…or something like that.

Gosh I was irritable today. I blame it on being woken up early, but I should blame it on the amazing speech Michelle Obama gave last night. I stayed up late to watch it twice. And I had been doing so well in the sleep department, too.

We spent a long weekend in a cheesy motel (which incidentally the girls loved)in Santa Cruz, sleeping in a musty bed. (Everything else was booked.) Surprisingly, I slept great in that stinky old bed, going to 9:30 every night and sleeping until about 8:00.

Last night not so much.

On top of that, I had to do an emergency cleaning of the house in the morning before a new mom (and kids) to the girls school came over to meet us. There was a pretty sizeable age difference between her kids and mine and they all were having trouble connecting with each other. My girls solution to this problem was doing handstands and tumbling all over each other. I think they did this because it helped them make friends on Capitola beach when they were in the same situation. At the beach, two younger girls came over and stared at my girls, wanting to play, but not knowing how to start. My girls stared back, also shy, until Rachel started doing handstands in the sand and Caroline, the little two-year-old, joined in. A half hour later, they were all burying Hannah in the sand. The next day, as we made our way home, Hannah mourned the loss of these friends all day.

But this morning, the handstand approach didn’t catch on with the new little ones, and STILL the handstands continued. Wherever we went in the house, another handstand, and the more the handstands didn’t catch fire with our visitors the more the handstands turned into a tumbling and wrestling of my rambuscious children in the corner. And I think I actually may have explained to this mother over the phone how calm our school had made my girls. Uh-huh.

So, I was irritated, but expressed my irritation mildly at that time. However, by 3:30 in the afternoon when we were in the grocery store and Rachel was doing gymnastics jumps with flip flops in order to hear the really loud clap her flip-flops made on the floor each time, I was coming down a little harder. I asked her to stop. Many times. This made her sister want to test the limits. She started clapping her flip-flops while walking like a penguin. They finally stopped when I threatened to throw their flip flops in the garbage can. As it is, they can’t wear their flip flops out of the house for a week. Yes, it was that irritating.

And then at dinner my simple request that they eat all of the chicken and summer squash on their plates if they wanted dessert, ended up in a half-hour long process of finishing four small slices of squash. I wasn’t MAKING them eat the squash, people. I was simply insisting that they eat the squash if they wanted dessert.

So, it was a long day, where all the patience drained out of me over the course of the day.

At the end of the day, Rachel told me that I was kind of different that day. Different how, I asked? Bad different? Good different? Rachel at first told a kind little fib and said “good different.” After I put the baby to sleep, I went into her room and we talked about it more, and I asked her what she meant. “Well, it was kind of in between,” she said. “You started out good…but then….when we were eating the squash…”

“Well, it took you Hannah twenty minutes to eat the squash. I was going a little crazy.” I quipped. And then I apologized for losing my patience and explained that I was tired. Both Hannah and baby kept me up half the night the night before. As I left the room, I told her it made me a little sad that I the day had gone as it did.

“Why?” she asked, running to give me a hug and telling me that she thought I was “the best mom….”

“I’m sad because I was trying so hard.”

“It’s okay,” she said hugging me again. “It happens.”

*********

Hmmmm. That’s not actually what I wanted to write about. What I wanted to write about was more upbeat, something the girls told me this morning.

Apparently, for the past few weeks, they’ve been playing a game they made up. I can’t remember the name of the game. “Look and Duck” or “Duck and Dive.” (I was informed this morning that it is called “Duck Down.”

Anyway, this is how you play the game. You look out of the window at someone outside until you catch their eye. Then you immediately duck down under the window, get into the plow position, and do a little kick with your feet.

No wonder my neighbors are a little aloof with me.

It’s a tradition of ours to get a little quirky by the end of the summer. When we’re in a rut, it means summer is officially ending. (Wait a minute, we were in a rut half of June and July. Never mind.)

Two summers ago at this time we invented the game, “Mommy, mommy, pants on fire.” Last summer at this time, the girls were playing “underwear girl”, while Hannah sported underwear on her head. They were quite serious about this game.

It’s also kind of a tradition for me to have turned into a she-wolf by the end of the summer.

I am woman. Hear me howl at my suckling, tumbling, flip-flop clapping, squash-nibbling duo.

Okay, scratch the suckling. That’s a little weird. We’ve got enough suckling going on as it is.

Talia.

That would have been our name is he had been a she. Hannah suggested that name one day over dinner when we were throwing out names and rejecting most of them. When Hannah suggested Talia, we all were silent and thoughtful before going, “yeah.”

As you may remember, we did not know the sex of our baby until he was born. When they announced that he was a boy right after delivery my internal reaction was an “oh”. Not a bad “oh” or a good “oh,” just an “okay this something new” oh.

I come from a siblings of all girls. My first generation of nieces/nephews were all nieces. I know girls. I can do girls.
I am only a little ashamed to admit during my first and second pregnancies I wanted girls. First time, because I know girls. Second time, because I wanted a set of sisters.

Now I know all you mothers raising boys are getting all pissed at me. The thing is I was scared to have a boy. So this third time, even though it felt right to have a boy—I sort of wanted a boy–I was still kind of scared of the unknown. So another part of me wanted Talia, the girl. I had a vivid dream of this beautiful dark-hair, steely eyed baby and me saying, “Talia” with such heart and wonder. So part of me wanted Talia. But when I imagined having three girls, something seemed a little off with that picture.

And then we had our boy. And of course I love it. I love him. I love that so much of me raising him will be an education for me. It’s like my own little experiment and discovery unfolding.

And the funny thing is, when I got him home and looked at him some more, he actually looked exactly like the Talia in my dream. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Who knows.

As far as bonding goes, I have very strong bonds with my daughters. I’m sure that there is something very special about the mother-son bond, but I am so tired of hearing that it is more special than a mother’s relationship with girls. There is also something very, very special about the mother-daughter bond. Don’t let them fool you.

But this boy of ours is a delight. I love him like crazy. He seems mellower than my girls were at this age, but who knows. My memory is really bad right now.

Really, though, at the beginning a baby is a baby. I spent the first week not really registering that my baby was any sex in particular, except for the fact that the only clothes I had for him was this supposedly neutral purple sleeper with puffy shoulders that completely made me think of him as a girl.

Changing diapers provides a nice change in scenery. I'’ll admit that.

