Though they are too little to even read this post (I know kids are learning to read earlier and earlier but I’m sure most children are at least fully gestated by the time they can differentiate vowels and consonants into actual words), I still wanted to include my two little peanuts in my wrap up of gratitude for this blog.
It seems silly to thank two people for simply existing, but basically, that’s what I’m doing. By just being here on this earth, Ollie and #2 have made my life. I mean, really, #2 isn’t even technically out of the gates and he/she’s already had a hugely positive impact on me. Do children realize this power over their parents? Just their very BEING makes parents the happiest people on earth and gives purpose to their lives.
I definitely didn’t know this until I became a parent myself. And it’s a good thing too. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have abused this power when I was a teenager and found some way to manipulate it into a later curfew, an excuse to get my way, or a strategy of how to get my parents to let me do anything I wanted.
As it stands, I’m just happy to be a mom and feel so lucky to have one baby, and one soon-to-be-delivered baby that I adore.
Ollie and a baby doll. Um, I wasn't sure how to capture the likeness of my to-be-determined kiddo. At least he's not chucking the doll down the stairs in this pic (what he usually does with the poor thing)
What a day we had yesterday! Nothing like getting the month started off right by a 5 o’clock trip to the ER because of false labor. Agh. To say Grey and I were a little bit stressed was an understatement (we’re not even set on name!).
Basically, I woke up at 5AM to pee and realized I was having contractions five minutes apart. They weren’t painful, but because I have to have a c-section, when I called my doc, he said just to go immediately to the hospital. Of course, I first quickly showered, attempted cover up my extremely puffy eyes with pancake foundation, blew dry my hair, cursed the fact that I didn’t have time to properly self-tan for post-delivery pictures, and then away we went!
And nada. No baby. Just some Braxton Hicks contractions from probably needing to drink more water. So after being hooked up to the heartbeat wizard and blood pressure machine for an hour, they released me. Instead of a baby, we had bagels and that was that.
But it made me realize this kid is actually coming — and possibly sooner than planned! Granted, we were a little disappointed yesterday didn’t end up being our second born’s birthday, but like one of my friends said, “Who’d want an All Saints’ Day baby anyway?!” I mean really. Who wants a little Mother Theresa running around the house?
A quick pic before we left...of the two of us, not three!
And then at the hospital chugging water! Good times!
Ah, gotta love two-year-old preschool. Now that Ollie’s in a program, I think I appreciate teachers even more than when I actually WAS a teacher. Not only do I have a few hours of free time per week now where I can run to the grocery store sans child or get my brows waxed without a screaming toddler trying to burn down the salon, but Ollie is actually LEARNING! And becoming better behaved! Preschool is literally a miracle.
I mean it when I say his teachers are saints. In just a few short weeks since school has started they have helped teach my wild little beast the alphabet, his numbers, and even rules of social conduct (i.e. keep your pants on while in public and don’t pick your friend’s noses). Even though my son is the classroom hitter (and pusher, and screamer, and barker…), they show a tremendous amount of patience with him. Plus, every day I get a detailed note sent home to me explaining his daily behavior. Most of the time the notes are filled with lines like, “Ollie tried to attack the prayer leader today — just wanted to make you aware” or “Still working on aggression issues. Does he usually use toys as weapons?” sometimes I’ll be pleasantly surprised to find notes like, “Ollie had a great day! Very cooperative and didn’t hurt any one!!!!!” that warm my heart.
The teachers may as well sign the notes, “Wow! He isn’t a sociopath afterall! ” but of course they don’t say that. I can imagine all the things they’d love to write to me about my unruly son, but everything is always communicated in a positive way. For this, I am so grateful. Really. And even though every night I pray he’s not kicked out of school for aggressive behavior toward his peers, at least I can breath a sigh of relief that he’s in good hands when I drop him off.
Some suggested reading material for my lil angel...
PS: As I go to post this, I find it ironic that today is my dad’s 64th birthday. Â I mean, could he have a better present than a wild grandson? Â I’m sure he’d say no…and remind me, “Paybacks are a bitch!” (I was a biter and an aggressive child like Ollie and realize now how much my behavior probably troubled my parents.) I guess one day I can look forward to having even wilder grandchild of my own!
On a whim a few months ago, I bought Ollie an Incredible Hulk set of Underoos at Gabe’s in Erie for two bucks. I was obsessed with the Incredible Hulk as a child (I still think ripped purple pants on men are sexy) and I figured, what the hell? Little did I know this purchase would be the beginning of Ollie’s idolization of the Hulk as well.
