Pardon the Interruption

More details later, but I just wanted to say that our Easter Bunny came a week early but we are home and well and resting now.  He was 7 lbs 9.2 oz and 21 inches long at birth, and although the labour was long, we were able to do a VBAC.  (Whether or not I’ll do that again is still up in the air…)

Little Red is the perfect big brother, and Early Bird is a good sleeper, although if I don’t wake him up soon we won’t sleep tonight!  I’ll be back when I’m off the donut and feeling more like myself.

Real Moms

Teach by example.

Thanks, April.  I tag Nicole, Karma, or Shevaun, if any is so inclined. 

Routine

The assortment of cars that we see varies only slightly, week to week.  It begins with the street sweeper and the cars parked on the opposite side of the street.  On the bigger street we will always see a police car, at least one garbage truck, at least two city busses, and numerous people on their morning commutes. 

Once we enter the building, the routine is set.  We check in 15 minutes before my scheduled appointment, take the elevator “going up to 3!” and step out.  Little Red says “Mummy, go potty.”  I remind him I need to wait for my cup and we walk around a little, me never wanting to let him escape his stroller for fear of him not getting back in when the time is right.  Two minutes later, “Mummy, go potty.”  Five minutes before my appointment, when the nurse calls my name and ceremoniously presents the cup, Little Red points toward the washrooms and says, ”go there.”

In the nurses’ room he points to the scale, “Mummy, stand,” he tells me.  He points to the blood pressure machine, pulls up his own sleeve, and says “Mummy, arm.”  The nurse checking us in takes longer than normal with us, chatting with me and admiring the precociousness of my son and the way he smiles through his thumb when all the other nurses come by to say hi to him.  He loves the attention, but pretends to be shy.  When they return to their jobs he turns around in his stroller, looking for them.  His fan base grows exponentially every week.

We never wait long in the exam room for “babydoctor”, my Nurse Practitioner — I’m usually the first appointment of the day, and she is prompt and conscientious.  We read stories and sing songs while we wait for her.  If we hear a voice in the hall he gets quiet, “I hear babydoctor!” he’ll then exclaim.  He points to the ultrasound equipment and says, “see baby brother!” He points to the trash can and says, “babydoctor’s trash.”  He itemizes all the familiar equipment in the room.  When done he usually reminds me that babydoctor is also Mummy’s doctor and that we need to tell her thank you.  He’s always happy to see her, likewise, she him, and shows off the day’s toys and books, and then happy to watch her check me out.  He enjoys seeing the baby’s fuzzy features on the screen, and he loves hearing the heartbeat on the doppler.  She marvels at how much he has grown up during this pregnancy.

Next week I’m checking in with an MD so it’ll be two weeks before we see babydoctor again.  Then we’ll begin a new routine.  I’m glad Little Red has been so involved with this pregnancy.  And I wonder, maybe he’ll persue a medical career and support his parents in their old age?

The Fantastic Little Red

Last night after Little Red went to bed and my husband and I were downstairs we heard the unmistakable noise of the door closing.  (Little Red often closes his bedroom door behind himself when he gets up — it really helps me wake up in the morning, I have warning before he’s suddenly beside my bed!)  My husband came back downstairs a couple of minutes, laughing.  “That wasn’t his bedroom door we heard.”

“oh?”

“That was our bedroom door.  He put himself to bed in our bed.”

***

Today while we were in WalMart (long story, but the short version is that we took the trek out with our neighbour on the hopes that the fabric selection at WalMart was better than that at our local JoAnn store.  It wasn’t, but now we know.) Little Red suddenly said to me, “baby is talking.”  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he further elaborated that his brother was talking to him. 

“What is he saying?”  I asked.

“hi Little Red,” he said, smiling, with his thumb still in his mouth. 

***

I was pretty sure I had a third story, but Little Red’s downgraded croup to mild cold has hit me like a Mack Truck and I seem to be dropping brain cells left and right.  Maybe I’ll remember later and edit it in.  Or maybe I’ll just lie on the couch and watch Monsters Inc.