But here’s a question for you.

I’m very fond of his package, in the same way I am fond of his little toes and fingers, and in the same way I was fond of his sisters little packages.

Doesn’t it get smushed in there all the time? It hardly ever sees the light of day. We are so afraid of being peed on that the diaper changing session is quick despite the fact that he seems to enjoy hanging loose quite a bit.

It just seems unfair. That’s all I’m saying.

Maybe a lot of the worlds ills can be blamed on the fact that there’s so much smushing going on early in life. And here I am perpetuating it because I’m afraid of a little pee.

Talk amongst yourselves. I have to take a bit of time away from here.

I posted part one of my labor story right below this one for those interested.

I will catch up on all your posts/happenings and say hello at your sites by the middle of next week.

This has become the-story-that-would-never-end, which pretty much sums up how I was feeling by week 36 of my pregnancy.

The problem is I am having a pretty delicious August. The baby is scrumptious. The girls have remembered that they like each other. We’ve had a indulgent schedule of hanging out in pajamas in the morning until the girls head to gymnastics mid-morning and I get just enough time by myself (avec le bebe) to regain some sanity before picking them up in the early afternoon, early enough so they are not yet drained of every ounce of pleasantness.

My point is that the dust here has settled nicely and we have two more weeks of summer to enjoy this settledness before school starts and once again everything is kicked to the wind for three to four weeks. Writing about a time that was unsettling is not something that appeals to me when I’m enjoying a temporary settledness.

Here’s an aside. I resent schools that take our chlldren at their freshest and throw them back to us as limp rags that unravel the minute we get in the car and you reveal that you only have crackers for a snack. (Can’t you give them an afternoon snack at school?) If it were up to me, the school system would take my children at 2:00, bathe and feed them and have them at my door in pajamas an hour before bedtime. I’m not really kidding. Only kinda sorta. I would bask in their morning pleasantness, have time for an outing with the fam (because their father wouldn’t go to work until 2:00 either), and then kiss them good-bye before my afternoon nap, movie, or precious work time. Ahhhhh. Daydreaming here.

Anyway. I will try to write about my labor experiece. Mostly for Miz S, because she has asked me to and she deserves to get anything she wants, even if she is a teacher. (Actually, I support “the teachers” in the same way I support the troops and not the war.) I’m sure she’d love to be dressing our kids up in pajamas if given the opportunity. She’s like that. Why, she might even take our kids to the zoo on the weekends.

I am awesome at stalling.

Okay, here goes. I’ve never actually written down any of my labor stories. It’s just so hard to describe the pressure and the fluids and the fear that your body is going to take you to a place you can’t handle. I actually don’t remember labor as painful, except for the odd moment. I don’t know if that’s because I’m breathing my way into denial during the labor, or I have a high tolerance for contraction pain, or the pain was just so horrific my mind refuses to file it away. Frightening, increasing pressure with a painful edge. Fighting to stay in control. Sort of winning that fight until the end. That’s sort how I remember labor.

I have to briefly tell you the story of my first two labors because those experiences totally affected the expectations I had for labor #3.

Pregnancy #1:

Summary: water broke on due date, pitocin, no drugs, 5 hours of wild ride, lovely, easy, quick pushing, easy recovery, 8.2 pound baby,

In my birth plan (yes, I totally wrote one out, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha), I wanted to give natural childbirth a try but I was flexible. I figured that if I was in labor for more than 12 hours, I might need a rest, so I did not rule out the epidural. The one thing I was sure about was that I did not want a pitocin. I had done my research and pitocin was BAD as far as the research told me.

Water broke on due date. Nothing happened. Twenty hours later I went to the hospital and they put something on my cervix to soften it up. I as still insisting I didn’t want pitocin. Against their policy, they let me wait until the next morning to see if my labor would start on its own. It didn’t then they started me on pitocin and jacked it up high because we had waited so long and they were worried about infection. I went from zero to 60 in about a half hour. My contractions did. I mean I was on a wild ride. The problem was my cervix didn’t join in. It stayed clamped for four crazy hours and then literally when from zero to baby’s-head-coming out in the last half hour.

Pregnancy #2:

Summary: mild contractions, they broke my water, no pitocin, no drugs, 2 1/2 hour labor after breaking water, 9.1 pound baby. AWESOME labor (I felt so so in control) except for the pushing during which I felt a sudden deeply sharp and agonizing pain, probably fractured my tailbone (the doctor suggested at my six week check-up), painful recovery, but it was awesome not to be hooked up to any IVs during and after labor.

Pregnancy #3:

Summary: Contractions started two weeks early, went to the hospital twice for relatively long stays but sent home each time for lack of progression. Asked them to just break my water and I was sure everything would kick in because my cervix doesn’t move without some help. They would not, even though a month earlier several of the doctors in the practice had suggested getting things going a little early because the baby was measuring big. Tears. Pathetic tears each time in the hospital before being sent home. I was so sure they did not understand my very special cervix, which has progression issues. It needs a little help to kick into high gear.

Finally, induced on due date, labor about 14 hours (though only intense the last four hours or so), ending with c-section because baby was too big to get in safe/proper position to descend. Back-labor, Pitocin, epidural the last hour or two before c-section so they could try to turn the baby while I was relaxed (didn’t work), 10 pounds 13 ounces.

To be continued. I’ll write about the third labor in more detail next week. I’m taking the weekend off for some family fun. I’ll fill you in on that, too, when I return and tell you why I went from a Harley riding, chain-wearing OB, to a birkenstock sporting one and how that turned out for me in the end.

Geez. I better finish this up before it becomes drawn out over an excruciatingly long period like the three Star Wars trilogies.

I want to be Princess Leah in that scenario. I definitely refuse to be yoda. (You can tell I never made it past the original three movies.)

Anyway, (no I’m not drinking whisky again. Shhhh.) where was I? About eight weeks pregnant? Something like that? My original plan was to simply gather all my twitters together and post them here. Then I had no luck retrieving the early ones. Now, I’ve gathered all of them from about November, but I’m suddenly shy about posting them because they make me appear to be bitching the whole pregnancy.

