and white capris: Black.

 

Adorable, munchy little hands: BLACK. (Not so munchy.)

 

I don’t know how she did it, unless she actually laid down in the tiny pile of cinders left by the truck tires.

 

Oops.

 

Yesterday was also a day for unmade decisions. Hugely important decisions. Change-the-course-of-existence decisions…like buying a couch. : /

 

I’ve said before that my husband is a consummate financial planner. We like to joke that I grew up on a farm in the ‘80s, and Christian makes me look like a spendthrift. When Christian moved into an apartment in 1995, he purchased two couches, a coffee table, and two antique lamp tables from someone’s basement for $50. Almost thirteen years later, we’re still using the same furniture.

 

However, its days are numbered. The big couch—my alternate sleep site on white nights—has been steadily failing ever since Alex discovered the joys of cushion forts and couch jumping. Now he has Julianna on board, too. We put it off as long as we could, but one of the zippers is broken, and we can’t even close the cover over the cushion anymore.

 

So we’ve been couch shopping for four months. We’re very picky consumers, you see. We think if you’re going to spend the money, you’d darned well better spend it well. And because our basement, where the TV is “supposed” to go, instead hosts a piano, a flute studio, and all the kids’ toys, we’re shopping for a couch for our all-in-one living/entertaining/TV room. It has to look good AND feel good.

 

Last night we went out to Ashley furniture. Since it’s cheap, all we found were stock couches that look like every other couch ever made. Bo-ring. Alex was without nap, and starting to look drugged and act like a toddler; Christian was holding Julianna, who was of course perfectly happy because she was with Daddy. I was running (well, okay, waddling) from couch to couch, plopping down, struggling back to my feet, when suddenly I realized that my husband was simply standing there, frozen in place in the middle of the store, with a look on his face that would have curdled milk.

 

“What’s going on?” I said.

 

“I DON’T WANT TO SIT ON ANY MORE COUCHES!” snapped Christian. “I’M TIRED OF SITTING ON COUCHES! I CAN’T MAKE A DECISION FROM SITTING ON A COUCH FOR FIVE SECONDS!”

 

Clearly, we need a break from furniture shopping. As my sister-in-law would say, “Ah, the drama…” J

 

And then, of course, there’s the Name Game.

 

After the kids were in bed, I came back downstairs. Christian sauntered into the kitchen and sat down across from me at the table. “So,” he said, “have we decided on a girl’s name?”

 

Two hours later, we went to bed, still nameless on the girl’s side…and on the boy’s, we just threw our hands in the air and decided we’ve got to stick with what we’ve got. We’ve had a boy’s name ever since Julianna was born, you see, but one or the other of us keeps waffling. And the girl’s name? I’ve got one I adore, but he thinks it’s too close to our new niece’s name. He’s got one that I accepted three months ago and then decided was boring. “I think it’s time to ask for outside help,” he sighed.

 

I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, myself…we’re very independent about these sorts of things. What do you think, my faithful friends and readers? Should I start a poll? J J J

 

Two weeks, six days.

 

How dare you insinuate that I’m counting? J

Published in: on February 27, 2009 at 1:30 pm  Comments (2)  

Why, oh, why, is it so hard…

….to come up with a name for the third child?

And why, oh why, are the websites so darned useless? Bigger is better, apparently, but who can process 5,000 names, let alone 27,000???? You open a web site, intending to start at the beginning, and after three pages of “Aa” your eyes begin to glaze over, and you realize…this is just not going to work.

The best site I’ve found is www.Nymbler.com, because it gives you a 3-by-5-column chart with a mix of names (and most of them are normal ones). But even at that, it’s just plain hard to name a third child. I like one, Christian doesn’t. Christian likes one, and it is the name of a person I couldn’t stand, long before I ever met him. And so on.

Ah well, we’ve still got four weeks and three days. But who’s counting? :)

Published in: on February 16, 2009 at 8:43 pm  Comments (7)  

Of the Coming of Spring, and Waiting for Baby

Last summer, when we found out we were expecting, we needed a way to explain to Alex what was going on, when there wasn’t going to be any visible evidence for months to come. So we came up with a list of all the big, memorable events of a year that had to pass before the baby would arrive.