From this little t-shirt set, a love of all things “Hulk” has blossomed. Yesterday, Ollie, who now refers to himself as, “Little Hulk” in the third person, chose to wear an entirely green outfit and pretend he was the superhero. He growled at old ladies walking their dogs, leaped out of jungle gyms screaming, and at one point, even smashed his fingers in the electric car window — all in an effort to recreate the rageful beast’s antics.
I can only imagine how proud Lou Ferrigno (the actor that played the Hulk in the 80s TV series) would be if he could see our little impersonator in action. To know his green-eyed grunting and growling was still affecting current generations — well, that’s something that should make this actor proud!
Hulk eats!
Hulk flies! (This obsession is definitely better than Pee-Wee!)
I’m officially 34 weeks pregnant and now have 35 days to go until my scheduled c-section. At the LONGEST. Like I’ve said before, I could always go into labor early. I mean, some guy at the pumpkin patch actually accused me of trying to steal a pumpkin under my shirt, so if my size is any indicator, I think I may pop sooner than later. (BTW: Count that comment among things NOT to say to pregnant women.)
ANYWAY. The fact that I have a month to go made me realize I had better get my act together and prepare for this baby. I mean, where will it sleep? What will it crap in? How will I clean it? These are questions for which I needed to find answers. Not to mention my own recovery: Will I be fat? And how will I deal with boobs the size of watermelons? So today I ordered some crib sheets, a bunch of cloth diapers, a baby bathtub, a few tummy control tank tops, and my personal favorite: a shiny new breast pump.
For those of you that haven’t nursed a baby before, I must say, to be honest, it’s totally crazy. Yes, it’s nature and evolution and blah blah blah — but when you get down to it, it’s still a little being eating dinner from your boob. That’s some craaaazzzzy stuff, to me at least.
Of course, this time around I’ll be a seasoned breast-feeder. I know what to expect so there won’t be any unfortunate mishaps — like the time I spent the day away from the baby without a breast pump and woke up in the middle of the night with boobs so engorged that I was THIS close to asking Grey to milk me. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures…Yes, I hope (and pray) that never happens again. Plus, by ordering my new portable Medela breast pump that I can shove in the glove compartment or my purse — I have some insurance!
Another new blog idea: All the things you can do while pumping! Ride a roller coaster! Go sailing! Pump while climbing Mount Everest! The pics would be priceless!
Maybe the theme for this week should be thanking geniuses and people doing amazing, earth shattering things? I guess that’d probably be a nice change for all you readers that have been bored reading my simpleton posts about gigantic vaginas and adventures in bed-wetting. Let’s get scholarly!
Anywho…A friend just forwarded me an article about how Robert Edwards won the Nobel Prize for his work developing in-vitro fertilization. Basically, this guy is like the Santa Claus for couples having trouble conceiving a baby; he’s granted more people’s wishes than a genii. Edwards gave people babies — there’s really nothing more amazing than that!
His in-vitro science is something for which I am very grateful because many of my closest friends have used this method to get pregnant. In fact, some of Ollie’s best buds are IVF babies and I’ve watched these little peanuts grow up, so they feel like part of my family too. These are kids that would not have been if not for the work of this scientist, so I feel like I personally owe him.
It’s amazing to me that more than four million IVF kiddos have been born thanks to Edwards work (and of course his partner Dr. Patrick Steptoe (who passed away back in the 80s). As the man behind this incredible science, I really can’t think of anyone more deserving for this award than Professor Edwards. I’m actually blown away he didn’t get this prize sooner. Â I’m humbled by his ingenuity — especially when I consider my own simplicity. It’s a feat for me to mix up a batch of pre-packaged brownies correctly and this guy has been brewing up eggs and sperm to make cute little miracles of life for the past 20 years? Incredible. Way to enhance the human race!
Ollie at six days old. I can't imagine a better gift for someone than a baby!
Both times I’ve been pregnant, my friend Kris has been pregnant too. Like I posted earlier — we even had a co-baby sprinkle this time to celebrate. Last time I was six weeks farther along than her in my pregnancy, and this time, she’s six weeks ahead of me.
We honestly didn’t plan it to be this way. It’s not like we were comparing fertility schedules. Um, wait, actually, we did do that. But whatever, it’s not like we ever actually said — “Let’s get knocked up at the same time.” Somehow, it just magically happened to work out. And I’m so glad it did. I can’t imagine going through this pregnancy (or the last one) and not being able to call Kris at 7am every morning and utter the words, “I’m so tired I want to hurt someone” or texting her stuff like, “My boobs are the size of elephant balls.”