Okay, so maybe I was, but pregnancy is not easy for me and my tweets were a way of amusing myself through the hard times. I don’t suffer in post-partum. I am very good at labor, when I’m not giving birth to 10 pound 13 ounce babies. But pregnancy gets to me, even though on paper, I’ve never had any complications during pregnancy. I think there are people who have an easier time at pregnancy. I am guessing that this is true because I have an easy time with the postpartum hormones and I know many women don’t. So, I know our bodies are all so different. For example, never once did I ever wish i was pregnant again after having the baby, like a lot of women do. I am always so absolutely relieved and thrilled to be done with the pregnancy and that drives my first six week, this sense of utter relief and joy that the baby is in my arms and not inside of me.

I remember when I was pregnant for the first time. It was the first trimester, my hormones were going wacky and putting me through a mild depression like they do every first trimester. I was tired, literally, in my bones and teaching a class of 120 students with no teaching assistant. My anxiety was through the roof. I could not function without eating constantly from breakfast until about 2:00 and then I still felt sick. I couldn’t enjoy the food. And I had this male doctor who wore gold chains and drove a Harley. He made me feel bad when I gained five pounds in a month. More on him in a later post.

I remember that while I was going through all of this my mother said that I should just focus on the fact that this was all going to produce a baby. Well, I’ve been through pregnancy three times and not one of those times has the thought of a baby been able to quell the mild depression, paranoia, and anxiety I get in the first trimester. Hormones get me every time. Swimming helped a lot this time, but most of all, it helps to have friends and family reassure you that they know what you’re going through and help you countdown to the second trimester. Each pregnancy the countdown to the third trimester seemed quicker. On the other hand, each pregnancy the third trimester was more difficult for me, perhaps because each baby was significantly bigger than the last.

This is not to say that there was nothing about my pregnancies that I enjoyed. During each pregnancy I felt beautiful 75 percent of the time. During my first and third pregnancies I had wonderful second trimesters with tons of energy. In fact, this pregnancy I was so busy nesting that I didn’t even have time to blog in my second trimester. I was that in the zone. With each pregnancy I have been more excited about the arrival of the baby than the time before, knowing what is coming. This time I really couldn’t wait to meet the little person I was growing. And my belly, I really loved my belly more the bigger it got. Except this last time I sort of reached my limit at a certain point, which makes sense now that I realize I was carrying the weight equivalent of twins. I deserve to have bitched a little.

Looking back, though, I want to remember all of it, the good and the bad. Partly because it was so helpful to me to hear that other people suffer through pregnancy, too. I remember surfing the internet before I had discovered blogging looking for some indication that what I was going through was normal. But I also want to remember the bad along with the good because it was a journey that led to my son and I want to remember it like it really was. It is something I endured to create him and like labor, it is my marathon. I am proud of myself for getting through it.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are my twitters. I hope they amuse you as much as they amused me when I was writing them. I tend to do that, tell jokes that mostly only amuse myself.

One little side-note about this pregnancy. My kids and I were sick an unusual lot. I can’t remember a year when we’ve been so sick so many times. Also, the size of the baby made it a really rough final month for me. As I said earlier, the fact that I didn’t write or tweet a lot the second trimester means I was feeling great and taking advantage of it.

Enjoy. Next installment: The labor.
++++++++++++++++
November 12- I weighed myself this morning. It was a highly unpleasant experience. Pregnant women should not get weighed. They go through enough.

November 14 – Charlie is dry-heaving on my bed. I probably should do something about that.

November 15 – Whoa. Heartburn. Good times.

November 16 – It’s 4:53 and I want to have a bath now…(eyeing my kids)…but I’m having an expedia moment.

November 22 – Baby kicking after I helped myself to a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers. The baby sort of rumbles and purrs when I make good food choices.

November 22 – Cin-cin-icn, and needle and pin, a fatty and a daddy – that’s how you spell Cincinnati.

November 26 – The girls’ grandma has a Ghandhi doll that the girls have renamed Ryan. Ryan got in trouble for hitting the other dolls.

November 28 – Jet leg + pregnancy = a sucky day

November 28 – Why was I stupid enough to think I I wouldn’t gain 40 pounds this time, like the other pregnancies

November 29 - Headachy. Is that a word?

December 4 - Ultrasound this morning. Baby looks healthy and adorable. We did not find out the sex….cause we like surprises.

December 7 – So much to do, but suddenly so tired.

December 8 – You know how when you read Chinese Fortune cookies you can add “in bed” to every fortune for fun?

December 8 - Well, when you’re pregnant, you can add “in bed” to just about anything you do, and it ain’t so funny. Doing homework, in bed.

December 19 – Hannah threw up this morning. Fever up last night.

January 3, 2008 – Signed on to an internship this morning. I can’t tell you how happy the thought of working makes me.

January 6 – Feeling tired, swollen, heartburny. The third trimester is approaching. NOooooooooooooo.

January 6 – Dear Bladder, I’m pregnant. Deal with it. You can hold liquid. Stop whining. The baby ain’t the boss of you. Be a bladder, man.

January 7 – I keep looking in the mirror waiting for the glimpse of the attractive pregnant me. Not finding it today.

January 10 – If I wasn’t so busy nesting all the damn time I might actually have time to blog.
Well, it’s both nesting and napping. Nest, nap, weep nest. That’s my cycle.

January 13 – Major symptoms of pregnancy anemia today. Could barely make it to the store for iron pills. Kids and hubs were at a party . Sucky day.

January 14 – Iron pill made me sick. Yay.

January 20 – Overheard: Hannah “Pretend the fancy people are coming.” Just the thought of the fancy people coming makes me very afraid.

January 20 - See, I think six months pregnant would be just about perfect. Who decided it should be nine months.

January 20 - We still have no idea what this baby’s name is going to be. Everytime we discuss it, we get farther from a decision than before.

January 30, 2008 – Kids are sick for the third time in about six weeks. Who can I blame it on? You?

February 5 – Tired to the. Bone. Doing too much. And no one is paying me. No one.

February 9 – Sun is out. Perfect day for yard work. And yet….I mostly just want to nap.

February 10 – Can you PMS when you’re pregnant?

February 16 – Baby has been wanting me to eat more the past two days. I keep telling him/her we’re in weight-gain slow-down mode. Feeling good though.

February 20 – Did I say my kids got along famously? That was a nice planet to be on while it lasted.

February 20 – Trader Joe’s How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 1. Your chocolate bundt cake and French Vanilla Ice-Cream

February 21 Just last week I was thinking I wasn’t looking too fat yet. What happened to that? And where’d my waist suddenly go?