 

Soon, the list became a mantra, one that we had to recite several times a day. First the leaves will turn colors and fall off the trees, and then it’ll be Halloween, and we’ll go trick or treating, and then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and Santa will come for Jesus’s birthday. And then it’ll snow and we’ll go sledding. After that it’ll be Julianna’s birthday, and then the flowers will come back. And when the flowers come back, it’ll be almost time for the baby to come out of Mommy’s tummy.

 

In the fall, Alex and I planted tulips and daffodils in front of our porch. Last week, even though it’s only February, I started watching for evidence of growth. We’ve had such warm weather lately, it’s hard not to get spring fever. Especially knowing what else is coming with the spring this year.

 

Alex & I pored over three different catalogs and chose perennials to anchor the front box. We went outside and pruned the shrub roses; we examined all the trees for evidence of budding. I watched the rain pour down, thawing and soaking the earth, then filling the creek with a soft, easy current. I looked across the lawns spreading up the street and saw the first hint of dormant brown turning to bright yellow.

 

Then, two days ago, I found it: the first daffodil spears, poking a mere ¼ inch out of the soil. Evidence that spring is on the way…and with it, my newborn, unknown child.

 

As I count down these last weeks of pregnancy, I thought it might be fun to share the questions that I’m fielding these days, as well as the answers—including some I’d like to give, even though I can’t. J

 

Q: Is this your first?

A: Oh, my goodness, no. This is my third.

 

Q: Wow, you’re going to have your hands full, aren’t you?

A: Don’t I already?

 

Q: Do you think having three is going to be a lot harder than having two?

A: Well, you know, I have no earthly idea, but thank you very much for giving me something to worry about. Actually, between Julianna’s therapy schedule, naps and lessons, our life is already so regimented, I can’t imagine that adding one is going to change much, except how long it takes to get ready to go somewhere. But then, I could be delusional.

 

Q: Do you know what you’re having?

A: A baby.

 

Q: Oh, you like to be surprised?

A: Well, it’s not much of a surprise, is it?

 

Seriously, though, I have to have a spinal, and I know what that’s like. If I have to go through that, I want something to look forward to at the end of it!

 

Q: How are you feeling?

A: Better now. PT is a big help, but before I try to get pregnant again, I’ve got to do some serious Pilates work on my thrice-weakened abs.

 

Q: How far along are you?

A: I can’t remember. 8 months? Oh yes, 34 weeks, because I have to redo my sugar test next week, and that happens at 35 weeks.

 

Q: When are you due?

A: Well, I’ll answer the question you really want to know. The baby’s being born on March 19th. Unless something freaky happens between now and then.

 

Q: Wow, that’s soon, isn’t it?

A: Not soon enough!

 

Q: Do you have names picked out yet?

A: Um, no, well, sort of, but not really, and um, I wouldn’t tell you anyway if we did.

 

Q: How’s the baby doing?

A: Well, let’s put it this way. Earlier this week, when I was lying on the couch all day—BTW, I now have great sympathy for women on bed rest—God and my little one worked it out between them so I wouldn’t worry. For twelve hours, the two overriding sensations in my body were “throwup bug” (as Alex calls it) and Baby. And I don’t mean nice, easy stretches and rolls. I mean nonstop, abdomen-lurching kicks, belly-popping stretches, elbows and knees and hands and feet punching in every direction. At one point I glanced down and saw a two-inch triangle sticking up out of my belly. A knee, I can only presume. It was an uncomfortable day—having only two positions to choose from is torturous; my hips were crying out for mercy by bedtime—but I had to thank God for reassuring me that Baby was just fine.

 

Q: (my favorite question asked recently): Are you having twins?

A: ??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This one requires some explanation. This entire pregnancy, Alex has been telling me that “we’re going to have this baby and one more baby, and then that’s enough babies!” (Nice to have your family size dictated by your 3 ½ year old, hmmm? J)

 

To everyone else, however, he says, “My mommy has a baby in her tummy, and we’re going to name it Scuttle, and we’re gonna have another baby, and we’re going to call it Bongo Drum!”

 

(Uh…no.)

 

Soon, baby. Soon. I can’t wait.

Published in: on February 12, 2009 at 4:04 pm  Comments (3)  
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