As her delivery date draws near (any day now is fair game!), it’s dawning on me that pretty soon, I’ll soon be the only pregnant one. Which is bittersweet. Though I’m SO excited to meet her new little bundle, it’ll be kind of sad going the last six weeks as a solo prego. Oh well, I’m sure in a few years, we’ll be doing this all over again!
Ollie, Kris, and I at the Sprinkle. Another odd random thing about Kris is that Ollie loves her more than anyone. Even saying prayers every night, he always screams, "Bless Kris!" before anyone else. Hopefully we can arrange the marriages of our next babies and be inlaws!
Like I said in yesterday’s post, we’re ordering a lot of things on the Internet these days and one of them has been bars for our windows. Not because we live in a dangerous neighborhood, quite the opposite in fact. We are trying to keep our little beast IN, not OUT. Ollie’s gotten to the point where I wouldn’t put it past him to just kick out his bedroom window and climb out on the roof to avoid going to bed. We started getting seriously worried about this potential scenario and consequently ordered the bars for our windows you see in the picture below. Grey’s big task this weekend is to convert the nursery to an Ollie-proof cell from which our little Houdini can’t escape. Ah, the joys of parenthood!
I think the fact that we have no purchased bars for our windows ranks right up there with the fact that we also own a kid leash for little Ollie. Should I be worried about a pattern here? What’s next — handcuffs for trips to the grocery store? It makes me wonder if I’m just a bad mom who has no control over my child, but then I assure myself, I am a GOOD mom, but I still have no control over my child!
"Why mommy, why am I in prison? Can't I go outside and play?"
It’s official: I pee every two minutes. Well, maybe not every two minutes, but at least twice per hour, if not more. That also includes the middle of the night when suddenly I awake from my dreams because of a swift little fetus-kick to the bladder. I honestly feel like my need to use the toilet is disrupting my life. I can’t sleep, eat, or exercise without having to take a leak after 20 minutes.
Obviously, this feeling of impending pants-wetting is due to the fact that I’m in the home stretch of pregnancy. The baby’s so big now that there’s not much room to spare in this ‘ole womb of mine. Not to mention that I think my little peanut unbreeched itself the other night (what else would explain the feeling like someone was sawing open my stomach from the inside out?) so it’s enjoying its newfound freedom to move around by playing pinball with my bladder.
And though I’ve given serious thought to purchasing adult diapers, I have not. Â I don’t think I will; I’ve got to keep my dignity in some capacity. But I do buy enough Charmin to toilet paper an entire neighborhood or make mummy costumes for an army — with no end in sight until this kid is delivered mid-November.
This may be the most insane portrait of a child I've ever seen. What crazy, screwed up photographer thought a bear costume, a woodstump, some TP, and a kid that looks like he did one too many Jello shooters would make a good pic? Just thought I'd share since I was Google-imaging "Charmin" for the post...
I think it’s safe to say my nesting instinct has kicked in at this point in my pregnancy. In the past 48 hours, I’ve organized all our old Halloween costumes and Christmas decorations, done 10 loads of laundry, washed walls, cleaned out closets, stripped beds, hosed out rugs — I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous. But honestly, I find myself doing these things as if in a trance. All of a sudden I’ll be on my hands and knees scrubbing the floors or alphabetizing our phone bills. Uh, weird.
The only other time in my life that I’ve been so productive was when I suckered my doctor into giving me a prescription for the adult ADD medicine, Concerta. I remember popping one little pill and then ripping down wallpaper, spackling, and painting the entire second floor of our old house. Suddenly it was 5am and I realized I had been working for almost 24 hours. My behavior was so foreign that I ended up dumping the remainder of the bottle in the trash.
Because typically, I am a mess. Usually, our health insurance papers sit in a crumpled pile, I can never find important documents, all my clothes are in a heap, dirty dishes are stacked in the sink — everything is totally chaotic. But, lately, thanks to my anal-as-hell pregnancy hormones, I am like organization personified. It’s mind boggling.
Yet all good things must come to an end, and I know, in two months from now, I will be disorganization personified. I’ll be un-showered and in PJs, toting around a newborn while hunting for my long lost social security card. Small tasks like changing my socks will overwhelm me and I’ll look back on this “nesting” phase as temporary insanity.
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