February 21 – Baby’s head is down near my Pelvis and his/her feet are tickling my ribs right now. Seriously. Tickle-tickle . Weird sensation.

February 29 – Worked on an exhibit today for the first time in years. Fun, fun.

March 8 – Time to turn my office into a half office/half nursery. Half excited. There goes the room of my own. Better be a cute baby.

March 9 – Last night I dreamt I had the baby and lost it. Hannah dreamt I had the baby and we all rode on a bicycle built for five. Her dream won.

March 9 - by “lost the baby, I meant misplaced it. Stressful dream.

March 12 – Swam laps today after a three month hiatus. Felt a little like I was part beach ball but it felt good.

March 13 – It’s 10:19 PM and we’re out of Pepcid AC. Oh misery.

March 14 – Feeling sorry for myself. And my kids. Too tired to read them a book.

March 15 - I just googled “Greek boy names.” I’m not Greek. Can you say “desperate.”

March 17 – Hannah has fever. I have a headache. And the sky is blue. Spring is ovrrated.

March 17 – Sooooooooo tired today.

March 17 – Had a dream a few nights ago where I saw my baby. She was a girl, and she was beautiful. The real babe has a lot to live up to.

March 18 – Hannah has decided she never wants to get pregnant. She wants Rachel to and then she can be an Aunt. Not a bad plan.

March 18 – Just googled “pain and stretching uterus.”

March 19 – I’m just imagining that I’m developing a cough. Right? (She says as 4 year old is home from school for the 3rd day in a row.)

March 20 – No. I definitely have the cough.

March 20 - “If the baby isn’t cute, can we give it away?” Hannah

March 20 – “I don’t know how to be a big sister. You know how to be a mom, but I don’t know how to be a big sister.” Hannah

March 22 – Officially sick. Happy Easter.

March 23 – Hannah’s not used to me being sick. She thought I didn’t love her anymore. Sigh.

March 28 - My book club thre me a baby shower last onight. Sweet. No, really. They’re the best.

March 30 – Finally getting shit done. Whew. Maybe it’s because I don’t FEEL like shit anymore.

March 31 – Shit. I’m going to have three kids. It just hit me. What the hell was I thinking?

April 1 – Listning to a 4 yr old’s April fool’s jokes is like being on crack. “Mom, there’s a dog on your back!” “Mom, there’s a bear on your head.”

April 4 – “Sleeping more may help shed excess weight, research finds.” - That does not bode well for me.

April 7, I hate that my neck swells up during the last month. It makes me feel like a lizard. Can I hide until baby is out?

April 7 – So, it’s spring break and my kids aren’t interested in entertaining themselves all day while I sleep. Go figure.

April 7 – Seriously. These pregnancy hormones are making these kids so suddenly physically attached to me, I’m going nuts. Screw spring break.

April 7, Oh good. Baby’s starting to move around again. I was getting a little nervous and I’m not a worrier.

April 7 – Feels like my stomach is bruised from the inside in one area. A lot of pressure on that side. Ouch.

Paril 8 – Just go back from the OB. This baby is big, so they’re going to start thinking about inducing, or getting my body ready to induce next week.

April 10 – Swollen feet; belly so big I can’t sit up straight; can’t handle more than one or two outings a day.

April 10 – It’s 4:45 and I don’t know what we’re having for dinner.

April 10 - Called the hubs. He’s bringing home dinner. Good man.

April 10 – Eaesdropping. Hannah to Rachel, “I think custard is a beautiful name.”

April 10 – Rachel to me this afternoon: “I think you would make a great Mrs. Santa Claus.”

April 11 – I’ve given up on wearing pants. When the elastic slides down there is no where to go. My belly is too low. Wearing my old summer dresses.

April 11 - This weekend; Hair appintment; manicure/pedicure…If you feel like a pregnant gorilla, it’s time to be a girl.

April 11 – I was fantasizing about sleeping with no interruptions for two days straight. Finally, I put the kids in front of the television and slept.

April 12 – Thanks for the virtual babyshower! It meant a lot to me.

April 12 – Is it wrong to nap at 9 AM?

April 12 – What happens when you run out of steam smack in the middle of a nesting project. You’re screwed. Videos ALL OVER FLOOR in front of cabinet.

April 12 – Turns out some men don’t like it when their wives say they’re nesting. He shops when nesting. Do I call that hunting and gathering?

April 13 – Sleep deprived.

April 13 - So, why are they making a big deal of out this “first pregnant man” if he has a uterus and a vagina. Duh. Misleading headline.

April 14 - Went to orthodontist for a routine visit and ended up getting my braces taken off. They were supposed to come off in July. Cooool

April 14 - I’m getting so much pressure on my bum (oh hell, I’ll just say rectum) that it actually feels like I’ve already given birth.

April 14 - Are these contractions? I had to be induced with my other two, so I just don’t know. They can’t be. I have too much to do

April 15 - Holy hemorrhoids, batman. This is a first; I have ice on my ass BEFORE giving birth. Are you glad you’re not pregnant? Baby dropped I guess.

April 15 - @MsIndigo - No.I don’t think I’m in labor, but I moved my OB appt. for today and am finalizing the packing of the bags, just in case….

-because there are signs this could be pre-labor, sincee it’s pregnancy #3. Sorry to be so dramatic. I don’t feel ready. Nervous.Tons to do. 12:50 PM April 15, 2008

I’m not in labor. 2-3 cm dilated. Could be soon; could be in two weeks. I’m going to focus on getting things done. No more drama queen. 09:21 PM April 15, 2008

Feeling scared of the unknown. Saying a prayer. 11:06 PM April 16, 2008 from web

Labor started and Rachel just came home from friend’s house with stomach flu. What was plan C again? 05:38 AM April 18, 2008

Was in hospital twice for “false” labor. Now home, still pregnant. Stomach flu. Miserable. 07:28 AM April 19, 2008

Feeling recovered from prodromal labor, sleep deprivation, and nausea. Now maybe I can nest and relax until the big day comes. Phew. 10:29 AM April 20, 2008

Oh…and did I mention Hannah’s showing signs that she caught Rachel’s stomach flu. Could be in for a long night. 07:04 PM April 20, 2008