Croup: just what the Doctor ordered

Who would have thought that Little Red being sick and housebound was exactly what we needed?  Certainly not I, but I haven’t been outside the house, not even to check the mail, since Saturday, and I feel great!

I had felt like I could never keep up on the housekeeping, but without the babysitters three days a week, and then us doing babysitting the other days, the toys are under control and the living room is not a goldfish graveyard.  With my father in law coming next month and all my brothers in law and father in law coming this weekend I successfully committed my husband to help out with some of the things I couldn’t do, and with being home all day I’ve been able to tidy and still spend time with Little Red. I feel so much better about things with them under control.  (There’s nothing like the smell of Windex to lift my spirits.)

We’ve been so carefree these days.  We cancelled work, babysitting, playgroups, everything.  With our schedule completely wiped clean and very little “business” for me to tend, we’ve been so relaxed.  We’ve watched more television than I would normally allow, because I want him to rest.  We’ve done very little else, but I think tomorrow we’ll venture on a walk, and maybe on Thursday we’ll get social.

The thing is, he really isn’t very sick.  He has a very low fever and coughs occaisionally, but otherwise is his normal self.  We didn’t even go to the doctor (I know what the warning signs are.)  But I do know that when he gets sick it’s always a milder version of whatever’s going around and if he played with any other kid then that child would be in the hospital on a respirator and steroids.  I’m actually really glad he got sick this weekend.  Pretty soon the lazy days just the two of us will be a distant memory.

Manic Monday

How to Give a Pregnant Lady a Complex

On Saturday morning the Young Girl at my table asked me if my baby had come out yet.  I leaned back, patted my belly and said, “you tell me.”  She concluded I had not yet had my baby.

Teenage Girl said, “you’re pregnant?”

“Did you think this was all doughnuts?” I asked, surprised, as I’ve worked with this particular girl a lot over the past couple of months.

Teenage Boy laughed.  I’m not sure if he laughed because he couldn’t believe TG hadn’t noticed my burgeoning belly, or because he, too, hadn’t noticed, but couldn’t believe she admitted to not noticing.

To be fair, I do spend most of my time sitting at the table.

Fragile

(I’ll say this right now: don’t chalk up my feelings to pregnancy.  I get like this periodically, regardless of gestation and I feel that making a blanket statement to attribute it to pregnancy is invalidating and patronizing.)

Lately family members have been making statements that seem to doubt my abilities as a wife and mother.  It’s easy to pass off when the incidents are isolated, but when the frequency of events is so tight I become more convinced that there is truly an underlying problem. 

I know I’m not a perfect person, but I know I’m trying.  I’d like them to know that I put a lot of effort into meal planning and preparation, that meals are ready at a consistent time even on nights that I work, and that I prepare healthy, varied, balanced meals, taking into consideration sugars, carbs, cholesterol, and sodium, in addition to the food guide.  I’d like them to know that we rarely eat out.  But I’d like even more for them to just trust us to be adults and stop telling us how they think we need to live.  I don’t want to hear about how we need to rearrange our living room to accomodate this or that.  And I don’t want to hear “uhh, you’re going to have a fun time when the baby comes!” as a dubious comment to my ability to balance the needs of both children.

Part of me wants to be mad, insulted, offended.  The rest of me wants to be depressed because there is so much I want to do, like keep a clean house, that I just can’t physically maintain right now.  I want to be so much more than I am.

The worst part is, while I know this too shall pass, I worry about the damage in the meantime.  With families there never seems to be a statute of limitations and the previous hurts from the previous experiences are creeping in, reminding me of all the other words that have hurt.  I push them away because I don’t want to be like that, but I can already feel my self-doubt spreading to every aspect of my life.