Hannah just threw up. Please send vibes to baby that he/she has to hold off for at least 24 hours or more….even a week at this rate. 08:11 PM April 20, 2008

Off to weekly doctor’s appointment. We’ll see how that cute cervix of mine is doing. 09:42 AM April 22, 2008

Watching the PA primary results. Hannah just said, “I want to vote for you Mommy.” “Okay,” I said. “And the baby,” she said. 06:28 PM April 22, 2008

Okay. My closet project has turned into a three closet, summer/winter clothes exchange blow-out for girls and I. It’s chaos. 11:12 AM April 27,

Membrames swept this morning. Induction scheduled for tomorrow. Wish me luck. 11:29 AM April 28, 2008

How to lose 25 pounds in a week: Have a whopping baby boy. Baby Boy Raehan born April 29/10 lbs 13 ounces. No time to post yet-will do soon. 10:32 AM May 04, 2008

Using a certain amazon.com Gift Certificate!!! Thank you blog friends! Will let you know what I got. 10:33 AM May 04, 2008

Do people really die without sleep? Just wondering. 01:32 PM May 05, 2008 from web

Why am I still nesting? 10:36 AM May 06, 2008

Getting quite attached to this sweet baby boy. Life is good. 11:10 AM May 06, 2008

This baby eats..a lot. I mean pretty much all the time. Hence my absence from the internet. 09:28 PM May 12, 2008

Something I’ve learned these past two weeks: nurses LOVE big baby boys….LOVE them. 11:03 AM May 14, 2008

Over 100 degrees today…and I have to do school pick-up with baby in tow. 11:13 AM May 15, 200

Where the crap did May go? Actually, what happened to April, for that matter? 06:35 PM May 17, 2008

Must nap while baby naps. Why can’t I do that? 12:35 PM May 19, 2008

Baby smiled at me this morning. And rolled over yesterday, front to back. 11:46 AM May 23, 2008

When will I stop smelling like sour milk? 03:49 PM May 26, 2008

Three kids and I just finished line dancing to a Mick Jagger tune. 05:19 PM May 26, 2008 (I’m not a huge Mick Jagger fan. It just happened to be on. Funny.)

The baby slept a TON last night. Four hours straight, then five, then two, and now a nap. Praise the Lord. 09:54 AM May 28, 2008

Do boy babies that use pacifiers grow up preferring silicone breasts? 10:42 PM June 04, 2008

Packing up 3 and 4 year old girls clothes to give to Rachel’s teacher who has a little girl. *Sniff* I will NOT have a 4th child. Repeat. 02:00 PM June 16,

Rated CP (Chick Post) Minor talk of body fluids. Major talk of headaches. If this post makes you uneasy, you might want to stay away for about two weeks, while I catch the girlfriends up. The talk of body fluids will increase.

+++++

We probably should have named him Whisky.

My husband and I lived in Scotland when we were in our early twenties and developed a taste for single malt whisky while we were there. Last year on our anniversary, we took a ferry over to the city. The mist and the water reminded me of Scotland. On the boat, my husband ordered me a whisky sour, and we each had another at dinner, maybe even two, before walking through the city and taking the ferry home.

The rekindling of the Scotland vibes, and the whisky sours, had me pulling out our bottle of Lagavulin throughout the week. When I got sore throat taking the girls to swimming lessons on a ridiculously cold morning, I made myself a nice hot toddy. I’m pretty sure that hot toddy had something to do with me getting myself knocked up. If not, it might have been those whisky sours.

This is all making me want to take out the Lagavulin again. Hold on while I put aside my peppermint tea and go take care of that. Just a nip, mind you. I’ve got to nurse the wee lad.

Okay, I’m back. Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Does anyone remember this passionate post? Well, writing it was an important clarifying process for me, except I didn’t exactly maintain my clarify about wanting a third. It actually took me and the hubs a while to get my courage up to really open up the possibility of getting pregnant.

At some point we decided that yes, we were going to do this, but after about four months I started to believe the pregnancy wasn’t going to happen, so I started daydreaming about a life with only two kids and getting excited about a very ordered life where I had time to do civilized things like start taking piano lessons again and maybe even working again, instead of being the perpetual student that I am now.

Then came the hot toddy, or the whisky sours, and some sort of magic happened that started growing this little kid sleeping in his crib beside me right now. Pretty amazing stuff that whisky.

At about the time I got pregnant I started using twitter. I’ve been trying to go back in the archives to get the early tweets because they really capture what was going on. Unfortunately, twitter pretty much sucks, so I couldn’t go back that far. If I ever am able to access those early twitters I will add them to this post, simply for posterity.

HOWEVER, last night I remembered that I opened up a new blog on wordpress to write about my pregnancy. I thought I had simply abandoned it. What I didn’t remember was that I actually wrote in it for about a month. There were about five posts. Here is some of what I wrote.

++++++++++++++

I’VE GOT SOMETHING GROWING IN HERE
August 22, 2007
I’m pregnant. I’ve known for sure for about a day and a half now, but have suspected it for more than a week–ever since I noticed a little bit of spotting on my panties and later, in the middle of the night, suddenly sat up and thought “implantation bleeding.” That night I stayed up until two in the morning googling “implantation bleeding” and “healthy pregnancy” and rushing down to take a prenatal vitamin, that I hadn’t taken in months and months. And then quickly after that came cramps, and fatigue, and headaches, and lots of lots of negatives on the Dollar Tree pregnancy tests, until yesterday, 13th day post-ovulation, when my very last Dollar Tree pregnancy showed a faint line. This of course, inspired me to run to Costco and purchase the sleeker, sexier pregnancy tests that do not require peeing into a cup and squeezing a little syringe. And yes, another positive.

So here I am. Pregnant, and feeling it. We weren’t exactly trying to get pregnant, but we weren’t trying not to. We were planning to, but not trying too hard. Which means as much as we wanted to get pregnant, we were terrified, so weren’t buying any ovulation predictors and basing our love life on that. And honestly, even after becoming pregnant nothing has really been resolved. I am still thrilled and terrified.

MORNING HEADACHE
August 22, 2007
One thing I don’t remember about my other two pregnancies is headaches. At least three times since becoming pregnant I’ve woken up with a headache. This morning was one of those mornings. Not nausea in the morning, just headache and a little bit of fatigue. Yesteray, I felt waves of nausea at least three times.

And I’m only four weeks pregnant…two weeks pregnant actually if using our common sense and not counting from my last period.

SIX WEEKS
September 5, 2007 by thirdtime
I woke up this morning and my boobs were suddenly humongous. This after a night of going waking up at least five times in the early hours in the morning and feeling bloated and like I had to pee, even though I couldn’t….This morning marked six weeks. Right on schedule. Boom- breasts big. Bam-bam.

ICKY
September 9, 2007
That’s generally how I’ve been feeling today. Just a general ickiness that borders nausea.

And smells, the smells. I walked into the pediatritian’s office and the smel of new paint engulfed me. I felt as if I was trapped in a can of paint fumes. I mentioned to the receptionist that they had just painted and she said, “You’re the first person that’s noticed today.”

Hel-lo.

And I wonder whether Rachel is sensing something. She kisses my stomach a lot and today she was weepy about not having enough time with me. I’m tired. A lot. And it makes me sad that I’ll be tired for a while. I’m feeling like I’m not doing anything well, including mothering, and that makes me weepy.

When I’m not feeling icky, I worry that something is wrong with the pregnancy. The joys of having a pregnancy when your old enough to have known so many friends and family who have suffered miscarriages.

WHAT’S THAT SMELL
September 9, 2007
Sometimes I feel as if I’ve turned into some sort of scent hound. I’ll be wandering around the house and I’ll catch a scent. What is that smell? Poop. No mold. No rotting food. I’ll look around and find nothing.

++++++++++++++++

And then I stopped writing privately. Then I had my ultrasound. Then I wrote this on the regular blog.

The weird thing about this pregnancy is that I didn’t notice implantation bleeding in my previous pregnancies. Also, the implantation bleeding came ridiculously early - like three days after I should have ovulated. Weird, huh?

To be continued.

Well, I finally did it. I explained to Rachel how babies are made. And it was fine - a lot of sweat over nothng.

When she asked me to explain it to her, I fully intended to do it within a day or two.

This was about five months ago. We were in the car. I was driving. Hannah was there. The timing wasn’t quite right.

Perhaps explaining sex for the first time is a little like having sex for the first time. You want the atmosphere to be just so, but it rarely is.

That night I searched amazon.com and spent hours trying to choose the best book to help break the ice. I found this one, written for 4-7 year olds.

It arrived.

Then I waited for her to ask again. She didn’t. I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy and tired to the bone (maybe because I was growing Hercules in my uterus). I didn’t raise the issue. Hannah found the books and the girls looked through the books together, but Rachel lost interest before getting past the first few pages She didn’t quite get that the answer to her question was in the book somewhere.

Relieved, I put the book away and kind of forgot about it…

…until last week when she was looking for books that we could read together and she found the book. She asked to read it. I took a deep breath and put my best game face on, kind of like the time I taught a classroom of 130 college students and had to convince myself I wasn’t terrified every single time I walked into the classroom.

So I had this big happy look on my face, like this was the funnest thing we’ve done in a long time and underneath I was sweating and my heart and mind were racing. It was kind of like reading that book “There is a Monster At The End of the Book.” You know the one I’m talking about…where Grover begs you not to turn the page because there is a monster at the end of the book and it turns out to be him?

So we’re looking at these cartoon drawings of bodies, which are really quite cute. We first learn the parts of the outside of the body. And we laugh a little bit, cause it was sort of silly. Then we looked at the parts in the inside of the body, the uterus, the fallopian tubes, etc. Then we learned about the good old eggs and the sperm. The egg had big red lipstick lips on it. Pretty cute. Things were getting interesting. I might have learned a few things along the way myself.

Then we get to the monster at the end of the book, except it was okay. A man and a woman are under the covers and smiling and hugging and there are hearts surrounding them. The book explained matters perfectly, without giving more information than Rachel needed. She looked at me wide-eyed and laughed, and I laughed, too. And she asked more seriously, “Did you and Dad do that.” And I told her yes and that it all seems sort of silly when you’re young.

And that was pretty much it. We finished the book. She was still seven. She hadn’t lost her innocence. And it was really sort of fun. She didn’t ask more questions, I think because she had plenty to absorb.

And I felt good, Partly because it really was an honor to have been the first one to tell her. I never had a discussion about how babies are made with my parents. Instead, I heard it from friends and in the classroom. It was fine, but I’m glad that Rachel got to hear it from me first at an age when the idea of talking about it didn’t horrify and embarrass her. When bigger questions about sex come up, maybe it won’t be so hard to talk more.

I also felt good because so much of parenting these days is about being cautious - about what to avoid. We buckle our kids in car seats and worry about trans fats and child molesters and open electrical sockets. This was about being brave, about diving into the lake even though the water looked damn freezing. And I did it. And it felt good to be brave.

Note to self: I must be brave more often.

I am. That’s who.

At least that’s what I try to tell my seven-year old, Rachel. At four-and-a-half that was hard for her to understand. Now she’s accepted it…except when it comes to her sister. She wants to be the boss of Hannah, who is at that difficult four-and-a-half I-want-to-do-what-I-want-to-do-and-why-can’t-I age.

“You can’t tell Hannah what to do. That’s my job. I’m in charge. I’ll tell her what to do.” I explain to Rachel for the 86th time.

“Why do you get to be the Boss? It’s not fair,” she complains.

“It’s fair. I’m the Mom. When you’re the mom, you get to be the boss.”

“So that means, when I’m a mom I get to boss you around.”

Hmmmmmm.

“Well, okay, you can boss me around when you’re a mom but that means you have to do what I say now.”

I must say, I think she’s on to something there. Becoming a mother has turned me (once pretty laid back and compliant) into a control freak. I do boss the girls’ grandmothers around. I’ll admit it.

But here’s a little secret about grandmothers that Rachel doesn’t need to know right now. You can boss them around all you want, but 70 percent of the time, they are going to do exactly what they want to do. That’s the beauty of an older woman. She doesn’t waste time being compliant.

Another thing Rachel doesn’t need to know is that my memory is pretty much shot. So anything I promise her now….well, I may not remember it in twenty years.

But here’s an interesting thing. When I imagine myself being older and having her boss me around it makes me feel good, like a weight has been lifted, like I’ve done my job, like the world doesn’t rest on my shoulders, and in a way, like I can be a kid again.

I almost can’t wait.