What Makes a Healthy Kid Housebound

Typically at this point in the season we have already received an average of about 11 inches of rain.  This year we’ve barely hit the 2 inch mark.  Yesterday we broke all sorts of heat records and Fullerton even topped the national charts with the highest recorded temperature in the country (97 degrees!)  It’s still the beginning of March and we already have our first forest fire and have lost two homes.

What does all of this mean?  Low humidity + high temperatures = croup.  The humidifier and my husband’s concern is on high and Little Red and I have another day of television ahead of us.  I think when I call it to work I’ll save myself some time and just cancel for the whole week.  That’ll be one less thing to worry about this week.

I Have a Confession to Make …

Today I finally mailed off my Dad, StepMum and brother’s Christmas gifts.  No, not for 2007, for LAST year.  Feeling finally like I can close up the chapter on Christmas I took down the Christmas cards.

Feel free to laugh at my feeble accomplishments.

Repetition

This morning Little Red and I were at JoAnn.  As I was browsing I noticed a great sale on some yarn I like and decided to pick up a couple of balls.  Suddenly I heard a little voice beside me:

“No, Mummy, don’t touch.”  Yes, it was my little guy.

“No, Mummy.  Mummy, I said no.”

 Well, at least I know I do speak English to him, and that whether or not he listens, he hears me.

Guideline for Survival: Aim Low

New Year’s Resolution: brush hair daily

Today’s Goal: vaccuum

To achieve today’s goal I had to pick up the same toys numerous times and send Little Red to other parts of the house (probably to mess up) just so I could finally do it.  I’m totally worn out, but I can officially say “done.”  And I promise to brush my hair before I go to work.  For now, I need a nap! 

Numb3rs

I’m sure I wasn’t older than eight when I first noticed my obsession with numbers and patterns.  When doing the dishes I had the overwhealming compulsion to ensure that the red and yellow plates and cups were stacked in a way that each stack clearly showed a pattern.  It was a challenge to come up with different patterns, especially as we did not have an even number of each colour.  It was also a time when I would adjust my steps to ensure I had taken exactly an even number of steps; I always began with my right and finished with my left.  Going even further with the steps I had to take an even number of steps (and the same number of steps) within each square of sidewalk, without cheating and stepping on a crack.  Finally I figured that an odd number was just like a palindrome, and with great effort, I weaned myself from the very stressful compulsion of counting my steps.  I can definitively announce that I no longer count my steps, and that as all of my dishes are white, I’m not plagued with the need to make patterns.

My high school math teacher, Lorna Shaw, was a hurricane.  We always entered that first period class a little bleary-eyed and exited 75 minutes later dizzy.  She amazingly re-taught us the previous years’ math to fill in all of our obvious gaps from junior high in addition to covering our entire curriculum for grade 10.  (Then when we had her again for grade 11 we didn’t require remediation — somehow, however, the class’ pace didn’t seem to slack.)  She was very demanding and it was a hard transition for us.  I typically fell asleep, pencil in hand, with my math book open, only hours before my alarm would ring and start the day again.  I became obssessed with numbers as I now saw all the ways in which they were interconnected.  Every time I looked at a digital clock I couldn’t look away until I had calculated a relationship between the numbers, and even now I still seek patterns or number sentences in phone numbers.  Interestingly enough, the time on the clock I saw exponentially more than any other time was 5:27.  That was an easy one: 5+2=7, but to this day when I glance at the clock at 5:27 I remember high school.  I don’t remember when or how I kicked that habit, but I believe it faded with the hurricane of graduation, work, and college.

I’m sure there’s a good reason as to why at some points in my life I’m more succeptible to these compulsive behaviours than others.  Both instances of math obsessions came shortly after our family had moved, the first to a new house within the same school district, the second was back up to the Yukon.  Both times were at pivotal points of my developing independence.  During these shaky times I turned to math for comfort, and when I felt comfortable with my new situation, I turned my attention to breaking the habit and living free.

We all have our own neuroses.