1. HIKE TO THE OCEAN - You feel stuck in your house with your three kids because it is summer and you are in the middle of a heat wave and your youngest is only two months old. The baby can’t take intense heat or sun, or swim in a chlorinated pool. So it dawns on you that mornings are cool, and you email a friend and ask if she wants to go for a morning hike. She suggests meeting here and hiking the three mile trail. You do, with four kids and two babies. The heavy morning mist/fog has not lifted. It’s cold, but everyone is bundled up. The kids only whine during the last quarter of the hike. You are REFRESHED.

2. RETAIL THERAPY - You have to hire a babysitter to go to your dental appointment, but you can only get her to come if you hire her for a four hour job. You have more than three hours to shop - by yourself. You remember that you haven’t spent the birthday money given to you by your mom and mother-in-law. You buy new underwear and tank tops and yummy anti-aging lotions at Costco. Then at the mall, there’s a 30% sale at Lands End (which you know about because you’ve already stocked up on summer clothes for the girls). Now you go for yourself and buy shorts and swimsuits and more tank tops. Who ever thought buying Costco underwear could feel so good.

3. SELF-CARE - You use those yummy lotions on your face and feel yummy and glowy. You go to Target and restock the hair products and the make-up and the nail polish. You do yoga when you can. Not as often as you’d like, but it is something.

4. CHANGE THE RULES - Getting tired of hearing the High School Musical soundtrack for the fourth week in a row, you go online and order a couple of collections of old musicals, many that you’ve never seen before. You decide that you and the girls will create your own summer “homeschool” devoted entirely to watching old musicals. You decide that your summer “no television on weekday” rule does not apply to musicals. (Our favorite so far is “Meet Me In Saint Louis.”)

5. HAVE YOUR SHIP COME IN - After a month of having the girls with you all day, it’s time for a week of gymnastics camp, which means you have three hours a day to get your shit together and feel sane. You catch up on things like bills, laundry, etc. You have time to focus entirely on the baby and nurse without having to put out fires at the same time. You have time to day-dream again.

6. HIRE AN ENTERTAINER - The newborn turns into a baby and keeps you entertained with his smiles and faces. You can now all sit together and just watch his face and laugh. You are all convinced that when you say “hi,” he says “hi” back.

7. RECONNECT - You find yourself bumping into old friends. A couple of tther friends who have moved away are back in town to visit. You make plans to visit. You look forward to a week of reconnecting with folks.

8. SLEEP - You are still working on this one. You have five minutes to get to bed on time. You say good-night to your blogfriends. You don’t waste time editing or trying to find photos to post. You climb into bed next to your hubby just under the wire.

G’night.

Gah.

I am so bad at this blog thing. I didn’t even come close to blogging every day in June, which frankly I don’t have time to care too much about. And here I am in July stalled. I have lots I could say, but it’s not even easy to finish a sentence these days in real time and it’s not often that I have two hands free to type.

And then there’s Blogher. Every year the blog world stops while all the reports on Blogher come out and it just makes me realize what a misfit I am in the blogworld. First of all, I can’t seem to post on a regular basis. When it’s not school, it’s family. Second, I’m not ambitious enough about blogging. I’m sort of a blogger slacker. I’m not looking for a book contract. I could care less about my stats anymore, or blogging popularity. And it’s not a goal of mine to make money from this blog.

But I’m still sort of here and I’m not sure why. I want to create and blogging gives me an outlet for that. When we write we produce something that can be permanent, and generally that’s a good thing. That and the friendships, I think, keep me coming back. However, somewhere along the way, I became self-conscious. I started the blog as a place to capture my children, because I have a bad memory; I forget and I wanted not to forget. That first year that I started blogging I had all this time. Hannah was napping twice a day. Rachel had pre-school in the mornings and then went down for her afternoon nap when Hannah did. So, I had tons of time and the naps and the preschool schedule had put an end to the happy days of daily playdates and endless outings to pumpkin farms and hikes with friends. I was feeling socially isolated. I wrote my heart out and I made friends online. It was like being at an endless pajama party…or hanging out in the hallway in a college dorm late at night - sharing everything — except for the fact that I was sitting in a house with two kids. Yeah, that last part was different.

But then I started graduate school and it became harder to blog. At about the same time, I started to feel self-conscious. The blogworld seemed to be changing, or maybe I was. No matter how hard I tried to present the whole me here, I often felt a bit one-dimensional here - like the “inspirational mom,” which was boring even me. And then there was my social life. Blogging had satisfied me too much. I was getting bad at answering phone calls. It was all becoming a little weird.

So, I pulled back and focused on friends and community and school and family, but like a flake, I’m still hovering here, and it’s pathetic really.

There’s more I could so on this. I could go on and on about why I have an identity crisis as a blogger, but even if all of it was resolved (and by now I’ve concluded that it simply can’t be resolved) I have so little time to blog well.

I’ve thought about starting a passworded blog where I could post more photos and be less self-and security-conscious, but there must be something about the public aspect of blogging that makes a difference because when I think about it, it doesn’t feel the same to write and hide it all away. Putting your writing out there, makes it final, I think. Complete. It’s not just a draft anymore. It’s out there. You’ve produced something and you can move on. It’s cleansing in a way that private blogging just wouldn’t be.

If I had time, I think I’d like to be like Jo(e), who blogs daily, is fun, posts a photo daily but never posts photos of faces, is a clever and artistic writer (heck, the woman is a writing professor), and is anonymous on her blog. In fact, she makes an art out of her anonymity. But it’s hard to do what Jo(e) is doing without being Jo(e). Anyone who reads her will know exactly what I mean. I think I want to be Jo(e) when I grow up.

I could quit again, but I won’t because that’s even more pathetic than hovering. No. Actually that’s not true. I simply don’t want to quit.

And there’s you, my friends, who I can’t possibly give up. And there’s the urge that got me here in the first place. The urge to write it all down - capture something that I know I’ll forget.

So I keep sputtering and trying and hovering.

And that’s the story.

*************

We are having a very loooooooong summer. I have a few weeks coming up where the girls will be attending camp for a few hours a day, but other than that it’s the four musketeers every weekday, all day. It hasn’t been easy. When I’m nursing the baby, I sometimes feel a sense of helplessness, like when the girls are fighting or when I can’t hear them and don’t know where they are. We are limited in what we can do, because the baby can’t wear sunscreen yet or go in chlorinated water. It makes me feel stuck.

I have a handful of friends who also have three kids (all with relatively new babies) and we’ve been starting to send out emails to each other, trying to make plans to get together, and making cryptic remarks about the long days of summer while knowing exactly what the other is talking about. This week I’m going to try a long early morning hike to the beach with a friend and our six kids. If it goes well we’ll try to make it a regular thing. Care to place bets?

Despite everything, I’m not wishing the girls back to school yet. Instead I’m wishing for less fighting and more patience and more sleep. And the funny thing is that they’re not wishing for school either, like they did last summer when I had my act together. What is, just is, and it’s not bad, just hard. Maybe it’s not hard for them, just me. Funny how that works.

Last week, my husband stopped by the house at about 11:00 while doing an errand for work and found me nursing the babe in a chair downstairs in a kind of daze while the girls buzzed around me and in and out of the house. I managed to come out of my daze long enough to pick a little fight with him. He had to go back to work. I sat in the chair and suddenly realized I was really hungry — like deep down in my bones hungry. I looked at the mess around me and mentally looked through what was in the fridge. I shed a few tears. Then typed this email to my husband with one hand.

Subject: lunch

starving…no food in the house.

Within minutes he was on his way to pick up lunch and bring it to us. I’ve come to the conclusion that a Knight in Shining Armor is a person who brings food to the dazed and hungry.

Just writing this blog post, or getting through a pile of laundry, is a huge effort and is set with interruptions, like my yoga session was a few weeks ago. I get the girls to help with things like laundry by providing incentives, like letting them watch a movie while they sort laundry. Rachel now loves doing laundry.

I try to count small victories like this rather than the hours of sleep I get in the night. A small victory is that I’ve started remembering to catch the girls in acts of doing good, rather than simply the opposite. A small victory is that I’m losing my cool less than I did last summer. A small victory is finishing a project, picking up a book and reading for a while, or remembering to leave the kitchen dirty once in a while and just not care. A small victory is getting to bed early. A small victory is really not small at all.

And then there are the thrills. The thrill of sitting and playing piano with my two-and-a-half nephew yesterday while the baby slept and watching his incredible concentration and exuberance while I taught him Twinkle Twinkle “hickle” Star. The thrill of watching his parents parenting. They do it so beautifully. The thrill of watching my seven-year-old sit forward in her seat in the movie theater and gasp in wonder and excitement when Kit Kettridge gets her article published in the Cincinnati paper. The thrill of watching Hannah settle in to her role as big sister and genuinely enjoy her brother’s more frequent smiles. The incredibly charged tingle that runs through my body when I’m rocking the baby and he lightly grasps on to my hair as if to hold me closer and not let me go. It runs through me like a jolt, shocking even me.

Hi. It’s been an interesting day.

First of all, let me update you on Hannah and nuns. I asked her today who told her that nuns kill their children. She said that nobody had. I think she assumed that because they don’t have kids they must kill their children. It is a freaky assumption. *shudder* So I did my part to honor my Catholic heritage and all the cool nuns of my childhood and explain why nuns don’t have kids. I also explained that it is possible for a nun to have children. For example, a widow with kids might join a nunnery. Their grandmother, in fact, was unsuccessfully recruited after my Dad died. This somehow led Hannah to ask if there are fancy nuns. I told her that I wasn’t sure and tried to explain the vow of poverty. I did google “fancy nuns” anyway, which brought up some interesting images, but mostly nun costumes. Hannah decided that she wants to be a fancy nun for Halloween. Her vision includes make-up, jewelry, a fancy dress and a habit. I kind of hope she doesn’t change her mind.

So, my morning was somewhat frustrating. The baby slept well, from 8:00 to 4:30 AM. The problem was that by 4:30 my breasts were completely full and I couldn’t sleep well. Even after I nursed him at 4:30, I was still full and sore and couldn’t get back to sleep. I’m experimenting with a 7:30 rule for the summer. The girls aren’t supposed to come into my room until their Dad leaves at 7:30. So far, they’ve been good about it, but usually I’m up by 7:00 anyway. I’ve been using the extra time to get dressed and ready for the day in peace. That’s worth gold and something I usually don’t get.

Anyway, after cleaning up after breakfast and feeding Pumpkin, I told the girls I was going to do my yoga. Now, when the girls were younger they would climb all over me during yoga sessions. Yesterday, they actually gave me my space and did it along with me for about 20 minutes. Then they kind of drove me crazy, but I did a pretty good job staying in the zone. This morning they were playing, so I thought they’d ignore me, since they don’t like me to watch them play anyway. I was wrong. First Rachel came in asking to do yoga with me. Then Hannah. Then they started fighting. When I threatened to kick them out Hannah quietly ran and got a toy and started playing on her yoga mat. Then the girls started playing together. Then they started arguing. The garbage truck woke Hannah up this morning at 5:45 AM so she was a bit of a whiney mess all day. I separated the girls. Then the baby woke up. But I was determined, I tell you. It took me over two hours, but I finished the damn yoga session and even did my first full wheel in ten months.

In the afternoon, a babysitter came for two hours so I could take the girls swimming. She comes two or three times a week. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I found out their our dear Ethiopian babysitter had open sitting hours this summer. She is so wonderful and the baby is too young to take to the pool. Those four to six hours a week kind of make it summer for us.

Anyway, I left the house all flustered from a hectic morning. When we got to the pool I realized we had no sunscreen because my hubs had cleaned my car for me….to the bone. I mean, cleared it of everything. As awful as this will make me sound, I called him in the middle of his work day to voice my irritation that he did not respect that some of the “mess” in my trunk is essential to maintaining life toting three kids around. That pile of extra clothes and junk are my mainstay in emergency situations.

To his credit he did not hang up on me. He understood and even sent a nice apologetic email. Now THAT is a good man. (Thank you, Honey.)

We only had two hours for our swim, so I went to the nearest grocery and spent $12 (????) on a bottle of sunscreen. As I was finishing spraying the girls, the damn bottle broke. It would not spray. After some thought, I decided to risk it. We went swimming anyway and had fun.

On the way home, I couldn’t help peeking in the rear view mirror to assess the damage to my 40 year old skin with that swim. I’ve been taking stock, you see. More on that later.

But tchuß for now.